Dvorak, the Metric System, and why we fail to do what's good for us

I grew up at a time when children were taught both handwriting and typing. Needless to say I appreciated one more than the other, but I worked at both of them for years. I had a number of different programs I used to learn to type; some of them were games which required you to type to accomplish certain tasks. They all had two things in common though, they recorded how fast you typed (WPM) and they taught you to type on a keyboard layout known as QWERTY. I am sure you are all familiar with this layout because it is the standard on all American computers and if you were taught typing this is most likely what you were taught to type on. In fact most people have never considered the possibility of any other layout.

But I did, as probably many children do, when they first look at a keyboard and find out the alphabet they have so diligently learned to sing is all mixed up. I don't know who I asked or what I read when I was young about this but I came under the impression that this bizarre layout had been made to enable you to type faster. I remained under this impression until I was reading Mark Hurst's book: Bit Literacy.

In the book Mark explains that QWERTY was designed to slow typists down, not speed them up. Imagine my chagrin at this.  All my life I had been trying to type faster, all the while the instrument I was using was working against me.

WHY!? To keep typists from jamming mechanical typewriters. Now, that seemed like a good and worthy goal to me...and then it occurred to me that I didn't use a typewriter. So, why in the wide world was I typing on the QWERTY layout? The answer is simple:

That is the way everyone has always done it

Can you think of anything more stupid than that?

I can't. We have an entire generation, almost two now, whose productivity has been stifled in one of their most common activities simply because that was the way it had always been done. And the truth is that we do this all the time, I'll point to an example that is probably much more familiar to you:

The Metric System
Now here is something we were all probably taught growing up, but we were never required to use in actual life. The metric system is far superior to the British system of measurement in every way. So, why don't we use it? Because we have to much built up around the British system, all of our infrastructure and our mental processes. We've always done it this way and we are unwilling to change. We will spend plenty of tax payer money teaching children the metric system in school, but we won't spend any of it replacing infrastructure so they can actually use it.

The truth of the matter is that as a society we have decided that we would rather deal with a dull pain constantly than an excruciating pain for a short period of time. We do this even if though it means our children with have to deal with the same chronic pain. These pains have been around so long that society doesn't register them as pains any more, but the costs are still real even when they go unnoticed.

If we really cared about our children, or even ourselves for that matter we would be willing to deal with more intense pain now, in order to eliminate chronic pain. But, we do not, we are lazy and the same school system that teaches us a keyboard layout designed for typewriters, and a metric system we will never be given the chance use, also teaches us to never challenge the status quo.

But it doesn't have to be that way. We may not be able to make society change tomorrow, but we can change individually. We can choose to go through the painful and cleansing process of intentional change toward a desired outcome. We can live better and we can help our children to do the same. We can question and overthrow the status quo. Society is nothing, if not a group of individuals.

So go ahead and do what is good for you, regardless of the way society is built. Society is built for the average person, actually worse, society is built for the lowest common denominator. You don't want to be average, and you certainly don't want to be the lowest common denominator, you want to be extraordinary.

So go ahead, do what's good for you, question the status quo, and remember to live better.

3 Reasons You Should Manage Email from Your iPhone

Email seems to be the culprit for a lot of wasted time these days. There is no activity more useless than staring at inbox full of emails and doing nothing. Yet so many of us spend our time doing just that. Even if we are actually working on the emails it can end up consuming our day.

Now, everybody knows that I am a fan of inbox zero, and one of the things I use to achieve that state is my iPhone. Managing email from an iPhone has some distinct productivity advantages to it, here I want to talk about three of them.

Trash It:
I consider swipe to delete one of the best improvements ever to email. I guarantee that if you manage your email from your iPhone you will start to delete more email, and that alone will make you more productive. A lot of emails never need to be opened, especially since you can see the first line on your iPhone.
Shorten It
If you write shorter emails you will be more productive, if you manage email on your iPhone you will write shorter emails. This is true simply because of the nature of the medium change from a computer to a phone. With out a keyboard we don't want to write long emails, and our brains are already wired to write short and to the point messages while on our phones.
Do It
If you manage email from your iPhone you will actually get it done because you will be able to use the tiny inbetween times when you are not at your desk to do it. When you are waiting for a meeting to start, or you are in line, or your windows 8 computer decided it had to shut itself down right then, you will be able to get your email taken care of during these little times.
There it is, three reasons you should manage your email on your iPhone. And remember, live better.

iPad tip: How to Use Hand Gestures on an iPad

My first iOS device was an iPod touch 1st generation. It was a great device even though when I got it they were already several models old. I got a good deal on it and I was very happy with it except for one thing: that year iOS 4 came out and 1st gens could not upgrade. Now this was actually a good thing, as anyone who has used a 2nd gen on iOS 4 could tell you, if it made the 2nd gen that slow and clunky what would it have done to a 1st gen?

