Dave Caolo

Merlin has gone all white with 43 Folders, and I love it. Of course, that shouldn’t be a surprise.

Let me tell you about about my childhood.

There is a small, shoebox-shaped house in Scranton, Pennsylvania with faded vinyl siding and an under-performing rose bush in the front yard. Twenty years ago, it was occupied by my typical American family: middle class, happy enough, God-fearing and terribly disorganized.

Consider the kitchen. Open the cabinet to the right of the refrigerator, just above the pink laminate counter top, and you would have found my mother’s recipes. Unlike your mom’s collection, Carol’s never saw the inside of a cookbook. Instead, they hung from the back of the door with yellowing strips of tape.

A Hellman’s mayonnaise label with a potato salad recipe dangled next to my grandmother’s hand-written instructions for stuffed squid. There were pages ripped from Family Circle magazine, supermarket hand-outs, 3×5 index cards, torn business envelopes with their postmarked stamps intact … anything flat enough to write on and light enough to stick to a pine cupboard door  was used to capture a recipe.

Most bore stains acquired in the line of duty. A sheet of yellow legal paper held a recipe for lemon squares as well as greasy butter stains and a smudge of hardened baking flour about the size and shape of a postage stamp. “David, hand me that sheet of paper,” my mother would say, thrusting her egg-y fingers at me. Another Christmas, another batch of lemon squares and another crop of stains. Buy the time I was in high school, the recipe was nearly illegible.

While the “fly strip method” of recipe storage keeps everything accessible, it’s a poor filing system. Linguine with anchovy paste rubbed up against blueberry cheesecake, which is something that should never happen, not even in print.

Like most messes, my mother’s organizational style had the tendency to spread, like an invading army, or syphilis. The inside of my dad’s garage looked like a yard sale had vomited, and the state of the basement was something I won’t even mention.

What all this means is that I’ve got chaos in my blood. It didn’t become problematic until I started working for myself. Those painful moments of realization — “Oh, I really need to …” — were becoming more common, and always at the least opportune times. Remembering to tell the cable company that I’ve been issued a new debit card is of no use at 60 m.p.h. on Route 3.

Thankfully, I found David Allen’s Getting Things Done (or “GTD”) and it changed my life. When you’ve got a trusted system in place, your brain stops pestering you. When you’ve got your pending tasks sorted by context, you relax. What’s more, you get stuff done (I think that’s where he got the name).

One of the crucial aspects of a GTD system is the ubiquitous capture tool. Basically, Dave wants you to “capture” any thought, task, or “open loop” as he calls them for later processing — which is a fancy way of saying “write shit down.” It’s simple, low tech and very effective.

hPDA

It’s also the part of GTD that’s the most fun and the biggest pain. At least for a geek like me. One of the Seven Great Truths of Geekhood is that we’re always willing to try a new system if we think it’s better than what we’re currently using. Dave leaves his readers’ choice of ubiquitous capture tool completely up to them, and that’s where I got into trouble.

Initially, I went out and bought a snazzy Palm Tungsten E2. With a calendar, contacts app, notepad and software synchronization, I figured it would be the ultimate. A month later, I realized I was using it to store lists. A $200 PDA to hold lists. I sold it and created a Hipster PDA, or hPDA, as described by the great Merlin Mann (by the way, Merlin has the best hair on the Internet. He knows it, too).

The hPDA, for the uninitiated, is a bunch of 3×5 index cards held together with an office clip. That’s it. I brought mine to the next level with some color coding and the D*I*Y Planner templates. My hPDA was tidy, cheap, disposable, recyclable and simple. Occam’s Razor in  my pocket. With a tiny, write-anywhere Fisher Bullet Space Pen, my hPDA (which I nicknamed “Shirely,” just to give it a little more personality) was as awesome as a dozen index cards could be.

Mole Skinned

Then it happened. I was tempted by the legendary notebook of Hemingway and Picasso. My head swelled with my action lists whenever I produced my slick notebook and slid back the elastic binding strap, all the while scanning the room for anyone else in “the know.” Fellow notebook aficionados would nod approvingly at the guy writing important things in the same notebook used by one of the world’s most famous alcoholics and a psychotic, self-injurious painter.

I adopted an elaborate system of tags, numbering, incantations and logic puzzles to “hack” my Moleskine for GTD. When the voice inside my head told me, “This is kind of annoying,” I rebuked it. “Oh hush,” I’d say, “and help me remember why all of the odd pages are written in blue ink.”

The other hassle was that I couldn’t easily discard spent pages. When an index card ran out of white space, I tossed it. No clutter, no mess. The Moleskine didn’t allow for that.

Field Notes

Next, I bought a 3-pack of Field Notes brand notebooks. For me, these trump the Moleskines. While the Moleskine gives off a certain air, the Field Notes notebook is a utilitarian tool ready for duty. It says, “Let’s work,” not “Sketch that sunset.” Plus, it’s thinner and less bulky in the pocket.

Still, I was still subject to the same cumbersome system of analog tagging and linking. Ultimately, I’ve gone back to my original system — a dozen index cards in my pocket.

One of the great tennants of GTD is “Capture-Process-Organize-Do.” The other is “To each his (or her) own.” David’s bare-bones system is flexible enough to accomdate any work style or process. This is what works for me. Here’s hoping you found it useful.

