Matthew Lang

Everyone has their own preferred system for getting things done. Whether it's GTD, maintaining chains, the pomodoro technique or some other method there’s something out there for everyone.

Having tried just about every technique possible and a few hybrids of I’ve come to rely on four basic actions that help me get things done. I've come to call this Grass Roots Productivity.

The first step in this system is ensuring you know what you want to get done. This starts with the process of capturing.

Most productivity systems have the idea of an inbox. A place to collect the stuff you want to do. Without this inbox you would be as well just plucking stuff to do out of thin air. Capturing is an essential habit to get into because without it, there's second step to getting stuff done.

The capture process is something I go through numerous times a day. Links, actions, documents, text and other bits of data. Each of these types of data have their own respective inbox. On the digital side there is Pinboard, Instapaper, Todoist and a few other places. On the analog side I've got a notebook and a planner. While the digital inboxes have very focused types of data being captured, the notebook and planner act as loose fitting items that don't quite fit anywhere else.

The way I do this is to have easy access to each of those inboxes. For the digital inboxes I have either email addresses or keyboard shortcuts setup to quickly save to the respective inbox.

For the analog inboxes, I simply leave my notebook and planner left open on my desk, ready to record whatever I need to. I use the notebook for capturing items on the go. The benefit of this is that it's a simple action of recording the task and moving on. No distraction by other apps or notifications or any other distraction that digital devices are famous for.

Capturing is an essential but often overlooked step in any productivity system. Without capturing we don't have any sensible place to start and we always need a place to start.

Great advice for programmers and anyone building a product.

In this mindset, each day your task is to fight from failure to success. You no longer are so willing to compromise, or to sweep seemingly small challenges under the rug.

Instead, you aggressively seek out challenges and problems, and attempt to eliminate them in order to salvage the already failing project.

— Failing on Day One by Thoughtbot

Text replacement utilities like TextExpander can make a big difference in the amount of time you spend typing. From email signatures to emails for clients, I used TextExpander for all of sorts of things. TextExpander's licence meant that I was only paying a minimum amount for the desktop tool, but it's where I used it the most.

When I first heard about TextExpander's price change to a subscription model I was hesitant to make any fast reactions. Over the days that followed though I was increasingly convinced that the new pricing model was not for me.

I don't have any problems paying for the software I use. If it has value and is reasonably priced then I'll keep paying. Regardless of whether it's a monthly subscription or intermediate upgrades. It's the only way that you can support the makers of the software that you find valuable.

A big change to the TextExpander app was that your snippets are sent to TextExpander servers so that they could be pushed to your other devices with TextExpander on it. I didn’t find the need to use that particular feature so I started to think that maybe TextExpander wasn’t a good fit for me anymore.

TextExpander's change to a subscription model might be okay for others, but for me it was a step in the wrong direction. I understand that they have a business to run and that relies on a steady revenue but what was wrong with more frequent releases of their desktop app? I would gladly have paid for a single license for the cost of a year as long as it came with frequent updates.

At the end of the day I just didn’t find the value in paying for the features of a software product that I would rarely use.

Some months ago I'd decided to use Atom as my go to text editor for day to day programming. I had been hearing good things about Atom for a while and the popularity of its packages means that I could easily switch to Atom with no major interruption in my workflow. There was one thing I wasn't counting on though.

Atom is slow. Not slow that it makes a huge impact on my day but slow enough that it leaves me hanging for a few seconds after certain operations. Even opening a project can have a lag of a few seconds.

Coming from Sublime Text this was a huge disappointment. Sublime Text has always been a fast text editor. Even the indexing of files within the project you are working on is fast. Opening files, creating panes, finding and replacing, all lightning quick. And much faster than Atom.

Speed isn't a major factor when you've done a single days coding but adding all those little seconds up over a period of a year and you'll have a significant amount of time.

Fellow Scot Ian Dick highlights some areas of technology where Apple are falling behind.

Apple also seems to be out of the AR/VR loop. It’s computer hardware can’t drive an Oculus although on the mobile side it could easily launch AR support as the hardware in the iPhone is extremely capable.

— Placing Bets by Ian Dick

I can't help but wonder though if things like VR are at the stage where Apple or any other company should be worrying about it.

Zapier is an automation tool that integrated with hundreds of products and services on the Internet. It makes integrating tools together simple and also has multiple step workflows.

The problem with Zapier is that while all this automation is handy for repetitive workflows, I started to question the need for such automation and whether I truly needed it.

Let's take FormKeep as an example. I use FormKeep as a way of allowing people to contact me regardless of the blog platform I am using. I have a contact form on this blog and one on my web development blog. If I receive a contact form submission from someone, FormKeep will send me an email to let me know.

Using Zapier I could do the following with the submission:

1. Send the clients details to my CRM
2. Create a task to review the client's request
3. Create a task to reply back to them within two days

I would do all this anyway, so is there any need for me to automate these steps? Probably not.

Also not all form submissions I get are potential clients looking for me to work with them. Some submissions are general questions about Ruby on Rails, some are offers of full-time work and some are questions about previous topics I have written about. So automating this can result in a false positive and mean that I have to remove tasks from my task manager and contact details from my CRM.

The false positive of automation means that it only works if the intended result of the automation is always going to be the same. If there's a shadow of a doubt that there could be a wrong end result then automation isn't a good fit.

Automation isn't all bad and I still need an automation tool so I have created an account at IFTTT as it offers the simple automation I need but without the cost. I'm not worried if IFTTT disappear over night as it's a form of automation that I can happily live without but I use it just because it helps.

I've been scaling back on a few tools that I use regularly and it's made working a lot easier and removed the need for automation. Zapier is great for multi-step workflows that will always deliver the intended result, but for me it's become a tool I can do without.

Many people use Buffer as a tool to automate the process of sharing links to social networks. I even used it for a while to do this. I have no complaints with the Buffer product. It's reliable and user friendly. A couple of weeks ago though I decided to cancel my subscription with them. There's a number of reasons why I did this.

Limited value in sharing

One of Buffer's unique selling points is that it automates the step of sharing a link at a specific date and time. This allows you to queue links to your social media accounts so that you gradually share these links over a period of time. Recently though I've started to question the value in regularly sharing other people's links on social media.

My preferred programming language is Ruby. I already subscribe to a number of blogs, podcasts and newsletters about this language and the Ruby on Rails web framework. As a web developer I see the value in consuming these links for myself but I don't see the value in sharing these links on social media. There's already a good content funnel for digesting these links, other developers just need to find it.

I do share the odd link every now and again but not at the volume that warrants my use of Buffer.

Better analytics with Twitter

When Buffer first started one of its unique selling points is that it has analytics on the links that you shared to your social networks. I can't say how good these are for other social networks, but the analytics on Twitter links are good.

Recently though I've added the analytics on both of these accounts and I've found them to be more informative than what Buffer has to offer as Twitter's analytics cover more than just clicks. I'm not religious about my analytics but once a month I'll check them to see if there was anything that received significantly more clicks.

Minimal social media footprint

I've got two accounts on Twitter that I use. One is my own account and the other is for my freelancing business. With just two accounts to manage and the fact I only use one account for sharing links on a frequent basis, I can't see the point in using Buffer for queuing up links when I can easily do it on my own.

Buffer is a useful tool if you have a content sharing funnel that needs regular updates to your social media accounts, but as I'm running just a freelancing business and regularly post in my own links to my blog, I don't see the value in having a Buffer account, even if it is just the free account. The benefit to this is that I've got one less account to worry about.

Some suggestions for alternatives to the workplace social network.