Category: post

Or |aseyn|referrer|daart
so it seems. I’ve been guesting on a ton of podcasts lately that I think are worth checking out if you have the time to listen.

• Mikes On Mics – Episode 65: Creating in Public with Patrick Rhone — Where I talk about the behind the scenes story on how a simple post on App.net became a book in under a week. I talk about the process, the motivation, and how this actually supports another book I’m working on. There is a lot to unpack in this one… A lot. It gets really deep near the end when we talk about the difference between writing a “how to” versus a “what for”.

• 15 Minutes With Patrick Rhone: Apple Consultant and Writer (Part 1 of 2) – Que Broadcasting — Where in I talk a bit more about being an Apple Consultant and my motivations for sharing.my years of knowledge with the world. This is the first part of a two part series (the other should be up next week).

• Systematic #38 with Patrick Rhone – BrettTerpstra.com — I talk to Nerd God Brett about everything from GORUCK to Google Glass. It was really fun to do this one. Especially so because I’ve had the tremendous opportunity to meet Brett in person a few times now, we live in the same state, and consider him a friend.

• Enough – Ep 200 – A Retrospective — Of course, I would be remiss if I did not mention the recently recorded 200th episode of my own podcast. Myke and I spend most of it reflecting on how the show has grown and evolved over the over two years we’ve been doing it. Quite proud of this milestone and what Myke and I have created (and I never could have done it without him).

I know you are thinking, “Gosh. Can it get any more boring?”
I’m thinking, “Do you really want me to answer that question?”
How did I become a writer? I learned to write at age 4 or 5 and then just never stopped. As a teenager, I self published a book of the most angst ridden crappy poetry the world will likely ever see and found the courage — the audacity — to sell it. To people I liked! As a young man at the dawn of the Internet, I co-wrote a zine, posted half-baked prose on a BBS, and emailed my work to my friends on AOL. I co-wrote and published a general interest magazine for handheld devices. No matter my occupation or job, I never let it get in the way of writing — making art and putting it out there — every day.
If you want to get better at your art, you have to make your art every day. If you want your art to spread and gain an audience, you have to put what you make out there into the world. And, more often than not, that means looking for something to inspire that art. Some days, that may mean some deep, soul moving, insight never before explored. Some days, it may be blogging your breakfast¹. Some days that means the great stuff. Some days that means the less than great stuff. Some days that means the truly boring stuff. But you have to find the courage to put it out there for others to see, share, shred, or otherwise speculate on it. You often may not like what you hear but you take it and go back and make more art tomorrow.

That is what really matters. Not the time. Not the pace. Not the wall that I seems to hit between mile nine and ten where I just could not keep my heart rate down and thus fatigued easily.
But, I finished. I ran 13.1 miles. The longest I have ever run before is 10k. So, I managed to run more than double my longest distance. I can be proud of that. That’s what matters.
It was a beautiful day. Sunny, 70 degrees, light breeze. It was so nice just to be outside with the sun kissing the skin. It is the first big run of the season so it is very popular. There were 1196 other people running the half marathon portion alone.
I’m hooked now. I’ve already signed up for the half portion of the Minneapolis Marathon in early June, As I said yesterday, I did next to no training for this last one. I’ll not make that same mistake next time. Now that I know I can run that distance, I’ll keep doing so and work on increasing my time.
If I can offer any inspiration at all regarding my own journey, please remember that I have been at this with any seriousness at all for only a little bit more than a year. I’m certain, based on my own condition, that anyone can do it. It’s a beautiful world. Get out there and run in it.
I’m a writer. Writing is how I make this world better, friendlier, stronger place. If these words improved your day, please let me know by contributing here.

