Muses and Lies - Home

Cooking Steaks

2011-11-27T22:22:00Z

1.5 pounds, new york strip

Warm steaks up to room temp
Rub garlic in with salt and pepper
Heat pan
Cover bottom in canola oil
Heat to 475, bit of smoke
Plop in pan
Wait 3 minutes
Flip
Add some butter
Wait for butter to melt
Baste steak
Cook till done
Turn on side in pan, helps drain, browns the fat
Take out
Baste steak
Let rest
Cut diagonally

Well

2010-10-05T07:18:00Z

Obviously Blogging™ hasn’t been at the top of my list for a while.

And for good reason. I’ve just discovered a lot.

How Joe Gets Stuff Done

2010-04-16T17:59:00Z

Tools needed:

Omnifocus for mac
Omnifocus for iPhone
iPhone
GMail
Send and Archive GMail extension

It’s basically GTD and Inbox Zero.

I’ve setup Contexts for my work. A Context is a place I need to be or something I have to have in order to get things done. Currently, my Contexts are:

Home (stuff I can do at home)
Errands (stuff that I need a car for)
Office (stuff that I need to be in my office for)
Computer (stuff that I need a computer for)
Phone (stuff I need to call people about)
People
- Spouse (stuff I need to talk to the wife about)
Waiting (stuff I’m waiting for)
Some Day (stuff I might do someday)
Whitepages (stuff I need to be at Whitepages for)

In Omnifocus, when I enter a task, I usually give it a Context. Whenever I have some free time, I look at the task at the top of the list of the Context that I’m in and I do it.

The trick is to break down projects/tasks into actionable pieces. This is really important. Breaking down tasks into physical actions means that you’ve done a bit of thinking and know what will be required—and it makes it really simple to later see all the things you can do in a given Context.

For example, if I have to return something, but I need the address first, that would be three tasks:

Lookup the address (computer or phone context)
Pack up the stuff (home context)
Ship it (errand context)

Those three tasks go into a Project; anytime tasks depend on a different task, you should have a Project for that group of tasks. I’ve configured Omnifocus to only show me tasks that are available to me. For example, above, if I haven’t looked up the address yet, and I’m on an errand, I wouldn’t see the “Ship It” task; I would only see that once I’ve completed the first two tasks.

Omnifocus on my desktop/laptops are configured to sync automatically with omnifocus on my iphone.

For email, every bit of mail processed and removed from the inbox everytime I check my email. There’s four actions for mail:

Answer it and archive it
Archive it
Delete it
Move it to the ‘Action’ folder

Anything in the Action folder means I need to either respond to it later, or do a task based on that email. A couple times a week, I sit down and scan through the emails in the Action folder and figure out what to do—either respond/archive, delete it if it’s not relevant anymore, or make a task in omnifocus for it.

I feel like I keep track of all my tasks and email pretty well with this system. The overhead is pretty low; the omnifocus apps are pretty slick. The send/archive lab feature in GMail helps me quickly deal with mail. It’s pretty simple to archive mail on an iphone as well; just move it to the ‘All Mail’ folder.

Testing Tanga Ad

2010-03-20T05:48:00Z

Just testing out this tanga ad!

Differences of being a dad (#10)

2009-10-27T23:04:00Z

Getting a few minutes to yourself is a rarity.

Differences of being a dad (#9)

2009-10-10T18:40:00Z

Meals are centered around kids, and you are happy with that.

We bought a house

2009-09-23T22:42:00Z

We bought a house in Kenmore, WA a month ago.

Seems like a reasonable time to buy.

Being a home owner so far has been great. Primarily because we didn’t have to make a mortgage payment for September. And nothing’s broke so far.

Differences of being a dad (7)

2009-04-17T22:07:00Z

You realize that sometimes people cry for half an hour for no reason at all.

Differences of being a dad (8)

2009-04-17T22:07:00Z

You really appreciate drive through restaurants.

Differences of being a dad (6)

2009-04-16T00:58:00Z

Poop is not as disgusting as it used be.

Differences of being a dad (5)

2009-04-13T07:03:00Z

There’s a lot more goldfish crackers in the house.

Differences of being a dad (4)

2009-04-12T17:13:00Z

7:30 am is sleeping in.

Differences of being a dad (3)

2009-04-09T17:06:00Z

Each week needs to be planned out in advance.

Differences of being a dad (2)

2009-04-08T20:36:00Z

Getting ready to leave the house in the morning now takes at least thirty minutes. An hour if you need to shower and get yourself ready.

Differences of being a dad (1)

2009-04-08T14:47:00Z

Breakfast now takes forty minutes of preparation, feeding, and cleaning up. Instead of five minutes.