Spotlight + Data Detectors + AdSense: Champagne PIM on an OS Budget

As I continue working with Mac OS X I'm continually impressed by Spotlight, Apple's included text indexing feature. It is seamless, fast, effective, and has significantly changed and improved how I find information, as compared to my Windows XP days.

Having a solid idea file [1] is crucial to Knowledge Work [2], an on-going interest of mine (see Where's The IDE (Integrated Development Environment) For Personal Information?)

Given that, I was struck by an idea to integrate Spotlight with all apps to support an 80-20-level information support system. I suppose this is essentially a work-around to connect all data in the OS, i.e., to remove data islands [3]. Lest you think I know what I'm talking about, see my disclaimer below [4].

Tell me what you think!

Elements

As I see it the elements are:

• Spotlight, Data Detectors [5]: Text -> Objects (converts text to OS data)
• Google AdSense (retrieval of hits plus display)
• Firefox's Smart Location Bar (learns hit priority)

In other words, Spotlight on steroids.

I envision these interconnecting thus [6]: Pull the text from the front most app (option: just selected text), look up all the phrases in Spotlight's database, pull out most relevant ones, order by learned patterns, then display summaries and links to the side. Suuuure.

Applications

How would this work in practice? In a word, PKM (Personal knowledge management) [7]. Suppose you're reading an email from a prospective client (or anyone of interest, really) and you want to remind yourself of who she is and your history of interactions with/notes about her. Boom! As if by magic (and I may not be exaggerating :-) a selection of relevant hits show to the right, perhaps categorized ala Spotlight's results bar.

What would show up?

• Contact information
• Times, Dates, Names, Addresses/Places
• Calendar evens
• Email messages
• Projects
• Tasks
• Files

Another application: A visual indicator of which information sources are most valuable (see Information Provenance - The Missing Link Between Attention, RSS Feeds, And Value-based Filtering). As you're browsing your news feeds, an icon (?) shows on the right how many idea file entries the current feed has. Use this when it's time for your regular purge to make an informed decision.

I'm really curious...

• Whaddya' think?
• Reality check: What's are the major arguments against this? They center, no doubt, around reasonable retrieval given all text in an app, and possible hits.
• How would you use such a beast?
• What tools do you use to accomplish PKM?

References

• [1] Mine's a Big-Arse Text File, but alternatives abound including (ick) paper-based systems. (I have nothing against paper - it has compelling affordances (see The Myth of the Paperless Office).
• [2] I'm not fond of the term, but it's the defacto standard (buzzword alert!) describing modern white-collar work. By far the best source for information on the topic is the wonderfully-named Thinking for a Living: How to Get Better Performances And Results from Knowledge Workers, mentioned in Custom Workflows For Knowledge Workers.
• [3] Developers: check out Soup (Apple Newton)
• [4] I'm not a researcher in this field, so please be forgiving. I'm shooting for an idea that's "good enough to criticize" (supposedly Alan Kay's comment about the Dynabook). I'm positive this approach has been outlined before, but I wanted to capture it Matt-style.
• [5] Mac OS X Leopard - Features - Mail, Apple Data Detectors Are So Useful.
• [6] I know, pompous as hell :-)
• [7] AKA PKM (Personal knowledge management). Gotta' good ref? I found:
  
  
  
  • Personal Knowledge Management : Who, What, Why, When, Where, How?
  • Wikipedia entry
  • PKM - Personally Managing Your Knowledge

The World's Simplest Productivity Method, with Bonus Mini-Processing Examples

When I get media inquiries for expert opinion, I'm often asked for easy-to-understand descriptions and examples. As you know from posts like Extreme GTD: How Low Can You Go (or: Can We 80-20 GTD?), I like simplifying. Following is the simplest description I can come up with of how methods like GTD work.

I'd Love To Know...

• What do you think of my description? How would you improve it?
• Do you have a method for managing yourself?
• How would you describe it?
• How well is it working for you?

The World's Simplest Productivity Method

1. Capture all incoming items into a small number of inboxes [1]: email, paper, and voice.
2. Empty those every day.
3. To empty an inbox, apply the 5Ds [2] one by one to each item: DELETE, DEPOSIT (file), DELEGATE, DO, and DEFER.
4. The last three Ds take action and need tracking in a system:
5. DELEGATE: Hand off to someone else, and track in a Waiting For [3] list.
6. DO: If the action can be done in a couple of minutes, do it right then.
7. Otherwise, DEFER doing it for later, and track in either the Calendar or an Actions list:
   • If the action is date-related, put it on the Calendar.
   • Track all other actions on an Actions list.
8. During the day work the Actions list as your Calendar permits, and review the Waiting For for needed follow-ups.

