Context sensitive to-do list

Artists tend to get the reputation of being forever forgetful. I’m under the conviction that we as Christ followers should manage our time well and use that resource to His glory. And with that, here’s a tool I learned years ago that may help you.

The context sensitive to-do list.

I recommend that your to-do lists be based on your current context. If you are at work, don’t have a list of chores for the house. If you have a bunch of things to tell your boss don’t have it piled in with things you need to talk to your teammates about. The context sensitive to-do groups information so that you are reminded at the right time to do the right thing.

I lead a team of artists, and I report to a boss, so my lists look like this:

• 01-Home
• 02-Work
• 03-Boss
• 04-Team
• 05-Creativity meeting
• 06-backlog
• 07-Grocery

List 1 is for things I need to take care around the house and in my personal life. Fix the drain, return the DVDs, etc. List 2 is for things I personally need to do in my job. Projects, tasks. I don’t open up my 02-Work list at home unless I remembered something that needs to happen in the office tomorrow. I add the task, and know that it will be waiting there for me when I can do something about it.

List 3 and 4 are my communications lists. 03-Boss contain items I need to discuss with my boss. We have a standing weekly meeting so I’ll reserve things until then to talk about unless they’re time sensitive. If anyone on my team wants me to mention sometime, if I want to brag to him about one of my team members I’ll jot it down when the thought hits me, assured that I’ll do it when I have his attention. List 4 is the same, anything I need to communicate to someone on my team goes here. This list is noted with the person’s name as such:

“Bob – Make an awesome video due:2 weeks” so that the person’s name is the first thing I see. I even include things for the entire team to share at our team meeting; “All – Read some awesome books due:1 month”

List 5 contains items I’d need to bring up in our creativity / service planning meeting. Again, best not to bother people with a question if I know I’ll see them in person at a certain time and can get a better answer. Unless it’s time sensitive I’ll hold the question here.

List 6 is for those tasks that don’t fit elsewhere, but I don’t want to forget. Having a back burner space allows me the freedom to keep my other lists very focused. And list 7… well, I don’t walk to forget the milk or that jumbo bag of Reese’s when I get to the store.

Have as few lists as necessary, and tailor them so you don’t drop information. Look at your week and look for your information interchanges. Maybe you have a weekly meeting with volunteers and don’t want to forget to tell them some things. Create a “Volunteer Meeting” list to hold all those thoughts until the right time.

This works regardless of your personal favorite to-do list application. Maybe it’s a note card. Maybe it’s Google Tasks. Maybe it’s one of 1,000 iOS apps… it’s not the specific application but how you use it. (But personally, I’m a huge Remember the Milk fan)

Project File Organization

It is essential for creatives to maintain discipline when working on projects. First, it allows you to be more productive and use your resource of time more effectively. Second, if there is any sort of collaboration it’s essential to organize something logically to save copious amounts of time.

“Where is (file x, or project y)?”
“It’s in the logical place, of course.”

I’ve heard that conversation more than once, which is why we try to organize all of our media projects similarly. It makes it easy to pick up after someone with less fuss and time wasted. Each team member may have a slight variation and that’s OK, it just needs to be close and have a logical structure. How to I personally organize my media? (click for larger image)

In general, most projects are structured like this. Under the Project name are five folders.

Assets
This is where the “stuff goes,” and depending on the complexity of the project, may include subfolders. The “stuff” includes video footage, stock artwork, textures, fonts (if the project is to be shared or archived), and music or audio. Purchase a voice over? Put it in Assets. Buy images from iStockPhoto? Put it in Assets.

Finals
The final rendered videos go here.

Inspiration
This folder isn’t always necessary, but if there are some specific inspiration pieces that need to accompany the project (clips of video, some still images, whatever) there’s a place for it to live.

Projects
This is our master working folder. Every major project file lives here including After Effects files, Final Cut Pro files, potentially a Photoshop document (if it’s a major part of the work).

Renders
A folder for all rendered elements. Render a piece of video from After Effects that is headed to Final Cut? This is the place for that. If I’m working in Cinema 4D I’ll create subfolders under this render folder for each TIFF sequence.

So that’s it. Nothing fancy, just practical project organization. I follow this 90% of the time. Don’t let the system rule you, but let it help you.

Context sensitive to-do list

More in the life of a productive creative. Consider the idea of the context-sensitive to-do list.

