Keep your pencil sharp

Sometimes I'm a creature of habit. However, I recently made minor changes to my Dock (for Mac OS X and iPod) that resulted in new habits and adoption of programs I needed to make better use of.

Michael Michalko has a great little workbook of mental exercises called Thinkertoys. In chapter two he addresses the creature of habit—aka the Duke of Habit. This is the person who suffers when his routine is violated. As a result, a creature of habit has impaired problem-solving. His resolution to the threat of becoming a Duke of Habit is to deliberately program changes into your daily life.

I have found this to prove true in my case—which only slightly explains the efforts described below. Some sort of neuroses likely explains the rest.

A friend of mine is just getting started with RapidWeaver and asked what he needed next: Themes? Plugins? Training? Did he really need to spend more money on all the great add-ons in the marketplace? Or, could he just get started with off-the-shelf RapidWeaver?

Since RapidWeaver has enough stock themes to get you going, and training is subjective, I recommended he (really anyone) purchase four plugins before diving in to RapidWeaver. I honestly don't think I could build a website with RapidWeaver without these four plugins.

I have listed them in order of my perceived importance…

When making a profound observation, give an example

Of course, if the astute observation is truly accurate the examples ought to be plentiful, as well as forthcoming, right?

1. Get a Mac (if you don't already have one), and while you're at it
2. Purchase RapidWeaver from RealMac Software; then
3. Subscribe to the RealMac forum…
4. And follow some of the Twitter accounts listed below (ordered by highest to lowest number of tweets as of this post)

When I made the Mac switch I knew I was in for a better design experience. What I didn't expect was how much more productive I would be. One of the best demonstrations of this productivity-design marriage is GeekTool.

I'll save all the productivity wizardry for another time; what I wanted to talk about today was a fun, yet, productivity-boosting tool to trick out your desktop and complement a creative design.

Have you ever said any of the following about your website:

I've been hounding a few businesses lately on the importance of self-generated content: primarily by blogging. Then, a few days later I hear, "But YOU don't have a blog!"