I’ll be running the Get In Gear Half Marathon this weekend. This will be my first half marathon. My feelings on it are positive in general but still somewhat mixed. Let me explain.
See, I have done very little in the way of training. The reasons are several. The weather here has still been winter like. Temps in the low thirties and snow as recently as two nights ago. I usually have no issue with running in winter weather when it’s winter. But I’m so sick of it by this point that I absolutely refuse to run in it in the spring. Furthermore, I hate running on the treadmill. I find them disorienting and unrealistic. I can only do a couple of miles before I start feeling like a hamster.
In addition to this, I did not expect my overall recovery after the GORUCK Challenge to take as long as it has. It was not until about the end of last week that my knees finally felt well enough to get out there for any real distance at all. I’ve run a couple of times since, no more than 5k, and that was a challenge and much slower than my pre-GORUCK training pace.
Now, as an aside, I want to explain that I purposely put this half-marathon on the schedule for a month after the Challenge. In fact, I plan to put some big thing to train for about every month or so (next I’m heavily pondering is the Minneapolis Half Marathon in early June). The fact is that if I have nothing big to train for I fear I will lose the motivation to keep it up at all.
But, like I said, my feelings on this weekend’s half marathon are actually positive and optimistic.
First of all, I not only underestimated the recovery time I would need following the Challenge but I also underestimated how much it would change me mentally. A couple of days ago, I decided to break the “no running a week before the race” rule than many subscribe to and decided to go out and run a 10k. Not only did I keep near my regular 10k pace but I also found myself able to mentally push myself past points I would have slowed down or, even, walked it out for a bit in the past. It is often said that the GORUCK Challenge is all mental but you can’t really understand that until you do one. Then you get the idea of what it takes, mentally, to push past fatigue and discomfort. To “embrace the suck” as they say. Also, what it takes, mentally, to just keep going with no know end in sight. Eventually, you just forget about it ever ending, enter a state that is quite similar to meditation, and just let your mental auto-pilot take over. I experienced this once again on this 10k run. I got finished and felt like I still had plenty of fuel left to burn.
And, here is another thing I know. The Challenge took me 15 miles with a 45 pound ruck on my back and carrying parking barriers and logs for most of that in a thunderstorm. Therefore, I know I can run 13.1 miles with nothing but shorts and a shirt on. Even if I had to walk it I know I can complete it.
Lastly, it is forecast to be a beautiful day. The first we have had in a long time. Temps near 70 and sunny. What better way to enjoy it than with a great scenic morning run and 1500 fellow runners doing the same? I even have a few friends running the half as well and hope to meet up with them before or after.
So, I know this is a lot of “Inside Baseball” but, really, it is all just a note-to-self that says, “You got this. You’ll be fine.”

I’m home today with a sick little girl so I won’t be getting much writing done. This is the first time since I’ve been writing daily that I’ve had to deal with this situation. In fact I’m not even typing this I’m using Siri on my iPad mini in order to transcribe it because I have a little girl sitting on my lap. Therefore I think today is the perfect day for me to take a day off. My focus needs to be on her right now.
See you tomorrow.

As |bteyt|referrer|nidbk
I stated in What do you cost?, many of those in salaried positions do not take the time to sit down and figure out what their rate per hour is. But, what I did not mention is that a salary is only part of an employee’s cost to a business. In fact, from an employers perspective, full-time employees may, in fact, be a liability. Let me explain.

Salary alone is only part of what many employers call your total compensation package. This includes things like retirement matching, paid vacation time, company stock, and healthcare apportionment. Added all up, your salary may only be 50% (or less, or more) of what that employer feels they are actually paying you. But we are not done yet.

You see, there are human resources costs associated with employing you. You, being a human, use up commodities like they are going out of style — like paper, pens, toilet tissue, etc. You use up utilities like water and electricity. Plus, you are often times inefficient and unproductive. They can’t even get rid of you without cost. They might have to pay unemployment insurance, severance, perhaps still contribute to a pension, etc.

The fact is, to many companies, employees are simply automation — costly automation at that. You hire people to either do the tasks that you can’t do alone or the tasks you don’t want to do yourself. Therefore, more often than not, employers are always looking to streamline the cost, management, and efficiency of such automation. No wonder they would love to replace you with a robot (and often treat you as one). No wonder, as well, that as their profits and stocks continue to rise, they are in no rush to hire people back.

