Matthew Lang

... with Nicholas Bate to guide us.

I've been looking for a notes application just like nvAlt for some time. Glad to read it can also be used as a wiki.

It's hard say when I first started reading Nicholas' blog and how I found it, but it's been required daily reading for me for at least the last five years.

Over that time Nicholas has produced hundreds of blogs that centre around real life personal development and productivity. I say real life because there are thousands of blog posts and dozens of systems that claim to have the golden key to "getting things done". Only Bate's blog has a realistic view of productivity and it's place in life. Nicholas' posts range from lists and series to drawings and photos.

Not only is Nicholas' blog a great source of content for those who are on the path of personal development and improvement, but he also has a great catalogue of mini-books on topics that have featured in his blog. Personal favourites of mine are his Instant MBA and Be Bold 101 books. Not only are these books easy to digest and read but they're quite small and therefore easy to carry about.

If you're in the market for a life coach, don't bother. Save yourself the hassle of someone prodding you to do the right thing and read Nicholas Bate's blog every day for a better career and life.

... with Michael Wade.

... or is it more than that?

Think about all the things you could communicate with a simple page like this. If you're a businessperson, you could sell something. If you're a teacher, you could teach something. If you're an artist, you could show something you've made. And if your words are good, people will read them.

— Just a Web Page by Justin Jackson

via FGGT

Last week I mentioned that I was bored with the fantasy genre for reading. It's not very often I decide to read something out with this genre, but after having put down a number of fantasy books before finishing them over the last few months, I decided that enough was enough.

The first book to read out side this genre was Max Brook's World War Z. I enjoyed watching the first series of The Walking Dead, but I've not been in a hurry to watch any of the series that followed. I did enjoy it, but for me it wasn't a must watch show. Which was why I was apprehensive about reading World War Z. It's a genre that I haven't really wanted to read, but with the movie coming out this year, I decided that I wanted to read the book before watching the film.

I loved it. I really loved it. Telling the story from different eye witness perspectives was a great way to write the book. You get to see so many different reactions to the oncoming threat and how people deal with it. It also shows the ugly side of humanity when it comes to a world disaster. Too many books and films use the idea that humanity would be united in such a scenario, but this book shows a more realistic human responses when faced with such a disaster.

A great read, highly recommended.

Coming up with new blog post ideas can be difficult if you're the kind of person who likes to post on a regular basis. I'm trying to write a blog post every weekday but I'll admit there are days where I am just not getting any spark to write about something. Not wanting to have another miserable blogging month like May where I missed a number of days, I wanted to start writing my blog posts ahead of their scheduled date they will be published.

I needed to generate a slew of ideas for blog posts and I needed it fast. Enter the mighty mind map.

Right so let's get something out the way first. My mind map might not look like a typical mind map, but space was limited in my notebook and rather than squeezing something unreadable in, I opted to list the final collection of blog posts in the bottom middle section of the mind map.

Let's get started

Okay, so you want to mind map ideas for blog posts. Why not just get started then? Well, mind maps work well when you have related ideas. That's the benefit of a mind map. It can let you generate related ideas and keep these ideas together.

Rather than simply adding blog post ideas to your mind map, take a minute to think about the categories on your blog. Can you generate more ideas for these categories? If not, then think about generating ideas for a series of related blog posts. A series has the benefit of having similar formats, with just the content being slightly different from one post to the next. It might sound like a cheat but keeping your posts short means that they'll havea better chance of being read.

So on your mind map, draw an image in the center for the central topic of your mind map, if you're not the artistic kind then simply the words "Blog Posts" will do.

Basic ordering ideas are the first level of branches that we add to our mind map. In our case each basic ordering idea branch is a blog post series or a category from our blog. Now for each basic ordering idea, simply add a branch for each related idea you can come up with for your blog.

My mind map has basic ordering ideas for the following series or categories:

1. Blogs you Must Read
2. Building a Blog Dashboard in Octopress
3. Review posts
4. Bike posts

Lastly I wanted a list of blog post ideas that were unrelated to any of the above series. With very little space left on my mind map, I decided to simply list the blog post ideas at the bottom. Mind map purists will be screaming at their screens at the moment, saying that this isn't a true mind map. Does it matter? As long as it works for you.

