I like to determine how effective I can be based on input vs output. Input I receive Vs the Output I achieve.

How effective can you be if the input you receive is redundant, polluted and irrelevant. How much output can you achieve if the majority of your time is spent sorting through rubbish input?

I solved the input pollution side of the rule by a single mail filter which took less than 20 seconds to setup.

"If my email address is in the CC field, move the incoming email to an archive folder"

I have a single archive email folder which I can easily search.

If an email is sent to me and I'm not in the To field it does not get my attention. Simple.

How effective has this been?

About 90% of my incoming email is now automatically moved into my 'archive' folder.

Will I read them?

Not unless I have to.

When do I determine I have to?

When someone phones me and says 'I sent you an email, did you read it?'.

So far this has resulted in myself being able to achieve a much greater output due to the noise cancellation the filter has created with my input.

I sometimes have this picture as my desktop background or add it to my home wiki page on what ever project or job I'm working on at the time.

Why?

It helps me not take work life too seriously and have a bit of fun.

Steve Sammartino sums it up in a couple of words, "There is no career, only life".

I used to live to geek.

I would read/hack/learn new technology that would quench my inner geek thirst. I would hang out in IRC channels, sign up to mailing lists, attend user group meetings, read through source code and documentation until I knew enough to be comfortable in speaking about the technology with other enthusiasts. Hacking away till 2am on a week night was not uncommon. I would add technology X to my resume, install it on servers where possible and demo it to fellow geeks, workmates and managers.

But to what gain?

I call this 'Living To Geek' and view it as problem that many passionate technologists have. It can have a major impact on your life aswell as the people in your life. At the time you dont realise it. Is it making you a better person professionally? Most of the time, no. It does show you know a little about a lot. In a world where non-specialised IT work is being off shored to developing countries does it make sense for professionals in developed countries to not be specialised?

In 2006 I switched from 'Living to Geek' to 'Geeking to Live'. I still had a passion for technology but I made sure that the time I spent with it had a direct tangible benefit to my life and the people in it. The technology I learnt, hacked on, read about and used would align with my lifestyle. Technology wasnt a 'hobby' any more. I used it to improve my lifestyle, my work life, my financial status and the lives of people around me.

Next time you sit down and begin hacking away on the latest whiz bang piece of technology you've been saying that you'd play with for the last 6 months, first ask your self "Am I geeking to live?".

The iPad arrived on my door step earlier this week after taking 5 business days to travel from the US. So far my experiences with the iPad have been pleasant but not mind blowing.

My observations so far

• It is heavy. Both my arms started cramping up after using it for the first 30 minutes. You do get use to the weight after a few more hours.
• The Photos application is by far the best way to show how the iPad shines. Its still early days and I'm sure there will be some phenomenal apps to come.
• Apple have created a closed ecosystem with a walled garden surrounding the applications that they want their users to be exposed to. You cannot install any application on the iPad unless its approved by Apple and available on their app store. If you're against this sort of thing, the iPad is not for you.

Moving onto the dislikes

• As soon as you power on the iPad it asks to be plugged into iTunes. Once connected to iTunes some sort of activation occurs and away you go. There is no need to sync with iTunes but the activation needs to occur first.
• There is no full iPad support in the app store for non-US residents. You can find iPad apps on the app store through iTunes if you search for their iPhone counter parts. You will be presented with the option of purchasing the iPad version but there is no full browse support yet.
• Syncing of the iPad with iTunes is extremely slow but this could be because I'm using an underpowered netbook. Every picture you sync to your iPad needs to be cut down to iPad resolution and this process is horrendously slow on the netbook. There is also alot of other 'stuff' that occurs during the synchronisation and in iTunes 9.1.1 it just displays 'Syncing iPad' so I'm unsure of what it's actually syncing.

Advice given by Patrick McKenzie who is a solo starter building Bingo Card Creator. Patrick was interviewed on Gabriel Wienberg's podcast Traction.