See Me at the ABA Techshow

As I write this, I’m sitting in John Wayne Airport preparing to board my flight to Chicago and the American Bar Association’s annual TechShow. If you do anything related to the profession of law to pay for your shoes, you really should be there. This is not your average collection of blowhard lawyers but instead the premier technology-minded professionals from around the country. I’ve been attending for years and never thought I could have so much fun with lawyers.

If you are attending, I’m giving a session tomorrow on technology at trill and Friday on going paperless. I’ll also be at the show’s Concierge Desk tomorrow at noon. If you are in Chicago, make sure to seek me out and say hello.

OmniFocus Communication Perspective and MPU 78

Kourosh Dini posted an intriguing OmniFocus screencast where he uses a combination of perspectives and TextExpander snippets to track “Waiting for” tasks. I’m not entirely sold (yet) but it is really smart. Also, Kourosh joined me on MPU 78 to talk about his technology workflows. (Kourosh is a physician.) While I started the interview with the best of intentions, we inevitably digressed into an OmniFocus nerd-fest. Get the episode over at 5by5. Also, don’t forget to subscribe in iTunes.

RSS Sponsor: PopClip for Mac

When Apple announced they were bringing iOS features “Back to the Mac” with OS X Lion (and doubled down on it with Mountain Lion), the iOS implementation of copy and paste was not included.

PopClip is a clever Mac app that brings iOS-style copy and paste to OS X, and raises the question of why Apple hasn’t done this already. If you’re curious as to how well it works, the answer is: pretty well. The most common sentiment in the user reviews is: “I’m hooked.”

If you have a Mac, you should check this out. You can download a free demo at Pilotmoon Software. The full version costs $4.99 on the Mac App Store.

Home Screens – Reid Trautz

This week I’m heading to Chicago for the ABA TechShow. TechShow is the best collection of attorneys on the planet. It is lots of great technology talk without the ego nonsense that usually comes with a big group of lawyers. The chair of this year’s TechShow is my friend, Reid Trautz (Twitter), who tirelessly works to make this show happen. So Reid, show us your home screen.

What are your most interesting home screen apps?

Zite is my favorite news magazine reader. iHome+Sleep is my new morning alarm clock when dropped into my bedside recharger/speaker bar. Of course, the just-released ABA TECHSHOW app made my home screen!

What is your favorite app?

I really think Notability has quickly become a productive must-have app. It does the work of several others I now rarely use.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Scrabble. I know Words with Friends is far more popular, but I grew up playing Scrabble.

What is the app you are still missing?

I’d like a dictation app that is truly integrated into email and my calendar. It might exist, I just haven’t found it.

How many times a day do you use your iPhone/iPad?

I use my iPad 10 times a day when away from the office especially when on the road, but I use my iPhone far more day in and day out.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

The form factor. I think Apple and Steve Jobs got the size, weight, shape just right. I’ve read more books in the past year than the previous four without a iPad; also, kicking back in a comfortable chair with the iPad makes late-night work less of a chore than with my laptop.

If you were in charge at Apple, what would you add or change?

I’ve been a MacBook user for at least 5 years, but use a PC at my office. I really miss having both the Backspace and Delete keys on my Mac.

Anything else you’d like to share?

One thing. Buy David’s iPad@Work book. I learned a great deal!

Thanks Reid.

For more home screens clicky here.

Task Management When the Bullets are Flying

Lately things around me are nuts. I don’t understand people who brag about how busy they are. In fact that guy makes me a little nauseous. Why would you be proud of being too busy to do anything right? Nevertheless, lately I am that guy. Between commitments at the day job, some very cool projects for MacSparky, the increased podcasting schedule, and my speaking gig next week at the ABA TechShow, I find myself underwater.

Generally, when things get nuts, I’m tempted to shut everything else out and just get to work. It is very tempting to ignore my task management system entirely and start pounding rocks. With this latest influx of work, I’ve tried a different strategy. I’m trying to manage my tasks at the same time that I’m overwhelmingly busy. It is working for me. While it now seems obvious, it was initially hard for me to justify spending any time on task management with bullets flying around me. So here are two ways to pull this off.

1. Review Every Day

This is a new practice for me that I started at the new year. While I used to do a weekly review, sometimes the review projects stacked up to such an extent that I was unable to get through them mindfully. Observing myself, it is clear that after reviewing 10 or 15 projects, I become much more about pressing the “Review” button and much less about actually paying attention. So I added a daily repeating task, “Review OmniFocus”. Now once a day I open the review tab in the OmniFocus on my iPad and review whatever is due. Sometimes it’s just one or two projects while others it may be ten. It’s never 50. This lets me take the time necessary to actually review each project. The practice has made my reviews more efficient and useful. Right now with things so busy, I am not giving up this practice and it is paying dividends. Despite having several plates in the air, there is no broken china at my feet.

2. Forecast Each Day

No matter how tired I am, every evening I spend 20 minutes looking at the forecast view for the next day and getting realistic with myself about what I can actually accomplish. While I still review my day’s tasks again in the morning, the triage has already largely occurred. Maybe this is a personal failing but going to bed knowing that I have the next day mapped out really helps. When I don’t plan the next day and wake up to find a day with 100 tasks needing sorting, it feels like icewater on my face. Maybe this is because I’m a morning person but when I get started I really want to be pounding rocks and not planning.

While both of these tips are useful every day, when things get hard the temptation will be there to ditch them. I certainly have in the past. With this latest scramble however, I have made a conscious decision not to do that and in fact comit to myself keep up with daily reviews and forecasting. It’s working. Life is nuts right now. I’m not.