And while it was a good thing in hindsight it made me sad at the time because I missed out on one key new feature: multitasking by double clicking the home button. Multitasking on an iOS device gives you the ability to quickly switch between multiple apps without returning to the home screen each time. It is great for people who want to be more productive by shaving seconds off their work flow, because seconds add up over time.

This concept of shaving time of your work is also what is behind hand gestures on the iPad. I am often amazed at how many people don't know how to use hand gestures or don't make use of them. Hand gestures in many ways are the touch screen equivelent to keyboard commands on a computer.

Make sure they are turned on
Go to Settings > General > Multitasking Gestures, make sure the switch is turned to green (on). You may want to turn these off for some apps (like running games or drawing apps).
1 Finger swiped down from the top of the screen
Brings down Notification center. This works on iPads, iPhones, and iPod touches running at least iOS 5.

1 Finger swiped up from the bottom of the screen
Brings up Control Center. This works on iPads, iPhones, and iPod touches running iOS 7.

1 Finger swiped right from the left side of the screen
Will do different things depending on the app. It may take you back one screen (like in iQtell) or it may pull out a menu (like in Google+). This works on iPads, iPhones, and iPod touches running iOS 7. Some apps also have features when you pull from the right of the screen (like FaceBook) but that is less common.

1 Finger swiped down on the home screen
Opens up spotlight in iOS 7.

2 Fingers pinched in or spread out
Usually controls zooming in an app. This works on iPads, iPhones, and iPod touches.

4 Fingers swiped up from the bottom of the screen
Opens up multitasking (hurray!) on iPads.

4 Fingers swiped left or right from the edge of the screen
Switchs between open apps without using multitasking on iPads.

5 Fingers pinched together
Takes you to the home screen on iPads.

Well those are the ones I know of, if you know of others please let me know :) I hope these help you. And remember, live better.

New Year's Resolutions: Living Better with an iPad

Hello everyone, I am back from the holiday break. I had a great time with family the past couple weeks celebrating the birth of Christ and the New Year. I hope you did as well.

Well, as you might expect given the fact that I write this blog, I took some time on New Year's Eve with my wife to solidify our goals and resolutions for 2014. I think I have told you in the past how much I use to hate making New Year's resolutions. It is one of those things my mom made me do that I dreaded that I am now extremely grateful was instilled in me. Goals are a painful, but a cleansing process.

Naturally many of the goals I have set for this year have iPad or iPhone components to them, I thought I would share some of these with you and I hope you will share yours in the comments below. I set goals in the four major areas of life: Mental, Physical, Spiritual, Social. I use the Evernote app to write down all my goals for the year and the Lumen Trails app to track them.

Mental:

• Typing using Dvorak keyboard layout: for about two years I have been experimenting with using the more efficient keyboard layout known as Dvorak instead of the traditional Qwerty. This year I have finally decided to use it in all of my personal typing. On iOS you cannot with the touch keyboard to Dvorak so this has held me back, for Christmas I got a bluetooth keyboard and case(which I will blog about soon) from my brother. External keyboards can be set to Dvorak so now I am good to go on the iPad mini.
• Reading 52 books: I sometimes read books on my iPad using several different apps. I also use the Goodreads app to track what I am reading and what I want to read.

Physical:

• Losing some weight: like many people this time of year I am involved in a biggest loser competition with my family. For this I will continue using the Gorilla Workout app, the app My Fitness Pal to track myself, and the podcast app while running.

Spiritual:

• Scripture Memorization: I will be using the app LDS Memory: Scripture Mastery to memorize scriptures.
• Reading the New Testament: I will be using the Bible Gateway app to read side by side translations of the New Testament.
• Journal: I finally completed an entire year of journaling without missing a day in 2013 and now I hope to make my journal writing more meaningful using the GridDiary app.

Social:

• I hope to use twitter more this year and I will be using the official Twitter app to do so for now. But I am open to other app suggestions if you have them.

That is not all of my goals this year, but it is most of the ones that involve iOS. Please share your goals and apps for 2014 with me in the comments or on twitter (@halduauthor). I think it is going to be a great year so long as we remember to live better.

Preparing for New Year's Resolutions

We are now quickly approaching that time of the year where we will need to set our New Year's resolutions.

Make an idea list now
As soon as you read to post you should begin to make an idea list of the goals you may want to accomplish next year. If you wait until New Year's Eve or Day when you have sat down to actually commit to those goals then you are going to have a heap of trouble coming up with them. Great ideas seldom come to us when we force them. So have some way of keeping track of ideas as they come to you so that when you do sit down to set goals you will have a list of options in front of you to choose from.
In my series on goals and iPads I have a post dedicated to writing goals down: click here to read it.

App Review: Relax

Name: Relax -- Stress and Anxiety Relief
Price: 4.99 or Free
Stars: 3
Type: Stress Relief


The Relax app has one purpose in mind: to help you reduce stress through breathing exercises. It is a simple app that allows you to select your level and time duration based on your ability and current situation.