I’ve been a obsessive fan of to-do lists for quite some time. They’ve taken on various forms from a giant whiteboard to a small pack of note cards to umpteen different digital variations. At the moment I use a combination of Remember the Milk Wunderlist (primarily because of its well tailored iPhone app and its price of free) and Evernote (via the Egretlist iPhone).

The form you use really doesn’t matter as long as it enables to you capture the to-do when it’s presented to you and divvy it out when appropriate.

Enter the context-sensitive to-do list. The idea is that you create any number of to-do lists to match up with the environment you’ll be in when you need to execute the task. For example, creating a list for  WORK and HOME allows you to shuffle off ideas to the appropriate spot to be reminded when you’re in a place where you can actually do something about them.

Take that a step further. Create lists specific to the weekly meetings you sit in. For example if you lead people create a TEAM list to bring into that meeting. In that list include things you intend to share with your entire team, and include individual member conversations as well. Example “Don’t forget we’re off next Monday” or “Bob – status on your project” Train yourself to put everything, even small items, on this list to create an airtight system of passing around information.

Personally, I have 3-4 of these master lists that directly relate to a meeting I’m in. I use these various lists for my team, my boss, and other groups I’ll be around and it’s a great way to connect the dots of information.

Beyond that, you can fine tooth comb it as much as needed. I have a list of restaurants that have been recommended for my wife and I to try out. It’s noted by the city (in case we find ourselves in a nearby town). It eliminates the “oooh, I know someone said something about some place… what was that?” Tailor your context-sensitive lists to your needs. Assess where it is that you need to empty information and create a list for that environment. You could go overboard, of course, so try to limit it to the most important spots first.

Focus

Focus

Sometimes I have trouble focusing. Now is a good example. I want to blog more, but when I sit down at the computer my attention is so quickly drawn to other things (I’m talking to you, Google Reader and your 150+ subscriptions). So, I’m trying something new. Minimalist typing.

I had a copy of Write Room from years back. It’s a minimalist text editor. With the appearance of an old DOS prompt it strips out the clutter, the pretty, the distractions, and leaves you able to focus on just one task… writing. Here… a screenshot for you of me composing this post.

It seems to be working. I’ll open up Write Room, type my post, then copy/paste it into WordPress for publishing. Blog done.

I wonder how many other life challenges I could apply this to? What other tasks could benefit from stripping away all competing elements to allow for some really deep focus.

Probably most of them.

Back it up

Back it up! Today, consider this a friendly warning, but you really should back up your hard drive and your work. Sure, we all think hard drives will last forever. Everyone who hasn’t had one crash thinks just that. But it’s coming. And the drive will be inexpensive to replace.

Your precious photos will not.

So, add some diligence to your creativity and all some sort of automatic backup routine to your life. You’ll be glad you did.

Here are a few places to get started.

- Browse newegg.com and find a decent external hard drive (you can frequently find a 500GB+ drive for around $50 these days).
- Add a second hard drive to your desktop and install File Synchronization. Best $15 you’ll ever spend.
- For those on a Mac, Time Machine will do in a pinch
- Consider a subscription to mozy.com or google storage
- Windows or Mac users, consider using Windows Live Mesh to sync common folders on two different machines. I use this from my Mac desktop to my Mac laptop to create some redundancy
- share other options in the comments. I’m sure you have a preferred backup method. The important thing is to do it.

A place for everything and everything in its place.

A place for everything and everything in its place.

This is the mantra that must be repeated daily for those prone to always losing their keys. Or their wallet. Or their iPod. I don’t include phone in this list because 1) you can call it and 2) with iPhone’s Find my Phone feature and GPS tracking I find locating a phone is pretty easy.

But that’s a principle I would suggest to you, person who easily loses your stuff on an almost daily basis. It’s funny, I’ve come to find a place for my wallet, a place for my iPhone headphones, a place for my Moleskine. In my bag I have a particular spot for each of these things. I’ve been known to lose my wallet for a few days because it ended up in a different compartment!

However if you find yourself frequently frustrated because you’re always losing your stuff, master this simple act of repetition and discipline and you’ll find yourself much happier.

** Bonus points if you start clipping your keys to your bag with a metal clip. (Power tip)

Get organized

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of being organized. Sure, you can be creative. But I would argue that you’d be so much more productive with your creativity if you were disciplined enough to capture your ideas in way that allows you to get that idea back in the right context.

