You may not know who he is by name but, what he invented changed the very fundamentals we hold at the center of our modern communications. He likely did not understand the gravity of his invention at the time. He likely saw it as the first successful implementation in a long series of attempts by many others before him to create a device that would be a boon to businesses everywhere, help their customers, and perhaps save them some money. Little did he know that at the heart of what he invented was a ground breaking paradigm shift. Something that would shift responsibilities and expectations we hold for others in basic ways. So, what was this device?

The answering machine.

That right. Humble on it’s simple mission, yet so very subversive. You see, before Mr. Zimmerman’s device, when someone called you on a telephone, and you were not available, the responsibility was on the caller to try again, not you, the receiver. There was no way to know if you missed a call. To businesses, lost calls meant lost customers. Therefore, operators and secretaries were often hired to take these calls, take down a message, and deliver it to the right person. To an individual, a missed call was simply that and no one but the caller held any responsibility for action.

The answering machine was welcomed by businesses and, by the time I was in my early teens, existed in many homes. If we called and left a message, we expected a return call. It alleviated much of our own responsibility for further action and replaced it with expectations we then placed on the recipient. For instance, expectations of a timely followup that are not agreed upon, are largely based upon what the person leaving the message feels is such, yet can only be the responsibility of those on the receiving end.

Of course, such responsibility shifts have multiplied further with the advent of email, voicemail, mobile phones, etc. Now, not only do we expect a response but we, more often than not, expect it in a time frame we have wrongly set for others. Without negotiation. Without agreement. A time that is generally and largely based upon our own response time and the expectations we place on ourselves. We, in general, mistakenly assume that everyone else is just like us. Therefore, if one is the sort of person who is always connected and reads and responds to email in minutes, we wrongly expect that everyone else is, or should be, doing the same.

But how do we counter this expectation? One way is to negotiate and set reasonable expectations for others. For example, in my last job, I let all of my coworkers know that I only looked at and responded to email twice a day for 1 hour. Once in the morning at 9am and then again at 4pm. Also, I set the email to manual checking so that, what I retrieved at those times was all I was going to see for an hour. If someone sent me an email at 4:15pm, I would not see it until 9am the next morning. It was the sort of job that took me away from my desk and the ability to check email easily so this agreement met with little resistance. It took a short time but, eventually, my coworkers learned that if it was something that required my immediate attention, the last thing they should do is send me an email. They called me on my mobile phone for urgent matters and questions instead and I, in turn, had less email to deal with and therefore could handle it in the allotted time frame.

While this may sound reasonable enough to do in a work environment, where one can address many people at once, in order for this to really work for everyone we communicate with is to have dozens of these little negotiations and agreements about how we handle all of our communications. Frankly, that is somewhat unreasonable. Must we help others with adjusting expectations on a near case by case basis? I mean, seriously, how does that scale?

Perhaps, instead, we should simply and collectively adjust our expectations of others. Perhaps we should all accept the responsibility that we are so easily and readily inclined to shirk upon others. And, maybe, just maybe, we should realize how valuable time itself is. How little of it we all have. Conversely, take the time to communicate to those important to you what they should reasonably expect. Maybe put it in your voicemail greeting or email signature. Replacing expectation and responsibility with compassion and understanding on all sides will reduce the stress of not knowing.

I don’t claim to have the answers to these questions. I simply have observations and the same struggles keeping up with the great expectations increasingly placed upon us all.

I have divided my feeds into the following folders:

• a-list – These are everything I consider a “must see”. This is also my shortest list of feeds. To make it to the list you have to have a long history of providing top value content. Not just occasionally, but with almost every post. Daring Fireball is here, Kottke is too. I look at everything that shows up in this list no matter the count. It’s worth it.

• b-list – These are feeds that deliver value but not near the regularity of the ones in the a-list. This is an especially good place for the true weblogs where interesting links with short commentary rule the day over long form posts, and not everything is a must read.

• friends – These are people I know personally and feel compelled to read them not only to keep up with their lives and what interests them but also so that when they bring up these things in conversation I have background (“Hey, did you see my post on…?”). That said, my friends also very often are first source for interesting content. I hang out with the right people I guess.

• other – These are everything that do not fit into the above. Things that are nice to know but not need to know and that I can easily ignore without missing anything. In general, if it is important, I know that someone in the above three lists will cover or link to it. This is also a place for the sites that generate the most posts (Gizmodo, Lifehacker, etc.). The noisier the feed the more likely it is to go here. This is, by far, my largest list of feeds and always contains the bulk of the items in any given day.

• probation – Pretty much everything new I add goes here first. Only after a couple of weeks, do I then decide where it belongs in the lists above or, more likely, delete it entirely. A blog has to earn it’s way out of here fairly quickly in order to be a keeper.

Now, how that works in practice is this. If I have a lot of feeds to go through, more than I have the time scan or read, I know I can read the a-list and friends and safely declare bankruptcy and “mark all as read” on the rest. I do this more often than not and have never regretted it.

