TheiPlex is situated in the newly developed Boulevard Complex in Woodstock just outside of the CBD in Cape Town. Woodstock has become somewhat of a buzz in the last few years with creative, tech and corporates moving out of the city centre.

A Business Idea much needed in “Silicon Cape”

I really love what TheiPlex have gone about setting up and blogged about something of this nature way back in 2007. That was just before I decided to go solo and what a roller coaster it’s been since then. I’ve never fully mastered the art of confining myself to my work space at home and to be honest I doubt I ever will, so having the chance to catch some quiet time in a clean, clear workspace was really refreshing.

I called them up in a frantic rush, with deadlines hanging over my head and anxiety boiling up from the need to get things done.

TheIplex has been designed to set an atmosphere conducive to creative work and innovation. You’ll see form the get go colorful backdrops, themed meeting rooms & clean workspaces.

The Reception Area

Jts outside the building you’ll find a nice little Vida Cafe, one of my favorite coffee shops in Cape Town, though they are a little pricy. The iPlex offers some pretty decent coffee themselves at quite a good price and you can give the reception/concierge team a buzz when you need some caffeine to keep the engines firing.

The Workspaces

I Grabbed a spot in the corner near the window and plugged in. Wifi on tap and coffee a few meters away got me in the mode to get some serious work done.

Later on after feeling a little more relaxed i decided to poke around a bit and check out some of the meeting Rooms. My favorite one was the war room, which comes with whiteboard style wall paint so you can brainstorm directly onto the wall surface, take some pics when you’re done, if I’m not mistaken they take snaps of your ideas for you as well. I was alone so would probably have been a bit strange to test it out on my own, really looking forward to the change to brainstorm with a team in a space like that.

The War room is fitted out with netting and camouflage hang in from the ceiling, color coded seating and some really great little army figures running about to get you into combat mode.

After a couple of days of driving into Woodstock I needed to take a break from driving, LOL. But the cool thing is it’s flexible so if you buy some hours you can choose when to make use of them.

Some other meetings rooms and pics form the rest of the space below. I’v been planning on running my WordPress theme Dev course here as well, it’s a great venue and caters for events as well with a largish events room.

Whether I’m happy in my current situation, looking for a job or just casually scouting around to see what’s happening out there. It’s benefited me in a number of ways, one being making connections and becoming known to various companies and individuals within the communications industry.

There have been times where a resume sent out comes back to visit me just when I need it most, someone calls and says, “Hey are you still doing such and such” or, “Are you still interested in a position?”.

Being a web enabled worker means I need to keep a constantly updated profile online, and with tools like WordPress and freely available themes of all kinds it makes setting up a website for just about any purpose a real synch. So I acted on a thought which has been bugging me for a while and registered www.nurahmadfurlong.com to use as an easily up-datable online resume or profile. Currently I’ve slapped up a simple digital business card wordpress theme to post a few vital contact and social link details but I plan to build a more comprehensive resume website which I can keep updating and can also feed RSS and other activity streams into so I can consolidate my activities into 1 personal space. I use dreamhost for my personal hosting and they make it super easy to register new domains and install software like wordpress within a few clicks, no FTP necessary.

It also makes it easy to just pop the link into a message instead of scratching around for my most updated CV or intro letter at times when I need to introduce myself for whatever reason.

I highly recommend any professional builds themselves an online resume or personal profile of some sort which gives new prospects or potential employers a good idea of who you are and what you’re doing or have done in the past. It also shows you take your career seriously. It’s not extremely hard to set one of these up. You could either register a low cost domain & hosting package or use a free website service like wordpress.com or any other for that matter.

Then there’s also resume services zerply.com where I recently registered for a free online resume. The cool thing about Zerply is you can quickly pull your career history details from Linkedin or Facebook and have a resume up in a minute or 2. Have a look at mine – http://www.zerply.com/profile/nomadone

Of course I do keep my CV on this site as well so anyone visiting can download and get a quick idea of my experience and focus. I have 2 CVs, a 1 page PDF document and a much longer more detailed one when I need to provide more details into my career history, skillset etc.

