process > product

State of the Sam 2012, Part V: Work

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 16:03:26 -0500

As a full-time graduate student it might seem like the only “work” I have to do is centered around classwork. Doing the assigned readings, attending class, completing projects, writing papers, and taking exams is definitely a large chunk of what I spend my time doing. However, that only scratches the surface. I told myself when I came to grad school that I didn’t want it to dominate my life. I’ve worked hard to become more efficient and intelligent about how I do my work so I can have the time and energy to keep other endeavors going.

Let’s take a look at what my work landscape looked like for 2012 and what it might look like in 2013.

Classwork (readings, assignments, exams, etc.): From January to May and September to December I was enrolled in a full schedule of grad school classes. Needless to say I spent a lot of time reading and writing for these classes.
SamSpurlin.com articles: My article output on SamSpurlin.com has been severely curtailed over the past few months. The demands made on my time due to class and a little bit of lack of clarity with what I should be writing about has contributed to this. This is something I’m looking to improve in 2013.
SamSpurlin.com newsletter: For the first half of the year I was writing and publishing a monthly newsletter through my website. However, that seemed to stall once school started up again. I’m not sure if this will be restarted in 2013. If it is, it will probably be changed in format.
SamSpurlin.com Weekly Video Update: Another thing that I did off and on this year that needs to either be officially retired or revamped.
Sam Spurlin Coaching & Consulting: I was able to work with more coaching clients this year than I ever have in the past. I’m really loving this part of my work and hope to expand it in 2013.
Independent research: Over the summer I took on a research project while I was living and working in Prague. It’s still at a very early stage and needs a lot of work to move into something potentially useful. I’m also working with a classmate on another project that we’re presenting in Atlanta in February. In general, independent research is something I need to keep moving forward, especially if I get into the PhD program.
Independent evaluation: One of my classes this semester was developing an evaluation proposal for a real-life program. I met with the main stakeholder today and it looks like we’re going to move forward with actually doing the evaluation. If I get into the PhD program, this project will fulfill one of the requirements of my portfolio. Unfortunately, I don’t think any of my group members from class are going to actually be helping me with the actual evaluation so I might be doing this largely solo.
GettingHistoryDone.com: I started a fun little website where I could put quotes up from the autobiographies and biographies I read. I’m fascinated with descriptions of how people do their work and I’m also quite the history nerd. I don’t really have a commitment to posting regularly here so I’m not overly worried about how much time I sink into it. When I have some good quotes to put up I’ll put them up, otherwise I don’t worry about it.
P>P.com: I started this website to serve as the receptacle of all my writing that doesn’t fit with SamSpurlin.com. It’s kind of a mishmash of different styles, ideas, and themes but I think I’m okay with that. That’s basically why I created it. Sometimes I feel bad for not writing more regularly on it but it is kind of like GettingHistoryDone.com in that it’s nice to put something up when I have something to say, otherwise it’s fine to just sit there.
Claremont Coworking: One of my major projects while I was working in Prague was writing a proposal to give my university to start a coworking space for students. The proposal was written but nothing is really moving forward in terms of an actual space at my school. Opening a coworking space is still something I want to do, I’m just not sure how much time I can truly focus on it right now. I’m thinking about setting up the website and using it as a place to publish any articles I develop dealing specifically with coworking. At this point, the most important thing I can do is begin creating a community of people who are interested in coworking in this area. I’m not quite sure how to best go about doing that, yet.
Other entrepreneurial ideas: I’m always on the lookout for other entrepreneurial ideas to investigate. One of the main ones right now involves leveraging the presentation my friend and I are delivering in Atlanta.
Be a Better Indie Worker: This originally started as an e-course that was part business development for me and part school assignment for a friend. He no longer needs it for a school assignment but I think we’re going to keep working on it. I’m viewing it more as a living e-book/membership site at the moment. It’s still very much in the air and needs a lot of work.
TEDxClaremontColleges: I’m co-organizing TEDxClaremontColleges 2013. Organizing the 2012 event was incredibly gratifying yet stressful. I’m hoping the fact that I’ve already done it once and have a co-organizer this time around will make it more enjoyable. It’s a great opportunity to get experience organizing a large event and leading a group of awesome volunteers. Not to mention the contacts made organizing an event like this are second to none.

I think it’s safe to say I potentially have more than I can safely handle right now. On the other hand, maybe not. A lot of these projects are very long-term and only require a small amount of effort each week to keep them moving forward. At the same time, I don’t want to be spreading my attention too widely so that none of these projects are actually world-class and I’m mediocre at basically everything.

Looking ahead to 2013, I see a couple of changes in focus taking place. I’d like to bring back the newsletter but I think I might make it a quarterly endeavor instead of a monthly one that rarely gets written. Consistency is important and right now I can’t find the time to write a high quality newsletter every month (especially since I’ve only been averaging one or two articles on SamSpurlin.com each month). The same goes for the Weekly Video Update. Instead of failing at doing it weekly I think I’ll change it to a monthly video update. Another idea I’m toying around with is starting a podcast that will be tied to my site. If I do this it will take the place of the video update. I also know it will probably be more work than I’m currently committed to, so I’m not sure if it’s a good idea.

In terms of writing, I just need to do more of it. I think my idea document is a little bit stale right now so the first course of action will be freshening it up. I’m going to come up with a couple series that will be interesting for my readers while also helping me plan out what I’m going to specifically be writing about. I think shooting for one article a week is doable, especially if I don’t force myself to write something huge each time. I think I’d even be happy with one every two weeks.

Some of this is up in the air until I find out whether I’ve been accepted to the PhD program at CGU. If I have, I’ll have to reconsider what I’m committing to in terms of non-school work. Being in the PhD program doesn’t necessarily make my course work more arduous, but I’ll have to take on projects outside of class that will cut into the time I have for entrepreneurial activities. For now, I think a lot of these non-school programs are actually supportive of what I want to do in the long run regardless of whether I get my PhD. For example, if I get my PhD I still want to open a coworking space and do coaching/consulting out of it. Therefore, it makes sense for me to keep working on SamSpurlin.com, getting more coaching clients, keep trying to build Claremont Coworking, etc.

Wrapping all of this up, I see a bunch of projects that I care a lot about and am excited to work on. At the same time, I still have a sense of unease about how spread out my efforts are going to have to be to give them all the attention they need and deserve. I don’t have any good answers right now other than continually asking myself what is truly the most important and listening closely to what my brain and heart tell me each time. Projects may fade in importance, a new opportunity may arise, or my priorities may change. I need to be open to any of that in 2013.

State of the Sam 2012, Part IV: Software

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 12:06:00 -0500

A huge part of my life (both productive and leisure) is software. I spend a lot of time on my computer as a student, writer, and coach. My phone acts as an extension of my computer and allows me to do work more effectively in certain situations. I thought it’d be interesting to share the software I use and the reasons I useI these specific products.

First I’ll share my most loved/used apps on OS X and then I’ll do the same for iOS.