A couple of weeks ago I had just tucked myself into bed, had turned off the light, and was beginning to let my mind wander down the long path to sleep. The road to sleep for me is usually a long one. It is just about that time of the day that my manic brain starts to swirl with thoughts. It usually takes me at least a half hour after I close my eyes for my brain to shut down enough to actually turn off. Sometimes it takes much longer than this. What goes through it is usually thoughts of items to do the next day and new ideas which, if I have not captured them, I must get up and do so, thus starting the process again. It was in this swirl of commitments, responsibility and desire that the following two words came to me:

Minimal Mac

Now, I don’t know what most of you do when intriguing words and phrases pass in that fleeting space that lies between the ears. My first thought is always, “I wonder if that domain is available”. You would be surprised at the domain names I own because of this habit. I pick up domains like most people retrieve squandered heads-up pennies on the street and largely for the same reasons. So of course I had to get out of bed, wander over to my Macbook, and check to see if serendipity might allow me to own this one. As luck would have it, it was available. I registered it.

Of course, this was a big mistake. Why? Well, I just guaranteed that I would not get to sleep for several hours as my head swam with ideas of what I could possibly use such a thing for. I mean, my head was exploding with possibilities. Yet, in the midst of the chaos, one thing came floating by that made me pause. One memory that I have had bubble to the surface of my brain since I was a much younger man. One idea, that I recount in this post from my new project, quoted here in it’s entirety:

Many years ago, I saw a picture in a magazine. I can’t even remember which magazine but it was in a feature article about creative office setups. One of the examples was essentially a large square low table, probably a coffee table, with large floor cushion for seating and a single Powerbook on the desk and nothing else. That image burned a hole in my brain like no other for some reason. I remember it just as clear as if I was looking at it now. I think it was just the idea of being able to have something so simple as your “office” was inspiring to me. No chair, no desk in the traditional sense, no filling cabinets – just a laptop and a cushion and a surface. There was something so raw, simple, yet complete about it. I’ve been dreaming of achieving the same ever since.

It was really then that Minimal Mac was truly born and I was able to get some sleep for the night.

The next morning, after waking up, dealing with helping get Beatrix off to “charm school”, having coffee, etc. I continued to run through my head possibilities of what the site should really be. I knew the goal was to challenge myself, as much as my readers, to get to an equally ideal and complete state as that image in my head. But there is so much more about the back end stuff that needs to be decided before lauching a blog…

What blogging platform? Wordpress? MT? No, Tumblr. Tumblr is easy to post stuff to. OK, gotta find a theme. Has to be a minimalist one (obviously). Let’s look at whats out there. OK, hate that. Hate that too. Oh, this one is OK. Need to customize it a bit though. Hate that font size. How’s the CSS? Not to poorly formatted. I can figure this out. OK, let’s do this… Wait! I haven’t even thought of the content. What about the content? Screw the content for now. Let’s build this thing. OK, it’s built. Font size still not right globally but I’ll do that later. Need to think about content. Let’s see, I got all of these links and quotes and photos and links and stuff about minimalism and simplicity saved up in my Evernote. I can front load this thing with a bunch of stuff and just throw it out there. See how people respond.

… and here we are today. To say the response has been tremendous is an under statement. Without going into details on the numbers let’s suffice to say that it has far exceeded any other project I have ever launched and naturally my wildest dreams. The feedback I continue to receive, the submissions from my readers, the people emailing to let me know it has helped them come to terms with what is “enough” for them – humbling does not even touch it. Every time I think it has reached a new highlight I discover there is another just around the bend.

Not bad for an idea that was conceived and executed in 24 hours.

There are many useful reasons for keeping a daily log. For instance, in a former job, I had a micro managing boss who often popped their head into my office to ask what I had gotten done that day. Because I kept a good time stamped log of what I did, I was always able to tell her exactly what I had done, when I did it, and even how many times I was interrupted by other things that prevented me from doing even more (including her popping her head in my office).

The options and possibilities for how to keep a log are nearly endless. For instance, a simple piece of paper or notebook would suffice. The key, for me at least, is to make your Daily Log as simple as possible to add an entry to.

My daily log is a text file I call @log.txt. The preceding @ sign allows it to sort to the top of my finder window alphabetically. As plain text it is highly “portable” (i.e. I can open it up on any device). The trick is in the workflow and couple of tools I use to add a log entry. Without further adieu, here is how I tie it all together:

To add an entry, I invoke Quicksilver:

​

The advantage of using Quicksilver is that it is available to me from any application I happen to be in at the time. I don’t have to “switch modes” to add an entry. I simply type “@log” and it finds my log file. I then hit the tab key and select the “Prepend Text” command. I personally like having the latest entry first in the file.

I then invoke a TextExpander command, triggered by typing “dlog” that formats the entry the way I wish:

​

I then type the entry, hit return and it is added to the file. The result is an entry that looks like this:

I store this file in my Dropbox folder so it syncs to all of my machines and “the cloud”. Thus, it is available to me anywhere I can access the internet.

This setup has been working very well for me for years now. I think a big key is to come up with something that is easy and as ubiquitous as possible.

For further reference and ideas, here are some other resources about keeping a daily log:

• For This Guru, No Question Is Too Big – Jim Collins tracks his activities to ensure he is spending time on the things he feels are important.

