I know I’ve been trending a lot lately toward international big bands with my Jazz Friday posts, but lately I am just really digging hearing what musicians in other countries are doing with jazz. This week I’ve got one more: Germany’s WDR Big Band. These are some of Germany’s finest jazz musicians led by Bob Mintzer of the Yellowjackets. WDR has been around since 1947 and playing jazz since 1957. They have a lot of material and an active YouTube channel. Their most recent album is a collaboration with the Yellowjackets and does a fantastic job of getting the jazz fusion sound into a big band’s power. “Downtown” (Apple Music) (YouTube) is my favorite track on that new album.
I would also like to point out the Bob Mintzer arrangement of Neil Hefti’s “Cute” on their Basie tribute video. (It is the first song, so no excuse not to listen to it.) When I was in 7th grade playing in my first jazz band, it was in the middle of playing “Cute” that I first experienced what it means to swing. It was the beginning of my love affair with playing jazz, so that song is near and dear to me. Mintzer’s arrangement modernizes “Cute” while still holding onto what makes it such a precious gem.
I’ve been thinking about the many emails I have received about my recentposts about my status board. I wrote about this on Monday, but that only spurred another round of email from folks that can be summarized as a concern for useless complexity.
In summary, I already have systems to manage projects and tasks, but recently I’ve been using a personal status board to give me an overview of what’s on my plate and its current status. This is all data already in my existing systems but not as accessible to my visually-biased brain as a big diagram.
All of these folks writing to me are not coming from a place of criticism so much as legitimate curiosity. Why would I add one more thing to managing projects rather than spending that time doing projects? From my perspective, this status board was born out of frustration (and underlying anxiety) that, despite my systems, I didn’t have a way of quickly seeing everything and where it stands. I have many oars in the water, and the various threads of my life are very different. I added the complexity of the board to address this problem. The status board is, for me, what I would call ”useful complexity”.
I understand the drive for simplicity. A simple solution is, nearly always, superior to a complex one. But at the same time, a simple solution can also only get you so far.
While in law school, I had one job: stay in the top 20% and keep my scholarship. I thought about it every day. I didn’t have a job. No wife. No kids. Really no commitments except testing in the top 20%. To make things even more interesting, in law school (at least my law school), there was only one test at the end of the semester. Particularly at the beginning, I had no idea if I was any good or bad at being a law student. None of us did.
So with a single goal every day, my system was pretty simple. I wrote three things down on my napkin each morning. I stuck it in my pocket. I didn’t go to bed until they were done. Trust me, I came to appreciate the benefits of simplicity during those years.
Now my life is much more complex. I have clients that rely on me, customers that buy things from me, partners and team members that depend on me, and a family that needs me. Complexity in obligations begets complexity in management.
Ultimately, that led me down the road of creating one more bit of complexity in how I manage my projects. It was not some desire to fiddle, but a genuine need for another tool to make sure I don’t blow it.
Whether something like a status board makes sense depends entirely on where you exist on that spectrum between 1991 and 2021 Sparky. I think the real lesson I’ve taken from all this feedback is not to be afraid to add useful complexity, provided it is actually useful. So long as the bang is bigger than the buck, you‘re okay. I probably spend less than 30 minutes a week managing the status board, and in exchange, I no longer feel that where-the-hell-is-everything anxiety.
Maybe one day, things will slow down for me, and I will be able to turn the complexity knob down with some of these tool. But for now, they are making me better, not worse. My lesson is not to be biased toward simplicity or complexity but instead to be intentional about where I draw those lines for myself.
Where are you drawing those lines? Are you always looking for the most complex solution? Are you worshipping at the church of simplicity only to fail at your commitments? These are both slippery slopes and only something you can manage if you pay attention.
Day One version 6 just got released with several new features. The headliner is text message-based journaling. With this new version, you can send a text to a magic phone number (even attach a photo), and it gets added to your Day One journal. Think of it as texting your future self. The feature is currently only available in the United States, but they are working on adding additional countries.
Another notable new feature is default journal templates. I have several different journals, and with this new feature, I can set a default new entry template on a per-journal basis.
This week MacSparky is sponsored by TextExpander from Smile. In our fast-paced world, things change constantly — and errors in messaging often have significant consequences.
TextExpander lets you make new approved messaging available to every team member instantly with just a few keystrokes, ensuring your team remains consistent, current, and accurate.
Get your message right every time: expand the content that corrects your spelling and keeps your language consistent with just a few keystrokes.
Your team members will consistently know the right message for the right person at the right time, without relying on memory or copy and paste.
I pay for a team account with TextExpander for my assistant and me. We both make changes to the critical snippets as needed, and we both benefit from that work. The more people you’ve got writing on your team, the more useful this gets.
