Back to Work

TOPIC : Preparation This week, Dan and Merlin talk about preparation . Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Stock Photos, Royalty-Free Images and Vectors - Shutterstock Over 30 million stock photos, illustrations, vectors, and videos [SPONSOR] PDFpen Scan+: Scanning and OCR for iPad and iPhone PDFpen Scan enables you to scan multi-page documents, articles, receipts, and more, using the iPhone or iPad...

TOPIC : Traveling Like a Gentleman. This week, Dan and Merlin revisit the travails of air travel. How to prepare, how to survive--and how to be a better and more mindful person along the way. Also, some timely discussion of this morning's Apple product announcements. Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Build a Website — Squarespace [SPONSOR] Air Display 2 for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch on the iTun...

TOPIC : Learning the Wheres and Whens of Productivity This week, Dan and Merlin talk about learning from how you work to improve your basic productivity infrastructure, with specific attention to using Perspectives in OmniFocus . Whether it's consolidating shopping lists, eliminating task rot, or leveraging geolocation, there are innumerable tricks for lightly tweaking a system in powerful, non-fi...

TOPIC : Special Guest, Matt Alexander This week, Merlin is joined by Bionic co-host, Matt Alexander . They discuss ““technology ecosystems,”” life as a self-described trans-atlantic , tech scenes that thrive and don't, dating someone from Florida (and her Mum), and getting back into Marvel comics. Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Build a Website — Squarespace Squarespace is the easiest way for an...

TOPIC : Grab Bag, plus Tasks vs. Calendar Items This week Dan and Merlin administer an epic grab bag episode, chockablock with new app, book, podcast, and music suggestions. Also, a return to the evergreen topic of where stuff goes . How to decide whether a given thing goes on a calendar, a todo list, reference files, or an alarm. Great ninja stuff. Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Air Login, Air...

TOPIC : Informal Background Self-Quantization This week Dan & Merlin discuss the merits of self-quantization . Which is fancy way of saying, "Merlin got a new Fitbit." Why is anecdotal self-reporting a sucker's bet? What are the benefits of making your life a little video game? And, why is Merlin's scale accessing APIs via the internet? Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] HostGator HostGator is...

TOPIC : Etiquette, Intros, and Endorsements This week, Dan and Merlin talk about the surprisingly complicated topic of email introductions . Who emails whom? Who gets cc'd and for how long? How much homework are we making (or accepting)? And, thorniest of all, how do you ““introduce”” someone you'd reeeeeeally rather not introduce? Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Squarespace Squarespace is the e...

TOPIC : Fear of Your Own TODO List This week, Dan and Merlin cover a topic suggested by listener, @jeff_nordstedt : not wanting to look at your todo list . From capture to completion, there are a million ways to fall off the path. The boys take a deep dive on what those ways might be as well as how to get yourself straightened out and, as you say, back to work. Honestly. It's why people hate TODO...

TOPIC : Joss Whedon GTD; Meeting Redux This week, Dan and Merlin talk about getting specific with your productivity and why every meeting needs an agenda. Now, take a drink . Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Squarespace Squarespace is the easiest way for anyone to create an exceptional website. [SPONSOR] Shutterstock Royalty-Free Subscription Stock Photography & Vector Art [SPONSOR] PDFpen by...

TOPIC: Talk Shows, Baseball, and Inboxes. This week, Dan and Merlin cover a range of topics related to expertise, experience, professional repetition, and management, culminating in a tour of Merlin's current email filtering strategy. Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Stock Photos, Royalty-Free Images and Vectors - Shutterstock [SPONSOR] Build a Website — Squarespace Ungainly X-Mann Meetup! — Merl...

TOPIC : How many keys do you really need? This week, Dan and Merlin return to the question, "What do you want ten times more of?" and weigh the risks and benefits of increasing the amount of complexity in your life. Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Stock Photos, Royalty-Free Images and Vectors - Shutterstock [SPONSOR] Build a Website — Squarespace Editorial for iPad Powerful Markdown Editing and...

TOPIC : Fraud vs. Failure This week, Dan and Merlin dive into what makes us feel like frauds and what makes us feel like failures. Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Build a Website — Squarespace Batman: Year One - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "Year One", later referred to as "Batman: Year One", is an American comic book story arc written by Frank Miller, illustrated by David Mazzucchelli, colo...

TOPIC: Power, Yelling, and Airport Kung Fu This week, Dan and Merlin continue their discussion of power and how it does or doesn't work. Do real leaders actually talk like the douchebags, serial entrepreneurs, and screamy travelers struggling to imitate them? Not really. That's one way you can tell they're leaders. Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Stock Photos, Royalty-Free Images and Vectors - S...