A Few great new tools I’ve started using

So, Recently I’ve had the pleasure of finding a few really great apps, which include The Hit List (awesome Mac task management) which I now use to keep track of all my projects and to do’s & iClockr (time capturing tool now known as Lumina) which I use in conjunction with Invoice 3 (invoice/billing app) to keep track of time spent and generate invoices from billable hours. These are great for my own personal use, but I was still without a crucial component of this mix, something I could use remotely, to keep track of interactions with clients and other partners.

Pay once or open source, no monthlies for me please

I don’t own a credit card and probably never will, so continuously having to pay for services online on a regular basis becomes a little tedious. I’ve tried out a few self hostable solutions like the new collabtive, open goo and a while back active collab, all of which seem to have the makings of a really good web office for the location independent web worker.

It was only a couple of weeks ago that something else caught my eye. Seems I’ve had quite a few of these in the last few months which is great.

Hello Open Atrium, goodbye basecamp

Say Hi to Open Atrium, a drupal based online collaboration system which could be used as an on the fly intranet or for many other purposes depending on your way of thinking of your ability to customize it.

I’ve been wanting to get into using drupal for a while, and this little beauty has pushed me a little closer to that point. It’s quite simple to install, not as simple as WordPress, but then WordPress doesn’t do exactly what this does out the box.

Open Atrium allows you to create mutliple private or open online spaces to which you can invite as many members for each group as you like. The groups allow creation of blogs, uploading and discussion of documents, posting of micro messages like twitter, creation of projects and tasks through it’s case Tracker as well as creation of events on a calendar. Each person’s profile has the ability to add profile specific versions of each of those tools as well.

What’s even better is it’s open source, easy to install and allows for integration of your own custom features as well if you’re into drupal development. I’m looking forward to seeing how the community extends this one. Check out a list of features as well as a nice intro video on their Feature Page at http://openatrium.com/features

He passed on a really great online business idea

It was Something really simple and with potential to make some good dosh online, which got me thinking about the way I have been approaching my career. I’m not about to share his idea with the world to run off and make it irrelevant to me, but after coming across the following post written by Bud Caddell on whatconsumesme.com, I also re-thought whether just any good business idea would do for me.

This Venn diagram gave me some serious food for thought in terms of how to go about sticking to what I do well, what I love doing and still making a decent living out of it. The post is entitled “How to be Happy in Business“. Apart from being a really well designed piece of informaton design, the concepts really hit me hard and also made me think back to my business ideas convo with @naeem. Would it do to get into just any type of business just to make money?

Budd lists the 3 problems highlighted by the diagram:

• We can’t determine how to make enough money from the things we want to do, and do really well.
• We’ve found things we want to do, and can be paid for, but we’re not the best game in town.
• We’ve come across things people want us to do, that we do well (or at least better than the competition) that we really don’t want to do.

I’m the type of person that generally comes up with business ideas connected to a direct need I have, and also most times relating to something which I’m really interested in, which helps me get my head fully inside the whole development process. Ok so I haven’t really succeeded with any of my crazy business ideas yet, LOL, nor have I even progressed to prototyping phase with some of the more serious ones, but this means that something disconnected to what I love doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance of even featuring. Then comes the problem of monetizing what I’m really truely passionate about.

Me gots lots to think about regarding this diagram!

On the same little stroll around the interwebs, I also found a really great way of identifying my own special business model, and applying my efforts in that direction. Gina Trapini, “software and self improvement junkie” wrote a piece on Freelance Switch where she says,

“While I do plan to make money as a freelancer, my ultimate goal is to generate satisfaction.”

(While money is a part of that, so is learning, service, and creativity, so we’ll just use the umbrella term “satisfaction.”)

She shares her personal “business model” in plain & simple terms, What’s important to her is more than just paying the bills while doing what she specializes in.

This particular concept highlights the importance of consantly tracking your activities based on what’s most important to you. Of course knowing what’s most important is step 1, having a plan to engage more in those areas comes next. I found in the last 2 months, tracking my activities in detail has given me huge insight in where the problem areas are. I’ve started taking a few steps in a new direction and these 2 posts/diagrams has helped wrap my head around the way forward.

