Tools for Thought

Gina Trapani (along with co-editor Adam Pash) of Lifehacker has been profound influence on my workflow since the blog’s inception in 2005. Launched about a year after Danny O’Brien codified the “life hack” concept based on geeks’ propensity for process optimization, Lifehacker has been an unending stream of tips for small tweaks in tools and behaviors to get things done “smarter, faster, better.”

The stream of great hacks can lead to flash flooding. Retaining the cream content in a blog as prolific as Lifehacker (typically two dozen posts a day) and triaging the less relevant requires black belt productivity in itself. More than just catching up with the latest moves in knowledge work athletics, readers need to step back and look at the few principles behind the many hacks.

Which is why it’s such a pleasure to have a distilled version of Lifehacker in book form. The first edition, Lifehacker: 88 Tech Tricks to Turbocharge Your Day, has been retitled in its brand new second edition to Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, Better.

Lifehacker Reloaded

Upgrade Your Life is a guided toolbox of downloads, configurations and occasional pearls of wisdom. Reading a book version of the blog is almost a reintroduction to its ethos. Each chapter is an overarching principle for one aspect of streamlining workflow, and the best practices within the chapter are enumerated “hacks” — 116 of them between 11 chapters.

With any productivity blog or book, it’s best to approach it as a buffet, which is precisely what Gina encourages readers to do here: take what’s useful, and ignore the rest. Some of the tips are targeted towards Windows users, some are for Mac users; others are for fans of paper-based task management. The frequent Linux content on Lifehacker is conspicuously absent from Upgrade Your Life, which isn’t surprising, since this is clearly a mass market work.

Let’s take a look at some of the highlights from each chapter.

Chapter 1 — Control Your Email

The first edition began with the chapter, “Free up Mental RAM,” which appears retitled as a later chapter. The new Chapter 1 is Lifehacker’s most recurring theme: efficient email management. Regular Lifehacker readers will recognize much of the advice here, especially Hack #1: get your inbox to empty, and keep it that way. Once an email in your inbox is opened, it should either answered, deleted, archived, or transferred to short-term action folders.

Gina recommends a three-folder system: Archive for permanent storage, Follow-Up for messages with actions that go on your To Do list, and Hold for items requiring further input from the sender or others before it can be cleared. Instead of a Two Minute Rule, Gina recommends one minute: if the email can be answered in one minute or less, answer it; otherwise move it to Follow-Up and extract the action required for your To Do list.

Other hacks include tips for formatting readable subject lines, message bodies and reply quotes; deprioritizing CCed messages and “bacn,” consolidating multiple email accounts through Gmail — and my favorite, scripting boilerplate responses with the Quicktext extension for Thunderbird.

Chapter 2 — Organize Your Data

Gina makes the case for a six-subfolder Documents folder structure that she uses on her Mac, Linux and Windows machines: bak for backup, docs for active project documents, docs-archive, junkdrawer for temporary files (like podcasts and setup files), multimedia, and scripts for those who run executable scripts or shortcuts.

In addition to (or in spite of) the folder system, there’s a strong argument made for shifting from the file cabinet paradigm to embracing robust search tools like the Google Desktop, which integrates results from the web and your hard drive in a single thread. Other hacks in the chapter are for file encryption, consolidated password storage, and photo management. There are even a couple of old school hacks, like do-it-yourself paper planners and tips for effective filing.

Chapter 3 — Trick Yourself into Getting Done

This chapter is state-of-the-art task management, showing readers how to atomize unwieldy To Do lists into a smaller, more concrete set of instructions to self. “At any point during the workday,” Gina writes, “you are in one of two modes: thinking mode (that’s you with the Boss hat on) and action mode (that’s you with the Personal Assistant hat on).” The key is to think like an effective Boss who has to delegate to her assistant with clear instructions — using specific verbs in To Dos like “Phone” or “Email” rather than “Contact” or “Ask.”

Gina points out the danger in writing down To Dos that bundle more than one action — what she calls “multiaction tasks,” or what David Allen calls “projects” or “subprojects.” A multiaction task would be an instruction like “Clean office,” which can’t be done in one step. By focusing on the next action, “File papers on desk,” it becomes easier to move forward.

Like Julie Morgenstern and Tim Ferris, Gina recommends avoiding checking email in the morning, and instead setting up a “morning dash”: spending at least the first hour of each day dedicated to finishing the one most important task on your list. Another good hack, borrowed from Morgenstern, is the time map: a table or spreadsheet of a model day in which you shade in sections according to your ideal distribution of activity categories, which is then compared to a log of your actual distribution. Also included are timer hacks, automated activity logs, and advice for avoiding time sinks and overwork.

Chapter 4 — Clear Your Mind

Originally titled “Free up Mental RAM,” this chapter stresses the importance of getting thoughts out of your head and into some outboard memory system, whether paper or electronic. The brain’s short-term memory makes a poor storage space for holding dozens of implicit commitments like “I need to get my tires rotated” or “We’re having dinner with Angela on Friday(?)”. The mind has to constantly issue itself reminders of these internal agreements, leading to persistent stress and distraction.

Most of hacks consist of electronic tools and techniques, like keeping action lists in text files, updating your Google Calendar via email, setting up a personal wiki, emailing reference photos from your cell phone to Flickr, and a detailed look at Remember the Milk.

The RTM entry was the first of many times I read and learned something in the book that I glossed over whenever it was mentioned on the blog. I’ve ignored the online list manager Remember the Milk because I was convinced that I had to keep my lists in the cloud. In fact, RTM is Google Gears enabled, meaning that lists can be stored offline if desired.

