Matthew Lang

Parents with young kids on long haul flights rejoice!

In all seriousness though, it's about time Netflix added this feature. It's surprising how many places still lack a decent signal or even wifi.

Lately my email has been getting the better of me. Despite numerous attempt are curbing email, I still get quite a number of emails each day. Even if I skip my email for day, I know the following day will take twice as long to curb. The thing about email though is that it's still one of the easiest way of communicating.

Might be time for something better than Apple's Mail app which I've been using on my iPhone and MacBook Pro for years now. Might be time for Spark.

... to set those goals.

You should have your goals and major projects decided before November begins, but starting today is better than some planned time in the future.

— Get Help Achieving Your Goals For Next Year by Curtis McHale

Gab aims to be an honest and open network for people to converse online. Their basic features appear to be great. Honestly though, what are the chances of this thing taking off?

It struck me odd how so many people took to the Internet announcing their disgust that the new MacBook Pro isn't made for developers. One particular blog post stood out amongst the rest as just being laughable. The glaring fact is that no-one had used it yet and were basing their opinions on a suggested outcome.

Glad to see that Adam Geitgey reserved his opinions until after he used it.

I’m not here to change your mind about the MacBook Pro. Yes, it’s probably too expensive and more RAM is better than less RAM. But everyone posting complaints without actually using a MBP for a few weeks is missing out on all the clever things you can do because it is built on USB-C. Over the past week or two with a new MacBook Pro (15in, 2.9ghz, TouchBar), I’ve been constantly surprised with how USB-C makes new things possible. It’s a kind of a hacker’s dream.

— The new MacBook Pro is kind of great for hackers by Adam Geitgey

Tickets are on sale today for Rogue One. With the kids in tow we went for the Saturday morning rather than the Friday night. Also it will be Drew's first Star Wars movie experience on the big screen!

With each trailer this movie just keeps getting better and better.

Nicholas Bate reminds us that Mondays are for those who take action.

Are simply there to sort the leaders from the followers, the serious from the not-so-serious and those who are taking action from those who are waiting. Love your local Monday.

This week I've highlighted the three notebooks I am using to replace my task manager app.

The reason that I find that notebooks work so well is because while notebooks are more versatile, they also need input and I don't mean of the mouse and keyboard kind.

Digital task managers have a number of features that allow you to take shortcuts. I took these shortcuts as a way of avoiding planning and reviewing my next block of work. I simply let my task manager do it for me using features like lists and tags.

I can't take shortcuts with a notebook. I can't quickly filter out a subset of tasks. I can't move a group of tasks in a few seconds. Given time I could do these but just not quickly. And that's the reason I find that notebooks work so well.

Managing your tasks using notebooks means that you need to spend more time planning, reviewing and making decisions about what's important.

They need that little bit of extra work. Work that I think is worth putting in.

So far, everything is going well. The only significant change was the introduction of the bullet journal, but I've already have plenty of use through my other notebooks to make the switch to the bullet journal easy.

To find out more follow Patrick Rhone and Belle Beth Cooper who are real notebook aficionados. Both update their blogs on a regular basis and feature posts around notebooks and how to use them. Patrick also has a website called The Cramped that you might revolves around analog writing.

Who's on your blogroll?

Courtesy of Nicholas Bate.

For those that like notebooks and the Beatles.

I can't remember if I mentioned this in a previous post but in case I didn't here's an update.

I will be starting a monthly newsletter in January. The idea is to publish a long form essay on a single topic each month.

I'm fully aware that there are already hundreds of newsletters out there. It's for this reason I'll be limiting it to just one a month. Your time is probably already scarce and I don't want to take up too much of it.

More details and a sign up form to come in December.

Your Instagram pictures printed to photo books. Love it.

When it comes to getting things done the focus is always on what needs done and when you can do it. Without these two you would end up with the wrong task getting done at the wrong time. You'll eventually find yourself just getting nowhere fast.

These two task variables are important but just as important is the time you spend looking at the progress you have made. In order to do that you need look past more than just the tasks you done.

I look to the tasks that fall into two categories:

1. The difficult tasks that presented problems but were eventually done.
2. The tasks that I enjoyed doing and that made a significant impact.

It's these groups of tasks that make up the bulk of my final notebook in the process, the logging notebook. When it comes to looking back what you've done, you need to filter out the important tasks so that you know you are making progress. This is what I use the logging notebook for.

I'm using a Hobonichi Techo planner as my logging notebook. Persuaded by Patrick Rhone and Mike Rohde I bought one at the end of last year.

The notebook itself is fairly small and the paper although thin, is of superb quality. This makes it ideal for a broad range of writing instruments. I mostly use a Lamy Safari for this notebook, although I have done a few sketches with other pens.

Rather than using it as a planner, I record the big wins for the day and the tasks that I finished that made a real difference. Those "Yay me!" moments when it's more than just another task done, it's a significant amount of progress made.

