Strawburry Miwk

If you google anything along the lines of “productivity tools,” “how to stop procrastinating,” “improving workflow” or the like, you are bound to get thousands of results. The fact that such content exists (not to mention the fact that you might find yourself searching for it time to time) is evidence enough that, despite how wonderful technology is in helping us get things done, this same technology can be distracting or even cause basic tasks to take longer than usual. Even President Obama noted the distracting qualities of Information Technology, suggesting that our incline in innovation is more of a downfall of diversion. Perhaps the most ironic thing is, if you do one of the aforementioned google searches in an attempt to improve your work ethic, you might find yourself procrastinating even longer just sorting through it all!

The question remains, then, and put simply…how do you TCB? This is a question that I hope to cover in a series of blog entries (how to sort through Twitter overload, how to keep up with new IT, etc. etc.). For now, let me shed what light I can on the often not-so-simple task of getting things done.

While browsing the Internet to see how others have handled this subject, I’ve found that everyone concludes the following to be true:

1. Everyone has their own means of organizing what they need to do and how they get those things done.
2. How you organize your to-do lists largely depends on what you need to do (i.e. what your profession is).
3. A means of getting things done and organizing your tasks only works if you actually use said method and if you actually get your work done.
   • As a sub-note to this, I’ll add that one blog I found even added: “Most methods work extremely well for about two weeks then trail off.” In other words, find what works for you, even if that means finding a new method every few weeks.

Given those universals, I’ll describe what works for me. We’re all different and work differently, but you may find some things below that work for you.

Environment

Environment undeniably plays a huge role in getting work done. Numerous studies have been done on the effects of lighting, personal space, wall color, music, mid-day naps and more on productivity. When you hear “work environment,” people automatically picture what an office and one’s co-workers may look like, but consider your digital environment, too.

• Wallpapers: Most people set pictures of their children, pets or beautiful landscapes as their desktop wallpapers. Consider setting up wallpapers that yell at you!
  • “A Little Motivation” by Spargett is a desktop wallpaper with a metallic grid background with the words, “DO YOUR WORK. DON’T BE STUPID.” It’s true that getting work done usually involves having programs up that cover your desktop, but perhaps when switching from Illustrator to your web browser to check on your Facebook friends, you might get a glance at this not-so-friendly reminder and DO YOUR WORK instead!
  • GTD: Get Things Done is another wallpaper with an actual work-flow chart attached. You may be thinking, how can someone else’s work-flow chart help me if we may not even be in the same business? This work-flow chart simply forces you to ask yourself what sort of work you have at hand, if it can be delegated to others, if you can do it now in a reasonable amount of time, or if you can put it off for later. It’s bright, colorful, and incredibly simple. If you can get your work done, do it! I have a dual-monitor set up, and I currently have this wallpaper on my second monitor that usually has fewer windows open on it. Clever, huh?
• Sights and Sounds: Background noise can come from your computer, your television, your co-workers, the outdoors, or even your office supplies. Having some helpful ‘white noise’ can keep your mind from drifting. I personally like listening to Internet radio or having the news on TV.
  • Music: Music may or may not be allowed in your workplace, but if it is, consider listening to the radio over your personal tunes. Why? You love your personal music. You know the lyrics, you know the rhythm, and if your favorite song (which is every song on your iPod, right?) comes on, you’re likely to mentally tap out for a bit and enjoy it. Now, I’m not saying don’t listen to music you like; I’m just suggesting that you should listen to music you’re not completely familiar with. For this, I highly recommend Internet radio. Most digital media players, including iTunes, have a means of browsing online radio stations that play everything from mainstream to classical to underground. I personally am a fan of EBM-radio.com and any of the numerous Euro Dance stations; These offer a steady stream of music with a steady, upbeat rhythm. If you do listen to Internet radio, be sure to have two to three stations bookmarked, as they are occasionally interrupted by ads and you may want to channel surf.
  • Television: When I worked at my student paper in college, we had several televisions around the office streaming different tv stations. Most were news (of course), and one or two would have on whatever trending comedy or reality show was on at the time. I’ve found that having the news on helps me get my work done by keeping me from feeling isolated, or like I run the risk of becoming separated from others and what’s important by being too involved in my current task. In addition to keeping me in the loop, having the news on also reminds me that there are other people and businesses out there that I am currently competing with…better get back to work!

