Spotlight on 43Folders

Screen shot of 43Folders

This is the second in my series "Spotlight on the Web", I wrote about Zenhabits in my first article.

Have you stumbled across 43Folders or are you a regular reader perhaps? About a year ago I first discovered 43Folders in a Google Search. This was one of my first exposures to productivity and lifehacks on the web. One of the great things that I found about the site was that you could use many of the tips without too much effort. It wasn’t too long until I found the series that he did on Getting Things Done and his Inbox Zero series about getting and keeping your email under control.

43Folders was created by Merlin Mann. He is also the creator of The Merlin Show, 5ives, and 30 Seconds with Phone Guy. He is a host on the popular MacBreak video podcast. He appears as a regular guest on the MacBreak Weekly and This Week in Tech audio roundtables (both found on Leo Laporte’s TWiT network). There is even an entry about Merlin at Wikipedia.

Originally life hacks referred to the quick and dirty shell scripts and other command line utilities that were used by programmers to help them speed their programming along. It has since been widely adopted and spread and now tends to be applied to a whole host of tips and tricks that you can apply in various areas of your life. Many lifehacks can be used to automate routine activities and they often don’t require a lot of effort to do. When you give it some thought you can understand why lifehacks have caught on. In the project and IT worlds we’re always looking to see what has been done before so that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time. By making use of lifehacks you can often automate some of your more routine activities giving you more time and energy to focus and work on more important activities.

43Folders was one of the earliest blogs to make use of term “lifehack” and incorporate it into its design and content. Merlin described the approach that he planned to take with 43Folders in his first post there called “Mental Sausage, _or_ 'Hello, World.'”,appearing on the site August 31, 2004. In addition to the widely popular GTD series and the Inbox Zero series, there are many other great posts and a forum dealing with a wide variety of topics. Merlin does an occasional podcast at 43Folders. Amongst the 43Folders podcasts, he did a very good series of interviews with Getting Things Done author David Allen. You can find 43Folders podcasts at Podcastalley. In addition within the 43Folders site, the podcasts can be found here, where you can subscribe via itunes.

Merlin Mann is a highly sought after speaker. Last summer he gave anInbox Zero Talk as part of a Google Tech Talk series at Google. I’m embedding the video below. Here is Slideshow of the talk that you can view at your own pace and you can also find the audio only in the 43Folders podcasts (it is currently the most recent one)

Do you read 43Folders? If you haven't checked it out, you should do so. Are there any other productivity/life hack sites that you recomend? If you have any other comments, I’d love to hear them. If you liked this article, please consider subscribing to the blog via RSS or email, share it on del.icio.us or on Digg and pass it on to anyone that you think might appreciate it .Thank you. :)

On Deck…

I’ll be publishing posts about…

• The next in my series of weight loss strategies
• My next Spotlight on the web.
• More on productivity, web 2.0, family, parenting, and other things that you can use.

Other Post That You Might Also Like to Read…

• GTD Overview
• Keep Your Project Simple Stupid
• Why Aren't You Working on Your "Someday/Maybe Projects?

From 43Folders...

• GTD series
• Inbox Zero series

Spotlight on Zenhabits

"Rock Sculpture" courtesy of scardion

I’d like to welcome you to the first of a new feature here at the Systems-Overload Blog, that I’m calling “Spotlight on the Web”. I plan to periodically introduce websites that I find helpful, useful, or just plain interesting. When I first thought about doing this feature, it didn’t take me long to realize that my first spotlight had to be Zenhabits. With a subscribed reader count of over 48,000, author Leo Babauta has definitely found an audience of people that paying attention to what he says.

"Yin and Yang" courtesy of CJLUC

I first stumbled upon Zenhabits in the Summer of 2007, while looking for information on GTD (Getting Things Done). I found a lot of useful information and noticed all the other content that he had written about. I’ve been returning there often ever since. Leo has a style that is clear and easy to understand. A lot of what he writes could be considered common sense, but it has been my experience that “common sense” is more often than not, not all that “common”. Simplicity and minimalism are at his core and he always tries to break things down to their basest and simplest elements. While I’m not the minimalist that he is, this is a trait that I could relate to.

Leo is the father of six kids. While he might not blatantly write about it in every post, if you look deep enough, you see his parenting experiences shining through his posts. Here some of his parenting posts that you might want to check out.

• Why I Love Being a Dad (there are 78 comments on this post!)
• How to be a Great Dad: 12 Awesome Tips
• 25 Ways to Simplify Your Life With Kids
• 10 Ideas for Connecting With Your Kids
• 100 Ways to Have Fun With Your Kids for Free Or Cheap

Some of Zenhabits more popular posts by category include: productivity and organization, family and finance, simplicity, happiness, health, and motivation. Here are a couple of popular posts that he has done about goals…

• How to Make the Time for Your Personal Goals
• The Magical Power of Focus

As the title indicates, Zenhabits is a lot about habits. Leo has been successful at making a lot of changes in his life the last few years which he has been able to incorporate into his writing. Leo had done some monthly challenges in the blog, where readers were challenged to change a habit for a month. This has since spilled over to the Zenhabits forum where readers can join and chart and discuss the progress that they have made in their monthly challenges.

Zenhabits does occasionally have guest posts, in fact Leo has written a lot of guest posts for other sites himself. It is nice that he allows others this opportunity to other bloggers, it adds some newness to the site, while he hasn’t let the guest posters take over, like at some other sites. In some cases the bloggers aren’t well known yet, so it gives them a wider audience for their writing. There have been some excellent guest posts as a result. Zenhabits is still basically a one-man show. Leo is also very accessible, often answering questions in the comments to his posts.

Leo decided to “uncopyright” his material. Where many other people are protective of “their ideas” and writing, Leo is encouraging other to make his material their own. He would like to receive credit for what he has done and of course donations would be accepted (should you decide to do so). By encouraging others to make his material their own, he is allowing his writing to take on a whole new life of its own. People can take his ideas and run with them in directions that might not have been even considered by Leo, you, or I. This policy has generated a lot of buzz, in fact there were 164 comments that last time I looked at the article.

In addition to the monthly challenges there is a whole host of topics discussed in the forum. He was a big force behind last year’s Blog Action Day, and promoted it heavily on his site. I look forward to hearing more about the Blog Action Day for 2008.

In January Leo was able to quit his day job and focus on Zenhabits, Writetodone, and writing for the first installment of his book deal. It is encouraging to see that someone could create a blog and in the course of a year to make enough from the blog that they can really become a professional blogger. He has written so many wonderful articles over the past year. I look forward to seeing what the second year brings.

If you haven’t checked out Zenhabits yet, then I suggest that you give it a look. If you have, what are some of your favorite posts? What is it that you like about Zenhabits? If you liked this article, please consider subscribing to the blog via RSS or email, share it on del.icio.us or on Digg and pass it on to anyone that you think might appreciate it .Thank you. :)

On Deck…

I’ll be publishing posts about…

• Using wikis for the net impaired
• The next in my series of weight loss strategies
• My next “Spotlight on the Web”

You might also like to check out the interview that I did with Leo.