Shawn Lankton Online

CNN and FOX news can’t stop talking about it.
You may have seen someone ‘tweet’ in real-life.
You feel like you might be missing out.

Despite all the hype, twitter seems unbelievably stupid…

I thought so too when I first tried out the service, but by taking a different approach it is starting to seem like a useful tool.

If you’ve never used twitter: It is essentially the same technology as facebook status updates. Short messages from people you ‘follow’ get collected in a single stream for you to quickly review when you’ve got a spare second.

Twitter as a micro-blog

I keep this blog to write long-ish articles and posts about topics that interest me and that I think can help you, the reader. However, on a good day there are lots more ideas and discoveries than time. Enter, the microblog.

Twitter provides a medium to post very short ideas, comments, and links to interesting content found elsewhere. I endeavor to make each tweet a stub for a potential blog post… just without my elegant prose. That means every time I post something I want it to be useful to the reader, not just some pointless info about my life. This suddenly transforms twitter from a self-indulgent distraction into the realm of useful tools for recording ideas and adding value.

Lots of people I follow use this same formula.

Twitter as ubiquitous content capture

When you find a link, hear a quote, or get an idea that you’d like to remember and share, you may not be near a computer. Twitter can be your ubiquitous information capture tool in those cases. By sending an SMS or updating twitter via iPhone the content gets sent to a centralized, searchable, shareable place to be found or referenced later.

Twitter as a social tool

Right now my list of followers and follow-ees is rather short. To really leverage the power of the medium there need to be lots of connections between friends and colleagues interested in similar subject matter. This gives you the opportunity to get quick answers and collaborations by asking questions of your followers and responding to their questions.

You should follow me on twitter (@shawnlankton).

If you want to see my microblog without joining twitter, an embedded version can be accessed via the μblog tab at the top of the page.

Any other ideas on how to use twitter? Leave a comment.

When I really need to concentrate I listen to brown noise. I find that it boosts my productivity and keeps me from getting distracted by sounds around me. This is most useful in coffee shops or noisy offices, but I even do this when it’s quiet.

Brown noise is similar to white noise; it sounds like random static. However, brown noise is at a slightly lower pitch so it’s easier to listen to. That means that I can work for hours without hurting my ears!

You can download some free random noise MP3s to play on your computer or iPod, or listen to some right from your browser. Both work great.

This works better than my previous method (using ear plugs) because the sounds aren’t just blocked, they’re all scrambled up by the static. I get so much input from my ears that my brain ignores sound all together and focuses on work!

Anybody else tried this? How else do you keep focused?

This was a guest post for my uncle’s site, Harmony Earth. You can find it in the “Success Stories” section. Enjoy!

I’ve been eating a mostly plant-based diet for the past few years. When I first got started, I faced personal and social barriers. However, by taking a few conscious steps, I was able to break them down and really improve my eating habits! Knowing the truth about nutrition, understanding the benefits of a plant-based diet, and committing to a change are all important, but actually revamping my lifestyle was a daunting task. Here are 6 tricks that I used.

• Think Long-term
• Add Some Extra Steps
• Keep the Good Stuff Nearby
• Surround Yourself
• Embrace Frugality
• Get Accountable

By thinking long-term about rewards and taking steps to preempt myself from falling into old eating habits I was able to leap feet-first into a new way of eating that has improved my life immeasurably.    Click to continue →

I run frequently and had heard some buzz about this book. I’m keenly interested in the amazing results that often come from ancient wisdom and using our incredible human body as correctly as possible. These are the exact ideas that author, Christopher McDougall touches on in his book, “Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen.”

The book has two main parts. First, it follows the story of the author as he investigates solutions to his own problems with running. Along the way he, meets, befriends, and races with members of a mysterious southwestern tribe known as the Tarahumara Indians and several other interesting characters. The second part of the book (which is mixed in with the story) contains various accounts of scientific study, an evolutionary history of running, and the modern history of the running industry. Here are some key points I found very interesting:    Click to continue →

I recently figured out how to keep a necktie in place. I get really irritated when they don’t cover the buttons on my shirt. In the past, I’ve tried several tricks, but last month I had to dress up a lot, so I did some research and found the best way (in my opinion).    Click to continue →

With the easy availability of scientific papers through the internet, it is easy to quickly get your hands on tons of pdfs. Then what? I look through the pile very quickly and pick out the one or two papers that look the most relevant. This quick pass consists of glancing at the abstract and the figures.

Knowing that this quick and dirty scan is probably becoming the norm, I’ve started including a telling graphic right in the Sweet Spot. This is a term my colleagues and I have come up with for the top of the right column on the first page. Check it out:

Including the Sweet Spot graphic may get your paper read more, it may get your paper read less. Either way, it helps the reader make a snap decision about whether or not your paper is of interest to them. I feel like it makes the paper visually more attractive and inviting, too.