Tools of the Trade…of Task-keeping

Once you have as an ideal environment as possible set up, having some time-management and productivity-monitoring tools at your disposal can help you visualize and track your progress as well as motivate you (sometime through force!) to get things done.

• Devices: There are a handful of digital devices I’ve found useful for getting work done. Some are Mac-only, but I’m confident PC versions or similarity exist.
  • StayFocusd is a google Chrome extension that can block one, several or all web sites for an amount of time you specify. I used it fairly recently when working on a design; Just knowing that web access is blocked is enough to keep your eyes and mind glued to what you should be doing.
  • Apimac Timer is a very simple digital alarm clock for Mac. If you browse Apple Productivity Tools you will likely find this and others like it. I personally have used it to bark at me (literally! You can upload whatever sound bytes you want!) every 15 minutes when working on projects for clients. This helped me keep accurate records of what specific work I was doing (concept, design, final touches, etc.), at what time, and for how long. You can use alarms like these to remind you every several minutes to get your work done, or to alert you to a specific time when something needs to get done.
  • Incredible Start Page is something I’ve added to Chrome, although I haven’t found as much use for it yet as I’ve liked. The closed tabs history record and the mini-notepad are both excellent tools for browsing the web and reminding yourself of things you need to get done.
• Ye Olde Pen & Paper: Let’s face it; Nothing beats pen and paper. Sticky notes, notepads, daily planners, the backs of receipts, whenever you need to jot something down to remember or do, you know you’ve used these. For all the glamour and efficiency digital tools like the above offer, I think the physical act of inscribing words and ideas on paper (as our ancestors have for thousands of years) resonates with us much more strongly than typing words on a screen or having sounds and blinking lights stimulate us. That said, simply writing something often isn’t enough; You must have some order in place.
  • Font.is’s Circle List system is so simple and useful it’s brilliant. Simply put: You draw an empty circle next to each item on your to-do list, and draw in appropriate marks to signify your progress. A dash means the project has begun, a half circle means you are half done, a full circle means you are done, and a crossed-out circle means the project is cancelled or no longer in your hands. I’ve started using this system with my own task lists fairly recently with great results. Visualizing your progress through several tasks is a great way to see the larger picture of what needs to get done and how far along you are in your work.
  • Mirror Notes: Not an application or a system, just the simple idea of putting sticky-notes on your mirror. If there is something you are likely to forget or deliberately put off as an unappealing task, consider having it on your mirror. When you comb your hair, brush your teeth, wash your hands, you cannot ignore the note right in front of you. Other ideal spots I’ve used include: Above your door handle, on your microwave, on your steering wheel, inside your shoes, on the coffee mug, etc. Don’t let yourself escape from your work until it is done! Besides, nothing is more satisfying than taking down that sticky note, crumpling it up and tossing it in the recycling bin once you’re done!

Mentality

Environment and tools aside, sometimes just having the proper mindset is all it takes to get your work done. One thing I have found always helps is at least getting two things done for yourself every single day. One business professional I follow on Facebook, Mike Klinger, suggests this in the form of exercise and dieting. He suggests that if you keep up with at least one bit of exercise and eating at least one healthy meal every single day, not only will that biologically make you feel better and more productive, but mentally you can carry some pride that you have done something positive for yourself each day, and that doing so will lend to doing positive things for others and/or your business as well.

Finally, as a fond collector of quotes, sometimes just having the right words of motivation in front of you is a big help. The day I graduated from college, I went to my favorite local Chinese place for a bite to eat to celebrate. In my fortune cookie, I was given a fortune that I found to be so prophetic, I taped it to the track pad of my otherwise spotless lap top:

"Your life will be prosperous if you use your creativity." Key word: USE.

That mostly wraps up a few of the tools and techniques I use to stay productive, although there are many more out there and I’m sure I will continue to try out new devices for productivity as time goes on. So tell me; What do you do to stay productive? Have you found any of the tools and techniques above to be helpful? Let me know in the comments below!

My brother recently went to New York to visit a friend, and while he was there he swung by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and took a gander at the Tim Burton exhibit. Now, my brother isn’t exactly artistically inclined (much less someone to appreciate the dark or macabre), but considering the fact that a self-mutilation exhibit was on the second floor, he said the Tim Burton exhibit was tame enough for his tastes. This got me to thinking…what is it about Tim Burton that even non-artistic, rather conservative people like brother can even enjoy?