OS X

Spotify: Early last year I made the switch to exclusively using Spotify for my music needs. I don’t even have any audio files saved in iTunes any more. For $10 a month I can listen to basically anything I want and carry it with me on my phone to use offline. I don’t have to worry about backing up music files or filling up a hard drive. For someone who doesn’t care at all about building a library of music and just wants to listen to it without pirating, Spotify is perfect.
DayOne: This is a gorgeous journaling app. I’ve been journaling off and on for many years. I’ve been experimenting with using this app as more than just a journal — more like a daily log. I find myself opening it up and writing stream of consciousness when I’m feeling stuck or just want to work out an idea for an article. Lots of my most recent published work and school papers have started in DayOne as stream of consciousness pieces. The iOS version of the app is awesome in that they stay completely synced and allows you to quickly snap pictures and add text.
Dropbox: Dropbox ties together a lot of my OS X apps with my iOS apps. It also seems that Dropbox (and not Google Drive) is the go to method for sharing documents and files with my classmates in graduate school. Dropbox is amazingly seamless and I forget it exists a lot of the time. That’s definitely the sign of a good syncing/backup app.
Evernote: Evernote acts as my digital file cabinet. Anything I might need to reference in the future gets thrown into it. Any notes for projects I’m currently working on also get thrown into it. Its tagging and searching is so good I know I can find anything I throw at it.
Fantastical: This is so much better than using Calendar.app. I can just activate the quick entry dialog box with a keyboard shortcut, write “Lunch with Nate on Wednesday at noon,” and it adds it to my calendar. No drop down menus, no clicking, just type it like you’d say it and you’re good to go.
Flux: Flux is always running in the background and when it starts to get dark outside my screen starts to automatically get “cooler”. It’s effect is completely unnoticed after the first 20 minutes of using it until you decide to turn it off for some reason and realize it’s saving you from looking at the blazing LCD inferno that is a computer monitor at night. This thing saves my eyes and I love it.
Chrome: My browser of choice. Every once in awhile it pisses me off and I have to switch back to Safari. But for the past year Chrome has been what I’ve used the majority of the time. It’s usually quick and has a great suite of extensions that tie in with some of my most frequently used programs.
1Password: Good passwords are a must nowadays. So much of my life and important work takes place online. If my Gmail account or any of my other important accounts were victimized I’d e in a lot of trouble. 1Password helps me manage unique and gibberish passwords to increase the security of everything I do online. It lets me not have to memorize a huge number of passwords and prevents me from not having the same password for everything. Everyone needs to use this app or something like it.
Koku: This is the app I’ve been using the least amount of time so far. I had been using Mint.com to manage my finances for the past couple of years but was never a big fan of it. There were too many things happening on that site that I had no interest in and either had to figure out how to turn off or just learn to ignore. When I heard about Koku I decided to give it a shot and so far I’m really enjoying it. Very simple and clean way to manage finances.
Mendeley: In graduate school you have to read a ton of PDF’s. My first semester I took a thumb drive to the print shop and had them print over 700 pages. For the past two semesters I’ve been using Mendeley to manage all my readings and I’ve even been doing the reading right on my computer. The ability to take notes right on the document, highlight, and create annotations is pretty great and goes a long way toward keeping me organized.
Quicksilver: Another one of those apps (like Flux) where I sometimes forget it’s not a built in part of the operating system. Quicksilver lets me launch any program or file on my compter without ever having to touch the mouse or trackpad. Once you get the hang of it you’ll wonder how you ever used your computer without it.
Reeder: I have about 20 RSS feeds that I check a couple times a day and for the longest time used Google Reader for that task. A few months ago I started using Reeder and have really enjoyed it. It makes it easy to go through a list of articles using only the keyboard, it’s clean and easy to read, and allows me to easily export articles to Instapaper so I can read it on my iPhone later.
RescueTime: RescueTime runs in the background and watches how much time I spend using various applications and the amount of time I spend on each website I visit over the week. Every Sunday I sit down with the report it gives me and analyze how I’ve been using the time. This has become a very important part of my weekly review and helps keep me accountable.
Things: My task manager of choice for the past couple of years. I know a lot of people in the productivity/nerd racket use OmniFocus but I’ve been a Things man for a long time. It does everything I need it to do in a simple yet powerful way. I’ve become incredibly proficient at throwing random pieces of information at it and because I’ve instituted a regular weekly review I know I can trust the program and my system. This piece of software may be the most important (other than Evernote) to my entire work process.
WriteRoom: I abhor Microsoft Word. I also abhor Open Office. I do all of my writing in either TextEdit (if it’s small and impromptu) or WriteRoom (if it’s something longer, like this article). It just presents you with a black screen and a blinking cursor and you take care of the rest. No formatting. No font choices. Just write.
TweetDeck: For the past couple of years I’ve been using Twitter from their website. However, this year I had to manage two accounts for a little while and therefore needed an actual Twitter client. I had never used one before and was skeptical about how it could be better than the website for how I use Twitter so I wasn’t ready to put down any money for one. That left me with TweetDeck and it has been okay. I may be changing this in the future.

Honorable Mentions: Bartender, Bastion, Nag, OnyX, TextExpander

iOS

On my iPhone I try to keep my home screen as uncluttered and simple as possible. I don’t have any folders on my home screen because I think my most commonly used apps should be available with as few taps as possible. What follows is a few of the apps that live on my home screen and I use quite a bit.

Chrome: I liked Chrome for OS X so much I decided to give it a try on iOS. It’s great. I think it’s better than Safari. Give it a try.
The Magazine: This is a publication that puts out a handful of “articles for geeks and curious people” every couple of weeks for $1.99. It’s a beautiful app and so far the articles have been great. Look forward to the new issue every time.
Instapaper: From the creator of The Magazine, Instapaper makes it very, very easy to read things I find online whenever I want. I find interesting things to read all the time but I rarely have time to sit down and read them the moment I find something. I click a button on my browser and it sends it to Instapaper on my phone. I open Instapaper whenever I want and the text from the article I was reading on my computer is ready to go. It has become a huge part of how I consume information.
Reeder: A lot like the OS X version. Clean, quick, and makes it easy to do what it’s designed to do, read RSS feeds.
Check the Weather: A very smooth and simple weather app that provides information above and beyond the stock Weather app on the iPhone. It’s completely gesture based and is tied into the Dark Sky API so has the freakishly good short-term precipitation forecasts DS is known for.
Things: When CulturedCode released the latest version of Things with Cloud integration I rejoiced. Now, any task I add to my phone will show up on my computer and vice versa. I don’t ever have to worry about forgetting something I need to do thanks to this app and its slick integration with its OS X counterpart.
Fantastical: Again, much like its OS X counterpart. Instead of messing with dials and switches as I struggle to add a new event I can just use my natural language to type in what I need to do, when I need to do it, and it takes care of the rest.
Downcast: I listen to a handful of podcasts and before iOS 6 came out podcasts was part of the Music app. I was never a huge fan of that app and it was pretty bad for podcasts. I switched over to Downcast and have been happy ever since (even with Apple releasing a dedicated Podcasts app). It lets me subscribe and manage all my podcasts with ease.

Honorable Mentions: Letterpress, Comixology, 1Password, DayOne, Evernote

My philosophy with using and buying software is similar to my philosophy regarding physical items I bring into my life. If I need to use it a lot, it better be something I like. That’s why I sought out something like Fantastical. I found myself resisting adding things to my calendar on my computer and phone because it was a pain in the butt. After trying out a handful of calendar apps I found something that made the process a little easier and removed that hesitation. For me, that’s worth $5.

If you find yourself thinking, “Man, I hate doing this thing on my computer or my phone,” multiple times a day you should investigate whether there are any alternatives out there for you. Chances are, there is. As long as you can resist the urge to fiddle with new software just for the sake of fiddling then spending a little bit of time to find something that works better for you is worth it.

State of the Sam 2012, Part III: Things I Love

Sat, 29 Dec 2012 13:20:54 -0500

I try to research thoroughly nearly every purchase I make. As an ardent minimalist I think long and hard about any item I allow into my life. I try to make sure everything I have and use regularly is something I love. That results in not owning very many things, but what I do own I tend to really, really, like.

I think an interesting part of anyone’s process is understanding the tools they use to get their work done. If you don’t think researching the pen you use or the backpack you carry around every day warrants much thought you might want to skip this article.

I thought about reducing this list to only things I bought or acquired in 2012, but decided against that a.) because I don’t remember when I got some of these things and b.) I’ve never done an inventory like this so I think it’d be more interesting to get it all out now.

To make the list the item had to be something I either really, really love and/or use a lot.

