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ClockSmith Lite, a nice clock with chime

December 26, 2009 /

In my search for a nice and simple software clock with chime I found ClockSmith Lite. It’s available for Windows and Mac. The chime is really nice and can be set to play quarterly, every half hour, hourly, or it can be turned off.

I have set the chime for every half hour in order to use it with The Pomodoro Technique. At the chime I take a five minute break, then work for 25 minutes until the next chime.

The tolling of the hour has an on/off switch. I use that tolling as a reminder of the 18 Minute Plan That Keeps You Focused.

The creators of ClockSmith Lite are Dharma Gaia, I like their description of the name:

Our name reflects humanity’s responsibility to care for the earth and her inhabitants. It is derived from word Dharma; a Sanskrit term encompassing universal law, harmony, and personal duty; and Gaia, the ancient Greek name for the Goddess of the Earth.

Happy Holidays 2009

December 24, 2009 /

Whichever holidays you celebrate, I wish you Happy Holidays!

It’s the time of the year when we look back at the year that was and look forward at what’s coming. I’ll evaluate the work I did in My Best Year Yet 2009 to see what worked and what did not work.

A milestone for me during 2009 was my presentation at Øredev 2009. It was not in my plans but it’s a major achivement for me.

I will keep my three key words (trust, connect and grow) since I feel that they still are important to me and where I want to go.

Update December 28, 2009.
Dave Navarro at Rock Your Day posts about What No One Will Tell You About The New Year:

New Year’s Day is around the corner, and everyone is talking about goals, plans and resolutions. Everyone is all cheery and optimistic and chatty about how great the new year is going to be, and while that’s all well and good, it’s all very dangerous.

Dangerous to your true goals, your true ambitions … because the new year doesn’t mean anything at all. You’re still carrying the same you from this year into next year. You’re still carrying the same habits and hangups that held you back over the last 12 months into the next twelve months.

Living Naked (eBook)

December 1, 2009 /

Dayne Herren over at TheHappySelf.com has released a free eBook titled Living Naked: Personal Transformation Through Bare Simplicity.

“Living Naked” is a philosophy of living that strips down living to reveal our natural state of happiness. It is about “getting naked” or simply, back to the basics of BEING. The aim of this philosophy is invigorate your life, your senses, and most of all…your GENUINE and NATURAL HAPPINESS. Living naked is living naturally mentally and physically to unleash your inner joy and happiness.

It’s a nicely formated 40-page eBook that gives good advice on simplifying life. The book has eleven short chapters covering topics such as:
• Strip away life-added toxicity.
• Bring forth clarity to the mind.
• Listen to your internal navigation. Feel. Follow its lead.
• Inject your personal passions.
• Succeed at failing.
• Live happy and be content.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate

November 30, 2009 /

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness
That most frightens us.

We ask ourselves
Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

Your playing small
Does not serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking
So that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine,
As children do.
We were born to make manifest
The glory of God that is within us.

It’s not just in some of us;
It’s in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we’re liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.

The text above is from from the book A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson. It is often incorrectly attributed to Nelson Mandela and his inauguration speech.

If so inclined you can check at Nelson Mandela’s own website: Deepest fear quote not Mr Mandela’s.

Dan North on Our Obsession with Efficiency

November 28, 2009 /

When browsing Øredev’s videos from the 2009 conference I found another one that interests me. Dan North talks about Our Obsession with Efficiency.

The description says:

So here’s the thing, I don’t believe in efficiency. It’s our obsession with efficiency that has got us into the current technology mess, and which has led almost directly to heavy waterfall processes. Efficiency is how you let the big vendors sell their bloated technologies to the poor CIOs.

Dan talks about efficiency (doing things right) versus effectiveness (doing the right things). One of his comments is that Effectiveness is often inefficient.

Hans Rosling: Asia’s rise — how and when

November 26, 2009 /

A post at Presentation Zen, Hans Rosling & the art of storytelling with statistics, took me to TED and the presentation by Hans Rosling at TEDIndia.

Hans Rosling was a young guest student in India when he first realized that Asia had all the capacities to reclaim its place as the world’s dominant economic force. At TEDIndia, he graphs global economic growth since 1858 and predicts the exact date that India and China will outstrip the US.

It’s a great presentation, Hans Rosling is terrific when it comes to presenting stats and graphs that really catches the audience attention.

Scott Hanselman on Information Overload and Managing the Flow

November 25, 2009 /

The videos from Øredev 2009 are starting to show up. Scott Hanselman had a keynote on Information Overload and Managing the Flow that I missed at the conference but now have seen on video.

The program text says:

As developers, we are asked to absorb even more information than ever before. More APIs, more documentation, more patterns, more layers of abstraction. Now Twitter and Facebook compete with Email and Texts for our attention, keeping us up-to-date on our friends dietary details and movie attendance second-by-second. Does all this information take a toll on your psyche or sharpen the saw? Is it a matter of finding the right tools to capture what you need, or do you just need to unplug.

Scott talks about effectiveness (doing the right things, moving the ball forward) and efficiency (doing things right). He covers many ideas and concepts like email rules, the importance of triage (decide if deal with or not, when), The Pomodoro Technique, Dave Allen’s GTD, Covey’s quadrants and the principles of flow.

Scott also says that the optimal number of threads in a system (including us humans) is one, in other words no multitasking. When it comes to tools Scott recommends Evernote for information storage and Remember The Milk for to-do-lists. Personally I am not keen on computerized to-do-lists, I prefer to write lists by hand.

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