Thankfully enough, my brother even brought back a book on the subject. Simply titled Tim Burton by Ron Magliozzi and Jenny He, the book serves as a companion to the museum exhibit and showcases 64 full-color images of Tim Buton’s works, cradled by articles and essays about his life, his career and his impact on the art of film and those who view his works alike. I could write up a grade school-style book report to answer my question above, but something about the design of the book itself that instantly caught my eye should answer well enough.

As a big fan of typography, I’ve purchased a few books and have been viewing countless samples on the subject to broaden my knowledge and skill in it. When it comes to designing books whose purpose is to deliver information (as was the case for this book), the general rule is to lay out your copy in one or two columns of aligned text with enough leading and letter-spacing to ensure readability and the quick and seamless absorption of information. Tim Burton does this, but with a twist…literally.

The text is readable and set in even columns, alright. As for being perfectly aligned? If you view the sample I scanned in, you’ll see the flush edge of these columns has a mild, but noticeable, twist and curve to it. Combined with the natural twists and curves created by the jagged edge, the effect is certainly noticeable and almost gives the feeling of something being ‘off’ or ‘wrong’ with the book; Perhaps the information isn’t to be trusted or needs a second look to make sure your eyes aren’t deceiving you.

Anyone familiar with Tim Burton’s films and artistic style knows that this is exactly the point. In an age when it’s possible to create nearly any outlandish visual effect or imagined creature with ever-advancing computer technology, sometimes the most mild of alterations is all that’s needed to distort reality and grab attention. My favorite Tim Burton film, Edward Scissorhands, does this perfectly. Yes, there is a man clad in black leather with giant shears for hands that’s pretty noticeable, but my eye always caught the matching, pastel-colored houses built on even plots in perfectly mowed lawns connected by gently winding streets in the movie’s suburban town. I can’t think of a single town in the US that actually looks like that, but the visual commentary is enough to get me thinking about what living in suburbia really means, and how people who have been living in comfort and seclusion for so long might react to outsiders.

This, I think, is what everyone, from the “artsy-fartsy” like myself to serious, business types like my brother, can enjoy. There are extreme aspects to Tim Burton’s style, but there are subtle aspects as well, and I think these subtle aspects are truly what get us to take a second look and think about how we perceive the world and each other. Sometimes we want something just slightly out of place to make us stop and think.

As I continue to study and observe typography, I’ll keep this example in mind and try to find others like it for this blog. There is a lot of competition in visual media to grab the attention of every eye possible, but sometimes…subtlety is key.

A friend of mine who works in PR told me she was recently having trouble getting the press to pick up on one author’s children’s book series. The concept behind the books is novel (forgive the pun) enough: Describing old children’s games like kick the can and four square that have largely gone by the wayside with the advent of video games and television. The books have a fun story built around children playing these games, and the idea is to inspire kids to get off the couch and into their backyard…to kick a lousy can around…

Sarcasm aside, the author seems to have done everything right: Hired a professional artist to illustrate the series, put a seasoned PR person on gaining exposure, even chalking up contests and promotions to garner interest in this series that, you’d think, parents would be gobbling up for their kids. So why is no one picking up on it?

A quote I’ve collected from one Roy Blount may shed light on this: “People who want to keep on doing creative things for a living must be vigilant about any new means of transmitting their work.” The quote stemmed from a news article about authors defending their intellectual property rights over their work in light of such devices as Amazon’s Kindle (or now, Apple’s iPad), but made the point nonetheless about keeping up with new technology, be it to defend your rights over your work or for finding the best means of promoting yourself.

To that end, I’d like to introduce something that none of you will be able to read a word of unless you speak German: Wildwechsel by Andreas Kuhn. Wildwechsel, which roughly translates to “wild animal trail/crossing,” is a story about a fox that’s…trying to build a house? And he runs into a hog, helps a hippo with her emotional issues, and then…builds a robot? Clearly, I cannot read German, but that’s not the point. The point is, Wildwechsel is an online, interactive, animated children’s story book. I’m sure it’s not the first of its kind, but it is definitely the most sophisticated of its kind I’ve ever seen.

Screencap from Wildwechsel

Currently its only downside is the extremely long load time (if you opened in a new tab/window and gave up, please try it again…it’s definitely worth the wait!), but imagine if the technology behind this sort of storytelling became even more efficient. Imagine these kinds of stories becoming mainstream, with special applications being developed for portable reading devices like Kindle or iPad. If you do browse through Wildwechsel, you will notice a handful of pages give you two or three options to choose where to go next – imagine a classroom of young students, all with digital reading devices, reading such a story and discussing together about what options characters can take, and what the consequences might be. Already many are considering the implications of a digitized classroom; Interactive, animated children’s stories are but one example.