Black Sharpie pens (medium) and Pilot G2: I spent 95% of 2011 and 2012 using black medium point Sharpie pens. However, I realized the main way I carry these around is in my front left pocket. Since the cap is separate from the pen I kept running into the problem where the cap would come off and my pen would be floating around in my pocket stabbing me in the leg and getting ink everywhere. I decided to find a click pen to replace my go-to Sharpie pens and ended up with the Pilot G2’s. They write great, don’t get my pants messy, and have a good clip. Can’t ask for more.
Large black hardcover Moleskine plain notebooks: This year I decided I wouldn’t use normal notebooks for school. I do most of my note taking on my computer anyway and regular notebooks tend to get nasty looking over time and are kind of a pain to carry around. For the past year or so I’ve been carrying around a hardcover Moleskine notebook for all my analog writing needs. I fill them up at a rate of maybe 1 every 9 or 10 months so it isn’t prohibitively expensive. The hard cover and smaller size than a normal notebook makes them great to carry around and the higher quality paper is much nicer to write on than a typical loose leaf notebook. Halfway through this year I switched from a ruled Moleskine notebook to a completely plain one and don’t see myself switching any time soon.
2008 Unibody Aluminum Macbook and Apple Wireless Mouse: The computer I bought in the summer of 2009 is still trucking along. It’s starting to show its age in a couple places (for example, all of it’s little rubber feet have fallen off and have been replaced with little clear bumpers I bought online). However, it still does everything I need it to do really, really well. I imagine it’ll be upgraded in the next year or year and a half. Once the MacBook Air line switches over to Retina displays it’s going to be hard to hold back on upgrading my laptop.
Bose IE2 headphones: I had very nice Bose over ear headphones for a couple years. They eventually broke and I decided I no longer wanted to go back to the cheap headphones of my childhood. Luckily my lovely girlfriend stepped up and got these for my birthday in February. They are the most comfortable headphone I’ve ever worn and work great in every environment I tend to wear headphones, walking around, working out, working at my computer, and on airplanes. Love ‘em.
iPhone 5: I upgraded my iPhone 3GS in October. This is the first time I’ve ever been on the leading edge of any kind of technology. The phone is incredible and I love using it. I do a ton of reading and other legitimate work on it on a regular basis. Also, games.
Bodum French press and Mr. Coffee blade grinder: Nothing too fancy here. The French Press gets the job done and the blade grinder falls into the category of something I use all the time and not something I love. Looking to upgrade this to a decent burr grinder in the near future.
Trek 8.2 DS bicycle: Got this bike when I first moved to California as I had no other means of transportation. It has been doing a great job getting me around town for the past year and a half. I’m learning to do a little bit of maintenance on my own and am looking forward to learning more about that aspect of owning a bike. If I get a car in the near future I may consider selling this and getting a more fitness-oriented bicycle for future athletic endeavors.
Tom Bihn Synapse backpack (black): My trusty backpack officially gave up the ghost a few weeks ago. Following in the footsteps of Rands and Ben Brooks I did a susbstantial amount of research before pulling the trigger on a purchase. I’ve never spent anything approaching what I spent on this Tom Bihn backpack on a backpack before. However, I can definitely say this is unlike any bag I’ve owned. It’s incredibly well made and really a joy to use everyday. Considering how much time I spend wearing a backpack, I figured upgrading to a Tom Bihn was a good move.
Merkur Classic safety razor, boar bristle shaving brush, and stand: A few years ago I received a classic safety razor and haven’t looked back when it comes to shaving. Even thought I’m sporting a bushy beard, I actually do enjoy shaving with this razor. I don’t remember the brand of my brush off the top of my head, but I know it’s a boar bristle brush and it feels incredible on my face. If you’re a man and still using disposable razors you need to upgrade your game and treat your face a little better.
Remington HC5350 beard trimmer: Like my coffee grinder, this falls into the category of something I use but don’t really love. If I remember correctly I had to buy it in somewhat of an emergency situation so I didn’t get a chance to do much research. With that being said, it does what it needs to do. I’ll upgrade this when it eventually breaks but it’s not high on my list.
Green canvas messenger bag: I once wrote a whole article about this bag for a friend’s website. TL:DR, this bag is awesome and I love it.
Amazon Kindle Keyboard (2011 model): I’m still rocking my 2 year old Kindle that has a slight smudge on the screen and a crack in the body. However, it does its job well and I love reading on it. The vast majority of the books I talked about in my last article were read on this device.
OXO LiquiSeal coffee travel mug: This travel mug is awesome. It does a great job keeping things hot but event more importantly is nearly impossible to spill. You can carry it upside down, throw it around, shake it, and nothing will spill. Important considering I spend a lot of time with it in my backpack.
Teavana tea travel mug: Yes, I have separate mugs for coffee and tea. Drinking tea out of a mug that normally has coffee in it is not a pleasant experience no matter how much you clean it. This tea mug has an infuser inside it so I can easily steep tea right in the mug. It’s also incredible at keeping tea hot.
Classic stainless steel 12 oz. Klean Kanteen: I don’t like drinking out of plastic and I hate paying for water. Enter, the super simple and super awesome Klean Kanteen. I don’t have to worry about it leaking (see above) when I throw it in my backpack and it can take all kinds of abuse without breaking.

For what it’s worth, I wrote 99% of this article completely from memory. I know the name and model of nearly everything I own because I thought carefully about everything I let into my life. It may seem like overkill to figure out what your favorite pen or travel mug is, but when it’s something you use every day it makes sense to actually enjoy what you’re using. Sure, it’s a minor inconvenience to use a crappy pen or a leaky mug, but I’m a huge fan of eliminating as many minor annoyances as possible. It adds up over time and even the smallest changes can make a big difference if you let enough time elapse.

If this all seems a little silly to you I encourage you to take a little bit longer the next time you need to buy something and make sure you get something you truly love. It’s kind of addicting to challenge yourself to have as little, but as high quality, as possible.

State of the Sam 2012, Part II: Books

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 21:37:00 -0500

A large part of my process is the raw product I’m utilizing to write, coach, and basically just live. In the case of knowledge work (or really, any creative work) a large part of that raw product is information. One of my favorite ways to learn and expand my own intellectual horizon is through reading books. I’ve been tracking all the books I read since mid-2007. I’m a nerd for data of any kind, but especially stuff like this.

Let’s dig into what I read this year, eh?

The entire list can be viewed in spreadsheet form here.

In terms of sheer number of books read, it looks like I clocked in at 50 books read (and I have a few days to wrap up my latest so I might make it to 51). This puts me at 20 less than 2011, 14 less than 2010, but 8 more than 2009 and 6 more than 2008. Reading less than last year makes sense since I started graduate school in September but had essentially from April until then to read uninterrupted. In terms of sheer number of pages read (something I don’t track) I’m sure this year has probably eclipsed all previous years put together (I read a lot of scholarly articles and other non-book assigned materials).

The main genres are Personal Development, Psychology, and Philosophy (especially if you collapse all the Buddhism books I read into that category). That seems about right considering my interests. Somewhat unbelievably it looks like I only read 3 fiction books in the past year. Yikes.

Let’s move into a selection of my favorite books from 2012, a look at the books I re-read in the past year, and what I’m looking forward to reading in 2013.

The Favorites

Eating Animals by Jonathan Foer: This book helped solidify my reasons for being a vegetarian in a profound way. I enjoyed Foer’s personal story that essentially wrestled with the question, “What should I eat to be a healthy, moral, and happy human being?” Considering Foer’s novel-writing background, this book did not read like a typical pro-vegetarianism informational book. It was engaging, moving, well-researched, nuanced, and ultimately entirely worth the time and money.
The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra: Technically, this belongs in the next section as I read it in 2005. However, at that time it was an assigned book for my freshman year Critical Thinking class. When I read it then it completely flew over my head. I decided to revisit it this year and I’m very glad I did. I’ve been getting more and more interested and involved with Buddhism and Eastern thought in general but I’m also studying science at the graduate degree level. This book investigates how physics and Eastern thought are actually much more alike than many people realize. A dense but very gratifying read.
So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport: Cal’s blog has been in my top three favorite places to visit on the Internet for a couple years now. I love his take on how to become an expert and completely endorse his view that passion for our work is developed and not magically “found.” Cal’s book takes that idea and fleshes it out in a very accessible way. I think this book came along at an important time in my life as I embark (hopefully) on a journey that will culminate in a PhD. At the very least, I care deeply about being remarkable at what I do and this book helped me clarify how to do that.

Honorable Mentions: The $100 Startup, Enough, How Will You Measure Your Life?

The Re-Reads

In addition to the books I described above, anything I re-read this year is definitely worth your time. Here’s what I cracked open for the second (or third or fourth or fifth time) in the past 12 months.

Getting Things Done by David Allen: I tend to read this book at least once a year (usually once the school year ends). It always serves as a great refresher when I’m feeling mentally burned out. I’ve been “practicing” GTD for about 5 years and I seem to get something new out of this book every time I read it. This was at least the 4th or 5th time I’ve read this book.
Ready for Anything by David Allen: I seem to read this one six months after I read GTD. It’s broken up in such a way that it’s easy to sit down and read a chapter or two and come away with a couple insights about how to move a project forward, gain clarity in some way, or just feel better about the work I need to do. This had to have been the 3rd or 4th time I read this book.
Making It All Work by David Allen: I actually read this book twice in 2012 (once in May and again in October). In May I was struggling with some really big questions about what my future was going to look like. And in October I had just finished putting on the TEDx event that I had been working on and stressing over for the past 11 months. I had pushed a lot of potential projects to the backburner in order to focus on the event so I needed something to read to help me get above the fray and gain some perspective. This book does an awesome job at that.
Mindfulness in Plain English by Ven. Henepola Gunaratana: This is hands down the most accessible book about learning how to meditate I’ve ever read. It’s written in a very simple and engaging way and makes the case for why you’d want to begin a mindfulness practice in addition to showing you how to do so. I read it whenever my meditation practice starts to feel a little haphazrd.
Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: This is the book that started it all for me in terms of going to graduate school and pursuing a degree in positive psychology. I was fortunate enough to be a teaching assistant for one of his classes this semester in addition to taking another one of his classes. That inspired me to sit down with his book again and give it another read through. It’s kind of like GTD in that every time I read it I get something new I hadn’t noticed before.