Now, I am generalizing here but I am also using some hard truths that can’t be denied. My goal here is to try to provide you with some understanding of how you might be perceived from an employer’s standpoint. Especially in a large corporation where the person making the choice of laying off a few thousand people next week likely only sees you as a number on the spreadsheet. It will do you well to understand what that number is and why it is likely far larger than you think.

I’m a writer. Writing is how I make this world better, friendlier, stronger place. If these words improved your day, please let me know by contributing here.

History

Dash/Plus is a metadata markup system I created for paper based notes to mark the status of action items on a todo list. It quickly evolved to be equally well versed at marking up meeting notes for easy scanning and processing. This is mainly designed for those who keep lists or take notes using pen or pencil and paper.

I first wrote about this system in a 2006 whitepaper that outlined most of my productivity tools and methods at the time. Much has changed since then but the dash/plus system remained steadfast and is still in use by me (and many others now) every day. Yet, there was no place that it alone was fully outlined and permanently lived. This post now changes that.

Practice

(Dash): Undone Action Item — Individual items (action items and ideas) are marked with a dash preceding them. All items, no matter what they are, are therefore treated as items to be processed.

(Plus): Done Action Item — If the item is an action item (todo), when the item is complete, a vertical line is drawn through the “dash” thus making it resemble a “plus”. This makes the dashed items stand out quite well despite the fact that the same color pen or pencil may be used.

(Right Arrow): Waiting – (i.e. for another action) — Drawing an arrow pointing to the the item denotes that it is something that is waiting on another action to happen or deliverable.

(Left Arrow): Delegated — Drawing an arrow pointing to the left of the item denotes that it has been delegated (with a note to whom and the date) .

(Triangle): Data Point — Turning the dash into a triangle denotes a data point (a fact or figure you wish to remember for instance).

(Circle) — A circle around any of the above means that it has been carried forward, moved to another list or otherwise changed status – i.e. a “Waiting” item has now become an Action Item elsewhere (with a note about where that item has gone).

The beauty of this system is that it is all built upon, and extensions of, the original dash. Therefore, it is easy to change items from one state to another (an undone action item to a done one, an undone action item to waiting or delegated) and in the case of an non-dashed item changing completely the item is circled to denote that.

Resources

Extending Dash Plus — Wherein I describe ways in which I, and others, have extended the system to fit new needs.

DashPlus for iPhone — Dave Mendel’s excellent list app based on the Dash/Plus system. Proceeds from sales go to School-In-A-Box — an educational initiatives to bring iPads and learning materials to developing nation communities.

soypunk » Using Dash/Plus Markers on iOS and OS X — Shawn Medero’s really clever trick of implementing the system using Unicode and the built-in text expansion tools.

Hybrid Journal / James Gowans — James Gowans has mashed up Dash/Plus with the popular Bullet Journal system. Useful things occurred.

Recommended Items

Levenger Annotation Ruled Paper is ideal for meeting notes and lists. It is a loose Cornell Style arrangement that has spaces at the top for Topic, Date, File Under and Page Number and a wide left hand margin that is perfect for the dash/plus system. Levenger’s Circa system also comes with the same annotation ruled paper by default. I use (and love) both! Also, the paper is bright, thick and takes ink from a fountain or gel pen easily.

Praise for the Dash/Plus System

It is incredibly simple. The dash means it is still to do. Adding another mark makes it done, delegated, waiting, moved or canceled. No messy crossing out of the entire item. One mark…I’m done.

– Joe Ely, Director of Operations at Cook Biotech, Inc

It is the first system I’ve found that lets me successfully manage capture and todos in the same workspace. There is no fear of missing critical data or overlooking a task.

– Jason Rehmus

…sexy “dash/plus” notation system for identifying item status.

