Muntjac

We caught some of an old Inspector Morse episode last night, one so early, that it was probably based on a Colin Dexter story. Apart from the relative youth of the cast, what surprised was just how out of date it all seemed now.

* No attempts to take DNA at a crime scene

* An architect’s office full of people working at drawing boards

* An insurance office relying on paper records to manage information

Then once you thought about it, no CCTV, no mobile phones, people listening to LPs and checking the times for a radio programme in the Radio Times. Basically no computers, no iTunes, no iPods, no mobile phones!! The programme is not even particularly old, and already it has aged like those drawing room comedies. Will our lives change as much in the next twenty years! Will our lives in twenty years seem equally incomprehensible?


To look at the same issue from another angle, I am now an avid listener to podcasts, it helps make productive use of all my time commuting, without wearing out my eyes. I like to listen to the Indiefeed Alternative/modern rock podcasts. Available via iTunes, and ...

http://blindingflashes.blogs.com/indie_feed/

Following up on artists, I have downloaded a song, ordered a couple of albums from Amazon, and now downloaded an entire album. Four Fifty One, The Thermals and The Phenomenauts, respectively.

I can check out excerpts from album tracks on both iTunes and Amazon. All these groups are so obscure that they would be unavailable in any record shop.

When I was younger you could read the NME, and send away for the occasional tape of tracks that they really rated, or listen to John Peel, but although you were surrounded by music and writing about music, it was incredibly difficult to actually identify acts outwith the mainstream which you actually liked.

I suppose this comes back to the ideas of Nicholas Negroponte on us dealing in bits and bytes, and not dead trees now that many media have gone digital,

http://archives.obs-us.com/obs/english/books/nn/bdcont.htm

the Chris Anderson idea of the Long Tail with viable markets forming in less popular art product creators,

http://www.longtail.com/about.html

or even a move toward a theoretically perfect market, where everyone has access to perfect information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_competition


Something else that I have been thinking about this week is the David Allen Getting Things Done methodology, based on some podcasts and the 43folders website. I’ve ordered the book, so that I can try an implement the methodology in a more thorough manner. Basically I am pretty good at time management, I am less good about just switching off from all the different jobs and projects that I am involved in.

http://www.43folders.com/
http://www.davidco.com/

The steps that I have implemented so far,

* starting work on recording all my actions against the relevant projects

* being more systematic and tidier about my miscellaneous note taking

* using a notebook to capture random ideas for later use

* trying not to scrawl on post-its, instead putting notes in my working jotter

* doing a daily brainstorm worklist, of tasks that I will conceivably do that day, with the more detailed listing of all the tasks that need done, not being rewritten daily, as it had been before

* putting future actions into the diary, for instance agreeing appointments with people to discuss more substantial issues

* putting time in my outlook calender daily for the routine filing/document management

* working away from my desk when I can, for example reading documents in the canteen

* to balance out the lack of accessibility, I do a weekly meeting with my staff, supplemented by plenty of additional chats to see how they are getting on

* managing my email differently, trying to deal with each email the first time I read it, reply, file or delete. This discipline makes for sharper/quicker replies.

* considering my work as a variety of different projects, and my day as a variety of strands of time, which are allocated across the projects.

* trying to trust the system to monitor the outstanding tasks, rather than keeping it all in my head

* feeling better about not multi-tasking

* feeling better about not getting everything done

* thinking that what I am usually doing is giving a touch on the rudder, moving things slightly in the direction that they need to move, and not stressing that they are not entirely resolved.

* thinking about my input being a process that can be applied to inputs to produce outputs,

* thinking about my input as being like a computer which needs to split its tasks into pieces, put them into order and then focus on them one at a time.

Of course all this is a lot easier when I have staff to manage, and I can deploy them on work, so my role is much more one of conducting the orchestra, rather than trying to play all the instruments at the same time.


Finally yesterday I was stroking a muntjac deer on the chin, like my dog, it seemed very fond of having its chin stroked. It is strange how allow the different species are in their social behaviour.

http://www.deer-uk.com/muntjac1.htm