Doris Blog

Recommended reading

• Study Hacks » Blog Archive » Corrupted Callings: The Subtle Difference Between Finding Your Life’s Work and Loving Your Life –

Recommended reading

• Does your website add features or solve problems? – Simply removing features from whatever task you have to deliver is one of the best ways to boost productivity!
• Nine Things Developers Want More Than Money | Software by Rob – Although this article is directed at programmers, the points are valid for many careers. I can think of a job I had not long ago that scored a zero out of 9 if you use this scale.

I really enjoyed this article – still falls under productivity but may be more appealing to the philosophically inclined.

I found this article from Lifehacker so good I wanted to reproduce it here in case it disappears at some point.

LH Editor: When software developer Brad Isaac told us he had productivity advice from Jerry Seinfeld, we couldn’t turn down the chance to hear more. Read on for the whole story from Brad.

Years ago when Seinfeld was a new television show, Jerry Seinfeld was still a touring comic. At the time, I was hanging around clubs doing open mic nights and trying to learn the ropes. One night I was in the club where Seinfeld was working, and before he went on stage, I saw my chance. I had to ask Seinfeld if he had any tips for a young comic. What he told me was something that would benefit me a lifetime…

He said the way to be a better comic was to create better jokes and the way to create better jokes was to write every day. But his advice was better than that. He had a gem of a leverage technique he used on himself and you can use it to motivate yourself—even when you don’t feel like it.

He revealed a unique calendar system he uses to pressure himself to write. Here’s how it works.

He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker.

He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. “After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain.”

“Don’t break the chain,” he said again for emphasis.

Over the years I’ve used his technique in many different areas. I’ve used it for exercise, to learn programming, to learn network administration, to build successful websites and build successful businesses.

It works because it isn’t the one-shot pushes that get us where we want to go, it is the consistent daily action that builds extraordinary outcomes. You may have heard “inch by inch anything’s a cinch.” Inch by inch does work if you can move an inch every day.

Daily action builds habits. It gives you practice and will make you an expert in a short time. If you don’t break the chain, you’ll start to spot opportunities you otherwise wouldn’t. Small improvements accumulate into large improvements rapidly because daily action provides “compounding interest.”

Skipping one day makes it easier to skip the next.

I’ve often said I’d rather have someone who will take action—even if small—every day as opposed to someone who swings hard once or twice a week. Seinfeld understands that daily action yields greater benefits than sitting down and trying to knock out 1000 jokes in one day.

Think for a moment about what action would make the most profound impact on your life if you worked it every day. That is the action I recommend you put on your Seinfeld calendar. Start today and earn your big red X. And from here on out…

Don’t break the chain!

I wish I hadn’t waited so long to install the ClickToFlash plugin, it totally improves the web experience.  The idea is simple, all flash animations are paralyzed by default  To view flash, including videos like youtube, etc, you have to click to play.  A lot healthier for the laptop, no more CPU running at 100% nor mindless distractions when you’re trying to absorb valuable content.

Thanks to Pam for the heads up about this new app in the app store, WorkSnug.

WorkSnug uses Augmented Reality to connect mobile workers to the nearest and best places to work in the city. We’ve visited and rated hundreds of workspaces, assessing noise levels, power provision, community feel, even the quality of the coffee. London has been launched first. San Francisco, New York, Berlin, Madrid and several other cities are on the way in the coming weeks

Covered recently in Web Worker Daily, check out the video to see the app in action.

We had a few reports of problems from users our Doris Dashboard widget.  In some cases, duplicates of new items were being created.  So we’ve releases updates for both our widget types:

• download the latest Dashboard widget
• download the latest Opera widget

For more info about how to access your Doris account through various widgets and other clients see our Integration page.

And while I’m at it, welcome to all the new users who signed up thanks to our mention in yesterday’s TUAW post – welcome guys and we hope you enjoy using Doris.

Apologies to Doris users for a brief service interruption that occurred last night, the total downtime was around 3 hours from 23.00 GMT yesterday to 02.00 GMT today.

Our hosting provider had an emergency issue based on an urgent firmware upgrade required for its routers.  This is a rare occurrence and is not likely to happen again.  If it does we’ll move to another provider

Promo codes only work for users of the US AppStore – get them now, only 20 available.

http://promodispenser.com/App-205-Doris-Productivity-Tool.html

As some of our techie users will have guessed, we’ve had an API (Application Programming Interface) for Doris working for some time now, that’s the reason you can use a range of clients (iPhone, Dashboard widget, Opera widget) to access and update your account data.

But starting today we’ve made the API publicly available, see for yourself by checking out the Doris API documentation.

What does this mean for all users?  It means you now have total control over your data and can use it exactly how you like.  With the help of a developer you can write custom programs to use Doris data in new and exciting ways.

What does this mean for developers?  It means you can now create Doris-based applications and/or integrate Doris with your existing development workflow.

We’re excited to see what ideas our users come up with and judging by the amount of requests over at Uservoice, I’m anticipating a healthy response.

If you have any questions, ideas or bug reports please drop us a line at the usual place.