Let’s do the math.

There are 251 working days in 2013, and assuming 10 days of vacation per year it’s safe to assume the average person will commute 241 days out of the year.

Therefore, we come down to total time behind the wheel in 1 year: 80.33 hrs. DANG! So, yeah, for a short commute like that, the average person spends two-work-weeks behind the wheel. Tragic.

You could be spending more than 160 hours, or a months worth of work-time behind the wheel every year if you have a 20 minute one-way drive.

So, what is the true cost of commuting? Well, add in gas and lost-time and it could be significant. Is it really worth it to spend that much time in your car?

Connecting (Full Film) from Bassett & Partners on Vimeo.

Web browsers to me are distractions. It’s awesome to use a desktop app.

Try Harvest (referral link): http://try.hrv.st/2xq

Here’s what I have been looking for:

• Logging of time with start and end date stamps – I need to know when this time was logged… not just the day it was logged.
• Easy invoicing – either in the service, or really great export options to Excel or another invoicing app – like Freshbooks.
• An OS X app – it’s 2012 people, I need to do this on the desktop. Also, iPhone apps are great and I like that as a bonus.
• Daily report – I posted a few years ago about how I work, and one of the things I love about Complete Time Tracking Pro is the daily report. It’s beautiful and shows me the gaps in my time logs.

So, what are some of the apps I am considering:

• Complete Time Tracking Pro – have used this for over 5 years – awesome Windows app, but it’s time to move on to something that’s a little more modern, and web based, and has an OS X desktop app. I know certain people (yes, you) will think it’s crazy to move on, but I’m not so convinced that another app will really reduce my productivity or reduce my ease in invoicing.
• Harvest – seriously considering this as a viable option.
• Toggl – looks really nice and I like some of the interface ideas they have implemented.

I may do another post in the future about my selection. If you’re interested in this topic, check out my article from 2010 about my obsession with time tracking.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/658677510/aboutfaceclock-hangs-on-a-wall-corner-or-ceiling

Pretty cool looking app – http://www.eisenhower.me/
I’m going to give it a try this week.

“No matter how organized we are, we must continue to care for the stuff we organize, cleaning and sorting our methodically structured belongings. When we get rid of the superfluous stuff, however, we can focus on life’s more important aspects. Said another way: We can spend the day focusing on our health, on our relationships, on pursuing what we’re passionate about. Or we could, of course, reorganize our basement again.”

This beautiful walnut clock is made from a solid piece of Walnut which is then fitted with a solid American Made mechanism and brass accents. The three brass “O”s live in the three position. This clock wants to be in your living room, whether your style is vintage modern, mid-century, or soho chic.

Via: Customatic

Keeping as much state persistent across sessions as possible. I leave all my editors, browser windows, etc exactly the way they are so I can pick up and resume where I left off. This means I usually never shut down my computer, preferring to put it to sleep or standby where possible.

Everything else in your day – is not important. You just have to do these two things. Nothing more, nothing less.

http://mindfolder.com/blog/30-minutes-day/

Excessive side projects. Side projects are like comfort food for coders. I’m a believer in doing a side project here and there to keep burnout at bay. Unfortunately, there was a period where I overdosed on them and was working on enough side projects to rival my real startup. I think it’s particularly easy to fall into this trap when your company is new but not brand new, i.e. traversing the Trough of Sorrow. Better to just suck it up and stay focused on product.

http://talkfast.org/2012/05/05/early-startup-time-wasters

Working 11-12 hours is definitely not common. Of the few people I know who do it, all do it voluntarily.

People consistently overestimate the number of hours they work, particularly if they work more than 40.

Source: http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2011/06/art3full.pdf

This is the funkiest song EVER! listen to the guy playing the bass. pure funk! if I could play the bass, this would be the only song I played.

features a uniform grid of 110 letters, which it uses to display phrases like “It is half past nine” whenever you press the side-mounted stainless steel button. Other features include a square brushed stainless steel casing in natural or black, the ability to show the calendar day or seconds — with two and three presses of the single button, respectively — and a rubber or leather strap.

When people have to make sacrifices for work – like missing their child’s soccer game – they end up being resentful. She is proactive with her employees to make sure they don’t experience lots of resentment-causing activities. If being at tuesday night dinner with friends is the one thing you need to keep you happy, you should be there every week.

If you don’t have a calendar on hand, here’s an easy way to figure out which months have 31 days and which have 30:

• Count the months on your knuckles and the grooves between your knuckles. Leave out your thumb knuckle.
• Every month that lands on a knuckle is 31 days, every month that lands on a groove between knuckles is 30 days (or 28 for February).

Starting with your forefinger’s knuckle:
1st knuckle: Jan (31 days)
Groove: Feb (28 or 30 days)
2nd knuckle: March (31 days)
Groove: April (30 days)
3rd Knuckle: May (31 days)
Groove: June (30 days)
4th Knuckle: July (31 days)

Returning to first knuckle (the forefinger, remember–skip the thumb knuckle)

1st Knuckle: August (31 days)
Groove: September (30 days)
2nd Knuckle: October (31 days)
Groove: November (30 days)
3rd Knuckle: December (31 days)

Instead of moving right to left by starting with your forefinger, you could also start with your pinkie’s knuckle and move left to right. Still works out the same.

Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November;
All the rest have thirty-one,
Save February alone, with twenty-eight days clear,
And twenty-nine in each leap year.

This video answers the question: What is a leap year?

The good ones are clear and descriptive. They include more text and i can understand what was worked on even if i wasn’t following the project day to day.

From Inc Magazine.

Related blog post about over-committing.

Instead of using some elaborate organizing system, I stuck with a very basic pen and paper to-do list. My only organizing tool was a notepad where I wrote down all my assignments and their deadlines. I didn’t worry about doing any advance scheduling or prioritizing. I would simply scan the list to select the most pressing item which fit the time I had available. Then I’d complete it, and cross it off the list.

If I had a 10-hour term paper to write, I would do the whole thing at once instead of breaking it into smaller tasks. I’d usually do large projects on weekends. I’d go to the library in the morning, do the necessary research, and then go back to my dorm room and continue working until the final text was rolling off my printer. If I needed to take a break, I would take a break. It didn’t matter how big the project was supposed to be or how many weeks the professor allowed for it. Once I began an assignment, I would stay with it until it was 100% complete and ready to be turned in.

http://youtu.be/SuhGwaZiNIk

A sweet poster proclaiming that freelancing isn’t free. That’s so true.

…[P]ie charts are really only useful when a small number of categories of data are far, far greater than others.

The above example is useful. From John Graham-Cumming’s post about pie charts.

How do people spend their time?

MARGARET THATCHER, a former British prime minister, reportedly got by on just four hours’ sleep a night. Such deprivation would trouble many people, and certainly the French, who sleep for nearly nine hours on average, according to a report by the OECD. True to stereotype, the French also spend the most time eating and drinking of OECD members—indeed, they eat for almost twice as long as the Americans. The Japanese appear to have a tough time of it, working by far the longest hours. However, they also devote less time to unpaid work such as household chores and childcare, activities that account for around one third of the OECD’s GDP.

From The Economist.

I tell myself that I will merely write down the steps needed to complete the task. Just a rough draft, at first, and that’s it. Maybe just 3 steps. I then add more steps, breaking the 3 steps into smaller sub-tasks. I then add some details, and thoughts, notes of things that I shouldn’t forget when doing this task. I just think the task through and write everything down. After a little while, I will be a proud author of “The Complete Guide To Finishing Task X for Dummies”.

From 10 best tricks of fooling myself to work.

“Every one of us can send emails on Sunday night, but how many of us know how to go to the movies on Monday afternoon? If you don’t know how to go to the movies from 2 to 4, you’re in trouble because you’ve just taken on something that unbalances life, but you haven’t rebalanced it with something else.” — Ricardo Semler

A few years ago I read the book Maverick by this man, and it was really good and got me thinking about a lot of topics.

About the Lecture — If successful business depends on innovation, wonders Ricardo Semler, why are automobiles made essentially the same way today as they were in Ford’s first assembly line 100 years ago? Parallel parking is one of “ the stupidest things we do,” says Semler, “If we had a day, could we not by tomorrow afternoon figure out a way to make a car” that handles better in this common situation — or, on a grander scale, escape from the “silly concept” of oil dependent transportation altogether? The problem, Semler figures, is that there’s “something fundamental about organizations and … leadership that makes it almost impossible for people inside a business to change their own industry.” Industries are based on “formats that are basically legacies of military hierarchies,” says Semler, which neglect or deny the power of human intuition and democratic participation. In Semler’s own firm, there are no five-year business plans (which he views as wishful thinking), but rather “a rolling rationale about numbers.” A project takes off only if a critical mass of employees decides to get involved. Staff determine when they need a leader, and then choose their own bosses in a process akin to courtship, says Semler, resulting in a corporate turnover rate of 2% over 25 years. “We’ll send our sons anywhere in the world to die for democracy,” says Semler, but don’t seem to apply the concept to the workplace. This is a tragic error, because “people on their own developing their own solutions will develop something different.

2011/03 Mike Monteiro | F*ck You. Pay Me. from SanFrancisco/CreativeMornings on Vimeo.

From Entrepreneur Corner on VentureBeat.

A nice printable timesheet PDF.

idonethis.com

Every day we’ll email you to ask, “What’d you get done today?”

Inch by inch, anything’s a cinch.

We’ll keep a calendar for you of what you got done. Look to your streak from yesterday to motivate you today.

thecolourclock.co.uk

And here’s a whole discussion about how it could have been built in HTML5.

I’d wager that meetings ARE necessary to get business done. Not all of them are critical. In my honest opinion, I feel like most of the ones I partake in are needed, and worth the time.

From this interesting post about time lapse videos.