Looking Ahead to 2013

I’m almost done with the A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series so I’d like to make sure I get that wrapped up in preparation for the last book to be published. Once I finish that I think I’ll start another epic fantasy series (any suggestions?). I’d like to read at least 1 or 2 of the Great Books to serve as a way to challenge myself. Finally, in terms of general genres I’ll be reading more of this year, I anticipate an uptick on the number of business/entrepreneurship/management books as well as Buddhism/mindfulness books. As always, I’m sure there will be a ton of psychology and personal development books thrown in the mix.

What did you read in 2012? Any recommendations I should throw on my wishlist?

State of the Sam 2012, Part 1: Travel & Major Events

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 10:40:00 -0500

Every year the president gets on TV and delivers a State of the Union address. The end of every year is always a great time for reflection so I’m going to do a new yearly tradition — writing a State of the Sam article (or series of articles). I’m going to lay out what a couple different areas of my life look like right now and how I experienced the last 365 days. Maybe there will be some interesting insights to be had. More likely, this will be something I can look at a few years down the road and see where I’ve been.

Let’s get started with the first topic: Places I Traveled.

1. Joshua Tree National Park: Went camping with Emily for the first time. We drove out to Joshua Tree National Park (about 2.5 hours from where we live) to camp for two nights. Such an incredible place and the place we stayed was nearly empty. Pretty awesome way to spend part of Spring Break.

2. Doha, Qatar: I had the opportunity to travel to Doha for TEDxSummit. The Summit was for TEDx organizers from around the world to come together and learn how to organize better events. I never thought I’d be travelling to the Middle East any time soon but I’m so glad I did. A great experience.

* Finished 2nd semester of graduate school

3. Portland, Oregon: Emily and I house sat for a friend as soon as the semester ended. Normally this wouldn’t be remarkable except a.) I’d never been to Oregon and b.) I was house sitting a “tiny house.” Really cool to get a chance to live in one of these for a week.

4. Prague, Czech Republic: I went to Prague for an internship and research opportunity and ended up living there for over two months. I had been to Europe before but never for this type of duration. Was really cool to slowly phase out of the “tourist” mindset and settle in to a kind of routine for a couple months. Would love to go back.

5. Berlin, Germany: While in Prague we went to Berlin for a few days to do some additional research. First time in Germany. Berlin is a seriously cool city.

6. Transcontinental train trip: I came back from Prague to my parents’ house in Michigan. Spent a couple days there and then took a train from Detroit to Los Angeles. Taking a cross country train trip was always one of those things I wanted to do so it felt good to cross it off my list. Cool way to see a large part of the country.

* Started 3rd semester of graduate school

* Organized TEDxClaremontColleges: After working on organizing this event for nearly a year we finally pulled it off at the end of September. It went really, really well. Brought together over 400 attendees and 16 speakers for a day-long conference.

* Cassidy died: My childhood dog died back in Michigan the day before TEDx :(

* Teaching assistant for Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s class: I got to act as a teaching assistant for one of my idol’s classes this year. His book is the reason I’m studying positive psychology in graduate school. Surreal experience.

* Finished 3rd semester of graduate school

See photos of the above here.

I’m incredibly lucky to get the opportunity to travel so much. I had a couple of once-in-a-lifetime experiences this year (Doha and Prague) that will be tough to match. Looking ahead to 2013 I’ve already got trips to New York City (first time!) and Atlanta scheduled for conferences. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to expand my travel horizons even more over the next few months!

Psychologically Speaking: Mind Over Matter

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 21:16:39 -0500

Psychologically Speaking: Mind Over Matter:

psychologicallyspeaking:

A lot of people think mindfulness is an outcome to be achieved. All of sudden, you’re once stirring thoughts will fall still and silent, and you will be in control of your thoughts – not the other way around.

There’s a mystical misconception around mindfulness. Mediation is something you can…

This is worth your time.

The post-event thoughts of a TEDx organizer

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 12:05:36 -0400

TEDxClaremontColleges happened on September 29th, 2012 and before too much time passes I have to get some thoughts and reflections out of my head and into writing. It is currently October 25th, 2012 — so nearly a month after the big day. I think enough time has lapsed to let the euphoria of pulling off a mostly successful event subside which allows me to look back at the experience of the last year with a more discerning eye.

The purpose of this document, at least in this form, is to simply get all of my thoughts about the event out of my head. Perhaps later on I will pull specifically relevant or interesting parts together into something publishable online, but for now this is going to be a mishmash.

In the spring of 2011 I found out I was accepted to Claremont Graduate School. I had been wanting to attend a TEDx event ever since I discovered what a TEDx event was. I think it was TEDxDetroit that first put the program on my radar but I wasn’t able to attend. I decided to do a quick search for TEDx events near where I’d be going to school in the fall. Lo and behold, not only was a TEDx event happening nearby, but one was happening at The Claremont Colleges in September 2011. Not one to pass up an opportunity to do something kind of cool, I found the contact information of the organizer, Jason, and asked him if he needed any volunteers. Jason kindly emailed me back and told me he’d love to have me on board. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), the vast majority of the work had already been done for the upcoming event. My role was relegated to putting up flyers around campus and passing out programs on the day of the event. Even with my completely inconsequential role in planning the event, I loved being a part of it. It went very well and I left the night exhilarated and ready to be part of next year’s event.

Since Jason was a senior at CMC, he was graduating in the spring and would therefore not be around to organize TEDxCC 2012. He put up an application to be the Main Organizer and I decided to give it a shot. I didn’t have any experience organizing large events like this but I doubted any of the other people applying for the position did either. I did have experience raising money and coordinating people when I was the president of the BGSU men’s club hockey team, so I was at least familiar with asking academic institutions for money, keeping a budget, and jumping through bureaucratic hoops. Plus, I’ve been a big fan of TED.com for many years and was really passionate about bringing people together who have things to share and want to meet other people who are equally passionate about their own ideas.

After a couple of interviews and conversations with Jason, he informed me that I had been selected to carry the mantle of TEDxClaremontColleges into 2012. Anyway, that’s the boring part.

I immediately recognized the main challenges we’d be facing as we planned this event. The Claremont Colleges are 7 (5 undergrad, 2 grad) independent schools that are all part of a consortium. The volunteer team consisted of students from all of these schools. It gave us great diversity in background and skill sets, but I knew would make scheduling meetings and getting to know each other much harder. Tied to the difficulty of dealing with 7 separate schools, I naively thought it would mean we’d have 7 different and varied resource pools to pull from while planning the event. While that was true in some cases, it mostly meant 7 completely different and mind-boggingly annoying bureaucratic systems to deal with. We also decided to expand the event from the 6 speaker, one evening affair we had in 2011, to an all-day, 16 speaker extravaganza in 2012. Jason put in an incredible amount of work for the first one so essentially more-than-doubling-it seemed kind of crazy. Lastly, the two other volunteers from 2011 who applied to be the main organizer in 2012 became my de facto “executive board.” This was perfectly fine, except they both found out they’d be studying abroad in the fall semester of 2012, thus not even being in the country when we held our event.

The first couple of months, October, November and December, were mostly pushed along by the excitement of being given this opportunity. I was still having a hard time wrapping my mind around what exactly needed to be done and how best to do it. Pulling from my Getting Things Done proclivities, my first attempt at breaking this event into smaller chunks was to break it into several discrete projects that could be worked on independently. This continued to be the main structure of our organization throughout the whole planning period. Progress was made during this time, particularly with reaching out to speakers and confirming their participation.

January through March was a very busy time for the planning process. With the flip of the calendar to 2012, suddenly the event became much more real. These couple of months were filled with presentations to the various student government organizations asking for money, filling out applications, and trying to project how much money we’d actually need without knowing how much anything was going to cost (not a fun project and particularly nerve wracking when using a personal credit card to make initial purchases). At this point we still had not opened ticket sales and we realized that our window for selling tickets was going to be very short since the vast majority of students (who also makes up the vast majority of our attendees) would be going home for the summer in early May.