Since notetaking is still faster and more fluid on paper for most people, there are a couple of hacks on better notetaking and creating customized note paper.

Chapter 5 — Firewall Your Attention

As the author’s most famous catchphrase, “Firewall Your Attention” shrewdly frames concentration as the art of removing distractions, or making them inconvenient to access, instead of relying on discipline. Leechblock is one such distraction filter: a Firefox extension that blocks designated websites at set times, adding a layer of security settings that make unblocking difficult. If that’s not enough, Gina gives instructions on how to edit your hosts directory to give a “Server Not Found” error message when you point your browser to whatever sites you’ve added to hosts.

Other hacks include clearing icons from the desktop, setting up multiple desktops, shutting down your email client when not in use, and even tips on how to organize your house into a distraction-free environment.

Chapter 6 — Streamline Common Tasks

Lifehacker readers will be familiar with most of these hacks, but they bear repeating. The keyboard hacks covered here are Windows and Firefox shortcut keys, utilities for customized keyboard launching (Launchy on Windows, Quicksilver on Mac), and utitilies for creating hotstrings (Texter on Windows, TextExpander on the Mac). Hotstrings allow you to create custom abbreviations that replace themselves with larger strings of text, like “TFI” for “Thank you for your interest.” This is a must-apply hack.

Non-keyboard hacks include information resources available via text messaging, batch photo resizing, more GCal tips, and a look at the clever Qipit web service that allow you to email snapshots of whiteboards and printed pages for automatic scanning to PDF.

Chapter 7 — Automate Repetitive Tasks

Most of these hacks are for routine computer management — things we all know we should do, like backing up our hard drive, but are too boring to get around to. These types of tasks are terrific candidates for automation. Freeware strategies for backing up to an external drive are detailed for Windows (SyncBack) and Mac (using Leopard’s native Time Machine utility), as well as web-based service solutions like Mozy. If you’ve organized your document folders as recommended in Chapter 2, Gina’s “Janitor” VB script cleans out the junkdrawer folder at scheduled intervals. And there are a couple of tips for putting Windows’ “Scheduled Tasks” function to good use.

Also included are ways to automate the downloading of multiple files and the emailing of backup files. There’s also a cool VB script for logging individual entries of some metric, like your weight for the day, which automatically updates a spreadsheet.

Chapter 8 — Get Your Data to Go

It’s amazing how many options we have to work at different sites. We can store huge files on a flash drive, run applications on a flash drive, create and share documents with online office suites, access web apps via text message, install virtual private networks or control PCs remotely through VNC. All of these options are addressed in detail.

One of the coolest additions to the book’s second edition is Mojopac, a free “PC on a stick” utility that lets your run a copy of your PC’s Windows or Linux image directly off of an external drive, such as an iPod or a USB flash drive. The various Twitter SMS “bots” were news to me. Through Twitter you can send text message updates to your Remember the Milk task manager, or retrieve a particular list. There’s a timer bot to send reminders to yourself, one for logging expenses, and another for logging gas mileage. Apparently you can do more with Twitter than let the world know you’re getting a burrito.

Chapter 9 — Master the Web

A potpourri of skills, extensions, bookmarklets and other resources for getting the most from your browser and the internet. The chapter has a great guide to Google search operators — terms that modify and filter searches. Most of it’s old news to power users, but I found a couple of operators that I didn’t already know, like adding a tilde before a keyword to include its synonyms in the search (~PDA).

RSS is another technology that’s old news except to novices — majority of computer users. It’s good to see a clear explanation of what it is for those who might be afraid to ask. Even many people who familiar with RSS still unaware how the ability to access or create dynamic feeds.

Other hacks in this largish chapter include instructions on installing Firefox extensions, recommended extensions, favorite bookmarklets, finding reusable media in the digital commons, clearing your browser history, and porting your Firefox configuration to copies on other computers.

Chapter 10 — Hone Your Computer Survival Skills

If you can spell Lifehacker, you’ve probably been conscripted by friends and family as tech support. What sounds like a dull read is actually an interesting and informative chapter on the basic maintenance skills and software utilities we should all have. Most of the content is targeted to Windows users, since Windows is usually the target of attacks.

It discusses all of the basic enemies of good computer health, like malware, spyware, viruses, browser hijacking, startup folder bloatware — and gives solutions for them. I threw most of the mentioned utilities on a flash drive, and now feel ready to diagnose and repair anyone’s computer the next time it throws a fit. File merging, system restoration, data recovery, thorough file deletion and proper filewalling round things out.

Chapter 11 — Manage Multiple Computers

Most of the discussion here is for sharing resources over a network. Non-admins will be surprised at how easy some of the hacks are, like setting up shared folders in Windows and Macs computers and exchanging files between the two platforms. Microsoft’s SyncToy and FolderShare get mention for synchronizing folders between computers, so that the two folders have the latest file image. Other shared resources discussed include browser bookmarks, printers, a single operating in a dual-monitor setup, and a single keyboard and mouse between two computers.

Finally, Gina gives instructions for sharing an Intel Mac’s hard drive with OS X and Windows using Boot Camp. This was the only weak spot in the book for me, since anyone marginally interested in a dual-boot Mac would have probably made installing Windows and Boot Camp a priority long before picking up this book. But I suppose it does technically qualify as a hack, and not a trivial one.

Should you Upgrade?

I don’t have to deliberate on this one — yes, even if you have a copy of the first edition. Not only has the technology changed between editions, but the thematic organization of the book is noticeably more streamlined. If you’ve never read Lifehacker in book form, you might be surprised at how much easier it is to digest without being on the lookout for the next post, or clicking on every interesting link.