Posted by Paul Ryan, Editor, Anthill Magazine

The human desire to work more effectively pre-dates the pyramids. Entire forests have been razed in the production of roadmaps to boosting personal organisation and productivity. (The seminal book Getting Things Done (GTD), by American productivity guru Dave Allen, alone must surely have a carbon footprint to rival that of a middle-tier European nation.)

Modern technology and information overload have been good for business for the “life hacking” industry. Just ask Tim Ferriss, author of The Four-Hour Work Week, who has grown famous disseminating his seductive thesis that teaches us how to work more effectively and much, much less. (Read Valerie Khoo’s recent profile of Ferriss in Anthill.)

It’s an intriguing prospect and an eyeball-popping title. But begin implementing GTD methods and one quickly realises that, like new diets or ab crunch machines advertised on TV when viewers are at their most vulnerable, there are no shortcuts. Productivity is about focus, and focus is about casting aside all that splinters and erodes focus.

I recently stumbled on a blog post by Ferriss entitled, The Not-To-Do List: 9 Habits to Stop Now. In it, Ferriss argues that to-do lists are important, but not as important as not-to-do lists, which isolate all the things that prevent us from getting through our to-do lists. My favourite - #2: “Do not e-mail first thing in the morning or last thing at night” - is a goal that I still fail miserably to accomplish, most of the time.

Check out Ferriss’s ‘not-to-do list’ list. I’ll bet you are still practising at least a couple of these nine bad habits.

Photo: aussiegall

Posted by Paul Ryan, Editor, Anthill Magazine

Most people at one time or another have wished they could travel back in time to impart sage advice to their younger selves. While that may not be possible, there is a long tradition of saving ‘time capsules’ of information for future revisiting.

I recall my primary school, with much fanfare, burying artefacts of the day in anticipation of digging them up again in the year 2000. While I wasn’t there for the grand uncovering, the contents of that magical box from 1983 - a Leo Sayer album, a super-spin yo-yo, a hypercolour T-shirt and photos of a bunch of bemused working class kids in Adelaide’s northern suburbs - must surely have been somewhat underwhelming to millennial archaeologists.

These days, you can get in touch with your future self without getting your hands dirty, thanks to FutureMe. At first glance, the site looks a bit redundant. Write an email to yourself and schedule it to be sent at a future date - tomorrow, next week… next decade. But the more I thought about it, the more the simple genius of the concept grew on me.

So much of our ephemeral realities, all important in the moment, slip away with the passage of time, along with the insights and lessons they contain. It’s why people keep journals. But let’s face it, a journal takes serious commitment to sustain over years and decades.

FutureMe contains a public message section, and there is even a book, both of which are replete with intimate, funny, narcissistic and often heartbreaking emails: the message written by the graduating teen, the pregnant woman, the old man dying of cancer. The site is filled with vicarious fascination and reminded me of PostSecret, where people share and mail their anonymous secrets by postcard.

So go ahead, spend a few moments writing to your future self about how life is today, and how you hope it to be at a moment of your choosing in the future. Then schedule it, and get back to work.

Posted by Paul Ryan, Editor, Anthill Magazine

Ahhh, Google. What did we ever do without you?

I find it quite reassuring that Google, the money-making internet juggernaut, occasionally lets a flourish of humour escape from its well-oiled machine.

Today, Gmail Labs released a new feature called “Mail Goggles”, which introduces obstacles to protect users from their own ill-conceived, inebriated communiqués.

To quote the Official Gmail Blog:

When you enable Mail Goggles, it will check that you’re really sure you want to send that late night Friday email. And what better way to check than by making you solve a few simple math problems after you click send to verify you’re in the right state of mind?

It’s great to see Google’s engineers working on solutions to real problems in their 20% free time, rather than, say, building robot armies.

To my mind, the only way Mail Goggles could be improved is by introducing an occasional secondary pop-up, even (especially) if you get the arithmetic challenge correct. These could include:

“He’s not interested.”
“She’s broke your heart, dude.”
“Move ON!”
Or an audio message, in a C-3PO voice: “Master [name], I really must advise against this!”

But then, that would be implausible, as Google only does algorithms.

Posted by Paul Ryan, Editor, Anthill Magazine

Serendipitous discovery is one of the great joys of the web. Sure, standard search provides its share of satisfying conquest, but digital serendipity truly came of age back in December 2001 with the launch of StumbleUpon, a browser plugin that applied a special algorithm to send users to potentially unexpected and interesting sites every time they clicked the “Stumble” button.

The real genius of StumbleUpon resides in the users’ ability to mark up interest categories and then thumb up or down the sites they like or dislike, thus refining their future Stumble “recommendations” and those of the broader Stumble community. The service is known for its uncanny ability to throw forward fascinating sites that aren’t on the most popular pages of Digg and delicious.

In 2007, eBay purchased StumbleUpon for US$75 million. In recent weeks, speculation has swirled that eBay is preparing to sell the service, having never integrated it into its core e-commerce business. StumbleUpon’s web traffic has stagnated, but, as StumbleUpon CEO Garrett Camp recently pointed out, these web stats are misleading because users don’t need to visit the site to “stumble”. And registrations have continued to grow unabated.

StumbleUpon took a big leap forward this week, launching a web service that doesn’t require users to install the browser toolbar - hitherto one of the main obstacles to broader uptake. The new service is initially only available to new users (ie those who don’t already have the browser plugin), but it is expected to be rolled out to everyone in the near future.

StumbleUpon has also introduced a new partner program, with The Huffington Post, HowStuffWorks, Rolling Stone and National Geographic already signed up. Participating sites will display a StumbleUpon widget beside their articles, which will allow readers to “Stumble” through pages within that site.

StumbleUpon is one of the most innovative and addictive services on the web. And now, after many years of ‘cult favourite’ status, it looks like it has finally settled on a web strategy that will take it mainstream.

If you’ve never “stumbled” online before, try out the new web offering. You’ll be hooked. (Warning: Just don’t expect to get much work done this afternoon. Stumbling makes YouTube look like homework in comparison.)