I set myself a time limit of 10 minutes to do this and managed to generate 30 blog post ideas. Don't worry if you can't generate this number of blog post ideas. With practice you'll be able to quickly generate more ideas with mind maps.

Take action

Now we have a list of ideas, what next? That's down to you. Add them to your to do list, start outlining them or even mind map each blog post idea!

I have my own method. In order to reduce the element of resistance (I'm lazy), I'm going to create draft files for each of these ideas in my blog. That way I can get started on writing them straight away and as each one is completed I can schedule it in for a specific date.

Your mileage might vary with a mind map. Some people get them, others don't. I've long been a fan of mind mapping so it is easier for me, however don't give up on it before you have tried it!

Every day is a school day. I love that phrase.

As a programmer and daily resident of the Internet, it really does apply to me. Not a day goes by where I don't learn something new. It might be a new method in the Ruby language, or a new trick in Rails. It might even be just learning that your favourite App.net client for the iPhone does allow you to save drafts. Really, I just discovered this last week.

The thing is though, I'm usually working at such a pace where I learn something, use it and then forget about it. No more.

You only learn from the things you write down. If you don't, trying to remember it with the million other thoughts that go through your head that day just makes it impossible. So with that in mind I am aiming to log a today I learned (or TIL) a day.

Mostly this will be programming stuff, but it should feed the my blog for potential development and programming posts. I might even post a summary of the week here if it becomes more than just programming stuff.

... for all that's part of you with Nicholas Bate.

I might not approve of Curtis McHale's choice of journaling tool (just kidding), but I do approve of his reason for journaling.

I’d like to think that they will want a better picture of what I was in my 30′s as my family was starting. I’d like to think that I’m interesting enough to leave a legacy for them that they’ll be interested in.

— Knowing those that came before you by Curtis McHale

Nitin Khanna has been enjoying Journalong:

So you like to note down your thoughts but don't want the complexity of a proper journaling software like Day One? Journalong is now free, so just hook it up to your Dropbox and start using it to write down your thoughts in txt or markdown, maybe even several times a day.

— Journalong: Easy Peasy Dropbox journalling by Nitin Khanna

via Pedal Consumption

... every day.

A must read.

I originally read about Leo Babauta's text playlist at the start of the year. The idea is that you keep a list of articles that you read on a regular basis and keep them in easy reach. I was sold.

I wanted to create my own text playlist but the problem I had was that I had hundreds of articles to pick from. My Pinboard account gets links saved to it daily and at the last count I was at just over 1300 saved links. Where do I begin to build my list? Searching through my Pinboard links was going to take time.

I let the idea of a text playlist slide for a while until I came across an article that I wanted to add to my playlist and over the last few months I've browsed through a few tags on Pinboard looking for articles that I've frequently read in the past.

At the start of the week I had a breakthrough. Stef Lewandowski's article on creativity was my first article on the playlist and today I recalled a few other articles of the same high quality that I wanted to add. I love this idea of a highly valued list of articles that you can refer back to on a frequent basis. I like to think of it as my "Best of" from my saved links in Pinboard.

So without further ado, I give you my text playlist.

I have a new hobby, sort of. Last weekend I bought myself a new set of golf clubs and last night I took my oldest son to the driving range for a boys night. He got to fine tune his swing and I got the chance to become familiar with the first set of golf clubs I've had in 20 years. It's sure been a long time since I played a round of golf, so I wasn't sure what to expect with a new set of golf clubs. The surprising thing was that I could actually hit the ball reasonably well.

This new hobby isn't about me though, it's more about my son. Being a great little golfer means I want to get him on the course as often as possible, but access to golf courses for kids isn't easy, especially when you thrown in the unpredictable Scottish weather. Also he's a bit young to be out playing a round on his own.