I use 2 solutions, google docs and evernote. Google docs is alot more powerful as an Office suite though for me evernote is alot easier to deal with and it just saved me huge amounst of time with it’s online synced account storing data added through the desktop app. It also helps having an browser add-on to quickly grab snippets from the web. Only problem I have is my paranoia with the reliability of giving away your data and needing a web connection to access it. Have a look at what the 2 solutions have to offer.

Google Docs

Create and share your work online

Upload from and save to your desktop

Edit anytime, from anywhere

Pick who can access your documents

Share changes in real time

Files are stored securely online

Evernote

On the web

Create, clip, and share notes on the web and see them everywhere

On your phone

Take snapshots, read to-do lists, record audio whenever and wherever you like

On your desktop

Search through all your notes, even find text within images, whether online or off

Evernote have posted a tutorial on exporting your notes from google notebook which is no longer being developed by google. You can also email notes to your evernote account using a special address generated in your account. Nice one.

Firebug

- ranks as my favourite add-on for FF. It makes my task of web dev so much easier, helps find problems and teaches me a few things about where I’ve gone wrong in my code.

Fireftp

- Helps you upload to your sites from your browser in 2 ticks. It’s all right in front of you and makes for a nice seemless testing routine.

TwitterFox

- I did find tweeting a hassle without this add-on and now I find keeping track of my tweets & tweeple a breeze.

GTD inbox

It takes your regular gmail & jacks it up for super web GTD. Projects, next actions and the works to keep you productive.

Fireshot

I take a fair amount of screenshots & Fireshot makes it so easy to grab a screen, edit it and then do with it what you like.

Scribefire

I just started using it & it already looks like a Windows Live Writer replacement. Faster & more convenient, I now blog and surf at the same time.

So, What do you add to your firefox?

I have a problem with the paper based systems I’ve tried, including the hipster PDA which I found sometimes just went missing in my many pockets & bags or just got a little clumsy or messed up after a while.

GTDinbox with Firefox & Gmail – starting afresh.

No matter how much effort you put into staying organised, when you let things slip and don’t take corrective action, chaos “will” start to develop, and you “will” lose control. I found a really great solution to keeping track of tasks and TO-DO’s. I’ve already been using Gmail Labels to send myself important notes and resources and keep control of the many varied bits of info and reminders I need to quickly access, but the GTDinbox extension for firefox has just made this a whole lot simpler & cooler.

This cool extension was developed by productivefirefox.com. Because I use Gmail all the time and am pretty much permanently attached to my gmail account on any given day it makes sense for me to maximize my use of it.

The Firefox Extension adds a few crucial little bits to your gmail account which allows for better task & resource management. As you can see I’ve already got a few coloured labels for different types of messages. Now with GTDinbox I can assign messages as tasks, within projects and track them through the expandable panel at the top of my gmail window. It works with the gmail labelling system and adds GTD labels which are then organised in the top panel according to the GTD system.

In general Gmail is a great tool to use and it can be used in conjunction with other email accounts. I just wish Google would work on integrating it’s many services like docs, google notebook and others into a more jacked up online app which allows quick crossing over between the different apps.

It too me a while to get used to labels after using yahoo’s cool drag & drop folders for a while but slowly I’m seeing the light here.

Setting up filters which automatically label mails from specific clients, and other personal messages you send to yourself is a simple way you can start getting into the power of gmail if you don’t think you’re ready for something like GTDinbox quite yet.

If anyone needs an invite to Gmail I’ve got a few lying around, It’s free, powerful, accessible from anywhere with a connection and can be integrated into quite a growing number of online and offline apps. Post a comment if u need a gmail invite sent to you.

I’ve become somewhat of a podcast addict of late. Not having spent a single cent at the iTunes store as I’m not much of a music lover, I quickly found that there are tons of freely available podcasts available through the iTunes store. A few of my recent favourites are “Grammar Girl“(all about using the English language correctly), Design Guy(podcast about being a good designer), TED talks(inspirational talks by the best minds in the world), Freelance Radio(from freelance switch) & The Common Craft Show(simplifying web 2.0 concepts). There’s a wealth of knowledge out there waiting to be accessed. I did a quick search through iTunes and found a stack of design related podcasts ready to inform and inspire.