What's neat is you can see there are four actionable categories in this approach: A Calendar and three lists (Projects, Actions, and Waiting For).

Additional concepts

I sometimes include a few other ideas:

• Use chunking to break larger tasks into small, doable actions.
• Call the large tasks "projects," and list them all on a master Projects list.
• Every project must have at least one "active" action on the Actions list.

The Method Applied: Mini-cases

To see it in action, following are a few email messages, and how I'd handle each one. (Sidebar: This is a simplified version of the "Stuff Practice" exercise I do in my workshops. I do it at the end of the workshop to pull together all the day's concepts. It's a popular group exercise that gets uniformly high marks. Best yet, it's fun!)

• Message from boss asking for quick status.
  • Can reply in a minute, so reply then move message to email project folder.
• Message from partner asking me to order equipment.
  • Can order in two minutes (1-Click), so order it, track order on Waiting For, and move to email project folder.
• Message asking for quarterly report.
  • Will take longer than two minutes, but can be done in one sitting.
  • Not date-related (should be done ASAP), so put on Actions list.
• Message setting up a meeting for next week.
  • Date-related, so put appointment on Calendar then delete message.
• Message asking to arrange a conference on a specific date.
  • Complex multi-step task, so add entry to Projects list.
  • Pull out starting action (e.g., "research venues") and add to Actions list.
  • Put date on Calendar.
  • Move message into new email project folder specific to the conference.

References

• [1] An attempt at serendipity and synchronicity: Arbitrarily-selected posts mentioning "inboxes":
  • Use These 5W/1H Questions To Test Your Productivity Chops
  • A Dozen Small Ways To Get Productivity Improvements To Stick In An Organization
  • Reader Question: Getting Personal Productivity Changes To Stick?
  • The Productivity I/O Sweet Spot, Or Why Balance Is A Bad Thing
  • Dealing With Meeting Notes - GTD To The Rescue!
  • Add, Subtract, Multiply, Divide: Productivity Lessons From Basic Math
  • Small Steps To Big Results: Do One High Value Task A Day
  • Some Answers To "Should I Keep It?" When Filing
• [2] See How To Process Stuff - A Comparison Of TRAF, The "Four Ds", And GTD's Workflow Diagram.
• [3] I'm using David Allen's terminology because 1) GTD is so popular that maintaining consistency taps into shared language, 2) it diverges from more traditional terms (e.g., "to-dos" and "tasks" for actions), and 3) they are damn good names! :-)

How to Approach Solving Procrastination (Hint: Think Magnifying Glass, Not Tips & Tricks)

(Update: This post deals with behavioral causes of procrastination. However, persistent and debilitating procrastination may actually result from an underlying mental health problem. [7]. A big thanks to reader Greenman2001 for pointing this out.)

Procrastination is the uber-problem - the meta problem, if you will - of productivity. It encompasses almost every "can't make progress" behavior, and is one of the top issues that clients come to me for help with. It's a tough one, and has been a problem for centuries (see How to Procrastinate Like Leonardo da Vinci). This explains why it's one of the most blogged-about topics on the web. Search for 15 seconds and you'll find every form of advice available, mostly a smorgasbord of common tips and tricks like: do the worst/pleasant/easy part first, never stop work at a bad point, break tasks down, focus on the process, make a start, poke holes in it, etc.

Unfortunately, having a toolkit of activities isn't adequate to solve it, or we'd be done. Having enough how-to information isn't the problem.

No, what makes procrastination so nasty is that it's an umbrella concept with multiple possible causes and deep underpinnings. I like how Wikipedia puts it: a complex of bad habits. These can include fear of failure/success/being wrong, poor discipline, distractions, lack of interest, perfectionism, and so on.

This is why grab-bag blog posts, while easy to write and quick to peruse, often by themselves don't help: Taking action to solve a problem without knowing its cause can only have limited success. You might get a temporary boost from the novelty of trying something new (our brains might have novelty detectors built in [1]), but unless you address the underlying origin(s), improvements won't be lasting.

