As I write this, I'm sitting on the platform at the Back Bay Amtrak station in Boston, waiting for the train to New York. At 9am (6 minutes ago), I got a text message prompting me to write a blog post today. It said "Get your blog on! It's a good thing". The text message, of course, was sent to my by myself. I've got a little robot in the cloud whose job it is to help me be a better person. In this case, it's helping me be more consistent and less stressed about writing here, on this blog. The service I'm using is called IFTTT (If this, then that), and it's a very simple way of wiring together events from across various web services ("channels" in their parlance). In this case, I have the SMS channel triggered to send me a text every day at 9am. I also have a 10pm text which prompts me to write to my journal (that one says: "Take a 5 min break and post to brain [the name of my journal blog]. You'll thank me later." Last night when I got that text, I said to myself: "Self, you're right -- I will thank you later". And I wrote the post. And here I am this morning. I've been thinking a lot recently about the difference between being organized vs. being disciplined, and I've been putting a lot of energy into increasing my discipline factor. Who knows if this will end up sticking, but I hope it will. At this point, it surely sounds like another exercise in
As I write this, I'm sitting on the platform at the Back Bay Amtrak station in Boston, waiting for the train to New York. At 9am (6 minutes ago), I got a text message prompting me to write a blog post today. It said "Get your blog on! It's a good thing". The text message, of course, was sent to my by myself. I've got a little robot in the cloud whose job it is to help me be a better person. In this case, it's helping me be more consistent and less stressed about writing here, on this blog. The service I'm using is called IFTTT (If this, then that), and it's a very simple way of wiring together events from across various web services ("channels" in their parlance). In this case, I have the SMS channel triggered to send me a text every day at 9am. I also have a 10pm text which prompts me to write to my journal (that one says: "Take a 5 min break and post to brain [the name of my journal blog]. You'll thank me later." Last night when I got that text, I said to myself: "Self, you're right -- I will thank you later". And I wrote the post. And here I am this morning. I've been thinking a lot recently about the difference between being organized vs. being disciplined, and I've been putting a lot of energy into increasing my discipline factor. Who knows if this will end up sticking, but I hope it will. At this point, it surely sounds like another exercise in
yak-shaving
, and knowing myself I'll let that stand as a possibility. But I really do like the idea that it's possible to get more effective by doing less yourself and recruiting more help from others (in this case, from robots). And in this particular case, there's something particularly nice about being able to make up the wording yourself, knowing exactly what will push your own buttons and get you motivated. I really like IFTTT and will surely find more ways to use it. There are other services out there too, like
and I'm sure many more. At this point, I prefer the flexibility and straightforwardness over IFTTT to the slickness of Happiness Engines, but I'm looking forward to seeing where both go, and to experimenting w/ other ways to recruit robots to the cause.
Update: I built it. I've used Highrise as a lightweight CRM for a few years now. It's fine for my needs -- basically keeping track of people who I meet on email. The thing that really made Highrise start to work for me is integration with Gmail, via Rapportive. Being able to add someone to my highrise, and add some tags and notes, right from my inbox, has been awesome. I use it every day. But there is still something I really need that I don't have. You see, tracking people and companies in Highrise works really well for people you're already connected to. I.e., people who you've been introduced to over email -- so that you can add them via Rapportive; yadda yadda. The problem wtih that is that there are lots of people and companies that I want to track in Highrise that aren't yet in my inbox. This is another version of the "strategic networking tool" problem that I wrote about a few years ago. So, for now, I have a hacked together solution that involves using Highrise for folks I meet on email, and Delicious for people and companies I don't know yet. This is an OK start, but it's missing a key feature: collaboration. The kinds of notes and tags we use in Highrise are internal -- meant for team discussion and not for public consumption. So, by using Delicious, I can write public notes & tags (which are fine most of the time anyway), or I a can save private links -- but if I do that they're not accessible via API and I can't get them into Highrise no matter how much I want to. So here's what I want, ideally. A chrome extension that gives me a delicious-like experience for adding content to Highrise. I've taken a few half-hearted stabs at making one, but haven't gotten there yet.