In April, I had the opportunity to travel to Doha, Qatar, to attend TEDxSummit. I won’t go into detail about that trip here, but the whole purpose of the event was to bring TEDx organizers from around the world together to an event hosted by TED to learn how to run each of our own events even better. I learned a ton from this conference and was able to bring a lot of it back with me to fuel our last push of organizing before everyone left for the summer. We opened ticket sales a couple of weeks before everyone left for school and was able to sell a few. Not enough to make me feel particularly great over the summer, but enough to convince me that we weren’t going to have a mostly empty auditorium in September. It was also this time that I finally figured out the best way to delegate (took me long enough, eh?). I was driving myself into the ground by getting too involved in the minutiae of the planning and wasn’t using my talented cadre of volunteers particularly intelligently. I eventually realized that while I may have been delegating, I was delegating tasks instead of projects. Doing this got some responsibility off my plate, but I was still the bottleneck in the operation. Once a volunteer knocked out the delegated task they had to come back to me for a new assignment. I finally figured out I needed to be delegating projects and granting the responsibility to make substantive decisions, including purchasing things, to the volunteers. I’m very grateful I figured this out before all the volunteers left for the summer. Since I did, everyone had a major project to work on over the summer and I felt much better (although, not great) about us dispersing for May, June, July, and most of August.

These four months were an interesting study in communication and being okay with ambiguity. I think most TEDx organizers will tell you that the 2-3 months prior to the event is when most of the work gets done. That’s fine, except 2-3 months before our event my volunteers were spread across the country and I was living in the Czech Republic. Not exactly the best situation if you’re trying to coordinate a large scale event with approximately 20 volunteers. Luckily, my summer work in the Czech Republic was largely self directed so I had a lot of time to work on TEDx planning. Skype and email became my go-to means of communication as I didn’t even have a cell phone while I was abroad. The primary goal of this time was to get everything as planned as possible so when we returned in late August our number one goal would be to simply market the event like crazy and sell tickets. Remember, we only opened ticket sales a couple of weeks before everyone left for the summer (and while everyone was preparing for finals) so we had about 500 tickets to sell in approximately the month before the event.

I returned to the United States in early August and quickly hopped on a train back to California a couple weeks before school started. Instead of sticking around with my family in Michigan I decided after 3 months away from Claremont I could most effectively get planning for the event done if I was actually there. The month leading up to the event was a whirlwind of activity. Projects, such as how do you feed 500 people in less than an hour, started being wrapped up. The final touches (and in some cases, last second rewrites) happened with the speakers, and all the myriad of things you don’t even think about if you don’t regularly plan events cropped up (wait, we need garbage cans — where can we get garbage cans? The food trucks need extension cords, crap — how long?). Amazingly, everything came together quite nicely and we sold the number of tickets we needed to sell to break even — and then some.

The day of the event was intense, nerve wracking, and largely smooth. In fact, the most common piece of praise I’ve heard was that everything was so “smooth” and “professional.” TED and TEDx events pride themselves on this characteristic so I’m glad we were able to accomplish that. Of course, there were some minor hiccups. Especially as the main organizer, I saw many things that didn’t go quite according to plan or need to be improved, but I’ve been told from the attendee side of things everything went pretty well. That doesn’t mean I don’t have a whole list of things that can be improved for next year, though.

Now that I’m somewhat removed from the whole process, I think I can look back with a little bit more objectivity. Here are some final thoughts on the entire experience as a whole. First, I’m glad I did it. This was a ton of work and at times I regretted getting involved. Sometimes the weight of what I was trying to organize, a stimulating, immersive, and interesting all-day experience for over 500 attendees weighed on me. There were times when I didn’t handle the stress as well as I would have liked and it affected the people around me. That leads me to my second point — the people in my life I’m closest to were huge, HUGE, supporters. My girlfriend ended up getting highly involved in the planning process and was an incredible resource, both logistically and emotionally, throughout the whole process. My friends and family were all super supportive (I even had to miss my cousin’s wedding because it was also on September 29th). Third, at times I felt like I was potentially doing the wrong thing by spending so much time planning this event when the “right” thing to do as a grad student would be to get more involved with research. Even though this isn’t typical academic experience, I think organizing an event like this let me develop some pretty important skills for a future PhD student. At the very least, I showed I can take a massive and long-term project with a myriad of moving pieces and see it through to completion. Even though this has taken up a lot of my free-time for the past year, I kept my grades up (3.8 GPA right now) and traveled to the Czech Republic over the summer where I got involved with research. Sure, I probably could have done more school-related projects if I wasn’t organizing this, but not many people can say they organized something of this magnitude.

What about next year? Will I be continuing on as the main organizer for TEDxClaremontColleges 2013? In a word, no. I’m passing the torch to another capable (potentially even more capable) individual for next year’s event. However, I’m not planning on being completely removed from the planning process. I plan to stick around and help out as much as possible. I still love the idea behind TEDx and I think we’re still in the early stages of creating a lasting and important institution at The Claremont Colleges. I want to be a part of that. At the same time, though, there are other projects I want to turn my attention toward. I need to spend more time developing my business and writing outside of school. I need to move the research project I started over the summer forward. I have personal goals and projects that had to exist on the back burner for the past year that I’ve now promoted to active status. I’m happy to have seen this TEDx event to completion, but I don’t want the full responsibility of pulling off another event on my shoulders again.

I think I may have finally tapped out the bulk of what I needed to say about this experience. I think there may be a couple ideas for articles embedded in this document that I’ll develop further in the future, but for now this will suffice.

If you have any questions about anything you just read or are a TEDx organizer and would like to pick my brain about anything, I’m always more than happy to talk. Send me an email at samspurlin AT gmail DOT com and I’ll do my best to help.

The bookshelf as conversation starter in a digital age

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 18:24:48 -0400

I recently had dinner at a professor’s home. The first thing I noticed when I walked in the door was the bookshelf dominating one wall of the living room. While he was putting the finishing touches on dinner and conversing with my girlfriend, I wandered over to the bookshelf and started picking through it. My mind wandered to the idea of how much you can tell about a person through the books that populate their home. He is a psychology professor with an interest in mindfulness and Eastern thought and that was readily apparent through the selection of books in front of me. In a span of a couple minutes I had jotted down a handful of titles that looked incredibly interesting and aligned with my own personal and research interests.

The bookshelf served as a great conversation starter and several times throughout the evening he went to it to grab a book we brought up in conversation or to illustrate a point. It was such a physical manifestation of a life dedicated to learning and teaching. It provided such a physical and intellectual backdrop to an evening of great conversation, sharing of ideas, and contemplation of difficult questions.

Several years ago this scene probably wouldn’t have affected me as much. In the last couple years, I’ve converted to a 99% digital library. I no longer have bookshelves full of books. In fact, the only physical books I currently own are a couple textbooks I couldn’t find digital versions for. I love my digital library and the fact that I can have an incalculable amount of knowledge in the simple confines of an electronic device. I love how easy it is to access books when I’m nowhere near a bookstore. I love my conversion to a largely digital lifestyle.

But there was a pang of something in my gut when I realized future students I invite over for dinner will not be able to browse the bookshelf dominating my living room to get an intimate taste of the books that have shaped who I am. I won’t be able to easily get up from the table, grab an archaic tome that has a great illustration of a point I’m trying to make, and show it to my student. I’ve never felt that I needed to have all my books on display as some sort of personal intellectual wall-of-fame, but… I kind of want guests to know which books I’ve read. I want people to find commonalities in our literary backgrounds. And right now with the technology currently avaialble to me, I don’t know of a good way to display a digital library in an aesthetic way.

I’d love to be able to plug my Kindle into a device that projects a “bookshelf” on the wall for guests to browse. If it integrated some kind of technology that would allow them to “select” a book by touching it’s projection and have it automatically open on the Kindle — that would be incredible.

Perhaps I’m looking at this the wrong way, though. Perhaps our behavior will adapt as our technology adapts. Instead of walking over to someone’s bookshelf and browsing their collection, perhaps our digital reading devices will take a prominent place in our living rooms and the normal thing to do is pick it up and flip through your host’s library. It sounds invasive as I type it out, but how is it any different from what we currently do when we enter a friend’s home with books on display?

I’m not looking to turn away from my digital ways and I think the future of paper books is limited (not any time soon — but someday). How can we best display our digital libraries as a conversation starter, community builder, and common ground generator? Will technology change or will our behavior? Is there some middle ground I haven’t thought of?

Filling the Void

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 11:00:16 -0400

I’m going through a semi-interesting process right now. TEDx is over (more on that soon) and for the last 11 months it has largely dominated my attention. I got very good at eliminating the non-essential during this time so I could successfully plan this event while keeping up with my other responsibilities as a student and my writing & coaching at SamSpurlin.com.

Now that I have suddenly lifted this boulder out of the receptacle of my life, all sorts of ideas are rushing in to fill the void. This is a new phenomenon for me as I’ve been doing my best to repress new ideas so I could focus on what was front and center.

The trick, I think, is making sure that I don’t just accept these new ideas and projects without consideration. I’m trying to figure out how I can make sure my attention is well used even without a large project with an imminent deadline.