– Merlin Mann of 43 Folders

Dash/plus is simple, yet flexible & adaptable to your own needs. Pen & paper or digital, it “just works”

– Stephen Smith of In Context MultiMedia

If you have found the Dash/Plus System helpful, or if it makes your day just a little bit easier, please consider a free will donation of any amount.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Once |etkty|referrer|kaiba
we enter the working world, we all put a price on our time. The American Dream, we quickly learn, is largely predicated on steadily increasing that price until we reach a point where we are “comfortable”. Of course, everyone has their own opinion of exactly what comfortable means. For some it simply means not having to worry about having enough. For others, it means having so much more than enough that they never have to be in a situation where they have to put a price on their time again.

Many of us start out as teenagers doing odd jobs for cash. We mow lawns. We babysit. We shovel sidewalks. We may be too young for a “real” job yet we are old enough to learn the lesson that time and labor is worth cash. Then, we get out first job. Many of us for minimum wage, which in the US is currently $7.25 an hour. As we work more and move up, this price per hour steadily increases. Our first raise, even a fifty-cent one, gives us a tangible idea how much impact such an increase can have when compounded. And, if asked to work overtime, many jobs offer to give you even more — 1 1/2 times our regular rate perhaps. All the same, we have a very direct idea of what every hour of our time is worth. The math is easy.

But then, as we enter the world of salaried work, something strange happens. That cost becomes obscure. Because until then your brain has been conditioned to think of your cost reduced to an hourly rate, when someone offers you a job for, say, $35,000 per year, it sounds surreal. The number is almost too big to comprehend. Especially, if all you’ve been thinking about until then is that $10.50 or $11.25 or $12.70 or… is the most you’ve ever costed. Now you cost as much as a low end BMW. You must be valuable. Why stop to do the math?

And, that is where they have you. You never stop to figure out that your time is worth, at that salary, $16.80 cents at a normal 40 hour work week. But, when you have a salary these days, many work more hours than 40. In fact, more is becoming increasingly common. We never stop to do the math that more hours means, in fact, we are costing less per hour worked to the employer.

But, you keep moving up and they (the collective “they” of employers everywhere) keep throwing bigger numbers at you. They sound so big and nice…

$50,000 ($24.00 per hour at 40 hours)
$70,000 ($33.00 per hour at 40 hours)
$100,000 ($48.00 per hour at 40 hours)

And, quite honestly, if you are making $100,000 per year in this country right now you probably have it pretty good. You don’t have to do the math. And I would argue that’s exactly what the people paying you are hoping for. They are hoping to entice you by the big number and promise of comfort, in return for your forgetting the fact they have you working 60 hour work weeks for $32.00 an hour.

I lay all of this out here as an idea for us all to start doing the math. To start figuring out exactly how much we cost. Because, I believe, once we do so it will give us a much clearer picture of what “being comfortable” really means and what it will take to get there.

I’m a writer. Writing is how I make this world better, friendlier, stronger place. If these words improved your day, please let me know by contributing here.

The |ehnyr|referrer|yfzey
weather is really affecting my mood. While the rest of the world is enjoying spring, we here in Minnesota continue to have temps in the 30s. It is grey and cold and has been snowing off and on for 10 days now. Including what amounted to a full on blizzard three days ago. And when it is not snowing it is freezing rain and sleet and cold. And, while, such is not unheard of in Minnesota, it is unusual. It seems even the heartiest of our citizens are cranky and tired of it. Myself included.

I’m supposed to run my first half-marathon next weekend. The amount of training I’ve done so far? Next to none. I loathe treadmills and I flat out refuse to go outside and run in this. I figure if the day comes and I’m not ready for it, it is my first half. Anything I do will be my personal best. I would rather walk 13.1 miles (which I know full well I can do) than spend another minute outside in this weather.

The upside has been that it has been causing me to write a lot more than I normally make the time for. Quite frankly, writing is an inside and, in many ways, escapist activity. When I’m writing I forget about the weather and the other activities I should be doing instead. Writing allows me to lose myself in the work.

Sorry about the whining. I just needed to get it off my chest and state a bit of how I am right now. It’s sometimes really hard to inspire and motivate others when one cannot do so for oneself. Perhaps getting this off of my mind and heart will clear the way other more positive emotions. I can only hope so because right now I’m just kind of "meh".