Once you get hooked by the podcast bug you’ll realize there are really talented, entertaining speakers all over the world sharing their ideas and experiences. Many Universities have also provided material on subjects they cover either in an official capacity or through the students recording lectures or classes.

My only problem at the moment is the cost of downloading them as bandwidth in South Africa us still extremely expensive in comparison to other parts of the world.

The iPod is by no means just about music and I’m a classic example. I don’t listen to music at all and find it a complete waste of mind space, but that’s another topic all together. Still I’ve found this shiny little gadget to play an important role in my day.

The next revelation was equally exciting. The iPod allows one to convert text into iPod format e-books. The iPod nano I have, has a fantastic screen for such a small device. In fact sometimes I forget just how small it is. Storing certain reference texts could be quite useful in certain circumstance. I found a copy of The Cluetrain Manifesto in iPod e-book format and tried it out.

As a designer I’m thoroughly impressed by the features of my iPod nano and keep trying to figure out how I can maximize the way I use it. I recently uploaded most of my design portfolio.

This means I have my porti in my pocket wherever I go if I ever need to show something quickly. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the most ideal way of presenting ones visual work, but it fills a gap and makes me happy .

I’ve also synced it with my Outlook Calendar to have a reference of my appointments. I don’t keep a diary though I probably should.

I know there are other devices out there which are more powerful, allow for connectivity and editing of data etc, but I don’t have one of those, Yet! I’m impressed with my little iPod and have to hand it to Apple for a great design and very useful gadget.

Introducing the Jot-it Eco friendly desktop write board designed by cocoa living:

Basically it’s a plastic base, with another plastic sheet on top which allows you to insert a template between the 2 layers. A note taking template, calendar (perpetual template maybe), a task organising template, or you could customize your own template. The beauty is that you can quickly jot ideas, rough ones without wasting paper and without cluttering up your desktop with scraps of paper you’ve jotted all kinds of random stuff on.

It’s not perfectly designed. You aren’t able to use multiple templates simultaneously, it seems a little clunky to carry around, though it has been designed specifically for your desk and not your pocket. According to the review on Yanko Design the plastic makes a squeaky noise when you write on it so there’s a few bugs which need to be ironed out. The basic idea though is what makes this a good find and I can see this being modified and upgraded to be an extremely useful device. I’ve started thinking about how I can modify my hipster PDA to make use of this white board style note taking, not paper wasting and easy to delete entries.

The flexibility of of this tool is easy to spot. Using it in the classroom situation, in a design agency, in & around the office, next to the phone at home, just about anywhere where you need a quick & easy way to jot down notes.

So head on over to www.cocoaliving.com and see if they have a product to suite your specific needs, or you could devlop your own eco-friendly write board system like I hope to do using a few low cast elements from your local stationery store. If you do please tell me about so I can give it a try.

Design Thinking Process

Define | Research | Ideate | Prototype | Choose | Implement | Learn

Within these seven steps, problems can be framed, the right questions can be asked, more ideas can be created, and the best answers can be chosen. The steps aren’t linear; they can occur simultaneously or be repeated.

Web Design Process

The latest web design proposal I’ve just written, included an explanation of exactly how the ideal process should play itself out, in order to successfully reach the desired result. This was to to help my client clearly visualize or conceptualize how I would go about developing the solution, and at what stage I would need their input in order to progress to the next phase successfully.

The link below is to a document I developed a few months ago to formalize our web design process. The purpose of the doc was to give us a loose format ,which could steer our activities in a more orderly and organised fashion, preventing scope creep from disrupting projects by ensuring that all issues were dealt with in their particular Phase.

web project process

These links below offer good insight into the the web design process and have played a major role in shaping the way I would ideally go about designing a website from scratch.