So I decided to arm myself with some clubs and get into this golf thing with my son. Hopefully over the summer and autumn I can get him onto some public courses near us, but more importantly he can teach Dad how to play golf!

It's come to my attention that I have neglected Journalong in the last few months. I had big plans for Journalong but in the last few weeks I've simply neglected working on it. I should be able to work on Journalong on my own time, but finding that time has been difficult over the past few months. That's no excuse though, but that's really another story.

I only realized how much I had neglected it when an email from the on-line writing service, Draft, arrived with a bundle of new features for users. Reading through the features I realized that I had let Journalong slide for too long.

No matter what size of product or service you run, letting it fall to the wayside for even a few weeks is bad. If you want it to be a success then you need to be gradually improving your product just one bit at a time.

Even if it's only a couple of hours a week, it better to make improvements and ship them rather than waiting for a day where you can do a whole ton of work in one go. That day might not come for a few weeks or months. What if it does come and you end up doing something else? Don't neglect your product.

This afternoon I said goodbye to my Twitter handle, @matthewlang and deactivated my account there. It's been a move I've been thinking a lot about over the last few weeks. Since the start of the year my Twitter use has really declined. I just don't have the time for Twitter, and I was increasingly finding it to be more of a distraction than anything else.

In the last few weeks I've deleted my Google account and now another aspect of my on-line presence is gone. And it's no bad thing either. Having lots of networks and profiles attached to your name isn't a good thing in my book. Stretching yourself across multiple networks and services takes a lot of your time. That's time I just don't have.

There are of course accounts on networks and services I do have like LinkedIn and Github, but these are important to me and they don't require a lot of time.

I also have a personal website and blog that I post to on a daily basis. I find that writing for my blog gives me more to say on a topic than Twitter ever could. Given the choice between spending time on Twitter or writing for my blog, I'd much rather spend the time writing for my blog.

What's in a name? Quite a lot actually. When I first started freelancing it was my wish to specialise in Ruby and a couple of the more popular frameworks that are built with Ruby, namely Ruby on Rails and Sinatra. Being fresh to freelancing I didn't want to narrow my field down too much either. I still have plenty of experience with the Microsoft .Net languages and frameworks. After considering this I used "Freelance Web Developer" as my title on my website and as part of my bio.

Now though I am re-considering who I am and what I do as a freelancer. I'm coming round to describing myself more as a Ruby on Rails Developer than anything else. Yes it is more focused than what I have done in the past, but it's what I have been working with for the last five months and will continue to do so in the near future.

I never thought that the Rails framework would involve so much. Every day I'm discovering something new about it and I'm really enjoying the experience. For now I'm happy to be marketing myself as a specialist rather than a generalist.

Just what I need to kick start the reading habit again.

Thanks Michael!

... and armed with productivity tips that get you brilliant at the basics.

.. permission to suck.

Too cute not to post and it even has extension bars for time-trialling.

via FGGT

I'm going to read this at the start of every week.

I've been reading fantasy books for over 20 years now. I was first exposed to the genre through a friend at school who gave me the Dragonlance Chronicles to read. It was hefty book but I was immediately hooked. Since then I've read hundreds of books in the genre enjoying each and every one.

Over the years I've favoured authors like J. R. R. Tolkien, Terry Pratchett, Raymond E. Feist, David Gemmell, George R. R. Martin, J. K. Rowling and David Eddings. There have been a few authors who I have only read one or two books from, but I tend to favour books from the authors I just mentioned.

In the last year though I've become less and less patient with the books I have been reading. I've abandoned four books in the last year because they didn't hold my attention. Books that I am reading are becoming predictable or simply just don't grab me when I am reading them. Now I'm finding it especially difficult to find a new book to read from the fantasy genre because I don't want the next book turning out to be another turkey.

I haven't been reading books from the fantasy genre exclusively, I have been reading other books in the last few years including the Master and Commander series, Conn Iggulden's Emperor and Conqueror series and a few other military history based works of fiction.

I'd even consider the zombie genre if it means I'll find more books to enjoy. Perhaps it's time for a switch.