Kara Swisher from the New York Times conducted a 35-minute interview with Tim Cook. I was impressed with just how much she covered and how how certain Tim was in his answers. Nothing Tim said felt apologetic. He certainly is shading things in favor of Apple when he talks about the 15% cut for small businesses. (In truth, the wacky way they determine that is pretty gross.) Nevertheless, clearly Apple is in good hands.
The bit that stood out to me the most was his discussion of augmented reality and virtual reality. While Apple glasses have always felt like a project that was years away. Suddenly, it doesn’t so much feel that way any more. The Apple glasses feel like they have a lot more momentum now than in years past. Regardless, I recommend listening to the entire interview.
Since first posting on my OmniGraffle-based status board a few weeks ago, I have received a lot of emails. Some folks like the idea and want to do something similar. Others think this is a dumb idea, with some pretty good reasons for thinking so. In this post, I’ll address both categories of feedback.
Building and Using the Status Board For the folks who like the idea and want to build their own, here is an OmniGraffle file with dummy data.
Click to enlarge.
The one I’m running for myself incorporates a font (a variant of Futura) that I purchased ages ago. I have removed that in the sample, but you can set the OmniGraffle typography to your satisfaction. Likewise, you can change the box shapes, colors, and general layout. That gets down to the bottom of why I built it in OmniGraffle. I wanted something that I could customize over time, and none of the other apps or web services really fit the bill. Best of all is OmniGraffle’s preview mode that lets me run it full screen (using the Mac’s Spaces feature), so the status board is always just one swipe away.
In terms of mechanics, there aren’t many. Make a template box and fill it in with your project name. To connect links, OmniGraffle has a feature that allows you to do just that. Select the object and then paste in your link. For every active project, I have an Obsidian page and an OmniFocus project. I link both to the status board this way.
To add a link in OmniGraffle, select an object and then select “Open a URL” in settings. (Click to enlarge.)
As part of my daily shutdown, I take the Status Board out of preview mode and make adjustments. If I finished a project, I delete the block. If the project changes status, I move the block. I also check all the “waiting on” blocks to see if anything changed over the last few days. This often prompts a “checking in” email to whomever I’m waiting on.
The Omni Group has some excellent new JavaScript-based automation tools that would let me automate OmniFocus and OmniGraffle’s process. I’m going to set time aside to explore that further, but I’m not in a burning hurry. The trivial amount of time it takes to do this manually helps remind me of what the active projects are and where they stand.
Several folks are interested in the idea of a status board but don’t want to pay for OmniGraffle. I get that. In my case, I already paid for a license, and the app was already on my computer. (I use OmniGraffle for legal- and MacSparky-related graphics.) You could build this as a PDF or even a Pages document.
You could also do this with any number of dedicated Kanban-style apps and services. OmniGraffle’s advantage is how I can combine multiple Kanbans on one screen and my total control over how things look and where they are on the screen. Again, this board is not shared with my team, so collaboration is not necessary.
On Why All of This Is a Dumb Idea Another frequent criticism was that this whole process is unnecessary. Because all of my projects are already in OmniFocus and Obsidian, I could already have very effective lists showing projects that are active, on hold, on radar, and any other status using tags. Both OmniFocus and Obsidian have excellent tag support, and I’ve already implemented these same tags in them. So with a few key presses, I can put myself in perspectives or views that give me this data.
This means I’m duplicating effort setting up the Status Board and giving myself one more thing to keep updated and current as I work. In reply, I would say, “Yes. You are correct.” It is more work, but it is very little extra work in the grand scheme of things.
I have been using OmniFocus tags for project tracking for years and the doing the same with Obsidian since I first started using the app. The problem was that I was still letting things drop through the cracks. My brain works much better visually than words. That is the reason why if you ask me for directions, I will draw you a map instead of giving you directions. It is also the reason I am constantly making diagrams, charts, and workflows in OmniGraffle to sort complex things out in my own head. And ultimately, it is why I wanted a visual representation of all the active projects in my life on one screen at any time with just one swipe.
DEVONthink: Get organized—unleash your creativity. Use this link for 10% off.
The Intrazone, by Microsoft SharePoint: Your bi-weekly conversation and interview podcast about SharePoint, OneDrive and related tech within Microsoft 365.
TextExpander from Smile: Get 20% off with this link and type more with less effort! Expand short abbreviations into longer bits of text, even fill-ins, with TextExpander from Smile.
Hackers managed to grab names, account details, and telephone numbers from 553 million Facebook users, and now they’ve published all that data on the web. Yikes. I’m shocked at the scope but not the source.
If you have a Facebook account, now is the time to be on alert for scammy phone calls from people who will try and social engineer their way into your credit card numbers and bank accounts. There is already a scam where they call and claim to be the IRS and need “immediate payment to avoid criminal prosecution”. I’m sure they’ll come up with even more dreadful ways to abuse this treasure trove of data.
