1. Watch this

2. Use this

Long Version

1. Watch this series of videos from the TED Conference. It’s a compiled list of greatest hits from Fast Company.

2. Use this website called Instapaper. Instapaper allows you to read articles on the web without all the ads and distracting graphics that clutter everything up. There is even an iPad and iPhone app that allows you to read the articles offline. Great for when you are traveling.

1. Go on a media diet.

1. Go on a media diet for a week.   Here is what you need to do.  First, abstain from watching or reading any news.  Watch or read a little non-fiction each day, but don’t over do it.  The goal here is to detach yourself from media that informs of you things you can’t control.  I tried it and found immediately that my attitude was less pessimistic, I also seemed to be more focused on what was in front of me.  Secondly, reduce your Twitter, Facebook and other social media interactions to a time you designate, say 15 minutes in the evening and that’s it.  This will only add to your ability to focus.   Try these two things and let me know how it works for you.

Let me introduce you to Syphir.  Syphir is Gmail filters on steroids.  Let me give you give an example.  Say you only want email delivered to your inbox from the hours of 10am to 2pm.  Well, Syphir has a time delay rule that will make that happen.  What if you want a filter all your emails that were sent to more than 8 recipients (I am referring to those wonderful HR emails with discounts to the local deli).  Syphir lets you filter based on the number of recipients.  What if you all your unread email that is two weeks old to be labeled “Read Now”.  Consider it done.

So give Syphir a shot and see how you can use it to reinvent Gmail to make it work for you.

(P.S. Syphir does not require you to give them your Gmail password it uses OAuth, so you don’t have about password getting out there in cyberspace).

1. Listen to these.
2. Start one of these.

1. Listen to these lectures from a conference entitled the “The Do Lectures”.  Think of it like a TED Conference except for the fact that its held on a farm in Wales.  The lecturers are diverse and even include David Allen for the 2010 conference.
2. Start a blog using Tumblr.  That’s right I’m telling you to start a blog.  Why?  Well, first it’s free.  Secondly, it is a whole better r than that piece of paper you call a resume that you keep passing out with all of your “experience” on it.  Find a topic or niche that you are passionate about and write about.  Finally, Tumblr is dead simple to use and they have really good looking themes.

Subculture however, is much more difficult to locate. It requires digging, poking and asking a lot of questions.  It requires you to enter the mindset of a learner.  Subculture resides on the side streets, not on main street.

The reason why subculture is important is that it usually begets pop culture.  If you can pay attention to subculture, you will have pretty good opportunity to predict what will be big in pop culture.  That fad about rolling up your jeans that hit in the 80′s?  It started in some sort of subculture.  It could have been the skate or surf culture that started it, but it didn’t come out thin air.

As a Creative Director, I spend majority of my time studying subculture while keeping an eye on pop culture.  My goal is to be two steps ahead of what is on main street.  It’s not easy.   It requires a large amount of curation.  In fact, most of my Sunday afternoon and evening is spent doing that.  I will go through about a thousand articles in my rss feeder and read about five magazines.   This of course requires constant pruning and a great deal of concentration (both of which are not easy for me).

Studying subculture also requires you immersing yourself in a culture where you might be comfortable.  It requires going to places and talking to people that you otherwise might not encounter.  When you do that you then will see your preconceived ideas of other groups begin to fade.  You can begin to see patterns and ideas that will effect your creative work.

This isn’t pretty or easy.  You will be a fish out of water, but you will be better for it.

Here is my issue.

When selecting an email in Mobile Gmail on Safari the address bar does not reflect the email that you selected. In other words it still says “mail.google.com/mail/#tl/Inbox”, no individual message url is given.  So when you hit the “Send to Omnifocus” bookmarklet in Safari, all you will send to Omnifocus is “mail.google.com/mail/#tl/Inbox”. Yikes.

Here is the quick solution.

To get the individual email url, you have to switch to desktop mode.  It’s located on the bottom of the gmail web page.  Once you switch to desktop mode and select the message you want, you can then hit the “Send to Omnifocus” bookmarklet and the email link will be sent to Omnifocus.  Then when you sync Omnifocus on your Mac, you should be able to click on the link and open up the email that the action is referring to.

So that’s my solution.  Is there a better way to make this happen?  If so let me know.

1. Listen to this.

2. Listen to this.

1. Listen to this album by Florence and The Machine.  Their song “Dog Days Are Over”, seems to be the choice for movie trailers and fall TV show previews.   I am sucker for strong female vocals.  Crank it up and enjoy.

2. Listen to this podcast featuring Jeffery Veen of Typekit, Merlin Mann and Dan Benjamin.  There are some great insights on running teams, workflow and of course some ribbing of corporate IT guys (well deserved).  It might be a bit geeky, however it’s the kind of stuff I can listen to hours of.

At first I panicked. I looked frantically across the aisle. No, AC outlets. However I did spot something else, a USB outlet. Score. I plugged in the iPad and sure enough the USB outlet would keep it powered throughout my entire flight. If I was stuck solely with my MacBook Pro, I would have been in trouble. It’s why I love this iPad. More and more, I find that this device is getting me out of sticky situations.