Matthew Cornell

A little grab-bag post today.

First, yesterday in Western MA, USA, we had a beautiful, exciting, and hazardous ice storm. The latter I experienced first hand (first foot, actually) when I slipped on a near-frictionless driveway and broke my leg (fibular fracture). This is three months on the heels of a broken thumb, so I feel a bit like warmed-over poo. And yes, there's some self-judgment involved as well.

So this week some short, but hopefully high-value mini entries [1].

Moving offices

Because my office is upstairs, I needed to set up one on our first floor. (What - Matt stop working!?) With my dear wife's help, we got it done in 15 minutes. I think this is remarkable. All it took was moving down:

• Action system (already portable; and remember, it's only a calendar and three lists - Projects, Actions, and Waiting For)
  
• Laptop computer and headset
  
• Portable phone
  
• Stacking shelves (inbox, action support, working project folders [2])
  
• Desktop supplies (many in one place - my spinning organizer)
  
• Mail-related items (envelopes, stamps, and thank you cards)
  
• Printer
  
• Legal pad (supports my collection habit)

(For how much such a system simplifies moving the entire office, see Another GTD Plus - Moving offices made much easier.)

Windows text automation tools experiment

Over the last month I've been trying a few tools to automate my computer workflow on Windows [3]. In the productivity blogosphere, reviewing and using tools like text expansion and auto-completion is common, so I thought I'd give some a whirl. I looked at two categories: Text auto-completion (in which the program figures out the word/phrase you're typing and types it for you), and text expansion (in which you tell the program which word/phrase it should type). In other words, programs where it decides vs. when you decide. (Note: This separation is fuzzy - there's crossover between the two.)

The verdict: The latter class is much more useful and flexible, and

For auto-completion I tried these programs: LetMeType, IntelliComplete Professional, As-U-Type, and AutoTyping. My conclusion: Increasing typing speed would provide more benefit, due to completion not being 100% (which is probably impossible). Put another way, it was slower cycling through completions searching for the correct one. That said, of the ones I tried, LetMeType was the most usable.

(Side note: Interestingly, I had trouble finding one that was under active development. Makes me think either a) it's a dead end, or b) no one's created a great tool yet. Opportunity?)


For text expansion I looked researched a bunch of them [4], and ended up trying AutoHotkey first. It is free, powerful, under active development, and has a supportive user community. My conclusion: It's pretty darn neat, passed the "I'll keep using it" test, and was good enough to not try any others. And its scripting library can do about anything. I haven't integrated it deeply with Firefox yet, but I hope it will replace CoScripter (I like tool consolidation if possible). It supports UI macros as well (click here, etc.) There's a nice introduction at lifehacker: Hack Attack: Knock down repetitive email with AutoHotKey.

Note that I used the geeky edit-a-text-file approach, and did find the syntax to be a bit confusing at first. I believe there's a graphical front end, though. If you want a friendlier UI, definitely check out ActiveWords - it is pretty, but still has a large scripting library.


Mac users may want to check out this Spell Catcher vs. TextExpander vs. Typinator vs. TypeIt4Me, etc..


So tell me: What's your experience around this been? Got a favorite you can't live with? Do tell!


Resources

• [1] Yes, I realize that most blogs are only entries like this. I look at it a competitive advantage - more depth, but fewer posts.
  
• [2] I am very careful about recommending this to clients. Before working with me, most people have tried some kind of system for managing working files - either stacked on surfaces or sitting upright in step folder stands. The main problem with these is using them as action reminders. Why? Because when they have 10 minutes, it takes far to long to find the next action. Just determining the action from one folder could take 10 minutes! Instead, the best practice is to have a centralized action list from all projects. This frees up folders to do what they're meant to: hold project-related materials. This changes the nature of having folders on desks from action reminders to support - it's merely a convenience to save a few seconds looking through their (A-Z!) filing drawers.
  
• [3] I would *love* to switch to a Mac - Windows' instability and inefficiency (and this is on XP, not Vista) drives me nuts. What's holding me back? One-button laptops, and PowerPoint and Quicken compatibility. I realize the latter can be solved by virtualizing Windows, but that seems like missing the point. I'm open to convincing, though...
  
• [4] The top candidates seemed to be ActiveWords, AutoHotkey, and Texter, but there are many other worthies as well.