My Back to School "Manifesto"

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 18:38:53 -0400

Last night I felt inspired to write some thoughts about the upcoming school year. I’ve been a student or a teacher for basically my entire life, so I’ve got some experience under my belt. This list of ideas is serving as both a reminder of what I know to be true about myself, the way I work, and what it takes for me to be happy, while also “pumping me up” for what’s ahead. With some slight editing, this is directly from my digital journal:

Wake at 6:30 everyday (including weekends as much as possible).
Do a “shutdown” sequence everyday before I come back to my house. This sequence will consist of reviewing the upcoming day and making a plan of attack. After the shutdown sequence is completed, I will do everything I can to not check email or do work. Shutdown should happen sometime between 5:30 and 7:00 each day.
Make as much as my food as possible, including a light breakfast, a lunch I bring to school with me, a snack for on campus, and a good dinner. I will prepare as much food as I can ahead of time so I can minimize the amount of time I spend on this task.
Even on days where I have class in the afternoon I will go to campus by 9 AM to work. My house is not a place for work unless I absolutely have no choice.
One day each weekend must be completely devoid of work. Ideally, I won’t even turn on my computer. The other day should consist of my Weekly Review and preparation for the upcoming week — but nothing too strenuous. The week is for work, the weekend is for rejuvenation.
Weekends should be filled with reading (for pleasure), hiking trips, obscure coffee shop visits, cultural activities (when are you going to go to a museum, you lazy-ass?), board games with friends, movies, etc. Doing something other than sitting on my ass in front of my computer like I do 90% of the time during the week (although the occasional video game on the weekend is certainly valid).
Go to the gym 3-4 times a week and complete a pre-planned workout. This is your one time in the middle of the day when you can step away from work and push yourself in a physical, instead of intellectual, way. On days I don’t workout, a run (or at least a walk) are mandatory.
In the mornings, before I leave for campus, I will meditate for at least 15 minutes. I know myself well enough to know I rarely meditate if I don’t do it in the morning.
A lot of these statements have to do with *not* doing work. Obviously, when I’m working during the day I have to make sure I’m working with the greatest amount of clarity and focus I can muster. I seem to work best when I commit to 25 minute blocks of work followed by 5 minute blocks of rest (Pomodoro Technique). I will start the school year doing this, but I’d like to try extending my work blocks as I develop my capacity to focus for longer periods of time.
My “sticky points” for getting back into work is any time I’m coming back to it after doing some non-work related activity. For example, getting going on work after lunch is hard. Getting back into work after a workout can be hard. Hell, even the first time I open my computer when I get to campus in the morning can be hard. I will need to pay extra attention to these times and develop a way to jump right into my work without killing the requisite 15-20 minutes on email, Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit.
I am going to set aside one hour per week to go somewhere quiet, by myself, with a pen and paper, and just think about hard problems. Once I transition into the PhD program (hopefully) it’s going to essentially be my job to develop good questions and figure out novel ways to answer them. Most of us never take the time to truly get away from distractions and just *think*. I need to be able to think effectively. I need to set aside time to practice this.
I will continue to monitor RescueTime to see whether I’m truly using my time the way I want to be.
I will try to cluster phone calls and meetings into the same days as much as possible. A meeting in the middle of the day can ruin large swaths of potentially productive time. Along the same lines, I will never schedule work or group meetings, if possible, on the weekend.
All notifications on my phone and computer will remain off. No piece of technology (other than phone calls, I suppose) should have the power to interrupt my train of thought with some bit of inane information. I will check text messages, emails, IM’s and the like on my own time and under my own volition. While working I will turn off my phone.
When stuck during the day or feeling some kind of emotional or intellectual discord, I will use DayOne and type out my thoughts. I like using this as a hybrid journal/log. Sometimes I will go days where the only entries in here are the minutiae of the work I’m currently doing. Other times I’ll write more introspective or reflective pieces. The important thing is to use this as much as possible.
I’m working hard to develop a reputation of action, focus, and results among my classmates and teachers. To that end, I can only do that if my energy level is high and I remain healthy. I must take care of my body as well as I can by not succumbing to the allure or excuses of convenient food. I will eat whole food. I will remain a vegetarian. I will drink water and tea and coffee with the occasional juice or calorie-free soda as a treat. I will take vitamins and supplements that help me operate at my highest natural ability.
I’m conscious of the fact that some of my classmates realize I’ve chosen to live a “strange” (minimalist) lifestyle. I feel that it’s my responsibility to show how it’s possible to live an extremely productive and happy life without the excesses of materialism that our society tries to convince us are necessary.
Creative insights to intellectual problems are not borne of utter disregard for the world around me. I need to continue reading non-fiction books outside the realm of psychology. I need to begin reading more high-quality fiction books to help broaden my perspective and help in my ability to empathize. I must not forget that I’m a person with hobbies and interests that lie outside of school and academic psychology.
At the same time, I must work hard to develop the basic skills that a research psychologist, coach, and writer needs to truly excel. Not understanding statistics doesn’t cut it. I don’t have to be an expert on all levels of stats, but I must understand the techniques I need for my specific project(s). If I can’t figure it out on my own, I must ask for help. As for writing, I must continue to write as much as possible everyday. Not everything I write needs to be for one of my websites or school. In fact, I’d say the majority of my writing should be for my eyes only. I should be pushing my boundaries in terms of my style, vocabulary, and simplicity. As for coaching, I must continue to ask questions of those who have been doing it longer than me and I must continue to educate myself using the resources available in the world.
Much of what all of this comes down to is, “That which I feel like I most do not want to do is that which I must do.” If I’m tired, lethargic, and pressed for time I *must* be sure to meditate and workout. If I feel stupid with some kind of intellectual problem I *must* make the necessary effort to understand the answer. If I’m feeling buried under the work I must continue to rely and trust my GTD system.
Instead of letting the beginning and end of my days leak into my workday by getting up earlier and/or staying up later, my first course of action if I’m feeling overwhelmed should be to tighten up the current 8-10 hours I have scheduled for school commitments. If and only if I do everything I can to optimize my usage of those daily 8-10 hours (9-5/7) should I consider staying up late, pulling an all-nighter, or getting up absurdly early. Grad school is hard but it isn’t any harder than a demanding job. Get over yourself. Focus, do your work, recharge, get back to it.

The process of a weekly review: My checklist

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 16:11:30 -0400

I’ve been an adherent of the Getting Things Done model of personal productivity since about 2007. Over that time my system has evolved, grown, shrunk, and ultimately settled into a pretty comfortable place. The cornerstone of the system is known as the Weekly Review wherein I take 1-3 hours every Sunday to work through my to-dos, projects, and other commitments. I’ve been refining the actual process for awhile and just recently developed an actual checklist (seen below) for that process. It is highly contingent on my specific task management habits and software of choice, but may be helpful as you think about your own review process as well.

COLLECT PHASE

Gather papers from backpack, desk, car, notebooks, and anywhere in house. Add papers to physical inbox.
Look at text messages for actionable items. Add actions to Things inbox. Delete messages.
Listen to voicemails for actionable items. Add actions to Things inbox. Delete voicemails.
Check for starred emails that require action. Add actions to Things inbox. Archive emails.
Check note taking apps on iPhone. Add actions to Things inbox. Delete notes.
Check Chrome & Safari for bookmarks made during week. Add actions to Things inbox. Delete bookmarks.
Check Evernote inbox. Add actions to Things inbox. Move item to appropriate notebook.
Look at Calendar. Add actions to Things inbox.
Add starred RSS items to Instapaper.
Check Instapaper for Liked articles. Add actions to Things inbox.
Work through Trigger List. Add all items to Things inbox.

PROCESS

Go through physical inbox and add tasks to Things inbox. File or throw away papers.
Go through Things inbox and add items to corresponding Areas of Responsibility.
Go through Areas of Responsibility and add items to projects (if project exists).
Go through Areas of Responsibility and create projects for new items.
Go through Areas of Responsibility and delete completed, duplicate or non-relevant items.
Go through Projects and delete completed, duplicate, or non-relevant items.
Go through Projects and make sure all next actions are clear and actionable.

REVIEW

Check “@waiting” list. Do I need to follow up with anybody?
Check To Read, To Listen, Places to Go, To Watch, etc. lists in Evernote. Do I want to do any of these this week?
Check Someday/Maybe list. Do I want to promote anything to active status? Do I want to delete anything?
Check Project list. Has anything been languishing there for a long time? Why? Can I break the next action associated with it into something smaller or more actionable?
Check Calendar. Is anything coming up in the next two weeks that needs an action in Things? Papers? Due dates? Events? Make sure there are appropriate next actions and/or projects in Things.
Look at Areas of Responsibility. Does each Area have an active project? If not, why? What can I do to make sure I’m moving each area forward?

