Some time ago I've posted a couple of ideas around productivity and distractionless computer environment. Since then I continue trying to optimize my computer experience here and there. It is always interesting to know what ideas others have about problems you are thinking about. So it was very interesting for me to read how Leo Babauta of Zen Habits approaches his computer experience. A lot of good ideas there.

Iconless desktop. Great idea! Desktop is not a junkyard. On Windows XP it is as simple as right-click on the desktop -> Arrange Icons By -> Show Desktop Icons.

"Light" menubar. Now I switched from autohiding my Task Bar to completely removing it from the screen: only 2 pixels at the top of the screen. No more annoying appearances of the Tool Bar when your mouse is near the edge. You can still use Win-key to access the Start menu and Alt-Tab to switch between windows.

Keyboard shortcuts instead of icons. Brilliant! This is something that I started adopting very actively. On Windows XP you do not even need to install additional software tools: right-click on the icon in the Start Menu -> Properties, click in the Shortcut key box and select shortcut for an application.

Find your way to effective computer experience.These and other small tricks can take you one step away from chaos and give you some precious time to do what you do best - create!

Could not resist posting this quote by Lee Iacocca:

"The ability to concentrate and to use your time well is everything if you want to succeed in business - or almost anywhere else for that matter."

(via Happy-PM)

When people communicate they exchange facts, ideas and opinions. When they hear something which is not a sure fact like "At present, Earth orbits the Sun" they will either agree or disagree. As Paul Graham suggests this is a natural behavior. But disagreeing itself is somewhat simple: nothing remains after the conversation except for changed or not unchanged mind of participants.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="180" caption="Opposition"][/caption]

When people hear idea or proposal it is another beast. Something is going to remain after the talk is finished and that is a decision whether to proceed with presented idea. And that decision, be it positive or negative, is going to affect everyone involved in a conversation. As Paul noticed

Many who respond to something disagree with it. That's to be expected. Agreeing tends to motivate people less than disagreeing. And when you agree there's less to say.

Only very bad ideas will not ignite discussion. If the idea is worth at least something the conversation will start. The conversation will start with disagreement and critique and will revolve around the problem idea tries to address and the idea itself.

The worst form of critique which often can be a "discussion killer" is when the reply is "This is not going to work" and nothing more. There can be several cases why one would say that and actual meaning of that response can range:

• from "Hey man! You are so stupid to propose this. Your idea is not even worth discussing."
• to "Dude, I had thought this idea in and out and you really do not want to implement it" and "The problem you are trying to solve isn't really a problem. Let's move on to the next item."

No matter what the actual meaning is expressing it with "This is not going to work" is wrong. You must uncover reasoning for "not going to work". Such unsound responses kill all the constructive outputs that can arise as a result of conversation on the topic. Such responses create forces which oppose to development of better outcomes for the concern raised.

Good response would be something that will help arrive at conclusion that will be both acceptable and accepted by all the parties engaged in the conversation. Something that will prompt for further discussion is already good enough, e.g. "I do not clearly see the benefit of implementing this. Can you please explain in more detail?".

When discussion starts it is important to distinguish two things about the proposed idea:

• problem the proposal tries to address
• the idea itself

First of all there should be an agreement on why dealing with the problem is or is not important. With readiness to attack the problem you can move on to define a solution to that starting with proposed idea. Once the problem is revealed a solution should be found. The solution might be completely different from what is proposed now, but there should be one. And only constructive dialog that gradually improves currently proposed idea can deliver that.

Jim McCarthy calls this a "better idea" approach. To quote Jim:

An accountable "No" is respected, but it's got to be accountable.

You can say "No", but no, you can't go away without a better idea. Because if you don't have a better idea, then that's the best available idea and you always act on the best available idea. You can always change it tomorrow, or next week if better ideas come around. But, by definition, if you don't have a better idea, you have to vote "Yes". So when you stop the show you are expected to carry the next vote, which happens immediately. And this makes people say "No" much less.

Mind how you respond to ideas of your fellows and be accountable for what you say. Let ideas emerge and be implemented.

All of that started with Twitter... I created an account on Twitter. My way to Twitter was quite long and there were, I guess, 3 major factors that made me do that: changes in my professional life, Bob Walsh's comments about Twitter and Hanselminutes episode about WPF Twitter client blu. In my 2 or 3 days Twitter "career" I've already seen famous "Something is technically wrong" so I can see myself as an experienced Twitter user.

But there are 2 other things that prompted me to think about software quality.

After listening to Scott Hanselman's podcast I installed blu. The second thing I noticed after slick UI was inability to work through proxy. I live and die by personal proxy which allows me to easily migrate between different networks during my day. So, what can I say? Nice piece of software, but almost completely unusable in my setting, which as I would guess is not uncommon.