I’m a fan of Evernote, as evidenced by this search of my site. If your New Year’s resolution is to get more organized, start there. The free account is plenty sufficient to meet most people’s needs.

(and if you think Evernote is some passing fad, take a look at their blog post today of their 2010 growth stats. This chart alone is particularly telling).

Evernote power tip

Here’s an Evernote tip for the home theater owner. Take a snapshot of the back of your receiver and other components before you wire it up and put it in place. Then, when you’re feeling around in the dark you can use your photo as a reference guide.

And 3 years from now when you’re changing out a component you’ll have an archived photo so you can identify by feel where to plug something in.

Evernote power tip

If you use Evernote on your iPhone and want to import a large chunk of
photos here’s a power tip for you. Rather than using the built in “camera roll” importer that limits you to one upload at a time use your iPhoto app. It let’s you email up to 5 photos at a time. BONUS FEATURE: emailing from iPhoto on iOS4 also gives the option to downsize/compress photos when it sends to save you some space.

Just be sure to set up your Evernote email address first. The option is available on the app under the SYNC tab.

Clean Cable layout

I was really inspired by this article on Unclutterer about one way to manage the natural byproduct of a complex computer setup. I don’t know about you, but regardless of what I try to do to keep it neat I always end up with a rat’s nest. This might end up being an upcoming weekend project.

Make something new

If you’re a designer with an hour or two to spare might I suggest, instead of watching youtube videos or reading twitter, you consider making something. I like to take an image that inspires me (pictured below) and try to recreate an animated version of it in After Effects.

[photopress:Electrogarde_by_Biomachina.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

The result of 1 hour of work. (view here)

The benefits are several. First, it’s not a tutorial. You’re not studying the same technique that every single animator is learning at the exact same time. It’s constructive to push yourself in a unique way.

Second, you learn to problem solve. Working backwards from a result (the example picture) helps to hone more creative ways to process. In turn, the next time you’re faced with a project you have a new tool in your arsenal.

Third, because the project you create doesn’t have a home you can file it away for the right time. Keep that *.aep for future use. I’m sure at some point you’ll wish you had it.

Evernote for color grading ideas

Yesterday we talked about using Evernote to catalog inspiration and images. Here’s another use I’ve found much along the same lines. As our department grows I find it is useful for me to have visual examples at my fingertips for various things. If I’m looking for a particular look and feel (ie. color grading) in a video piece rather than say “oh, you know, I like the dark tones with a hint of purple and some glows in the red channel and some grain but not too much,” I would rather have a visible example to work from.

Enter Evernote.

Step one, use yesterday’s technique and create an note called “Grading” in your “Ideas” notebook.

Every time you come across an image in your web browsing that catches your attention drag it into that notebook. Done, saved, references are always available. You could get advanced and starting creating various notebooks for different moods, “Grading – cool,” “Grading – warm,” “Grading – sepias,” you get the idea.

And just for fun, here’s a cool way to implement this color grading technique into Photoshop. There’s no easy way to do this in After Effects, but you could render a JPEG sequence and create an automated action to process each frame. Or you could just learn to master color grading in AE to get a similar look.

The Match Color tool can be used to treat one image to look like the colors from another image. This tutorial explains how it works. Where we add to the technique is that you can literally drag a photo out of Evernote and directly into Photoshop making it available for the Match Color tool to use.

iPhone links

Here are a few loosely related articles of interest to iPhone fans.

First, if you’re considering upgrading to the new iPhone 3GS consider using Nextworth to sell off your old iPhone. My 8 GB 1st Gen iPhone goes for $106 and that includes me keeping all of the dock connectors (it’d be nice to have two).

Second, you are probably getting numb hearing me rant and rave about Evernote. But if you’re traveling this summer here’s an article on how to Evernote to keep it light.

Evernote for creative filing

It’s no secret that I love Evernote. Here’s a new use I’ve found for it. If you’re a designer or involved in the visual brainstorm process you will likely find this useful.

The problem I’ve faced is that though I’m good at looking at a lot of inspiration over the course of a month I struggle with a way to catalog the things that inspire me. I regularly use Bloglines to read material. It provides a way to “keep post as new” or clip an article but I rarely make it back to those files, and it’s cumbersome to browse them.