GET READY TO DOMINATE

Write out Hard Landscape for next 7 days. Tape sheet to desk.
Write out upcoming due dates for next 2 weeks. Tape sheet to desk.
Figure out MIT (most important things) for Monday morning.

FINAL REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. What was my time management breakdown? What surprised me? Am I happy with the result?

2. What did I do to improve myself this week? How many times did I meditate? How much did I read? Did I do any kind of self-education activities?

3. What project is most on my mind right now? What am I going to do this week to make sure it is taken care of?

I’ve been in Prague, Czech Republic for the past 2ish...

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 14:10:00 -0400

Clothes

Toiletries

Computer, other tech stuff, and assorted sundries

Bags

Everything I didn't need to bring!

I’ve been in Prague, Czech Republic for the past 2ish months. Tomorrow, I head back home for a couple days before hopping on a quick 49 hour train trip back to school. I’ve had a couple people express amazement that I was able to pack for the entirety of this trip in one large duffel bag and a backpack. Want to know what I packed? Here it is:

Picture 1

1 hoodie
1 pair of jeans
1 pair of tan trousers
1 pair of black dress pants
1 pair of Dickies pants
1 pair of plaid shorts
1 pair of khaki pleated (bleh) shorts
1 swim suit
2 pairs of athletic shorts
2 button up shirts
1 sweater
7 short sleeve t-shirts
1 long sleeve t-shirt
7 pairs of underwear
3 pairs of socks
1 tie
1 black belt
1 pair of Vibrams shoes
1 pair of causal shoes
1 towel

Picture 2

electric shaver + cord
toothbrush + toothpaste
floss
contacts + solution
deodorant
mouthwash
vitamins
DayQuil/NyQuil
extra contacts
shaver oil & cleaning brush
glasses + case + cleaning cloth

Picture 3

laptop + power cord
laptop sleeve
iPhone + computer cord + wall plug
Kindle + computer cord
lens cleaner + cloth
box of business cards + bundle of important cards
water bottle
rubber band “wallet”
passport
Moleskine notebook
pen
headphones
international wall adapter
physical book
Emily’s DVDs

Picture 4

backpack
green messenger bag
small burlap bag
blue duffel bag

That last picture? That’s everything I could’ve not brought and been perfectly happy. Good to know for the next trip!

A taste of my process from this morning.

Sat, 04 Aug 2012 08:58:26 -0400

A taste of my process from this morning.

In Defense of TED and TEDx (sort of)

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 06:19:00 -0400

I’ve seen a lot of criticism about TED and TEDx recently. Some of it is completely justified and some not as much. As a TEDx organizer and someone who has flown to the Middle East and back to learn about organizing a great TEDx event, I’d like to weigh in on it a little bit. This is as much for clarifying my own thoughts as it is a coherent and well-organized piece of writing. Bear with me.

First of all, I’m going to assume you know what TED is. Good, moving on. TEDx is a more recent off-shoot of TED in which independent organizers are allowed to put on TED-esque events of their own. TED lends its brand, style, and a myriad of rules the TEDx organizer must follow. The TEDx organizer puts together their own even in the TED style and it can vary from a small gathering of several people watching videos from TED.com to all-day events featuring live speakers and hundreds of attendees. The event I’m organizing, for example, will last an entire day, feature 15 live speakers, a performance, and close to 680 attendees.

If you’ve seen a TED talk then you’re probably familiar with the format. All talks must be less than 18 minutes long and most use no visuals at all. Those that do use visuals have very minimal text and are heavy on the use of images. The talk is designed to be very engaging and often features an “everything you thought is wrong” moment. This usually results in an interesting talk that leaves people motivated, inspired, awestruck, etc. A common criticism I’ve been seeing, though, is that this format often obfuscates topics that can’t be succinctly described in 18 minutes or less. Critics say that in the effort of creating an engaging talk scientific validity is being sacrificed. That some scientists are getting up and presenting their information as accepted fact when it is anything but that. As a scientist in training, I see that as a valid concern. A TED talk can get a huge amount of reach if it is featured on TED.com and if it is propagating bad information, that’s a problem. Supposedly TED is in the process of putting together some kind of system to better vet the scientific videos it publishes. We’ll see if that actually happens.

Another major criticism of TED is that it’s the ultimate elitist club. Tickets to attend the actual event in Long Beach are thousands (possibly tens of thousands of dollars, depending on the type you choose). Obviously, the average interested shlub from the street could never afford to attend this event. This is the part of TED that I’m really not interested in. It is elitist. They are also a private company so they can do whatever they want. There are even TEDx organizers who really buy into this same type of elitism. I got a taste of that when I attended TEDxSummit in Doha, Qatar a couple months ago. This was an event specifically for TEDx organizers so I got to meet a ton of them. I was struck by how many of these people were intersted in recreating the elitist atmosphere of the “big TED” in Long Beach.

The second aspect of TED, the aspect that invigorates me and made me want to become a TEDx organizer, is the spread of ideas. While the actual event is out of reach for most people, TED does publish a ton of highly polished and accessible videos on TED.com for free. This wealth of knowledge and ideas is truly inspiring. I want to help more people become aware of this resource and give them a taste of what it’s like to be at a TED event. I’m not interested in the elitism of having “only the best people” in the audience of my event. In my book, if you’re interested enough to buy a ticket and sacrifice a day of your weekend to come watch people share their ideas, I want you in my audience.

It almost seems fashionable to bash TED nowadays. I think that’s similar to bashing newspapers or books or DVDs. Bashing an entire medium because some of the talks aren’t very good or are absurd seems a little hamfisted to me. By all means, please feel free to rip into specific talks and videos that aren’t very good. The scientific skeptic in me thinks this is awesome and vital. But bashing an entire medium because you don’t like one aspect of it? Eh — I think most people can do better than that.

I don’t like some aspects of TED, I don’t like some videos TED publishes, I think some TEDx events are a disgrace. I also love some aspects of TED, I love some videos TED publishes, and some TEDx events are incredible. Let’s try to keep the nuance alive and try to improve something that shows promise instead of tearing something down for not being perfect.

Psychologically Speaking: Bouncing off the Walls

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 06:56:44 -0400

Psychologically Speaking: Bouncing off the Walls:

psychologicallyspeaking:

We love to give advice. We chafe when having to take it, especially our own. September 29^th, I will assume the TEDx stage and profess to have figured out something that seems to be holding many us back. Or rather, moving us sideways. It is something that I have playfully deemed “the bouncy ball…

The Process of Making a Major Decision

Wed, 04 Jul 2012 09:08:00 -0400

For the past several months I’ve been going through the process of deciding whether I want to apply to a PhD program in psychology. I’ve gone back and forth multiple times on the subject but feel like I’m starting to become a little clearer on what I want to do. I thought it’d be semi-interesting to share what I’ve done so far to figure out. Basically, I’ve been asking myself, “What am I thinking about getting my PhD?” every couple of weeks and then writing out my thoughts. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far.

June 11, 2012

Current thoughts: I’m about to head to Prague in a day or two and I’m excited/curious about where this possible relationship with Will is going to go. If we kick off some research and are even able to secure some kind of grant it seems like it’d be a great segue into a PhD effort. On the other hand, if we are very successful expanding his space and introducing some cool programming perhaps I’ll be pushed to do that after I graduate instead of going PhD. Is it possible to do both? Hmmmm….

June 22, 2012

I think sharing a document similar to what I’m doing here with my professors might be a good idea. I’d obviously polish it up but I think clearly articulating a.) what I want to do after school, b.) what I’m interested in (both topics and specific theories), and c.) my general thoughts on getting a PhD, could be a helpful way to frame a meeting with them.

June 28, 2012

Went to the pub with some of my coworkers last night. It was great to get a chance to get to know them better. The two guys with PhDs in our group last night gave me some interesting advice. After hearing me talk they suggested I not get my PhD. Granted, I didn’t talk about my interest in teaching which I do have on some level. I’m still very torn as to what I should do.

I think I need to have a frank discussion with my professors about my options at this point. Is it possible to straddle the line between developmental and org psychology?

I think I need to put together a succinct document that outlines my general interests, possible research questions, what I want to do after I finish schooling, and a quick summary of the state of the literature in my area. I could present that document to various people I trust and see what their advice is.

Summary Document (in progress)

PhD Summary Document

Primary questions to answer:

What am I generally interested in?

What am I specifically interested in?

How have/are my various activities informed or informing my interests?

