Unearthed Arcana for Web People

or How I Leveled Up in Two Weeks and So Can You

Clinton R. NixonSenior freestyle percussionistViget Labs

My Towering Qualifications

• Senior developer at Viget

• ¾ to full-time student for the last 3 years

• Avid role-player; elder on the Owlbear Council

• Two dogs, a cat, and married

• Occasional thespian and performance artist

• On my church’s stewardship council

• The laziest person I know

Two weeks a tale of yore

What I learned

• There is no such thing as a small distraction

• Resistance is both a blessing and a curse

• Accountability is key

• Searching trumps browsing

• Never do anything twice

Focus

Remove distractions

NoIconsJunk FolderUpdates

MinimizeApplicationsFilesStuff to Remember

Stop multitasking

• “You’re not paying attention to one or two things simultaneously, but switching between them very rapidly.” - Earl Miller

• Eliminate virtual desktops

• Go full-screen

• Turn off notifications

Make a schedule

• Without a schedule, I don’t get anything done

• But I don’t get a break, either

Resistance

My Theory of Resistance

• Make work easy

• Make pleasure count

Quit letting your computer get in the way

• Use less, simpler software

• Use software that fits with your system

• Use a text editor

• Remove junk software

• Use a Mac (or maybe Linux if you’re feeling it)

• Use a laptop

More keyboard, less resistance

• Set CapsLock to be Ctrl

• Learn keyboard commands for your most used apps

• Use apps that support the keyboard

• ⌘-?

• Specific tools: JumpCut, Quicksilver

• You can email all your tasks and notes to Backpack

• You can use many apps through Quicksilver, IM, Twitter, or email

• Hiveminder

• Remember The Milk

• I Want Sandy

• Vitalist

Funnel everything into similar channels

For my command-line people

• pushd and popd

• open (on OS X)

• alias

• Automate aliases to project directories

Increase resistance to make fun count

• Speeding through RSS feeds turns you into a skimmer

• Usually a skimmer who checks feeds too often

• Subscribe to less

• Read the articles, on the original website if possible

• My pick for a RSS reader: Rososo

Accountability

Open your work day

• Post your schedule in a public place

• Keep track of your activities

• YTBs

• Specific tools: RescueTime, Slife, Backpack Journal, Logbook

Personal agility

Searching

Searching trumps browsing

• Quicksilver

• Enzo, Launchy, Colibri, Gnome Do

• Spotlight

• iTunes

• Yep

• TextMate’s Go To...

• TAGS

• grep

• ack

• web search

• Gmail

• Delicious

Automation

Automation is fun

Never do anything twice

• If you do it twice, you’ll do it again

• Practical tools:

• Automator

• Quicksilver triggers

• Editor macros and snippets

Everyone who uses a computer is a programmer

• It’s not that hard

• Your computer comes with all the tools you need

• You’re already doing it, just not well

Thanks and questions

http://delicious.com/crnixon/refresh+arcana

http://crnixon.org

http://viget.com/extend

http://pragmaticprogrammer.com