Recently, I’ve heard lamentation in the blogosphere. Incredible, I know. But this isn’t the usual bitching about poorly trained baristas or the new Star Trek trailer. Instead, bloggers are upset about the perceived diminishing role of the personal blog.

Consider the winners of recent weblog awards, and you’ll see 300lb gorillas like Engadget, Boing Boing and Gizmodo. Each has a team of skilled writers and editors who work for pay. Large corporations like Whole Foods and Starbucks* run terrific blogs as well. How’s a guy with a Typepad account and a sack full of opinions to compete with that?

Let me tell you right now, this is not a post about SEO. It’s not about the Oh My God Top Five Tips For Bloggers Ever Finally Revealed! You’ll find no unnecessary bold meant to get your attention, or lists with

1. Ideas
2. Brainstorms
3. Demonstrations
4. Concrete answers

I could tell you to include an image with every post, conveniently list popular posts and display your orange RSS icon prominently. I could, but I won’t because none of that will amount Jack Squat if you don’t know what the hell you’re trying to acheive in the first place.

Before you type a single letter, you’ve got to ask yourself the question, “What exactly am I trying to achieve with this blog?” I mean, sit down with a pencil and a piece of paper and figure it out. Write down your answer. That’s your purpose for cluttering my display with your pixels. Next, list the goals that will help you realize that purpose.

Finally, and this is the most crucial step, reconsider your answer regularly. Every few months at least. You’ll probably find that it has changed. Here’s what I mean.

When Merlin Mann started 43Folders, his interests were personal productivity and the GTD system specifically (correct me if I’m wrong, Merlin).  He built a decent following and produced great content. Then he reconsidered and switched gears:

“In light of some new directions I’m taking with my work, 43 Folders is changing focus and approach from being the ‘blog about productivity’ that many readers may view it as today.”

Were some people bummed? Yeah, probably. But who cares? Merlin knew that if he trudged along, writing what his readers expected, the whole thing would become drudgery and the content would suffer.

His interests and passions shifted. His life’s focus changed, and his blog went with it. Today, 43Folders is just as fantastic as it’s ever been because Merlin took the time to define exactly what he wanted 43Folders to be, and let that definition guide his content.

“But, Dave,” you say. “43Folders has a staff of writers. It’s the very type of blog we’re complaining about.” Simmer down. I’m getting to it now.

Daring Fireball is a great example of a successful one-man show. John mainly writes about Apple, Inc. I’d dare say that his purpose is to share his opinion on Apple’s products and practices, with a maraschino cherry of general nerdery on top. It works because John is a good writer, but also because he’s true to his blog’s purpose.

So John has found a niche: the tribe of Apple fanatics. What if you want to write about a broader topic? Check out my friend Liz’s Motherhood Is Not For Wimps. Liz shares real-life stories from her life as a parent. A pretty broad topic, no? But it works because there is a huge number of people who find her stories funny, uplifting and ultimately relatable. Liz knows that her goal is to share stories of motherhood with her readers.

Like we saw with Daring Fireball, you’ll find no staff at Motherhood Is Not For Wimps. No corporate back end. Just a passionate, focused writer.

Want to go for the combo? That is, a single-person blog that has gone through the gear-shifting that affected big ‘ol 43Folders so positively? Fine.

Shawn Blanc made a name for himself by writing insanely detailed reviews of popular Macintosh software. Before that, he wrote an equally exhausitive series on freelancing. Today, you’ll find posts on technology and brief blurbs about interesting pieces of software. Shawn’s focus has changed, and thank goodness. He could have forced himself through more mind-bending reviews, but his heart wouldn’t have been in it, and that would have been obvious.

Here’s what John, Shawn and Liz have in common with The Big Boys: Focus and direction. A plan. Engadet is about the coolest gadgets on the planet, and only those gadgets. Motherhood Is Not For Wimps is about beautifully-written, honest stores that engage parents everywhere.

So, there’s the question. “What exactly am I trying to achieve with this blog?” Write it down. Define the goals that will get you there. Now you’ve got a plan. Finally, review that plan at regular intervals and never be afraid to abort the mission. Your blog (and your readers) will be better for it.

Here’s my final bit of unsolicited advice. If your heart’s not in it, don’t do it. “I want to be like So-And-So, and So-And-So writes about Topic X, so I’ll write about Topic X, too. Then I’ll be like So-And-So.” Now you’ve contracted First Year Songwriting Major Disease.

When I was at Berklee as a songwriting major, I suffered from the First Year Songwriting Major Disease. That is, everything I wrote sounded incredibly like the music of established musicians I admired. No one wanted to hear how closely I could mimic Sting’s style, and I’m uninterested in your impression of So-And-So. Read their work to hone your skills (grammar, style, usage, etc.), but don’t succumb to temptation. I want to hear your voice.

If you’re passionate about the the most effective odor eaters for rental bowling shoes, kick my ass with your knowledge and skills. Screw So-And-So. When it comes to stinky footwear, you are THE MAN. Now go out there and rock it.

*I really want a Gold Card. Mail me one and I’ll love you forever. Seriously, I’ll even alter my son’s (or daughter’s) middle name. For real. Come on, send me a Gold Card, or The Baby Jesus will cry.