Redesigning the Expressions Engine Website

The complete no none-sense guide to designing websites

The Website Development Process – Lego Style

Brainstorming Process

I’ve also spent quite a significant amount of time focusing on various brainstorming processes or techniques and developed a few of my own based on some research and reading. One of the best approaches I came across is “The Six Hat Technique” developed by Eduardo de Bono, which breaks up your thinking in thinking types each assigned a specific hat colour. I first learnt about this fantastic technique while attending a Brand Development Training Programme with the Ogilvy Africa Group. This is how the De Bono Group describes the 6 Hat Technique:

• The White Hat calls for information known or needed. “The facts, just the facts.”
• The Yellow Hat symbolizes brightness and optimism. Under this hat you explore the positives and probe for value and benefit
• The Black Hat is judgment – the devil’s advocate or why something may not work. Spot the difficulties and dangers; where things might go wrong. Probably the most powerful and useful of the Hats but a problem if overused.
• The Red Hat signifies feelings, hunches and intuition. When using this hat you can express emotions and feelings and share fears, likes, dislikes, loves, and hates.
• The Green Hat focuses on creativity; the possibilities, alternatives, and new ideas. It’s an opportunity to express new concepts and new perceptions.
• The Blue Hat is used to manage the thinking process. It’s the control mechanism that ensures the Six Thinking Hats® guidelines are observed.

It comes down to everything having a science to it, a set of steps which if followed, are more likely to produce a successful result. This brings me to the whole point of this article, something which I am trying to figure out for myself at the moment. Having recently become an independent consultant who no longer works within the confines of a specific company, I need to completely change: the way I approach my work, spend my time, manage my tasks and how I prioritize things. Basically I’ve realized I need some science in my life to manage all the many aspects of it.

Spiritual Processes

I can appreciate this concept on many levels including the spiritual level having adopted a new religion(Islam) a few years ago, which introduced me to spiritual sciences, and the activities necessary to solve certain spiritual ailments. One such prescription is that of fasting. If you’ve been following any of the many life coaches out there you’ll notice many have spoken about some kind of 20 – 30 day programme where one has to engage in a habit changing activity consistently in order to break a bad habit or inculcate a new good habit. Having recently come out of one such 30 day spiritual programme and have done so 5 years in a row now, so I have experienced first hand the value of such an effective process. Once a year “at least” I fast for 30 days staying away from many things which would normally be ok for me to indulge in, while refocussing my activities more so than usual on spiritual matters for the purpose of strengthening my God consciousness. I tell myself now if I can do this once a year what’s stopping me from doing the same thing for my business organisation and personal productivity which leads me to the next process I need to focus my attention much more closely on.

Productivity Process

Getting back to the point, I bought the Getting Things Done book by David Allen not too long ago, the personal productivity guide which has reached somewhat of a cult status. I’ve been trying to implement some of the principles I’ve learnt in it along the way. For example, the 2 minute rule, which states anything on your to do list which takes less than 2 minutes should be done immediately. The rule of contexts which states that you when you are in a certain place where a specific task applies you should do it then. I’ve just set up my own “hipster PDA” which is a paper based organiser using some GTD principles to help organise tasks, projects, take notes etc. The concept of the hipster PDA was popularized by Merlin Mann, Author of a popular productivity blog 43 Folders. Another brilliant idea I recently came across while on my hunt for the productivity tools I’m in such great need of is the Pocket Mod. Following similar principles to the hipster PDA the Pocket Mod is a simple sheet of paper with a few templates printed onto both sides which can be folded into a small enough size to fit neatly into ones Pocket. The www.pocketmod.com website allows you to customize your very own tailor made Pocket mod and print it right there. GTD’s process in its simplest fom goes as follows:

1. Collect
2. Process
3. Organize
4. Review
5. Do

One can only function properly on a mental level if all the random to dos, someday maybes and admin type thoughts get dumped into a system outside of ones head – Collect. The next step is then to give each thought a status and decide what to do with them, for example specify a time to be done, delete it as a useless bit of mind trash or delegate it to the person that needs to “get it done” – Process. I Recommend getting your hands on this book if you’re into streamlining how you go about organising yourself and your work. Check out the basics by doing a quick google search or read about it on Wikipedias GTD page. Be warned, this system/method is only for those who are prepared to inject a little bit of discipline into their lives(I’m still grappling with that problem) as it needs consistency to really be successful.