• Politican as self-tracker – Bob Graham’s notebooks – How a US Senator proved the CIA wrong with his obsessive self tracking.

• Ping’s Thesis – From Diary to Graph – How one man not only tracks his daily activities but also can graph it with fascinating results.

• My Big-Arse Text File – a Poor Man’s Wiki+Blog+PIM - Much of my own inspiration came from this post by my friend and short term personal saviour Matthew Cornell.

• Living in text files - Why do a use a text file for my daily log? The answers are here.

Update

In a serious error of omission, I forgot to include probably the best two posts on this very subject written by my friend Chris Bowler:

• Track Yourself With a Custom Log File

and

• Custom Log File Revisited

Up until very recently, we have been using Backpack’s built in calendar for this task and it has been really great. Bethany and I each have separate calendars for our work and personal items. We also have a calendar for joint events. It is very easy to keep track of which things pertain to our work, which things are personal and which things we had to do together. Because it is browser based it is easily accessible as well.

Once I got an iPhone, things started to break down a bit. I was able to subscribe to the various calendars in Backpack in iCal, and then sync those events to my phone. The only problem was the subscription option is a “read only” solution. I could not add or edit events on either the iPhone or in iCal. I was fine with this for a while as I rarely need to add events when out and about. The calendar is more of a “dashboard” for my day. That being said, when those rare times would occur, my solution was to capture the meeting specifics on a 3×5 card and then add those to the calendar when I returned home. Having to “touch” the event more than once did drive me a bit batty.

Then, Princess Bethany got an iPhone. While I was willing to put up with the limitations of this solution, I knew that her level of patience for such things was less than mine. A change would have to be made.

I knew that, in order to have native read/write calendar functionality across all devices, I would have to use iCal. The problem with this is that iCal does not natively allow you to have calendar sharing and synchronization across machines on a network. There are ways one could workaround this using a shared MobileMe account but this is a less than ideal solution.

The solution is a product called BusySync. It installs as a pane in System Preferences and seamlessly allows you to do real iCal calendar sharing between multiple Macs – with read write and password control. It is a fantastic solution and works so well you wonder why Apple has not implemented this feature in iCal themselves. It could not have been simpler to set up and make the switch. Here is what I did:

1. With the Backpack calendars subscribed in iCal on one of the Macs, I exported each calendar individually. To me, this is the simplest way to get the data out of Backpack.
2. I then deleted those calendar subscriptions from iCal.
3. Next, I imported the calendars I had exported back into iCal, being careful to make sure it imported each one into its own new calendar.
4. I then installed BusySync and followed the instructions for sharing the calendars.
5. Finally, I went to the other Macs, installed BusySync there, and followed the instructions for subscribing to the calendars.

It has only been a day or so but I can already see how much more functional this setup will be.

My Circa Workflow from Patrick Rhone on Vimeo.

Now, AwayFind could be just another web service. They could just give you the basic free service and gladly take your subscription money when you are ready to upgrade to the pro level to get more features. But, it seems, founder Jared Goralnick is not interested in solely doing that. This is made apparent by the very front page of the AwayFind web site:

Awayfind is not just a web tool, it’s a blueprint for escaping email, with a handbook and a community to ensure your success.

What Jared really wants to do is to change the way you approach the idea of email. He provides that message, and the corresponding short lessons, at almost every opportunity on the site. As you navigate around, there are videos to watch, tutorials to guide you and a fantastic PDF handbook to download. All with one purpose in mind, to educate and encourage you to do the following:

• Batch process your email once or twice a day.
• Clear your Inbox by processing everything.
• Turn off notifications.
• Let people know your intention while providing a route to get time sensitive and urgent messages to you.

It soon becomes clear that AwayFind is first about education and, also, happens to have a service that, if you would like, can help you facilitate the goal in mind.

What I find most interesting is that, with this message front and center and the lessons provided, there is nothing that would prevent one from simply setting up an auto response on their own that provides the same opportunity. Heck, I have even written here before about doing this very thing myself at a previous employer. Having spoken with Jared, if that ends up being your takeaway from AwayFind, he will have achieved his main goal. It may seem a little altruistic on Jared’s part but that is because it is. His main goal is to set out to try to solve a problem that is a growing concern to us all. If it is a bit of LaMancha-esqu windmill battling then so be it. If one persons life if made a little bit easier, their time a bit more free, due to the lesson taught and, secondly, the service provided, he is fine with that.

There is a certain level of compassion I see in all of this. It is a unique and special thing. That alone will cause me to use AwayFind versus my own DIY solution. I urge you, gentle reader, to have a look and consider doing the same.

First Look: Circa Note Pads from Patrick Rhone on Vimeo.

The centerpiece of it all is really the forums. Expect lots of chatter about lots of interesting topics there. I have been spending a lot of time in there lately and plan to continue doing so. Also expect some cross posting of topics between here and there. I expect as interesting stuff comes up in the forums at WLC that I would like to opine further on here.

Head on over and take a look. You will not be disappointed.

Give it a look and let me know in the comments if you would like to see more of this kind of stuff.

Levenger Circa Steno Review from Patrick Rhone on Vimeo.