Google Wave

A bit behind the wave (groan), but this looks cool:



Can we integrate it with RTC?

#tweekly summary

Kelly hosted a really useful one-hour Weekly review on Twitter yesterday (6pm BST). Every five miutes or so, Kelly would fire out a tweet marching us throught the 11 steps of the GTD weekly review. Why was this a valuable session (as opposed to following the book by oneself on a Friday pm. say):

1. Having a defined public time was a great way of getting people to actually do the review. For hours, in some cases days, before the event, tweets were going out creating a real buzz.
2. In addition to someone keeping the time (Kelly), she also sent out advice with each 5 minute period to prompt ( "No waiting on list? Check your sent mail!")
3. Kelly was able to answer folks questions - for example, when someone expressed a fear of the "mind sweep" adding too many new to-dos, Kelly was able to offer reassurance!

I'm sure these sessions are not strictly necesary, but the crowd and the great advice/coaching are great motivators - with greater experience I'm sure people will be more suceessful in doing Wekly Reviews alone.

Here is a summary ( with helpful tips) from the Tweets:

* GET CLEAR

** Collect loose papers and materials

*** Gather everything that's loose into an Inbox, Tray or folder.

** Get “In” to zero

*** a good way to process in is 4D's: Delete it, Do it (under 2 mins), Delegate it, Defer it (onto a list)

** Empty your head

*** Open a Word doc, or grab and pad and clear your head for 5 minutes

*** SOME MINDSWEEP TRIGGERS: Family, health, meetings you've had, meetings you're going to have...

*** MORE MINDSWEEP TRIGGERS: Your direct reports, finances, 401k, the dog, your car, health appts you've been putting off...

* GET CURRENT

** Review Action Lists

** Review past calendar data

*** Many times reviewing your old calendar (go back about 3 wks) catches things you meant to do. 3 more mins left)

** Review upcoming calendar

*** REVIEW UPCOMING CALENDAR TIP: if you find something you need to process, you can add to your mindsweep for now.

*** if you don't get anything on reviewing your calendar, try going further out. Recurring Tasks are great for calendar

** Review Waiting For list

*** if you've got a list review it. If you don't have one, what are you waiting on?

*** WAITING FOR TIP: Review your email Sent folder. Usually some waiting for's hiding in there.

** Review Project (and larger outcome) lists

*** Projects are your outcomes that require more than one action step

*** PROJECT TIP: If you are not willing to take any next action on a current project, are you sure it's not Someday/Maybe?

*** PROJECT TIP: Most people we coach have 30-100 current personal & professional projects. Don't be surprised!

*** PROJECT TIP: Projects are typically completed within 18 mos. If you can NEVER mark it done, it's likely an Area of Focus.

** Review any relevant checklists

*** birthday checklists? travel checklists? home mntce?

*** CHECKLIST TIP: Maybe you want to CREATE a checklist? Anything recurring that would be good? What to always pack for vacation?

* GET CREATIVE

** Review Someday/Maybe

*** If you have one, update it. If you don't have one, create it!

*** SOMEDAY TIP: You'll trust S/M list(s) more if you know you're actually going to review them again. Otherwise they'll die.

*** SOMEDAY /MAYBE TIP: S/M is not just a "fantasy wish" list. It can be a fantastic place to stage "not yet" projects.

** Be creative & courageous

*** Any new thought-provoking, creative, risk taking ideas to add to your system?

*** What's REALLY got your attention in your job, family, environment? This is the last step!

Supporting org-mode!

I am a great fan of org-mode (for Emacs) I started using it to Getting Things Done, where it is super for entering tasks, prioritising, tracking and closing. But it is also good for note taking, time recording, simple tables, publishing to a variety of formats.

Strongly recommended - in fact, install Emacs for no other reason !!

Vote for org-mode!!

A modern view of starting Clojure in Emacs with Slime

This looks promising:
in which are found tricks of the trade concerning clojure authorship - Technomancy

Now what about co-existing with SBCL?

YALB - Yet Another Lisp Book

Land of Lisp - O'Reilly Media

Lisp is a uniquely powerful programming language that, despite its academic reputation, is actually very practical. Land of Lisp brings the language into the real world, teaching Lisp by showing readers how to write several complete Lisp-based games, including a text adventure, an evolution simulation, and a robot battle. While building these games, readers learn the core concepts of Lisp programming, such as data types, recursion, input/output, object-oriented programming, and macros. And thanks to the power of Lisp, the code is short. Rather than bogging things down with reference information that is easily found online, Land of Lisp focuses on using Lisp for real programming. The book is filled with the author Conrad Barski's famous Lisp cartoons, featuring the Lisp alien and other zany characters.

Conrad's other stuff, such as Casting Spels, has been humorous and informative - on pre-order!

Common Lisp has been blessed with some great books, even if few in number ( Practical Common Lisp, On Lisp etc. spring to mind). I wonder how the advent of Clojure will affect Common Lisp and the flow of great books?

Cool - live MDA via Google App engine

Epsilon + AppEngine + Ajax = Epsilon Live « Epsilon Weblog

The Epsilon website already includes several screencasts and examples that demonstrate the tools and languages it provides. The preview release of the Google App Engine for Java has made it possible to go one step further and allow people to actually write and execute EOL (the core language of Epsilon) programs straight from their browser without needing to download or install anything.

Diplomacy - a long neglected game

I can remember some distant games of Diplomacy - the board is still around. I have even talked with some friends about restarting. Now this:
Practical Leadership: Diplomacy is Fun Leadership Training

I just got back from chaperoning a high school trip to Costa Rica. While there, some of the kids put together a make-shift Diplomacy game out of a pizza box top. Playing gave the kids and me fun lessons in leadership and negotiation.

Diplomacy as training in trust ? Hmmm.

The game recently celebrated its 50th anniversary - with a rather disappointing reissue of the game.