Seminal Work: Patrick Rhone’s Org-Fu

I’ve been meaning to get this posted for a while now but the schedule has been a little hectic lately.

Many of you know (or are tangentially aware of) Patrick Rhone; for some of you, that was how you got here. He’s a good friend of mine, and he’s taught me a lot about productivity. I wanted to pass along a link to a whitepaper that he put together a while ago. You may have seen it elsewhere (I know that Merlin Mann linked out to it from 43Folders, among many others), but as a new year dawns upon us, and so many of us are making new resolutions and promises to ourselves, I thought it might be good to review this, as it’s (in my opinion) such a great jump-off point. Patrick’s system is clear, concise, and works well.

If you haven’t read it, you should. Find it here.

Hack.02: Circa, legal pad style…

Technorati Tags: levenger , circa , levenger hack , rollabind

I’ve often wondered why Levenger has never made their popular Circa line in a legal pad format, so after a little digging around, I found that I had the right supplies handy to make one.

I punched the cover of the letter-sized notebook using the punch set at 0. I was surprised to find that the desk punch had no problems getting through the Levenger plastic covers. I had read elsewhere (I think) that it was a bit of a challenge, but mine went through them pretty easily.

I used the closest rings at hand, which happened to be the biggest ones (1.5", I believe?).

I filled the legal pad with HP 32# Premium Laser Presentation paper, which is nice and heavy. It’s one of my favorites, although it’s outrageously expensive. It takes ink from fountain pens nicely, though. It’s printed with one of the Cornell note-taking templates that can be created for free at Incompetech (such an awesome site!). For spacing, I set the desk punch at 0.5, and I think it’s just about perfectly spaced, give or take a 16th of an inch or two.

So, for those of you who live and die by your legal pads, but wish that Circa was available…now it is. Enjoy!

Low-Tech Luxury: The Tri-Conderoga pencil

Think fast.

When’s the last time you actually wrote with a wooden #2 pencil?

Can’t remember? Neither could I.

Actually, I can, now that I think of it. I was making measurements with one on a sheet of drywall.

I was at an office supply store last night and I was looking for an eraser in hopes to find one from a mechanical pencil that might fit in a 1939 Parker Vacumatic mechanical pencil that’s on its way to me. Didn’t find one of those, but I stumbled across a 6-pack of Dixon Tri-Conderoga pencils with the “soft touch” coating.

They were $3, including a sharpener. I figured that I couldn’t lose, and since I’d recently been hearing so much about the virtues of writing with a super low-tech item like a wooden pencil, I decided to try them.

Sharpened one up last night. Amazing.

Do you remember what it smelled like when you sharpened a pencil in school? That familiar smell of cedar and graphite? Yeah…it’s back. Smells better than ever, too, because Dixon made this pencil with high(er)-end incense cedar. They actually designed this pencil from the ground up to be really comfortable to write with. The pencil is triangular in grip, and just a little larger than your average #2 hexagonal pencil. For me, having used a Lamy Safari fountain pen with a triangular grip before (and still today – it’s one of my favorite pens), I felt right at home with it. The black “soft touch” coating has a velvety feel to it, and they weren’t kidding when they say that it’s “The World’s Most Comfortable Pencil!” It’s an awesome writer, too!

Here’s a profile-ish view of the triangular shape.

So next time you’re itchin’ to simplify a little bit so you’ve got less bumping around in your head when you want to be creative, pick up a 6-pack of these pencils and get back to basics. Tri-Conderoga

Hack.01: Levenger Oasis Padholder

I was looking at my Oasis padholder the other day after I’d inadvertently lost most of the pad because I made the mistake of holding it vertically (note to self: gravity and concept pads don’t understand each other very well) and got to thinking, “Why doesn’t this thing have a place for my pen?” Probably because I’d been sitting on the couch drafting a few ideas and put my pen down to do something, and it rolled off the padholder onto the floor. Bent over to get it…pad went vertical…gravity beats up on the gummy part…you know the rest.

I couldn’t come up with an answer, so I decided to get out the tools and make one. Learned a few things along the way, too.

• Keep camera handy when hacking. Didn’t get a single picture of the before/during shots – only the aftermath.
• Dremel tools are louder than you think when used in your garage late/late-ish at night.
• Dremel tools get hot when used for 10-15 minutes at a clip.
• When grinding/sanding MDF, you create more sawdust that you’d ever think was physically possible.
• Super glue is awesome. Not when bonded to your fingertips.

In lieu of not providing shots of the in-progress work, I’ll describe it.

I started by slicing a fairly slender rectangle out of the leather on the left-hand pad bolster, not really knowing what I’d find inside. The leather is very thick, so make sure that your X-Acto knife has a new blade on it. Might not be a bad idea to use a Sheep’s Foot or Wharncliffe blade if they’re available. Since you’ll be cutting towards yourself, it pays to have a nice and sharp tip slicing through the leather.

Underneath the leather is a fairly stout piece of MDF. While MDF is strong, it was laid low (literally) by a fully-charged Dremel with a sanding round (I think I used a bullet-shaped round for some of the work around the ends). I carefully hollowed out a 6-ish” tray with the Dremel, sanded it a little bit, and then took the padholder back inside to figure out how to line the tray to give it a [tongue in cheek] “finished” [/tongue in cheek] look.

My original intent was to re-use the strip of leather that I’d cut from the padholder’s bolster, but the leather was a little too thick, and in turn, wouldn’t stretch to fit. It would have been nice, but no luck. I thought about using a strip of crushed velvet, but couldn’t find any that I could bastardize without causing a bit of a ruckus around the house. I finally settled on one of those handy little cotton cloths that Levenger includes when you order anything that might be susceptible to scratching. Previously, I’d always used these as pen rags, dabbing ink away from freshly refilled fountain pens, etc. I happened to have one that wasn’t scummed up, so I cut a few pieces to fit, hit it with a bit of superglue, and voila!, I now have a functional pen rest for my Oasis Padholder!

Here’s a few snapshots of the finished product.

So, there you have it. While it certainly doesn’t look all that professional or elegant, it does work, and that’s pretty important to me.