The year is drawing to a close and I'm glad to say that the Hobonichi Techno planner has been a great investment as I use it daily. Next year's is already sitting on my desk waiting to log the next set of wins .

You can use any notebook as your logging book. The most important thing is to log the wins. It adds a much clearer view of the progress you've made and also has the benefit of providing a much needed boost when you feel you have been slacking.

Installed Sidetrack this morning as a way of reading my RSS feeds from Feedbin.

Loving it so far.

Intrusive snooping by the government or a necessary action?

The legislation in question is called the Investigatory Powers Bill. It’s been cleared by politicians and awaits only the formality of royal assent before it becomes law. The bill will legalize the UK’s global surveillance program, which scoops up communications data from around the world, but it will also introduce new domestic powers, including a government database that stores the web history of every citizen in the country. UK spies will be empowered to hack individuals, internet infrastructure, and even whole towns — if the government deems it necessary.

— The UK Is About To Wield Unprecedented Surveillance Powers - Here's What It Means by The Verge

All the things you shouldn't be doing.

via Nicholas Bate

Bullet journalling has been around for a few years now, but it's only now that I've decided to start a bullet journal of my own. The bullet journal is the idea of Ryder Carroll. He wanted something easy to use and over a period of time, he tweaked what we now know as the bullet journal.

The bullet journal isn't the notebook itself, it's the conventions used in the notebook that make it a bullet journal. There are a number of different pages to a bullet journal:

• Future log - A two-page spread listing what you need to do over the next six months.
• Monthly log - A single page listing the month ahead and what you planned for each day.
• Daily log - A page with tasks and notes listed for each day.
• Collection - A single page comprising of a number of related tasks.
• Index - A number of pages with references to any future logs, monthly logs, collections and any other page you need to remember.

I'm using it in much the same way as the method on the website with the exception of the bullets. I've been using Patrick Rhone's DashPlus system for few years now for my notebooks for capturing and so I'm sticking with that.

I keep a list of recurring tasks that I must do each week and month. Every week I have admin work to do, invoices to review and marketing tasks to get done. I keep these tasks under two pages. The first is weekly and the second is monthly. Any recurring tasks get listed here and then migrated to the month log or daily log when I need too.

It's fairly easy to pick up and that's one of the reasons why I like it so much. Even the simplest task manager apps on the market have a degree of complexity about them. With the bullet journal everything is there to see. Nothing to hide.

The immediate benefit is that you're away from the screen for periods at a time through the day. Modern technology is great and makes us more productive, but there comes a point where even modern technology becomes counterproductive and we end up needing something to reinforce what's important to do next.

For me the big benefit is the need to spend more time reviewing and planning my tasks in the journal rather than simply seeing what my to do list has scheduled in place for me to do that day. Now that I spend more time planning my day and week I'm more aware of what I'm doing and the time I'm spending on each task.

Selected by Time magazine to be the most influential images of all time.

Warning. Some people may find some of these images distressing.

The complete mix of human emotion. Photographs that feature amazement, happiness and sadness. An amazing collection.

via Kottke.org

Thanks for the lunch and afternoon in London Patrick!

One down, four to go.

The makers of Telegram have launched a blogging platform called Telegram.

Yes, it could be used by nefarious internet trolls, but I would like to think that it will be used in a more positive way.

I've been carrying a pocket notebook with me everywhere I go for the last few years but it hasn't been until this year that I really started to use it on a daily basis.

The idea is simple. You keep a pocket notebook on you to capture ideas, thoughts and anything else that you'll need to remember at a later date.

No matter what profession you find yourself in, the most essential function of the pocket notebook is to provide a place to capture the ideas that spring to mind throughout the day.

— The Manly Tradition of the Pocket Notebook by The Art of Manliness

You might think it's a little over the top but how many times have you tried to remember something that came to you a few hours before but you couldn't? Unless you already have a place for these then I imagine that for most of you it's quite a lot.

It used to happen to me all the time. I started using email to capture moments like this in Todoist, but that was the wrong place to capture them.

Instead I took the advice of Patrick Rhone and started using a notebook to capture all these little loose ends that come to me through the day.

It's been a decision I haven't regretted and become such an engrained habit in my day that my notebook goes with me everywhere.

At the moment I'm still working through a couple of pocket Moleskine notebooks, but I'll be using the Field Notes notebooks when my first subscription arrives in a few weeks.

I keep my notebook in a Nock Hightower with a few index cards if I need to hand some information out. It also has space for a couple of pens and I also keep my headphones in here as well. Seems as good a place as any and it means all I need to lift if I'm going out is my keys, wallet, phone and Nock. I rarely go anywhere without all four.

A pocket notebook might get you stares and a few questions about it, but for capturing those bits of info you might need to remember later on, it can't be beat.