Writing on cocaine, literally

The New York Times reviews a new book about the early enthusiasm for cocaine among the medical community and particularly how it affected two of the world’s most influential doctors.

The book is called ‘An Anatomy of Addiction’ and looks at how psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and pioneering surgeon William Halsted became heavily dependent on the drug.

A long-term cocaine and morphine addict, Halsted is of particular interest because he wrote a scientific article about cocaine, while clearly off his face on cocaine.

Despite being almost complete nonsense it got published in the New York Medical Journal in 1885.

Rather ironically, it was entitled “Practical comments on the use and abuse of cocaine”. This is the first paragraph:

Neither indifferent as to which of how many possibilities may best explain, nor yet at a loss to comprehend, why surgeons have, and that so many, quite without discredit, could have exhibited scarcely any interest in what, as a local anesthetic, had been supposed, if not declared, by most so very sure to prove, especially to them, attractive, still I do not think that this circumstance, or some sense of obligation to rescue fragmentary reputation for surgeons rather than belief that an opportunity existed for assisting others to an appreciable extent, induced me, several months ago, to write on the subject in hand the greater part of a somewhat comprehensible paper, which poor health disinclined me to complete.

This was a different era in the the history of cocaine, however. So different in fact, that His Holiness the Pope endorsed a cocaine infused wine.

Link to NYT article on Freud and Halsted on cocaine.

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Time to end the war in Afghanistan: Rory Stewart on TED.com

British MP Rory Stewart walked across Afghanistan after 9/11, talking with citizens and warlords alike. Now, a decade later, he asks: Why are Western and coalition forces still fighting there? He shares lessons from past military interventions that worked — Bosnia, for instance — and shows that humility and local expertise are the keys to success. (Recorded at TEDGlobal 2011, July 2011, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Duration: 20:30.)

Watch Rory Stewart’s talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 900+ TEDTalks.

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Productivity System Overview: “Getting Results the Agile Way”

If you have read anything that I have written on Lifehack.org, you probably already know that I am a complete Getting Things Done junky. But, like any good lover of productivity pr0n, I tend to look online for the “next best thing” when it comes to productivity systems and implementations.

Recently I listened to Scott Hanselman’s software development podcast, Hanselminutes, on his own personal productivity system. This guy is a telecommuting, programming animal, so I was intrigued to see what he had to say.

Besides the normal use of GTD, Steven Covey’s 7 Habits, and the infamous Pomodoro Technique, Mr. Hanselman mentioned a book by another programmer, J.D. Meier, called Getting Results the Agile Way. This system takes some cues from the Agile software development methodology (more here at Wikipedia) and is a system based on producing results rather than activities, having boundaries and set tasks and goals you want to accomplish, and making time your best friend.

This system seems pretty interesting and effective once you read into it. Let’s take a look at the key points of the Agile Way productivity system.

If you are a GTDer you may sometimes feel that you are bogged down in the minutiae of everyday task management, blindly checking off tasks as you finish them. If you are a 7 Habits kind of person then you may get caught up in the question, “What’s my life purpose?”.

The Agile Way offers a slightly different approach . It concentrates on the outcomes of your actions rather than the activities of checking things off your list. This approach has more of a directive off the bat, whereas GTD says that you need to clear the runway level before you get to defining what you want to do with your life.

The Agile way also is all about reflection and making sure that you are producing some sort of results in your days, weeks, months, and years. The system takes the idea that projects and tasks are always changing, and because of that it is important to make sure that your plans of action are still valid and still producing results.

Something else that Meier’s stresses is the power of “3?, and the first he lays out is the idea of using your Time, Energy, and Technique to continuously produce results. He says that if you manage your energy effectively by living with passion regarding your work, you can use your time, energy and passion, to produce better and more quality results.

You are probably thinking, “OK, enough with the na-na-nu-nu, energy equals results stuff. How do I use this system?”

Meier’s has a really great “getting started” guide on the book’s site. Basically the system revolves around the power of “3?. Here are the basic steps:

Define 3 outcomes for your dayDefine 3 outcomes for your weekDefine 3 outcomes for your monthand define 3 outcomes for your year

Basically, you want to identify the 3 things you want to accomplish for your day, week, month, and year and then at the end of each respective period review your results, find where you can grow and improve your technique, and plan again.

The Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, and Friday Reflection pattern is a simple habit for daily and weekly results. source: http://gettingresults.com/wiki/Getting_Started_with_Agile_Results

Another nice idea is the “Weekly Results” paradigm where you first identify your “Monday Vision”, review your “Daily Outcomes, and then follow up the week with your “Friday Reflection”. This reminds me of the GTD weekly review, but allows you to be even more active with reviewing your actions and results.

There are a ton of extra subtleties to the system, like creating time boundaries for certain portions of your life (Meier calls them “hotspots”) like, work, family, fun, creativity, spirituality, etc. By setting minimum and maximum times for these areas of your life, you are creating some sort work/life balance.

Overall, I am extremely impressed with Meier’s system. So, impressed that I couldn’t believe that I haven’t heard of it before. What I like about it most is that it gives you some sort of direction for your days, weeks, months, and years. GTD is awesome at helping you identify and organize what needs to get done, but sometimes falls short in the actual “doing” part of the process. I could totally see a hybrid approach with GTD and the Agile Way to take stock of your current workload and then define what needs done during your weeks.

Another nice thing about the Agile Way is that it is instantly implementable. You can sit down with a pen and paper (or a spreadsheet, Evernote, OneNote, text file, etc. for you geeky types) and start to define your day and week. This allows you to start concentrating immediately and isn’t filled with the initial overhead of GTD.

So, I highly suggest that you take a look at Getting Results the Agile Way. You can pick up the dead tree edition at Amazon or read the entire book at the book’s site.

Chris is a developer, writer, tech enthusiast, and husband. He holds a degree in MIS and CMPSC from Penn State Behrend. Chris is also interested in personal productivity and creativity and how to utilize technology to get more things done. Check out his tech writing at androinica.com where he writes about Android.

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The buried story of Los 33

The Guardian has an insightful and moving article on how the thirty three Chilean miners and their families have coped with their post-disaster world, many under the beguiling spotlight of the global media.

The article looks at the largely unknown story of the how the men’s families dealt with the days leading up to their rescue, who were not even known to be alive until their famous note appeared attached to the drillhead after 17 days underground.

It also examines the difficult process of adjustment that both the men and the families have faced since the rescue.

Back home, the men have received weekly therapy as part of a government insurance scheme that covers their incomes until they are able to go back to work. But their global travels have meant patchy attendance – and pretty quickly, the authorities were threatening to withdraw the therapy if they continued to go abroad and miss sessions. Meeting the miners, you sense that there has been no coherent strategy to help them find their way back to any sort of normality, no serious attempt to help them through their extraordinary experience.

Ariel says he does not need any therapy; others complain that the meetings are pointless and lead nowhere. You sense they have not been told in any coherent way the long-term nature of the trauma they may have suffered and the type of treatment that may require. They were, after all, trapped underground for longer than any other recorded group of men. Certainly in many cases the therapy has combined with much shorter-term solutions: astonishing levels of medication – pills to let them sleep, pills to keep them calm when awake.

Some of the men find solace with one another. The bonds of friendship and solidarity they forged down the mine are now stronger than those with their own families. Others refuse to see one another at all – jealousy over who is appearing where, appearance money and fame have driven them apart. That is the men.

Their wives and partners have to live with them, desperately trying to work out how to cope with quiet lives blown apart. For them, of course, there has been no help on offer.

Apparently the author of the piece has made a documentary about the men and their families on exactly this topic called ’17 Days Buried Alive’ which is due to be broadcast on UK TV on the 12th of August.

Link to article on ‘Los 33' (via @JadAbumrad)

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It’s Not a Matter Of Priority, It’s a Matter of Attention

Priority

I work in a large company where we “prioritize” everything. In fact, we are so good at priortizing that we have multiple priorities at any given time. And even after that we have long meetings to discuss what priorities are the most important. It feels like we are trying to meet the demands of everyone else and not our projects.

Coming from the “cult-like” GTD background I have been shaped to believe that there is no such things as priorities, that something is important or it isn’t and that we can intuitively figure it out without a 1, 2, 3 – A, B, C type of prioritization code. Yet, the masses of people in the corporate world hang onto prioritization for dear life and with it do work that may not be important to them at all.

I’m somewhat simple when it comes to figuring things out. That’s why I like definitions. It’s hard to talk about something without knowing what that thing means. So, priorities are:

“Precedence, especially established by order of importance or urgency.”