The app works well for the most part, but occasionally it does crash in the middle of an exercise. Other than that one problem I do not have any complaints after using it for a couple months.

The app gives you both auditory and visual pacers for your breathing. It will play one tone for your inhale and another for your exhale, if you are an advanced breather it will also play one for retention. You also watch a corresponding segment of the circle fill. One time around the circle is one complete exercise.

The concept is that you will become more relaxed as you breathe with a regular pattern, clearing you mind, and getting the proper amount of oxygen to your body. I have found this to be a very useful way to relieve stress. I use the Relax app twice a day, once right after exercising to prepare my mind to write, and right before I go to sleep to help me fall asleep faster.

And there you have it folks, the Relax app is a great little app that can train you in relaxive breathing. I think reducing stress can make you a more effective and productive person. Have you ever used this app or know of one like it? Share it with us in the comments below. Have a fantastic day, and remember, live better.

Yeah, your web browser is not a todo list either

Quick, how many browser tabs do you have open? Have any of them been open to the same page for days? How about weeks?
If you have a lot of browser tabs open, and they have been open for a long time, you may be falling into the common trap of the "browser todo list" of which the mental process goes something like this:

"Oh, I need to research that thing,or I need to figure out that event,or I need to find out more about this person,let me just open a browser tab with that websitethen I will remember TODO it"

Oh No! You just asked the browser for something not in its job description!

Sorry, but the web browser, like your email, was built for a certain task, and letting you know what to do and when to do it, was not it.

These are not ToDo lists

Now I will admit that I am guilty of this very often, that's why I am writing a post on it, as part of my recovery therapy. It's an easy trap to fall into, but here are the problems with it.

1. It increases your subconscious load and makes you feel guilty
2. It hampers the two minute rule
3. It is unreliable

Lets talk about these, and then we will look at some solutions to help with the problem.

First, It increases your subconscious load and makes you feel guilty

Here's what happens, you open up a browser tab and go to a website so you can remember where to go. Now every time you are working in the browser there is that nagging little tab open, saying, "you haven't done this yet, you haven't done this yet" it's annoying and you can't get it off your mind because you didn't unloaded it into a system you trusted for a time that was appropriate. You don't need that kind of mental baggage dragging down your productivity, so don't do it.

Second, It hampers the two minute rule

Most of those things that you open a browser tab for a simple information tasks that could be completed in two minutes or less, so you should just do them and not try to remember to do them at all. Thinking your browser is your todo list and will remind you to do them encourages you to put them off when you really shouldn't.

Third, It is unreliable

Ever had a browser crash? How about your computer? Yeah, I figured you had. Or how about just leaving something in the browser tab so long that it became irrelevant? The browser is not a good system because it to easily loses information, and it is to easy for it to get lost in the shuffle of the day. Let's face it, you have a lot going on in that web browser.

So now that you know there is a problem, what can you do about it? Well fortunately for you I have the same problem, so I have been coming up with a few solutions. But I still have a long way to come so please also leave you suggestions in the comments below.

1. Copy and Paste
2. Reliable information storage (ie Evernote)
3. Read it later 

This first one, Copy and Paste, sounds simple, and it is. Cntrl-C and Cntrl-V are probably the two most commonly used commands in all of computing. So here is the secret, you can copy and paste URLs, into the notes of your ToDo list,

Why would this be a useful thing? Well it gets the task where it belongs, on the ToDo list, while allowing you still feel confident you will be able to access the resourse when you need it. So copy and paste away.

You may not always need to access the whole web page, there may just be some information you were looking for that you know you will need later on. This is where number two, Reliable information storage, comes in.  

Instead of leaving the whole page open in your browser you can just take the information you need and put it into your information system so that you can find it later. In the old days this was called a filing cabinet, now it is called Evernote. There are other services you could use, but Evernote is the one I think is the best.

To make the system reliable you will need to develop a system of organization that allows you to find the information you have stored in the future when you need it. If the system is not reliable, you will not want to close out the web browser because you won't know if you will find the information again.

The other reason people leave pages open in their browser is because they find an interesting article and the simply want to Read it later. That's good, while browsing social media or news sites we often find articles we want to read, but don't have time to right then.
Leaving those articles open in the web browser is not the best option. A much better choice is to put them some place that is designed for reading later. It is especially useful if it can be stored for offline reading.

There are many programs that let you do this. If you want the simplest one you can use the one built into the Safari browser, called Reading List. I prefer to use the application Pocket because it integrates with both twitter and flipboard, and you can also email article you find elsewhere to your Pocket for later viewing. If it is an article you need to read for something make sure it also makes it onto you todo list.

There you have it folks, 3 problems with the web browser being a todo list and three solutions you can implement today so you won't do it anymore. It is not easy to break out of this habit; I've been notorious for doing this for years. I still struggle with it. If you have any tips that could help or questions about anything I have said please leave a comment below. Thanks for reading, and remember, live better.