I've been thinking a lot about what it means to invest lately. I'm not just talking about investing money, in savings or stocks or whatever; I mean investing in a broader sense, in yourself and in everything you do. I am without question an urgency addict -- as a general rule, I procrastinate, let things build up, and then power through with a burst of adrenaline when it gets down to the wire. This also means, generally, that I'm bad at medium-term planning. I often rely on my ability to "just figure things out" when I need to, and most of the time it works out. Lucky for me, I haven't yet had a total blow up disaster, but I definitely flirt with it. More and more, I've been thinking about this approach as a kind of personal debt. Every time I do something at the last minute, whether it's a presentation, a document, or plans for a trip, I'm burning reserves (cash, time, sleep, social capital) and often going into the red. While it may work most or all of the time, it's not sustainable and it's not a good way of using resources. Credit cards bail you out when you're over extended and need to get by at the last minute. Personal and planning debt is the same way. Conversely, investing in yourself, your plans, your friends & relationships, and your health is a longer-term proposition. It takes planning and discipline, and it doesn't pay off right away. But investing is about building a strong base. And it's about dedicating resources (time, thought, money) in things that are important, matter in the long run, and will grow into something even more valuable -- to yourself, to your friends, business associates and family. There are all kinds of good reasons for going into debt -- financial or personal -- whether its borrowing against a house or an education, using loans & credit cards to get through a tough time, or getting way backlogged on your work, your email, your exercise, or your family time. What I'm talking about is a general mindset of: "what am I spending my time doing -- am I making an investment right now, or am I burning capital right now -- and if I'm burning capital, am I beyond my reserves?" With that in mind, my new mantra is "Always Be Investing" (imagining Alec Baldwin coaching me at it).
yak-shaving
, and knowing myself I'll let that stand as a possibility. But I really do like the idea that it's possible to get more effective by doing less yourself and recruiting more help from others (in this case, from robots). And in this particular case, there's something particularly nice about being able to make up the wording yourself, knowing exactly what will push your own buttons and get you motivated. I really like IFTTT and will surely find more ways to use it. There are other services out there too, like
and I'm sure many more. At this point, I prefer the flexibility and straightforwardness over IFTTT to the slickness of Happiness Engines, but I'm looking forward to seeing where both go, and to experimenting w/ other ways to recruit robots to the cause.
Update: I built it. I've used Highrise as a lightweight CRM for a few years now. It's fine for my needs -- basically keeping track of people who I meet on email. The thing that really made Highrise start to work for me is integration with Gmail, via Rapportive. Being able to add someone to my highrise, and add some tags and notes, right from my inbox, has been awesome. I use it every day. But there is still something I really need that I don't have. You see, tracking people and companies in Highrise works really well for people you're already connected to. I.e., people who you've been introduced to over email -- so that you can add them via Rapportive; yadda yadda. The problem wtih that is that there are lots of people and companies that I want to track in Highrise that aren't yet in my inbox. This is another version of the "strategic networking tool" problem that I wrote about a few years ago. So, for now, I have a hacked together solution that involves using Highrise for folks I meet on email, and Delicious for people and companies I don't know yet. This is an OK start, but it's missing a key feature: collaboration. The kinds of notes and tags we use in Highrise are internal -- meant for team discussion and not for public consumption. So, by using Delicious, I can write public notes & tags (which are fine most of the time anyway), or I a can save private links -- but if I do that they're not accessible via API and I can't get them into Highrise no matter how much I want to. So here's what I want, ideally. A chrome extension that gives me a delicious-like experience for adding content to Highrise. I've taken a few half-hearted stabs at making one, but haven't gotten there yet.