Any other Sweet-Spotters out there?

For some time now, I’ve had the dream of growing my own food. Once you start down the natural/healthy path, having your own organic garden is something like the penultimate experience. For Christmas my mom gave me a bag of dirt and two planters. Most people might think they did something wrong if their mother got them dirt for Christmas, but not me… I knew that my mom know just what I wanted! I was going to build a container garden.

In addition to the pots and dirt, Mom let me take 3 baby collard green plants. When I got back to Atlanta, I tucked them into their planter and got some basil, cilantro, and oregano plants for the other one. I’m now an urban gardener with a small but well loved collection of vegetables and herbs. I’m already making plans to get more planters and more plants! (This might get out of hand)

In my struggle to do more, be better, and kick ass I try a menagerie of techniques, experiments, etc. Most recently, I’ve developed a set of mantra that seem to give me that extra push to get things done, and done well. I keep these three phrases in mind all day and let them spur me to action.

DELIVER

The idea that you should always deliver on what you say you will is a strong one. I want to be known as “someone who delivers.” This keeps my head in the game long-term thinking about not just actions right now, but how they will translate to tangibles later on. Deliver at work, Deliver in relationships, Deliver financially. DELIVER.

More Action!

This one comes from my friend Naomi. In this crazy world, it’s all too common to work or play to the exclusion of sleeping. When things start to drag, when my pen slumps and my eyelids get heavy, I think to myself, “More Action!” Its a great way to get going, and keep moving fast. “More Action!” at the gym. “More Action!” when programming. “More Action!” when you want just 5 more minutes before you get out of bed… “More Action!!”

Push It.

Here’s one from my buddy Jon. We tease Jon because, “he pushes it.” However, pushing it is a valuable quality. Whenever I want to quit, take a break, slow down for just a sec’ because its more comfortable… I think “push it.” This means working for 10 extra minutes when I’m stuck on a problem, or running for one extra mile when my lungs and legs burn, or knocking one more thing off of my to-do list before going to bed. I hope working just outside my comfort zone will make me stronger. Push it.

These three are short and simple enough to keep with me mentally all day long. If it were just about that though, I’m sure I’d forget eventually. Hence, I put up sticky-notes with these mantra. I put them on my monitor at work, my microwave at home, my dashboard, my laptop, you name it. Seeing them all the time reminds me to do More Action so I can continue to Push It and eventually DELIVER.

When we were children, we were taught how to spell words. (Personally, I was never fantastic at this.) I see the value of spelling, and look scornfully on documents wrought with spelling errors. You may say, “Lucky for us, we live in the land of spell-checkers, and we don’t have to worry about that.” Ah yes. And this brings me to my point.

Spell-checking is a valuable tool. I couldn’t possibly write without it. This post is a commentary not on spell checking, but on its cousin, auto-correct. Auto-correct is the tool that changes “teh” to “the” and “freindly” to “friendly.” I used to think that this was a fantastic utility. These days I have a different take.

Auto-correct takes away the punishment for misspelling and mistyping words. As a result, you being the clever person you are, adapt and start to exhibit more careless behaviors. After years of training myself in this way, I realized that I could barely type an intelligible sentence when left to my own devices. I was constantly on backspace, and messed up certain words habitually.

As an experiment, about six months ago, I decided to go on an auto-correct hiatus. I disabled it in all programs. Furthermore, I made a promise to myself not to right-click misspelled words to get the correct spelling. Now, if I type a word wrong, I fix it. If I don’t know how to spell a word, I look it up. The results are fantastic.

My typing accuracy has improved dramatically, and I am learning to spell again! Words that I noticed I never *ever* spelled right such as “available” (I always did “avaliable” and auto-correct fixed it) have come back into the fold. Maybe its not necessary. Maybe I’m just a purist. But I like that I can type again.

For a about a week now I’ve been on a mission to remove two words from my vocabulary: “cool” and “sucks.” I think these words are completely non-descriptive and their inclusion in the vernacular promotes imprecise speech and a general under-utilization of this beautiful menagerie of words we call the English Language.

I find these two words offensive, but they are a habitual part of my everyday speech. As such, I require a constant reminder to stay focused and choose appropriate, descriptive alternatives when expressing myself. To give myself this focus I decided to use a variation of a technique employed by author Tim Ferris (whose book should be arriving at my door any day now).

This technique involves wearing a bracelet. Its purpose is to remind you not to do whatever it is you wish to stop. When you slip up, you change which wrist the bracelet is on. My goal is to make it one full month without “cool”-ing or “suck”-ing. So far I’ve only been able to go a few days at a time, but its getting easier and easier. I’ll post a follow-up when I finally succeed!