Another sad experience is twitbacks. As a newbie I given in to temptation of working on form rather than the meaning first. I've spent quite a time with this tool, but was not able to produce any sufficiently good looking background. Main issue for me was strange resizing which made text blurry and also lead to incorrect alignment with functional elements of the Twitter page. Again, nice idea, but not usable.

Both of these cases look to me as an obvious shortcuts taken by the development teams on requirements definition or testing stage. Quality of the system output is determined by weakest link in the system. Determined to the extent that piece of software may be rendered unusable in certain common scenarios.

Network client solution cannot omit widely spread variances in Internet connectivity settings.

Image generation software can not afford generating funky images.

Check that you have not fallen into the same trap or start fixing that immediately.

Tell me who your friends are and I'll tell you who you are.

Old saying tells so. In modern world you often say who the person is by looking at what she reads or what she thinks of some books. Same this is applicable to blogs as well.

Recently the Time posted 25 Best Blogs 2009. It appears that I read 3 our of those 25 blogs which is not bad at all given that I'm not a US resident.

So today on my reading list are (among many others):

• Freakonomics. I just love all those subtle connections between things in a human society.
• Seth Godin's blog. Insightful and inspiring.
• Zen Habits. Life as experience at some point gets tough for everyone, but you can always help yourself if you put in a little effort.

Surprisingly right after 25th best blog when you click "Next" you get to Most Overrated Blogs of which TechCrunch is the first. I used to be subscribed to it but not any more.

I've got a few interesting links from that list, so looks like list of 3 might be extended at some point... What about yours?

Right now I'm really into staying focused on the things I need to accomplish. Most of my work time I spend at my computer and as you might have noticed from my recent posts I try to make it more rewarding experience.

If you are also interested in that you may benefit from rebooted 43 folders podcast by Merlin Mann. Merlin gives solid advice on getting some time to focus and produce. This advice basically consists of two messages:

• Have some kind of a "box" to put there some stuff to get back to later.
• Go offline to concentrate.

I'm absolutely aligned with the second message and kind of advocate the same approach. The first one is little bit more tricky. Not only should you have a box to put ideas, tasks and todo items but you need to actually get back to this box.

Getting back to stuff is not easy. Especially if what you need to get back to is not the most pleasant activity. Your need to have guts and discipline to regularly go through items in the box and cleanup it. At first it was not easy for me, but over time I get better and better at this.

Happy cleaning!

A while back I wrote about using full screen to enhance your productivity and focus on the task you need to accomplish. But that is not enough - you need to get rid of blinking, screaming and beeping everything. Here are a few recipes that I follow personally.

Most likely you use Outlook as I do. Outlook has incredible concentration killer - Desktop Alter. I would not say you should disable it, I would say you must disable it! Here is how my notification settings look like

That's right, I do not get any notifications. I want to decide when to read process e-mail myself. I'll talk later about processing e-mail.

Next thing is IMs. Now, don't get me wrong instant messaging is really great. You can distract people from what they are doing all over the world (and, yes, you can use messengers to communicate). Usually IM tools are smart enough to have a "Do not disturb" mode. In this mode all inbound communication will just accumulate without letting you know and you will be able to process it later. And to not forget to turn of sound notification on incoming messages.

There are so many ways to get distracted, but there equally as many to protect yourself from distraction. Before you skip to the next web page check out this.

I just could not resist posting this godsend from Merlin Mann:

You don't stop the journey just because one of the donkeys died.

Keep going.

You read blogs. I also read many (but for sure not as many as some of you). I'm sure you appreciate the effort author put into thinking out and writing the post. But do you also recognize and benefit from the effort he put into creating a visual appeal for his messages? You should. It is also part of what author has to say.

Now, if you use Google Reader as I do be sure to click tiny button on the right of the title which will get you to the post on author's site.

Read it the way author intended it to be. And then go back to star or share. I wish there is an option in Google Reader that would make post title link directly to author's site.

Check your blog reading habits.

Leo Babauta of Zenhabits describes an interesting concept of pigeonholes in interpersonal communication. My personal experience with this suggests that there is always a hassle that stops people from changing for better. Changing for worse usually happens gradually and unconsciously; and when it is conscious (I can not imagine that, but still) you do not care how others perceive you anyway. Changing for better is in most cases a conscious action and involves a great deal of thinking. Here perception of you by others is important.

Unfortunately, often the first reaction to change in you (or in other words you trying to change a pigeonhole) is suspicion. Why would he wonna do that? Is he going to fool us? And you really need to get through this. One of the better options to do that is to get an alignment of a person you trust. With her belief in your new personality and her support it would be easier to convince rest of the world that it is not about them being fooled, but about you becoming better.

Beware that when you want to move something from one pigeonhole to another you need to pick it up first.