So what we have is: Important problem. Difficult to solve. Unknown causes. Many possible activities/solutions. Expensive to try changes. Time pressure. In other words, A Hard Problem. So what do we do in such a situation?

Experiment!

Here's how to apply this [2]: Try a small number of activities (here's where grab-bags come into play), collect information, analyze your results to see what worked, and decide what to try next. Iterate until you're happy with the progress/results/state. Tips: Keep the turn-around as short as possible (days or weeks, say, not months), make the experiments as small as possible (Kaizen-style [3] tiny changes, for example), and observe and record diligently.

In sum, treat yourself as a complex creature in the wild whose behavior you're trying to understand and adjust [4]. Tap your curiosity: What makes you tick? What gets in the way? Why do you do these counter-productive activities? When do they activate? What are your feelings when they kick in? Who knows, you might actually turn off the fear [5] and start enjoying the ride [6]. Finally, consider getting some help, such as asking a friend to be an accountability partner.

Happy experimenting!

I'm really curious...

• What's your #1 procrastination challenge?
  
• What have you tried to solve it?
  
• How did it work out?
  
• Have you tried this kind of experimental approach to productivity?
  
• Any generalizations that come to mind?
  

References

• [1] Learning By Surprise: Scientific American
  
• [2] While descriptions of scientific methods range in complexity, we've simplified it to "Think, Try, Learn." Wikipedia's Elements of scientific method gives us more detail: The essential elements of a scientific method are iterations, recursions, interleavings, and orderings of the following:
  
  
  
  • Characterizations (observations, definitions, and measurements of the subject of inquiry)
    
  • Hypotheses (theoretical, hypothetical explanations of observations and measurements of the subject)
    
  • Predictions (reasoning including logical deduction from the hypothesis or theory)
    
  • Experiments (tests of all of the above)
    
  • Analysis & interpretation [added by us]
    
  
  
• [3] Check out related posts, or read Robert Maurer's One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way.
  
• [4] A big thanks to Pam Slim of Escape From Cubicle Nation fame for this perspective. If you're thinking about jumping out on your own, give her a call. She's been a tremendous resource.
  
• [5] Check out 10 Strides from Fear to Freedom.
  
• [6] Enjoy The Ride is one of thirteen maxims from Patricia Ryan Madson's delightful little book Improv Wisdom: Don't Prepare, Just Show Up. For the rest see Whose job is it? Mine!.
  
• [7] From the Procrastination and mental health section of Wikipedia's procrastination entry:

  Procrastination can be a persistent and debilitating disorder in some people, causing significant psychological disability and dysfunction. These individuals may actually be suffering from an underlying mental health problem such as depression or ADHD.
  
  While procrastination is a behavioral condition, these underlying mental health disorders can be treated with medication and/or therapy. Therapy can be a useful tool in helping an individual learn new behaviors, overcome fears and anxieties, and achieve an improved quality of life. Thus it is important for people who chronically struggle with debilitating procrastination to see a trained therapist or psychiatrist to see if an underlying mental health issue may be present.
  
  People who exhibit procrastination and decreased impulse control appear to be prone to internet addiction.

  
  
• [8] "How to Procrastinate Like Leonardo da Vinci": Though the official page is now for subscribers only, I found two other locations: An on-line digital version at The Chronicle of Higher Education - February 20, 2009 and one from the author's site at How to procrastinate like Leonardo da Vinci. Thanks to ever-vigilant reader Amanda for noticing!
  

Join my new IdeaLab newsletter! "Productive tools for the curious intellect"

Ready for a Workout in the Ultimate Brain Gym?

Are you interested in thinking better, working smarter, and being more creative? I invite you to subscribe to my new IdeaLab newsletter. Each month's issue is filled with tips, thought starters, and short reads on fun things like:

• Immediately useful productivity tips (Daily Planning),
  
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Try it as an experiment!

What's your office/productivity set-up like? Mine's up at The Weekly Review

Chris Bowler over at The Weekly Review asked about my personal productivity setup, which I was happy to supply. It's at Thoughts on Productivity with Matthew Cornell, where I cover:

• Capture


• Tools


• Workflow


• Desk Layout, Filing


• Portability


• Challenges

I'm curious...

• What's your office setup like?
  
• Anything about it you'd like to change?
  
• Any tips or tricks to share?
  

Cheers!