Missing Link

For most of my life I’ve survived, even thrived, on what I call “organized chaos”.  All around me would be heaps of “stuff” that was haphazardly scattered around with no real organization.  In short – I lived and worked in a “mess”.   I knew the general location of most of the stuff in the “mess” but I tended to delay and procrastinate whenever I needed to actually find any specific thing.  While I would often try to convince myself – and others – that I was perfectly organized ( the old argument “I know exactly where everything is until you come in and try to ‘clean’ everything!”) deep down I knew I wasn’t, and my productivity was suffering because of it.

Fast forward a few years and I find myself with a much different outlook. Gone are the days when a mess is acceptable to me. In some sick twist of fate I can now hear my mother saying “I told you so” as I find myself craving order and cleanliness in my work and home life. I CRAVE clean spaces, especially work spaces.  I’ve found that nothing promotes inspiration and productivity in me better than a nice, clean, well organized space in which to BE productive. (continue reading…)

Change is inevitable.  As the year goes by winter gives way to spring,  which changes to summer, on to fall and back to winter.  Society changes over the course of years and decades – the underlying values which build the foundation of everything we know and do evolves and changes.  Change is all around us, an ever-present part of life.

When I was growing up I had no idea who I would be as an adult. In grade school I thought it would be neat to be a fireman, or an astronaut, or a police officer.  I wanted to be a hero – just like every other kid.  In high school I was involved in the dark and subversive counter -culture on the internet.  I found cracking (hacking) to be fun and it stimulated my mind to deal with new and advanced technology.  I was also a rebellious teenager, so the underworld on the Internet was a perfect fit for me.  If you told me then what I would ultimately end up doing with my life, I would have laughed you out of the room.  It seemed unfathomable at the time. (continue reading…)

Throughout life everybody is faced with decisions that will forever change their life.  For quite a while now I have wanted to leave Indianapolis and move to someplace new and exciting.  With Ann in school that has been impossible.  Recently, Ann and I made a decision regarding our life plans – we are (not) moving (to another state).

I can already hear you asking yourself “why did he write it like that?!”.  The answer is simple – while we ARE moving, we are NOT moving out of state, or even to a different city.  After several weeks of discussions with my parents, we have come to an agreement to buy their house.

This is a pretty exciting move for both Ann and myself.   Not only is this the house that I grew up in, but it’s also the place where we had our wedding reception.  Above and beyond the value of a larger house that’s perfect for raising a family – it also holds an immense amount of sentimental value for both of us.

While we had always planned on getting a larger house at some point, I can admit this is a bit sooner than we had intended to do so.  It feels like we just finished settling into this house, and now we’re going to be moving.  It’s a fair bit of additional stress as we plod forward making and finalizing plans,  making lists of all of the things we’ll need to do,  and planning for “The Big Move”.   We have also made arrangements to sell our existing house, and have all of the pre-closing things that need to be completed for that as well.

I think we’ll be quite happy when the whole process is completed and we can settle into the new house.

As I wrote yesterday – I use technology when it’s faster and easier than the alternative.  In the same vein, I’ve found that technology must be easy and intuitive or I won’t want to continue using it.  This isn’t a new concept – it’s common sense.

If you look at technology that’s been wildly successful – like Twitter or the iPod – you will see examples of things that are dead simple to use and understand.  Nobody has hours to spend learning how to use or configure new technology,  we just want something that works, out of the box, with little or no configuration. (continue reading…)

Part of the GTD system that I’ve recently implemented in my life is a general reference system using clearly labeled files.  I took the advice David Allen provides and got a label maker and plenty of plain old file folders, and have been making reference files left and right as needed.  It’s actually become fun (something I never imagined would happen).  It has even proven to be quiet useful.

Late last week one of my coworkers needed some information to write up some firewall rules for one of our branch offices.  I happened to have already written up such rules for another office and had all of the requisite port and IP information in a reference file I created when I did that work. Within a matter of seconds I was able to pull out the file folder and hand it to him, providing him with all of the information he would need. (continue reading…)