TOPIC : Delays This week, Dan and Merlin talk about delays, agency, power, and why yelling at people about your problems rarely helps anyone. Links for this episode: Yad - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia A yad, literally, "hand," is a Jewish ritual pointer, popularly known as a Torah pointer, used by the reader to follow the text during the Torah reading from the parchment Torah scrolls. Beyond i...

TOPIC : Lists This week, Dan and Merlin talk about 3½ kinds of lists that can change your game. Merlin knows a lot about Productivity. Links for this episode: Interstate (typeface) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Interstate is a digital typeface designed by Tobias Frere-Jones in the period 1993–1999, and licensed by Font Bureau. The typeface is closely related to the FHWA Series fonts, a signag...

TOPIC : Time Awareness & Scope Wormholes This week, Dan and Merlin talk about why we (and Frank) are terrible at estimating time, as well as what we can do to get better at it. Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Transporter Transporter (use code "btw" for 10% off) 5by5 | Back to Work #107: Pull Out Your Dingus This week, Dan and Merlin talk about compression. What happens when we don't account...

TOPIC : Employers, Bosses, Leaders, and Managers This week—in what may easily turn into a multi-episode arc—Dan and Merlin talk about bosses . Whether we're looking at it from up or down, management is tricky business. The question is, what makes a boss a good manager, and what makes a good manager a great leader? Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Build a Website — Squarespace Use code "**`LITTLEK...

TOPIC : How many Saturdays do you get? This week, Dan and Merlin talk about time. Its scarcity, its passing, its tyranny, and its possibilities. Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Drafts - Agile Tortoise [SPONSOR] Build a Website — Squarespace [SPONSOR] Transporter | Data Redefined Ending the Tyranny of the Open-Plan Office - Businessweek The key to making workers happy and productive is having a m...

TOPIC : There are Only Two Prices: Free and What It Costs This week, Dan and Merlin return to the classic lineup and some classic topics, including knowing your value, learning what to charge, and realizing what you can live with. Also: jury duty, traveling, bathrooms, the sliding scale of suffering, and what-have you. Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Transporter | Data Redefined Transporter is a...

TOPIC : The Chinese Symbol for 'Pants' Inside of The Chinese Symbol for 'Jury Duty.' This week, Dan's away, so Merlin goes solo, taking a break from jury duty to talk about the opportunities that can be hiding inside change, inconvenience, and tumult. Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Stock Photos, Royalty-Free Images and Vectors - Shutterstock Over 25 million stock photos, illustrations, vectors,...

TOPIC : First Meeting, Gifts, and Grifts This week—after 122 episodes, plus almost a decade of internet pal-dom—Dan and Merlin finally meet and record in a room together for the first time. With only passing nods to the nominal topic of "gifts," Dan and Merlin mostly get to know each other. Why is Dan staring so penetratingly at Merlin? Does Dan think Merlin is fat as well as old? Why does Dan kee...

TOPIC : Loyalty, Altruism, Reality Check, or Extortion? This week, Dan and Merlin talk about what we talk about when we talk about " loyalty ." Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Shutterstock Stock Photos | Shutterstock: Royalty-Free Subscription Stock Photography & Vector Art - Search and select from millions of high resolution royalty free images, stock photos, vector art, and stock photograp...

TOPIC : Dan's Recent Bathroom Incident, et al. This week, Dan and Merlin exhale. Don't search for secret doors. Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] TextExpander Touch 2 by Smile TextExpander Touch: Type more with less effort on your iPhone or iPad! Expand custom keyboard shortcuts into frequently-used text snippets. Grab your favorite snippets from your Mac! [SPONSOR] Squarespace Squarespace is the...

TOPIC : What would you do differently if you had a "safety net?" This week, Dan and Merlin congratulate their pal, Marco, on the acquisition of a company he helped co-found. Which leads to the nominal topic: what kind of safety net would you need to feel secure, do the things you'd like, and mostly banish the more persistent cumulonimbus clouds of your own anxiety? Many angles are explored. Why wa...

TOPIC : Macintosh Nostalgia and Utter Apple ID Madness. This week, after an entirely appropriate amount of very important follow-up, Dan and Merlin talk about Susan Kare's original Mac icons, why they're not going to be appearing on John Siracusa's t-shirt, plus the litany of completely monkeyballs problems that now has Merlin ready to literally shoot his Apple ID in the back of the head, mob-styl...