If I were the author of children’s stories about backyard games to play, I would think about taking a more digital, interactive route such as this. If you can power up an iPad, take it outside during a gym class and play a demo of how some backyard game might be played, and have the chance to try it for yourself, you might find a closer bond with the written stories connected to it. If the story involves animated characters that give you options to select as their tale progresses, then that’s guaranteed icing on the cake….and money in your bank, ideally.

Children’s books aren’t the only area in children’s entertainment where there is room for innovation. While it would seem there’s no way to go wrong with toys outside of using the wrong kind of paint on them, you can still bring the realm of online interactivity to physical objects, and make such toys more memorable, more talked about and thus more in demand.

While there is plenty to gripe about James Cameron’s latest film Avatar (which, believe me, I will get around to in this blog sooner or later…), the movie did have some undeniably cool creatures. I wandered down the toy isle while shopping today out of curiosity to see how such creatures translated into action figures after hearing some buzz about them on the web, and on an impulse buy, bought myself the Thanator. After some migraine-inducing assembly, he is now fully constructed and proudly on display next to my Lord of the Rings Wraith Rider and Edward Scissorhands figurines…yeah, I’m that kind of person.

The Thanator came with a thin piece of plastic with an ID-badge kind of sticker on it. This badge had the URL www.avataritag.com printed on it. I visited the site, downloaded the small software bundle, followed the on-screen instructions and before I knew it, this was appearing on my screen via my web cam:

Thanator Web Cam

Yes, a 3-D representation of the fearsome Avatar beast had appeared on my screen, and tilted whenever I tilted the card, always scratching with his paw and performing a series of animations. There was an “attack” button on my screen which would cause him to back off the platform and pounce forward again. Another button showed a pop-up with information on the creature, which you can see in the screenshot above. If you visit the i-tag site and click on “Demo,” you can get a rough idea of what this looks like.

Although I consider myself to be pretty well-seasoned when it comes to technology, this nonetheless blew me away and put an instant smile of amazement on my face. This is definitely a stunning innovation as far as toys and action figures go, albeit limited by a few things. As the site and toy packaging clearly state, a web cam and high-speed Internet connection are required for this to work, and some light software is needed (all-in-all this took me roughly 5 solid minutes, though I can imagine today’s busy parent not having the time, patience or know-how for such a thing…especially after spending close to a half-hour assembling the darn thing). The i-tag must be visible by the web cam in order for the creature to display; When I tilted it too far back, the Thanator kept disappearing and wouldn’t re-appear until I held the badge up in plain view in my web cam. Lastly, as the demo suggests, the only real fun you can have with a single toy is moving it about and seeing its animation loop or activating its one “attack” move, unless you purchase more toys to interact with one another on the screen.

As a kid, I was an avid fan of Nintento’s Duck Hunt, a game that allowed you to shoot a plastic gun at your tv screen to zap pixelated ducks out of the air (in case you don’t remember!). Much more recently, I became enthralled with the Wii (Nintendo again, of course…they’re on to something here) and its Fit/Fit Plus games, which monitors your balance and activity on its Balance Board and displays your Mii performing similar actions on the screen. While combining a plastic toy with the online i-Tag system doesn’t yet offer the same kind of long-term play, it challenges what a traditional toy should be or do, much like Duck Hunt or the Wii have challenged traditional, on-screen, push-button video games.

There is definitely much more that can be said or explored on these two examples and more, but for now I will simply wrap this up here and keep my eyes peeled for other online innovations of traditionally tangible things. I wonder if, very soon, the idyllic family scene will no longer be images of reading children bedtime stories or watching them play with their new toys next to the Christmas tree; -Instead, they’ll gather around the computer and digitally explore a story or unwrap gifts made of 1s and 0s… Such new creative transmission of work will certainly be interesting to watch.

I’ve been told a great deal of conflicting advice in my lifetime concerning any career aspirations. I’ve been told it’s ok to go into college “undecided,” it’s ok not to know exactly what you want to do or be by your mid-twenties, it’s ok to do one thing only to jump around to do another…and even another. And I’ve been told constantly by people older than myself, “heck, I still don’t know what to do!”