I've been thinking a lot about what it means to invest lately. I'm not just talking about investing money, in savings or stocks or whatever; I mean investing in a broader sense, in yourself and in everything you do. I am without question an urgency addict -- as a general rule, I procrastinate, let things build up, and then power through with a burst of adrenaline when it gets down to the wire. This also means, generally, that I'm bad at medium-term planning. I often rely on my ability to "just figure things out" when I need to, and most of the time it works out. Lucky for me, I haven't yet had a total blow up disaster, but I definitely flirt with it. More and more, I've been thinking about this approach as a kind of personal debt. Every time I do something at the last minute, whether it's a presentation, a document, or plans for a trip, I'm burning reserves (cash, time, sleep, social capital) and often going into the red. While it may work most or all of the time, it's not sustainable and it's not a good way of using resources. Credit cards bail you out when you're over extended and need to get by at the last minute. Personal and planning debt is the same way. Conversely, investing in yourself, your plans, your friends & relationships, and your health is a longer-term proposition. It takes planning and discipline, and it doesn't pay off right away. But investing is about building a strong base. And it's about dedicating resources (time, thought, money) in things that are important, matter in the long run, and will grow into something even more valuable -- to yourself, to your friends, business associates and family. There are all kinds of good reasons for going into debt -- financial or personal -- whether its borrowing against a house or an education, using loans & credit cards to get through a tough time, or getting way backlogged on your work, your email, your exercise, or your family time. What I'm talking about is a general mindset of: "what am I spending my time doing -- am I making an investment right now, or am I burning capital right now -- and if I'm burning capital, am I beyond my reserves?" With that in mind, my new mantra is "Always Be Investing" (imagining Alec Baldwin coaching me at it).
Here's the idea in pictures
(click each to enlarge). In my head, I've been calling this "Eyes on the Street". I use Highrise via Rapportive to track people I meet over email.
This give me a nice, searchable browseable view in Highrise, which I can share with my team:
For people I don't know yet and haven't met on email, I use delicious to keep track. There is a nice browser extension for this; it's really easy.
So I get a similarly nice, searchable view in Delicious. However, any links I mark as private I can't share w/ my team :(
So here's what I want: A browser extension that looks a lot like the Delicious extension, that lets me tag people and companies in Highrise (just like I can do via Rapportive in my inbox). If it's a new person, I create a new entry.
If the person is already in the system, I can add additional links / notes:
The same thing works for companies:
The extension could show a badge when other people from my team have noted a given URL and/or left notes. Conversation (in the extension and in Highrise) ensues.
This is pretty easy to make, I think. If I were a better programmer I would have made it already. But rather than burn another whole evening futzing around writing my first chrome extension, I'm writing up the idea here :). Basically, the extension can talk to Highrise directly via JS/XML, or via a proxy server that sits in the middle. The advantage to the latter (drawn below), is that you can take advantage of Highrise wrapper libraries, rather than writing directly to the raw API.
That's it! Is there anything out there like this? If so I haven't found it. If anyone wants to take this idea and run with it I would be forever grateful.
Here's the idea in pictures
(click each to enlarge). In my head, I've been calling this "Eyes on the Street". I use Highrise via Rapportive to track people I meet over email.
This give me a nice, searchable browseable view in Highrise, which I can share with my team:
For people I don't know yet and haven't met on email, I use delicious to keep track. There is a nice browser extension for this; it's really easy.
So I get a similarly nice, searchable view in Delicious. However, any links I mark as private I can't share w/ my team :(
So here's what I want: A browser extension that looks a lot like the Delicious extension, that lets me tag people and companies in Highrise (just like I can do via Rapportive in my inbox). If it's a new person, I create a new entry.
If the person is already in the system, I can add additional links / notes:
The same thing works for companies:
The extension could show a badge when other people from my team have noted a given URL and/or left notes. Conversation (in the extension and in Highrise) ensues.
This is pretty easy to make, I think. If I were a better programmer I would have made it already. But rather than burn another whole evening futzing around writing my first chrome extension, I'm writing up the idea here :). Basically, the extension can talk to Highrise directly via JS/XML, or via a proxy server that sits in the middle. The advantage to the latter (drawn below), is that you can take advantage of Highrise wrapper libraries, rather than writing directly to the raw API.
That's it! Is there anything out there like this? If so I haven't found it. If anyone wants to take this idea and run with it I would be forever grateful.