Tackling Procrastination & Distraction

At an entrepreneurs seminar recently I learnt the eating the frog first rule, which forces one to tackle the things we least want to do first. This should be done first thing in the morning in the same manner one would get out of bed and eat a frog from a Jar placed beside one’s bed – Just Do It no matter what. Horrible thought yes, I know, but it frees our thinking and prevents procrastination from killing our to do list. The speaker explained those items on the to do list which we least want to do were like frogs in a jar next to our beds. When we wake up in the morning and realize we have to eat them in order to progress, we invent all manner of excuses why we shouldn’t get these done first. This creates mental baggage which affects our productivity. Eat the frog now, go do it. I can see the value of this from a mile off as I have a few frogs on my to do list that keep jumping from one to do list to another and never getting done. In fact writing this post at the moment is a distraction from the croaking sound which visits me at random moments throughout the day.

One of the “frogs” which it seems many people struggle with when it comes to problem solving is actually defining the problem. Many times we need to achieve something but we’re not willing to break it down and analyse it as this seems to us to be too much of a mission.

Problem Solving the Einstein way – The Questioning Process

Every problem has within it the keys to its solution. The MD of the advertising agency I worked at a few months back in Cairo repeated over and over, “a problem well defined is 80% solved.” Part of any problem solving process then, should be defining the problem. I found this short but powerful comparison of different approaches to problem solving. Apparently Einstein said:

“If I had 1 hour to save the world, I would spend the first 55 minutes defining the problem.“

This is an approach many people tend to steer away from especially so when it comes to visual design. Many of my clients ask to see something visual before they have given much thought to what they are trying to achieve. Graphic design is very much a problem solving art form. The solution should be based on the desired outcome. This little snippet from wikipedia’s definition for design puts it into perspective nicely -

In philosophy, the abstract noun “design” refers to a pattern with a purpose. Design is thus contrasted with purposelessness, randomness, or lack of complexity.

So when designing something it’s absolutely crucial to analyse the purpose, the why, the who, the what. To gather enough information and perspective so that the steps taken to developing the solution are perfectly suited to the problem. A good designer should be an expert at asking questions, asking the right questions and asking them in a way which would reveal the right type of information. This ties in very nicely with most of the processes which I’ve just spoken about and the 6 Hat technique is an excellent way of arriving at and answering the questions which need to be asked.

So, if you have any problems you think design could solve, and in the broader sense those are the majority of problems, then be prepared to answer many questions.

WordPress is a state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. What a mouthful. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.

More simply, WordPress is what you use when you want to work with your blogging software, not fight it. http://wordpress.org/

The fact that you are reading this post right now is enough of a testament to the power of the blogging revolution. Even though I am a web designer and and have the ability to design and code my own websites with the assistance of fancy tools to make the job easier for me I have still chosen to use WordPress for my personal and professional publishing purposes.

I am relatively new the the world of blogging having started my first blog a little over a year ago. I had always planned to develop a website where I could share my thoughts, showcase my design work, discuss matters of interest and engage with like minded individuals on a global scale on issues affecting society on many different levels. The thing which held me back from taking the necessary steps to get this going was firstly my lack of web development skills, meaning I would always have to physically go and create each new page for the website, manually place the content into the pages, reformat the content using html & CSS, resize the images using photoshop and still I would not have the power I wanted to freely express myself with many other constraints like time and money.

At first, being a graphic designer, I was stuck on the idea of designing ever little pixelated detail of my site to perfection, because I know the value of well crafted communications. This ended up being the main thing preventing me from communicating, from making connections, from publishing my work and telling people what I wanted to say. Slowly I had to come around the idea that due to my lack of time I just had to start somewhere and craft as things move along. The current approach is to just get something going, get out there, start something and then work on the details, fine tuning, testing, fixing, and this does not just apply to web application development. WordPress allowed me this opportunity.

I first started out with a blog as a secondary section to my website still maintaining the custom page layout and design which I had originally created to display my design work. I soon realised that wordpress could be used for more than just posting articles or daily news and starting investigating how I could integrate more of my needs into the blog area of my site. This included imagery, which is one of my core requirements which I have now integrated using flickr and video which I have added from YouTube.