I also find myself on different computers when I have the free time to browse. I use a desktop to edit on at work (where I rarely have spare time), I carry a laptop, I use my home computer on occasion, and I use my iPhone for blog reading about 50% of the time. I needed a system for filing and amassing digital images (primarily JPEGs) from all of these sources. The images also need to be viewable from anywhere.

Enter Evernote.

I created a notebook called “Ideas.” About every week or two I create a new post within that note called “Inspire #,” incrementally increasing that number just to keep track of things.

With the Evernote Desktop client I can literally drag a JPEG directly from the web browser directly into that Inspire note. Drag. Drop. Evernote automatically syncs everything.

[photopress:ev02.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

[photopress:ev01.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

A few alternative variations are required to make this solution fully ubiquitous. First, on the iPhone there isn’t a drag and drop.

1. Click and hold your finger on an image for about 2 seconds, you’ll be asked to Save the image.
2. Launch Evernote. You from the title screen choose Saved Photo Note.
[photopress:iphone_2_1.png,thumb,pp_image]
3. Save it to your “Ideas” notebook.
4. When back in the Evernote desktop application select your Inspire note and the newly uploaded image note. Do this by selecting the first note and either Command-clicking (Mac)or Control-clicking (PC) the image. Right click either of the selected notes and choose the last option, “Merge Notes.”

If you are on a computer that does not have the Evernote desktop application on it (like my poor OS X 10.4 machine at the house) just save the image to your desktop. Then using the online version of Evernote attach the images to the Inspire note.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about another use for this image archiving technique.

Review: “Instant Turnaround!” by Harry Paul and Ross Reck, PH.D.

Recently I’ve decided to read more. I love reading, but don’t often take enough time to do it. Meg picked up a few books for me on business, leadership, managing, and things of that nature. And that brings me to this book, Instant Turnaround!, Getting People Excited About Coming to Work and Working Hard.

What manager wouldn’t want his team to enjoy their days at work? I suppose some wouldn’t really care about how his employee feels, and that’s really the point of Instant Turnaround. The way a person feels about their job directly relates to their performance. Multiplied on the scale of an entire department and it begins to shape the performance of an entire department and an entire company.

This is an interesting and refreshingly brief read about the fact that success is hinged on an employee’s discretionary effort. There is a baseline amount of effort that each employee gives to their job to stay employed. This is effectively C-average work. For a companies to thrive, its employees must operate at A-level.

The difference, according to Instant Turnaround, is that these employees give all of their extra effort to their work. They can withhold and partially do the job. But if they give it all the results are demonstrated in the companies’ bottom line and in the perception that the workplace is somewhere you want to be, not just somewhere you have to be.

And as I’ve heard before, “it rises and falls on leadership.” The book explains that the leadership above the employee sets the tone and creates the environment whereby employees feel they want to give their discretionary time to the company. How? You’ll need to read the book for a full, detailed play by play of the author’s four distinct steps.

If a manager focuses his or her efforts on the employee, on engaging them as a person, that person will feel valued and cared for. Instead of hiding away in your office tirelessly pouring over the stats and numbers Instant Turnaround recommends a manager put himself on the production floor, in the mail room, or with his people. Talk to your people, be nice to them, truly seek to learn about their jobs and what frustrates them. When an employee feels like their manager is their fan rather than their foe, they will be more willing to give their discretionary effort to the cause.

The book even advocates an manager join his employees in the trenches from time to time. Get your hands dirty, especially on the toughest of days, and model how you want your team to act.

I had a few points of contention with some of the book’s assumptions. What do you do with an employee who is lazy or has a poor attitude? The book briefly addresses removing negative personnel. The lion’s share of the story focuses on the more typical case, that the manager sets the tone and people want to want to be there.

Why is the turnaround instant? You’ll have to read and find out. Typically the results are seen in days rather than weeks or years.

It is a short read with a focused theme. This is not the kind of book that spouts endless theories and principles. Instant Turnaround remains on target throughout, and by the end, you know what Harry Paul and Ross Reck want to communicate. For that, I recommend reading it. You may not 100% agree with their advice, but it is a good, useful lesson for any manager striving to realize success.

Evernote – how to use it

Here’s a great article on how to effectively use Evernote for absolutely everything. It’s very GTD-based, which I love. If you’ve been on the fence on organizing this way this article will push you over the edge.