Matthew Lang

Amazing photograph.

via Mme Scherzo

... with some teaser posters from the fans. Really like this one.

via DBSW

It's been over a year now since Journalong was launched and since it's launch, the total number of customers is still less than triple figures. Okay, so I wasn't expecting to be the next Dropbox of the journalling world in terms of success, but hitting my milestone of a hundred customers would be nice.

I still believe there is a place for a product like Journalong in the world, but I'm definitely not attracting increasing numbers of customers with the current pricing model. What got me thinking about this was the recent product announcements from 37signals for their Basecamp Personal and Breeze products which are priced as one off purchases. Sure, these are products that will hang off Basecamp, but the idea of a one off price for software is something that is done in the native mobile apps area. Lots of apps are priced as a one-off purchase rather than as a subscription. Journalong has been priced as a subscription service from the start but is it priced right?

While $10 a year sounds cheap as chips to some people, others look at as expensive. I fork out about $50 (US) per month on software subscriptions and I use everyone of them daily. Some are a couple of dollars a month, while one almost hits the $20 mark. So, I'm used to seeing value that software can provide and pay for it.

Which brings me to my next question. Does Journalong provide value? For me, most definitely yes. For others? Maybe not. Journalong definitely delivers value in my eyes, but I also need to determine if that value is worth the current subscription price.

Pricing and value are two of the most important areas in a successful product. Without getting the price and value right for your product, you're going to be left with a product that no-one is going to pay for and use.

So if you've created an account for a trial of Journalong in the last year but didn't fancy it, then expect an email from myself in the next few weeks. I'm looking to get more feedback on Journalong as a product and whether it is delivering value.

Goal setting. How many different methods have you tried? Lots? So have I, and every time I tried to use them I failed to reach the goal. Inevitably when I focus on one goal, everything else suffers. A few years ago I tried freelancing at night, however after month I was flat out exhausted and I the time I had to spend with my family also suffered. At the time I focused on the goal without seeing the rest of the world.

Last year though I tried something different. I used compass points.

Compass points are Nicholas Bate's strategy for making sure that goals in each aspect of life are moving forward goals in life that are based on aspects of your life. We all have different aspects in life, but when people set goals, they tend to focus on a specific set of goals and forget everything else in life.

The compass points that Nicholas Bate uses are:

• Career
• Mind/Body
• Personal Finance
• Relationships
• Fun
• Contribution

Now before you jump in and start assigning next actions to each of these compass points, take a step back. Each of these compass points are different and therefore require a different plan. Maintaining a healthy diet and exercise is different to advancing your career. Being healthy means regular exercise and of course eating healthily, but advancing your career might involve a training course at a local college. Also, compass points are not independent of each other. Focusing on one compass point for too long will likely have a negative affect on the other five compass points.

I used these compass points last year and had some success with them. Obviously, there's things in life that affect your plans and goals, but last year I advanced my career and I had some success with getting my finances in order and I made some open source contributions. I didn't set goals for all the compass points, but it did keep me focused on trying to maintain a balance between all of them. I'm using the compass points again this year, but with more of a focus on achieving a goal with each of them.

Nicholas has full blog post and free download on using compass points, which I highly recommend you read.

I would fail at this as well.

via xkcd

via Pedal Consumption

A new bike to lust after.

via BikeRadar

I'm not the first person to realise this, but productivity apps don't work for me. I've tried countless apps and services but none of them seem to work for me. The recurring problem I have is that all of them require me to be online or have a digital device in my hand. I like my iPhone, but using a task manager app on my phone usually ends up becoming a chore that I could do without.

My latest experiment was using Wunderlist to track some projects I've been working on. I setup the necessary lists I needed and started working with them. However after a few weeks of using it I ended up with lists of stuff that I haven't looked at for a fortnight.

Maybe it's just me, but tools like Evernote, Things, Omnifocus, and Wunderlist and other apps that aim to make you more productive, inevitably become dumping grounds for ideas, todos and other stuff that I end up never reviewing or actioning.

So what works for me then?

Pen and paper seems to be the choice that I keep coming back too. It's simple, effective and cheap, but not in terms of price. In terms of focus. I never get distracted by the latest features of pen and paper. There aren't any. I just open, write and close.

There's a place for productivity apps in my workflow and that's when you are collaborating with others as part of a team. Seeing what tasks are yours and sharing information in a group of people working on a project together is essential to making progress. I've no arguments with using productivity apps in this context. Especially when that team isn't in the same physcial office as is the case with so many people who take advantage of telecommuting to their job.

However, for personal projects and products I'm working on and day to day stuff that life throws at you, I'll stick with the lo-fi option of pen and paper. It works for me and that's what matters.

The fixed gear bike. Two wheels. One gear. Brakes, optional. Simple really. And that's the reason why the fixed gear bike is loved by many cyclists. It's a simple bike. Amongst it's carbon fibre, multi-geared brethren, it looks out of place, but it has a special place in the hearts of many cyclists. It's a bike with a single function, it just lets you ride.

Now take a look at Pop, the text editor for iOS from Minimal Tools. A single page text editor that offers no settings, no file management facilities, no synchronising with Dropbox. In fact there aren't any features about it. All you can do is write something with it and then copy what you have written to the clipboard. Why the hell would you want to buy this app then when all editors for iOS do this?

Well Pop does one thing that no other editor I have does. It doesn't distract me. It doesn't have anything to distract me with. It just lets me write.

We need more products like Pop and fixed gear bikes. Simple things that do one thing really well. Simple products let you do what you really want to do without any distractions.