So, a priority is a list of stuff in order of what is most important. But important to who? And how do we know what is more important than something else.

My wife and I discuss (argue) about what is more important to me during the week. Is it programming? Writing? How about washing the dishes? What is my highest priority? Also, during work meetings we talk about how we will “balance and manage our priorities” and how we need to “prioritize” our work.

Like I said before, I have ingrained and strong opinions about prioritization and the lack of it. I truly believe that something should either have your attention or it shouldn’t. I don’t think that we really need to put stars and colors next to our tasks to show how important they are. We need to find our attention and stick to it.

I really do like what Mr. Merlin Mann speaks about in his time and attention talks. He believes (and pontificates) that all we have is time and attention and that priorities may not really work. What it comes down to is understanding what is important in your life and then devoting attention and focus to it; not to worry about what has a bigger star next to it and what order it falls into.

Your A, B, C – 1, 2, 3 system may help you sort the important things in your list of tasks, but I know that just taking a quick read through what is on your plate will easily show you where your time and attention needs to be drawn to. And that is the key. We need to concentrate on what is important to us: not what some external force deems as important.

Applying attention to what you and outside entities have agreed on as a priority (this can be work, family, or even friends), and not to what you feel is more important is a sure fire way to not pay attention to what your calling is. In fact, this difference between what is important to you and what is important to other entities is grounds to grow some awesome resentments, produce little, and grow bring about procrastination.

So, instead of listing out what you think is important try to step back and identify the top 5 to 7 things that are important to you. Then throw out the rest. Seriously, if you have more than 7 “Areas of Responsibility” on your plate you are probably spreading yourself too thin. I know that I would be.

So to be a good sport, here are my top areas of attention:

HusbandFriendPersonal and spiritual HealthEmployee of Erie InsuranceEditor at LifehackSoftware development and writing

Anything outside of that is just cruft or fun. I know it’s hard to swallow, especially if you were or are a “yes man” like I once was, but the fact is that you can only devote your attention to so much, and that has to be devoted to what you deem important. If you can cut out all the excess stuff that is in your life, you know, the stuff that you are failing at “prioritizing”, then you can get some real work done and even become a better person while doing it.

Instead of prioritizing all of your work try identifying was is totally important to you apply your attention to that.

Chris is a developer, writer, tech enthusiast, and husband. He holds a degree in MIS and CMPSC from Penn State Behrend. Chris is also interested in personal productivity and creativity and how to utilize technology to get more things done. Check out his tech writing at androinica.com where he writes about Android.

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Fighting viruses, defending the net: Mikko Hypponen on TED.com

Fresh from stage at TEDGlobal 2011, last week in Edinburgh:

It’s been 25 years since the first PC virus (Brain-A) hit the internet, and what was once an annoyance has become a sophisticated tool for crime and espionage and a global problem. Computer security expert Mikko Hypponen tracks down the authors of Brain-A, tells us how we can stop new viruses from threatening the net as we know it, and advocates worst-case preparedness. (Recorded at TEDGlobal 2011, July 2011, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Duration: 17:35)

Watch Mikko Hypponen’s talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 900+ TEDTalks.

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Do One Thing Well

I’m often asked how you can start doing work you love — how you can make a living doing something you’re passionate about.

I don’t profess to have all the answers, but the answer for me has been fairly simple:

Do one thing really well.

People want a more comprehensive answer than that, but in my experience, if you learn to do this, the rest will follow.

I write about simplicity. That’s all I do. Over the last 4 1/2 years of writing Zen Habits I’ve found success by focusing on that alone, and stripping away everything else that gets in the way. I’ve removed comments, I don’t do much social media (except for fun), I don’t do much email, I don’t sell ads, I don’t do consulting. I write about simplicity.

By doing this one thing over and over, I’ve gotten much better at it. Good enough, anyway, for people to want to read my work, and as the audience for my work has grown, so have the opportunities to make a living in a non-spammy way. The ways I monetize (print books, ebooks, online courses) are less important than how I’ve grown the audience.

Do one thing well.

It’s really that simple. Narrow down what you do, and do it repeatedly. Learn, grow, improve, read, watch, do it some more. When you’re really good at that one thing, people will want to pay you for it, or to learn how you do it.

It takes a lot of focus and practice to get good at doing one thing, but I’ve found that if you truly love it, it’s not really work. It’s play. And I never complain about playing at something I love.

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