Protoscopic

A Chorus of Praise

I sometimes think that everyone has read this book. It’s featured prominently on sites like 43 folders. In fact “personal productivity” or “life hacking” is an entire genre of blogs out there, and a useful one at that.

While I don’t consider Protoscopic to necessarily be one of those sites, I think improving your productivity is one of the best ways to improve the returns of “You, Inc.” If you can waste less time and let others waste less of your time, you will be able to devote more time to side projects and possibly bring your “hourly rate” up. For those of us who keep our “day job” and still try to build an Internet Empire, increasing productivity is often a must.

Given all the attention already given to David Allen’s method, why am I still bothering to post a review? Well to some degree I want to reach out to the skeptical, like myself, and explain why I think that this book is a must-read even with all the hype. It’s not rocket-science, but it is fundamentally sound. So allow me to add to the chorus of praise.

Lists, lists and more lists

As I started reading Getting Things Done I became quickly annoyed. I am a list-maker by nature and his advice largely seemed to boil down to “make a bunch of lists and put stuff on them and periodically check them over.” I didn’t need a book to tell me that!

Despite my skepticism I followed his plan as I read. I didn’t wait until I got to the end to start his method, and as I proceeded through the book I found that the system was working. After this I decided to try to identify what it was about his lists that was so much better than mine.

I quickly came to the conclusion that his methods aren’t nearly as important as his goals. I think everyone who reads this book implements things a little differently, but his fundamental tenets sink into your mind and color how you do things. I think for me the key piece of advice that made the difference was (paraphrased):

Get everything on lists so you know what you have to do and don’t have nebulous worries floating around in your psyche.

If you keep up with your lists and manage them correctly you know what you’re supposed to be doing, have done and what’s behind. I so often find myself feeling “behind” without having enumerated exactly what I’m behind on. As I implemented the system I found that I easily knew what I was behind on, so even if I was behind I didn’t just have a vague feeling of dread. I knew what needed to be done and it seemed much more manageable with it all in front of me.

Required Reading

This book joins the exclusive club of books I would recommend for just about anyone. I suppose if you aren’t feeling like you don’t have enough time, then productivity concerns can wait. But I think that most of us are feeling a time crunch and a quick dose of Getting Things Done, can help alleviate things.

Not so fast…

One of the greatest things about a home-based business is that you can pretty much work from anywere–as long as you have internet and phone access (which these days is…well…anywhere!). It’s the new “American Dream,” and all you have to do is figure out how to make it happen.

But, as we all know, starting a business takes time, and time, and time, and money. Lots of things can fail before something succeeds. So the best piece of advice that’s the hardest to heed is often, “Keep your day job.” You’re so excited about your venture, you’re spending all your free time moving it forward, you’re finally starting to see some traction, and you really want to ditch this 9-5 gig and dedicate more resources to the start-up. Me too. Here’s what I have to keep reminding myself:

Our top 5 reasons to keep your day job…even when you want nothing more but to sign that resignation letter:

1. If you panic, your venture will suffer. Any investment takes time–and usually a series of failures–before it provides a decent return. You may even need to go back to the drawing board several times before you get it right. If you believe in your idea and have the unencumbered time to take it through its iterations, success is much more likely than if you’re forced to quit and job-hunt after one failure because you don’t have the back-up income to weather the storms. Also the same panic may drive you to monetize your work prematurely before you’ve worked out all the kinks, which may turn a growing successful idea into a failure.
2. Emergencies happen. Even if you’ve planned like a champ, the unimaginable can happen. Your car breaks down, there are new and sudden medical bills, your spouse is laid off, anything. Having that steady income from your day job can save the day.
3. You need health insurance. And dental insurance. And tuition reimbursement. And child care reimbursement. And transportation reimbursement. Whatever your company pays for often costs a fortune to get on your own. And the disability and sick leave shouldn’t be sneezed at as just-in-case precautions.
4. Your company contributes to and/or matches your contribution to a retirement account. Again, why walk away from free money unless the job is seriously inhibiting your venture.
5. You have a built-in network. Of course you won’t put posters for your off-hours business in the company cafeteria, but take a look at your business network for potential future collaborators, customers, and clients. Lots of business colleagues are part colleague/part friend; start cultivating them now–just keep it on the “down low.”

We all get carried away with the desire to throw caution to the wind–after all, how could we possibly fail?!?–but keep your head on straight. When your venture DOES succeed, it will be even sweeter.

The desperation people have re: improving their Pagerank seems to be largely unjustified from a technical standpoint. All evidence points to Pagerank being only one of many factors used in search ranking and a low one does not seem to be a death sentence. However like so many things in life, the perception that it has value gives it value. If everyone agreed gold was worthless, it would be, but instead perception makes it very valuable.

Can Google continue to

The manic pursuit of Pagerank, often at the expense of quality content, exposes some interesting aspects of Google’s dominance. Now, I’m not a Google-hater by any stretch of the imagination. The number of Google’s tools we use here should make that clear. I think they do good work and their tools are very helpful, however their methodology is often dangerous.

When it comes to Pagerank for example, they are intentionally vague on the way it works. Just make good content and Pagerank will follow, they tell us. While this makes sense in theory, in practice, anyone can defend why their content is “good.” However, if their motivations do not line up with what Google considers “optimal,” then there exists a disconnect that the webmaster is punished for.

Since Google is largely a monopoly, their influence on the net is huge. Moreover, as they try to combat things like spam pages, they increasingly create rules about what a “good web page” should be. I may be only speaking for myself, but I don’t think we’re to the point where we know authoritatively what constitutes a “good” web page, and I’m not sure such a day will ever come. But when Google is the “master” of the game, we all make web sites that conform to Google’s idea of “right.” This could potentially be stifling to innovation.

Basically, because Google controls much of the web, we have to make sites that will maximize us in Google’s eyes. Consequently most of the most popular websites will all be very similar. Someone with a dramatic innovation may not be able to get any “airtime” for that innovation because it does not yet fit Google’s model of a good page.

This may potentially leave room for a competitor to Google. Cuil’s less than impressive launch still showed us that the market is downright anxious for someone to show up and give Google some competition. Perhaps this is because, in the long run, people are reluctant to let Google dictate the web’s future. Google’s monopoly may in fact be a danger to everyone, including itself.