Why would I get my PhD? What’s the purpose?

What am I planning on doing after school?

1. Generally, I’m interested in how individual development affects how people interact with their work and how our work (and perceptions of it) affect development. Are there things that can be done to support health development to our work? Even more generally, I’m interested in coaching, teaching, and the growth (in general and personal development growth) of independent work.

As an increasingly global economy, we are moving away from hierarchical company structures and more people are investigating entrepreneurship and freelance work. What effect is this having on individuals? Is it positive? Negative? How so and for who? Are people being liberated from restrictive constraints or are they actually forfeiting important structure by striking out on their own? How well do we understand independent workers?

2. The development of positive attitudes/expectations of adolescents toward work. The role coworking can play in brining positive psych to the community. How coworking can support independent workers. Combating the most common mental maladies of independent workers (procrastination, motivation, burnout, work/life balance/integration).

3. Life coaching/SamSpurlin.com: Has given me experience as an indie worker. Has shown that I enjoy the coaching relationship and want to develop my skills in that.

Locus Workspace internship: Has given me a look at how coworking works and how non-American indie workers work. Has shown me the positive impact that CW can have on people.

TEDxClaremontColleges: Logistically, has helped me understand how to run a large scale & long term project with many team members & moving parts. The trip to Doha put me in contact with many driven and passionate people (many of whom are indie workers).

UDM Hockey coach: Gave me experience guiding the development of young people. Helped me develop a passion for the coaching relationship.

High school teacher: Helped me realize how I seem to be wired for indie work while at the same time loving teaching. Helped me realize the skills that seem to be required in knowledge work are largely unsupported by schools.

4. After school I want to a.) continue to develop my independent writing, coaching & speaking career, b.) teach part-time at the university level, c.) open a coworking space in the community or on-campus, d.) consult with other coworking owners establish and improve their spaces, e.) be THE expert on positive development for independent workers (across the lifespan).

PsychInfo search terms:

“Freelance”: 37

“Independent worker”: 202 (3 on first page are relevant)

“self employment”: 1120

“time orientation & self employment”: 0

“time perspective & self employment”: 0

“well being & self employment”: 7

“passion & self employment”: 0

“meaning & self employment”: 1

“coaching & self employment”: 0

“support & self employment”: 63

“positive emotion & self employment”: 0

“positive & self employment”: 20

“positive development & self employment”: 1

“attitude work & self employment”: 6

“growth mindset & self employment”: 0

“grit & self employment”: 0

“initiative & self employment”: 1

“coworking & self employment”: 0

“benefits & self employment”: 17

“negative & self employment”: 13

“freedom & self employment”: 0

“education & self employment”: 75

“student & self employment”: 33

“complexity & self employment”: 1

“self determination theory & self employment”: 0

“Intangibles”: Self employment/entrepreneurship/independent work is going to grow in the future — I feel like that is a good prediction. Getting in on research now, while it’s still fairly small, is a good idea. I know I can handle the work of finishing a PhD. I’m good at finishing long term projects. I also know that I’ll probably be nagged by the idea of leaving something “unfinished” (which makes me think I’ll regret not going after it and will prevent me from being ABD). Having a PhD when trying to coach & consult will just help add to credibility (rightfully or not), which is a pretty major component of that type of work. It will also give me flexibility in where/what I teach.

So that’s where I stand. Have any words of advice?

Getting History Done -- a new project

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 12:18:09 -0400

Getting History Done -- a new project:

Just launched this today. A way to scratch my history and my personal development itch at the same time. Mmmmm — feels good.

What's Your Ideal Workspace?

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 08:53:00 -0400

I recently mused about consciously developing or choosing a workspace in the latest Conscious Living Monthly. A couple weeks earlier I shared an article I wrote about not working in the most perfect environment you can find. It may be that we subconsciously work harder when our environment supports the idea that we haven’t “made it.” Lastly, I’ve been in Prague since the beginning of June working at a coworking space. Obviously, how we work has been on my mind for awhile.

Today I’d like to take a couple mintues to describe what the perfect, ideal, workspace would be like. I think it’s a good idea to have the end goal in mind whenever you’re taking action on something. One of my projects this summer is putting together a proposal for an improved student workspace (academic coworking, is what I’m calling it) at my school. If I had my druthers, what would that space be like?

Physical Characteristics

Lots of natural light.
The ability to open windows.
Large, sturdy, simple tables with nothing built into them.
Comfortable rolling chairs.
Earth tone walls.
Wood or tile floor (no carpet).
Area of comfortable seating (couches, chairs) and a coffee table.
Area for making phone calls or having small meetings.
Blazing fast Internet connection and plenty of outlets for laptops.
Free coffee & tea.
Meaningful art on the walls (local artists, book covers of former students/faculty).

Social Characteristics

Welcoming to students who have never used the space before.
No (or minimal desks) so everybody is working at tables side-by-side.
Talking and collaboration is encouraged — if you want silence wear headphones.
At the same time, respect the work of others.
Introduce yourself to people you don’t know — especially people from other programs.
Facilitate an environment of personal development. People are there because they enjoy the work and want to get better at whatever they do. Not a place to complain about assignments or bitch about life.

Think about your favorite place to work. What is it about that environment that you like so much? I’d love to hear what criteria you’d include when you think about your ideal workspace.

10 Ways Personal Development List Posts are Ruining Your Life

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 05:14:59 -0400

List posts are the bane of personal development writing. I’m not saying I haven’t done it, I’m just saying I hate myself for having done it. Here’s why:

Makes personal development seem easy: “Only 10 things to do for everlasting happiness? Sign me up!”
Makes complex concepts seem well-defined & compartmentalized: When really it’s just some jack wagon trying to fill up a list of an arbitrarily chosen number of tidbits.
Gives the appearance of being exhaustive: If it’s not on the list then it obviously doesn’t exist!
Puts concepts into unrelated “silos” when they are actually incredibly interrelated: Kind of like number 2 but I’m writing a list post, dammit, I need more items!
Makes progress seem linear: Do number one, then number two, and eventually you’re a new person! (Let’s just ignore that #37 on the list contradicts #21 and that if you do #19 it’s impossible to do #2).
Keeps you (and the writer) from thinking deeply and with nuance: They are so, so easy to write (look, I’m doing it right now!) Things that are easy to write are rarely worth it.
Keeps you from actually doing any work: Are you working right now? Boom.
Gives the writer the appearance of mastery: “I didn’t put it on the list so it must not DESERVE to be on the list!”
Makes personal development seem like a to-do list: “Get milk. Follow dreams. Pick up dog from vet. Start lifestyle business.”
Supports uncreative thinking and writing: Scraping the bottom of the barrel to come up with more items for a list of arbitrary length is not creativity. Connecting existing ideas and concepts in new ways is creativity. Good luck doing that in a list.
Sensationalizes complex phenomenon: Anything in the realm of positive psychology and personal development is more complex than a list will allow you to be. Sensational titles will get you readers but will not make you correct.

I’m just going to go ahead and sit in the irony for a bit.

When I relaunched SamSpurlin.com I told myself I wouldn’t contribute to this culture of personal development writing any longer. It’s annoying, though, because list posts with sensational headlines are what get the most clicks and the most readers. List posts are like tasty candy. But when it comes to personal development I think we’ve all had enough candy. It’s time to sit down with a steak (which is weird for a vegetarian to say) and really dig into what it means to care about improving yourself as a person. That means reading articles filled with complex ideas, contradictions, paradoxes, and difficult realizations and haven’t just come up with 39 ways to say the same thing differently.

It’s not easy to do this and the ones who do it well are few and far between. I’m trying my best to join their ranks and I hope you’ll consider joining me. If we’re on the same page with this idea, please share your favorite blogs that would never publish a list post and are actually interested in complex ideas without easy answers.

I’d love to add to my list (**wink wink **).

The color of creativity

Sun, 10 Jun 2012 16:36:02 -0400

If you don’t want to be a creative writer, you should try your best to

Write things that have already been written.

Tell as many people as possible about what you’re writing before you’re done.

If you don’t want to be a creative product company, you should try your best to

Make products that have already been made.

Tell as many people as possible about what you’re making before you’re ready to ship it.

If don’t you want to be a better cubicle worker, you should try your best to

Be like everyone else, meet your boss’s expectations, and always ask permission.

Announce ideas as soon as they pop into your head.

Number 2 on each of these lists — basically announcing things before having actually done anything — is what drives me nuts. Face it, ideas are cheap. Execution is rare. Let’s all stop pretending that having an idea is worth anything more than the follow-up question, “Yeah? Now what?”

(via Practically Efficient)