This kind of advice is always told with a sort of bittersweet pat on the back, with a gleam in one’s eye upon seeing a young person such as myself with still so much future left ahead of me to fill with whatever hopes and dreams I may. It’s the sort of advice people give hoping they can help you more than they’ve ever been helped themselves, perhaps. Well, this advice was perfectly fine to toss around in 2004 when I was a freshman in college, enrolled as an English major largely because English/Reading was always my strong point in high school, and less than guaranteed A’s and B’s would have been scarlet letters for me. This advice was fine to reinforce throughout my college career when I picked up an illustration job at the local paper that later blossomed into a design/editor job. This advice was fine to continue to praise me with when secondary education turned out not to be my thing, and I picked up a minor in Information Technology Studies instead, delving into web design and even winning an award for a research paper on Internet subcultures. Yes, throughout all these accomplishments, big and small, profound and useless, however varied they all were, it was fine for everyone and myself to say it was fine to do it all and be decently good at it all without a damn clue of what specifically I wanted to be through it all.

Yes, all that was fine between August 2004 and early 2008. But that flower previously blossoming in an open garden now only has the dirt dusted in-between the cracks on a sidewalk to grow in now…melodramatically speaking, that is. Ok, maybe it’s more like some bucket of dirt in a dimly-lit windowsill that the cat keeps threatening to knock over with its tail, but still..

I don’t look on much, if anything, in my educational career with regret, per se. But comparing myself to some of my friends who have had more–as I call it– streamlined educational careers, I do feel a bit…jealous. Misguided. And perhaps what I find most bitingly ironic about said friends is that they, too, considered themselves to be in the “undecided” crowd. They had, however, the courage–or the cowardice, depending on how you interpret them and their lives–to focus on one thing they knew they could do well, and to do just that.

Part of my “Strawburry Miwk” empire is a Twitter account that I use primarily to collect quotes, and one quote I discovered after graduation (again with the haunting irony) was from none other than Plato: “Each man is capable of doing one thing well. If he attempts several, he will fail to achieve distinction in any.”

This was said at a time when you could mend shoes really well, or build houses really well, or drive a manure cart really well and make a living out of it. Few people had the resources or the time to try multiple things, and the technology to excel in more than one thing didn’t even exist. When we think of technology today, we focus a lot on HD TVs, MP3 players, game consoles and other nifty things that revolve around entertainment, but we often neglect to see how even these devices, coupled with expanded mobile networks, faster data processing and increased information creation, storage and transmission, have exponentially increased the amount of work we can do, and decreased the time and manpower that work takes to get done. You can no longer expect to get by just knowing how to mend shoes–such would be entirely laughable. You need to know how to build an identity for your shoe line, how to manage your business’s finances, how to keep up with emerging trends and develop new shoe designs, how to utilize the web and social media to get the net buzzing about your shoes in some whacky viral campaign, and how to accurately log your time and data use through it all to keep on task and moving forward, forward, forward.

In today’s world, you are already assumed to be able to do many things well.

Yet, what I’m realizing now is the key word in this quote is “distinction.” I laughed when I first read this quote, thinking highly of everything I had accomplished in my fairly short time alive on this planet. Yet, since graduating in May 2008 in a job market that’s less than hospitable to today’s “undecided” Renaissance Man, I’ve come to realize…the joke’s on me. I can do a lot of things. I can do many things well. But I feel as of yet I lack any real sense of distinction. With resumes flying past employer’s desks left and right with much of the same skill set as I have, what do I have that makes myself…more distinct?

I’ve had in my mind for a while a vague cloud of generally hazy rough ideas in an ambiguous fog of thought of what I wanted to do with this blog. I wanted to write about the things I’m interested in or that affect the things I’m interested in–web design, illustration, multimedia, social networking, writing, grammar and linguistics, etc.–to better my knowledge of them, especially in a professional sense, but I was just never sure of where exactly to start. This entry seems like a perfect springboard into what this blog will be about; My ongoing quest to achieve distinction. (And just…generally anything I think is important enough to blog about…distinctively.)

Do I go back to school? Do I continue to find jobs in what I can currently do to expand my portfolio? Do I lean more on the focus of my college degree? Do I take a new direction entirely? Do I even stay in this state, in this country, or do I go somewhere else entirely? How will I ever find any of this out?

That is what this blog, and your comments, will be here for.

Just what the f*** is Strawburry Miwk?