I started finding a wealth of functionality provided by the open source community in the form of plugins and widgets and set out to make the complete move to a 100% wordpress powered website. Though my personal wordpress site is far from what I want it to be it’s working harder for me than my previous static manually edited html site ever did. So I’ve been speaking to a few friends, colleagues and even family.

My Father who is an estate agent needed a website which I quickly set-up using wordpress and he was up and running advertising properties online at www.furlongproperties.co.za. He recently sold his first property through his website without the buyers ever visiting the property.

Bettina Moss recently approached me to assist in setting up a simple website for her Strategic Brand consultancy, and again I suggested wordpress because of its ease of use, powerful pre-built functionality, customizable themes and last but not least, open source freeness. It took very little time to get somethign workable going where content can be easily uploaded and published without any html knowledge. BettinaBranding.com is up and running with a custom contact form plugin and soon to be added a newsletter plugin which will allow Bettina to automatically send out a newsletter with new content or content chosen form her website to a selected database of customers.

What I like also like about wordpress is how easy it is to give ones site a custom design. there are literally thousands of free themes to choose from for starters, many which allow one to easy change the top banner image to one of your choice. Personalising and branding these themes to suite ones Corporate Identity of personal taste is relatively simple as well and will save many thousands of bucks of specialized design fees & web development fee.

Another friend who started his own internet marketing consultancy (www.jayz.co.za) a while ago is also using wordpress to power his online communications.

A few months ago I also set up a free wordpress blog for the company I am employed at for internal communications, sort of like a simplified intranet where we could share our thoughts, post discussion, share research, whatever we wanted to. WordPress allowed us to have a private space accessible through a secure login where users could be notified about updates as well.

So you want a list of reasons to start using wordpress as your blogging tool of choice? Here are a few:

• It’s Free
• It’s easier to set up than most other web based software
• Its packed with tons of powerful features
• Its open to being extended with even more add-ons
• Its back by an excellent support community
• It’s easily searchable & findable by search engines
• Content can be easily tagged & organized
• Tons of free themes are available and the large majority are extremely easy to modify
• It’s being upgraded constantly to keep up with the development of the web
• You Can set up a free hosted blog via wordpress if you can’t afford hosting fees
• It allows for visitors to easily interact with you and your content via comments
• It comes with built in anti-spam protection
• It’s got one of the best wysiwig editors around making it as easy to format you content as it is to write a simple word document
• You can even post blog articles form your email or your mobile phone
• It’s just great, great, great!!!

So Go on over to http://wordpress.com and try out a free wordpress hosted blog to get the feel of it or gimme a shout if you want a custom blog set up for your specific needs and I’ll be happy to help you out, for a fee of course

So what exactly is GTD?

According to Davidco, the website of David Allen, author of the book and creator of the GTD system, GTD is:

the popular shorthand for “Getting Things Done^®“, the groundbreaking work-life management system and book by David Allen that transforms personal overwhelm and overload into an integrated system of stress-free productivity.

Implementing GTD alleviates the feeling of overwhelm, instills confidence, and releases a flood of creative energy. It provides structure without constraint, managing details with maximum flexibility. The system rigorously adheres to the core principles of productivity, while allowing tremendous freedom in the “how.” The only “right” way to do GTD is getting meaningful things done with truly the least amount of invested attention and energy. Coaching thousands of people, where they work, about their work, has informed the GTD method with the best practices of how to work (and live), in that most efficient and productive way.

Wikipedia Defines it in the following manner .

Getting Things Done, commonly abbreviated as GTD, is an action management method, a trademark and the title of the book which describes the method by David Allen.

GTD rests on the principle that a person needs to move tasks out of the mind by recording them somewhere. That way, the mind is freed from the job of remembering everything that needs to be done, and can concentrate on actually performing those tasks.

It works like this.

• Capturing anything and everything that has your attention
• Defining actionable things discretely into outcomes and concrete next steps
• Organizing reminders and information in the most streamlined way, in appropriate categories, based on
  how and when you need to access them
• Keeping current and “on your game” with appropriately frequent reviews of the six horizons of your
  commitments (purpose, vision, goals, areas of focus, projects, and actions)

Why I like GTD.

