Matthew Lang

Except that messages now travel 50 times faster than they used to, sent to us by 100 times as many people as we grew up expecting. Except that we're spending ten times as much time with a device, and one-tenth as much time reading a book.

Here it comes. The future adds a zero.

— Times 10 by Seth Godin

There comes a point in your career when you can no longer coast along just punching in and out and doing a day's work. Nobody tell's when that time will come. It can be in the first few days of your job or after years of working for yourself.

When that time comes to level up, you can do two things.

1. Ignore the opportunity and keep coasting along doing the same thing you do every day. Eventually though the opportunity will reveal itself again.
2. Use the opportunity to level up and start making improvements in your career and your prospects.

While I've been doing client work for five days a week for the last two years, the chance to level up has presented itself on a number of occasions. Each time though I've used the excuse that I don't have the time to make improvements or start learning something new, and while that is a poor excuse, it's what I did.

I'm paying the price for it now though. I'm still busy working for clients and next year's schedule is looking great. I can't always bank on having the same clients though in the next five years. They may no longer be using the web frameworks that I specialise in, they be looking for alternatives that I am not well versed in. They might even want to take a look at something completely new.

When clients want to level up, you need to be ready to level up with them. Whether it's technology, tools or processes, you need to be able to have enough knowledge to level up with them. To make this transition as easy as possible it helps if you can be the one that levels up first. Then your party of clients can follow.

So when the opportunity presents itself to learn something new, do yourself a favour. Don't ignore it.

When I first heard about Apple's AirPods I thought they were a joke. Honestly. After all they're EarPods with the wires lopped off. What happens if you lose one?

Well it seems that if you lose one you'll be out of pocket $69.

I think I'll stick with the EarPods.

via The Verge

Curtis McHale explains why tracking your hours as a business owner can improve the health of your business.

Tracking your time will also help you identify the most profitable projects you have. As you narrow down your niche this is going to be important information to have, since what is most profitable and what you enjoy most often coincides.

— 4 reasons a great business owner tracks their time by Curtis McHale

So apparently Evernote employees now have the ability to read the notes in your Evernote account. There is an opt-out feature in the settings but I wonder how many people will do this?

I started using Evernote when it first came out. Since then I've closed and re-opened my account a number of times. To me Evernote feels bulky and awkward. I've tried to use it a number of times, but each time I find the product too difficult to use. I last tried Evernote just over a year ago. I went for a couple of days before I closed my account again.

Evernote started it's life well as a product but in recent years it has taken a lot of criticism for it's usability, support, pricing and now it's stance on privacy. With the growing criticism you have to wonder if there's life left in the Evernote product and whether it will stand the test of time.

It's starting to look like Evernote has lost its lustre, which is a shame. I know a few people that use it daily to help them run their business.

If I was still an Evernote user today then I would be considering looking at alternatives. I use Simplenote myself for notes and there's also Bear which was named one of Apple's best apps of the year in their App Store.

Whether you're an Evernote user or not, you always have to consider the lifetime of the products you use. It's a small percentage of products that stand the test of time and maintain their status as a wonderful product.

For everything else you have to ensure that if your product of choice folds, you can take your data elsewhere with minimum fuss.

My favourite calendar app, Timepage, has just been released with a number of particularly nice features.

Theme colours

The themes preferences screen gets an overhaul that allows better manipulation of the theme as well as new colours and the ability to use light or dark text for your theme.

Advanced Repeating Events

Events can now be repeated with greater granularity. One example of this is you can set an event to repeat on a particular day and week of the month and repeat it a number of times.

Better Notes

Notes now support URLs, flight numbers, email addresses and phone numbers.

There's a also a number of other features and improvements like synchronisation between devices, text size and calendar colours.

What sets Timepage apart from other calendar apps for me is the user-interface. It's not like your typical calendar app. Almost all calendar apps start from a month view and work down to a daily view.

Timepage is different in that it starts with a view the upcoming days and allows you to switch to a heat map of the month or a view of your day.

The iPhone and iPad applications both share the same look and feel but with the extra screen space on the iPad you get a split screen view of the upcoming days and what's happening today.

There's also nice integration with Dark Sky for weather updates on both the iPhone and iPad versions.

All I need now is a version of this app for my macOS and the set of Timepage apps will be complete.

I'd take the Kona Cinder Cone purely for nostalgia reasons. They are bloody great bikes.

... are the best wins.

My favourite mobile phone case company Otterbox are now expanding their product line to include chargers and headphones.

I'm pretty much tied to my Apple EarPods (not the wireless ones, they look ridiculous) as they serve my needs. I also have a reliable Anker charger that I use when I'm out and about.

I'm intrigued by the products that Otterbox are now offering but it will take a few good solid reviews to make me part with my cash.

... to be included in a list of such fine and esteemed bloggers.

Many thanks Kurt.

Patrick Rhone imparts some much needed opinions on the argument that paper is broken.

But I’m here to tell you that paper is not broken. I refuse to accept that premise because it can’t be proven. In fact, the opposite is far more likely. I don’t have to back it up, charge it’s battery, change it’s format to be opened by something else once the app maker goes out of business, or let it co-exist on a device with a hundred other things competing for my time and attention. It’s a technology that’s a couple of thousand years old and has worked reliably, virtually unchanged, in that time. It’s better than any digital solution in fundamental ways. Not the least of which is the fact that it has been proven to last for a thousand or more years given the right care.

— Paper is not broken by Patrick Rhone

Another argument against digital devices is the fact that many digital devices like this pride themselves on being thin but then provide inferior ways of organising pages within this thin device. They might offer search facilities which usually takes longer than I can find a page in my own notebooks.

Notebooks on the other hand have depth and visibility. Although closed I can see at a glance all the pages in my notebooks. If marked right I know right away where everything is without even opening it.

Michael Wade reminds us to get it done ... right.

In all of the rush to get it done, meet the deadline, finish it so you can move on to something else, it can be very easy to gloss over getting it done right.

— Getting It Done by Michael Wade

Looking forward to the sequel to Alto's Adventure.

Games on my phone are a rarity but Alto's Adventure are the types of game that make it.

I was on one of those consulting projects that seemed fine months earlier when it went on my calendar. My opinion changed as I dodged traffic and listened to carols on the radio.

— Scheduling Life As Well As Work by Michael Wade

When you notice something is affecting your drive, find a way to adjust your environment. Even if it’s a little inconvenient to others.

— Titlting My Mirror by Derek Sivers

Or even yourself. Hand writing my to-do list each morning is inconvenient but it gives me time to sort out the "must do" from the "want to do".

Finally some real news about The Last of Us sequel. As you might know from reading this blog I'm a huge fan of the first part of this game. The gameplay, the story and the characters were all such a refreshing change. I'm playing through the first part of the game again and I'm almost done. Might have to give it another walk through before the release of part two when it comes.