The thing which attracted me to the GTD system the most is the way David Allen explains how our minds work. Our minds store all unfinished tasks big or small, important or not and keeps reminding us of what we are not getting done. For me this is the main cause of my procrastination. So many thoughts, tasks, ideas floating around in the mind, puts me into a state of paralysis which almost completely prevents me from getting to do any of the things which I know I have to do. I’m sure you can identify with this in some way.

Now here comes the best part of GTD which should be common sense but prevents many of us from getting started a specific project or to do action, that being the “next action”. A large portion of the things we need to get done require more than one action. With GTD we start by getting the project or to do item out of the mind by putting it into a trusted system. A trusted system is something which your mind trusts you will check at some stage so you can stop obsessing over that particular undone item. If you scraps of paper always get lots your mind knows this and will maintain the task of reminding you about your undone items at the most random of times.

Next and more importantly is figuring out what the very next step is in taking this project or to do action closer to its completion. I never quite saw the value of this until I started putting it into action recently. Once I know the next step I can focus on it as an individual task and not on the whole project. As David Allen says in his book, you can’t do a project, only a task.

One of the areas I have only recently covered in the book is the six-level view of your life from the bigger picture perspective right down to the smallest of daily tasks.

• 50,000+ feet: Life
• 40,000 feet: Three- to five-year vision
• 30,000 feet: One- to two-year goals
• 20,000 feet: Areas of Responsibility
• 10,000 feet: Current Projects
• Runway: Current actions

I have yet to start planning my personal GTD approach according to the six-level method but I can see the value in having this kind of view of ones life, in order to assure that the things I am spending my valuable time on right now agree with where I want my life to be going in the future. For example it would make no sense to be spending the next 3 years of my life studying in a particular field if I have no plans to use what I am learning in the future. This way I can plan my immediate tasks to get myself closer to my higher goals.

Some more insight.

Whilst researching the topic of GTD I came across a series of interviews conducted by 43 Folders which is Merlin Mann’s site about personal productivity, life hacks, and simple ways to make your life a little better. David Allen was interviewed on the subject of GTD and gave a little personal insight into how he goes about planning his life according to his GTD method. For anyone interested in getting a basic insight into GTD I highly recommend listening to the podcast which can be downloaded here.

The Tools

On my quest to implement some of the methods taught in the GTD approach I hunted around online for some tools to help me organize my thoughts and tasks and came across a few very promising free tools. Thinking Rock is a free tools which can be downloaded for just about any platform and makes getting started on GTD a breeze. I love the way this app has been put together and very quickly learnt how to make use of it’s very simple yet powerful features. Lifehacker.com recently did a review for their download of the day in which they had this to say:

Collect your thoughts, process them into projects, actions and reference and review your action lists by context and project. ThinkingRock isn’t the prettiest interface you’ll ever see, but it’s free, cross-platform, and is clearly developed by disciples of The David David Allen’s GTD method.

Something even more impressive which has proven to be extremely useful to me on a daily basis is 30 Boxes. One of the quotes on their homepage reads. “it’s so easy my mom can do it“, and for someone who likes simple easy to use applications I tend to agree. I’ve been using it for a few months now and though I am not by any means a diligent GTD disciple it has helped me getting quite a few of my to-do tasks done with it’s great collection of features. I personally love receiving email reminders of things I need to get done and appreciate this one feature most of all. I’m sure there are lots of other calendars out there with similar features, but 30 Folders makes adding, editing, deleting and planning tasks easy with its many shortcuts and easy to use features.

I wish I could integrate my thinking rock and 30 Boxes, I think that would really rock. Right now my personal GTD system is a rough mixture of 2 different sizes of moleskin notebooks, one for dumping stuff and one for organizing projects & tasks, and my 30 Folders account with a splash of cellphone reminders now and then just to be sure. I’ve gotten alot more done in the last few weeks and hope to stick to this type of approach. I dream of days where projects are completed, personal admin gets done in a jiffy and the anxiety brought on my a growing task list and increased procrastination is a thing of the past.

Go on then, get on with getting things done!