At the core of Allen’s recommendations is this idea of a “trusted system” and it’s that aspect that I have struggled with. I’ve tried everything from plain text documents to the flavour-du-jour piece of software, but nothing has ever really felt quite right. I sat down and wrote a list of the features that I crave:

• Access across multiple devices. I want to be able to pull up my projects and lists at home, at work, and when out and about on my phone.
• If it’s a web application, it should also be able to work offline – I don’t want to be rendered impotent due to the internet going down.
• It should do “proper” GTD, and not just be a fancy to-do list manager. That means regular reviews, tickler files, the whole works.
• Capture should be possible through a variety of different means – at least email, but anything else is a bonus: voice, calendar, or integration with other apps such as Evernote.
• The ability to function as a mini project management tool as well – somewhere to write notes, a scratchboard, lists of links and future plans other than in a list format.

Reviewing the options available, it’s extremely hard to find something that ticks all my boxes. Plain text (or even pen and paper) is a little tempting, but I’d much rather rely on some form of automated reminder system than my own memory. Wunderlist, which is what I’ve been using for the last few months, is okay but little more than a to-do list tool, lacking even a built-in way to manage contexts – and because of the flat structure, you can’t even create fake contexts as pseudo-projects, because each task can only live in one place. In fact, the only application I’ve really found that is explicitly a GTD enabler is Midnight Inbox, but every time I’ve attempted to use it it’s either been too fiddly and sensitive to setup in a way that works for me, or horribly buggy.

At the moment, my shortlist (and reservations) looks like this:

• Nirvana: Web application with offline support and add-by-email, and reasonable note-taking and tagging facilities. Lacks full GTD features.
• Midnight Inbox: Beautiful native application, sync-able with Dropbox, and a real GTD process. Has notes plus a “reference” filing area, and planned iPad and iPhone versions – but no Android! It also seems to have really stupid bugs every time I download a new version…
• Firetask: Another lovely looking application, although again mostly a glorified to-do list. Costs money.
• The Hit List: I was using this earlier in the year, and got on reasonably well with it – excellent notes area for every task, really well-integrated GTD aspects like adding contexts when entering tasks (but no actual GTD process). The main drawback with this one is no mobile access unless you use their iPhone app and pay a monthly fee.

Obviously the lack of a GTD process isn’t a real problem. Weekly reviews and filing is simply a set of habits I need to get into, and would not be all that hard to implement with some basic recurring tasks and folders in any of these applications.

One final option is of course to roll my own, a solution which of course comes with the freedom to add or leave out whatever features I like. I actually started putting together a GTD-meets-Scrum personal project management tool last year as an excuse to use Django, but it kind of stalled when I reached the limits of my Python programming abilities (or perhaps the limits of the book I was learning it from). I have to admit it’s tempting me again, although probably safely back in the reliable arms of PHP; building a simple to-do list manager would be an extremely fast exercise, then layering on functionality and features would be driven by my actual use of the setup on a daily basis. It might also prove a great opportunity to jump into some new tech, with things like offline and email-as-input method to figure out.

For now, I’m using Nirvana, despite the fuzzy border between contexts and tags they employ, and the weird addition of ‘Focus’ as a third meta-property of tasks and projects. But the more I think about it, the more making my own – and therefore controlling all my own data – sounds like the most attractive option.

Some things have been unexpectedly easy. Finding a school and getting the kids settled was probably our biggest worry, but they’re now virtually fluent (although curiously have not yet taken to conversing in their new ‘secret language’ at home). Signing on with a doctor was also a simple process, and – like the school – is just a few minutes away from our apartment.

Other things have not gone so smoothly. While we still have three children, we are down to just a single cat now; Tigger died in late summer, providing me with the first opportunity to try out my ‘telling the kids their beloved pet has died’ routine. They took it fairly well – it was at least thirty minutes before I heard: “Can we get a puppy?”

Living so close to the centre of a vibrant city is a balancing act at times. Both work and the city itself offer so many diversions and entertainments that it might be easy to feel one is missing out by staying home and early nights, but it’s also true that the best aspect of our move has been the greatly increased time I now have to spend with my wife and children. No more two-hour-a-day commutes and no more freelancing has translated into long walks in the nearby parks, trips into town and many more family moments; I think not having a car also contributes too, as the children have enjoyed both family cycle outings and solo trips on the tram.

The year ended with the most deranged New Year’s Eve we’ve ever experienced. The Dutch apparently have no words for such concepts as “health and safety” or “a safe distance,” and from our third-floor balcony we were treated to a deafening display as the neighbourhood set off as many explosives as they could find, mostly right outside our front door:

With Christmas and New Year falling on a weekend, I’ve only had a paltry nine days of unfocused, alcohol- and food-fuelled laziness; back to work tomorrow and time to think about some goals for the coming twelve months.

Further refining GTD

Over the last year I’ve tested many different GTD solutions or combinations of services, but the final result I’ve been living with for a few months, Wunderlist, still feels like settling for adequate when perfect is out there. A combination of occasional minor bugs (mostly sync-related), poor UI choices (task notes not easily accessible, no sub-lists), and just generally not using it at times when in theory it should be front-and-centre in my process leads me inexorably to the conclusion that my setup just isn’t working properly for me.

So, NYR #1, then:

Embark once more into the murky waters of GTD tools and techniques to find the perfect solution.

I should probably get around to finishing the damn book, too…

Be more creative, make more stuff

I have accumulated many gadgets and bits of software with which to be creative. Nothing which I’d be so arrogant as to call ‘semi-pro,’ but there are an embarrassing number of expensive toys gathering dust about the place. Like (it seems) virtually anyone daring to call themselves a web designer these days, I fancy myself a not entirely incompetent photographer, filmmaker or musician – and, possessing the tools to realise these pursuits, it seems wasteful to while away (all of) my free time bouncing between a handful of the same websites or killing dragons.

Of course, there are also plenty of opportunities to be more creative in my chosen field. I made a couple of abortive attempts to build semi-useful web apps last year; I’d like to either pick those up again, or perhaps some other new idea. The 12412 project is tempting, but personally I’d rather get good (or better) in one particular area than learn a little about a lot.

NYR #2:

Use the tools and skills I have to create something (or several things) new.

One project in particular that I hope to launch in January should stretch my writing muscle on a fairly regular basis, and of course I intend to keep posting here when the urge strikes. Who knows, I might even write something about the web one of these days.

Get fit Stay fit

I’m ending the year fitter than I’ve ever been (at least in adult life). I completed the marathon in October, and since then have explored new areas of the city each week while building up to a respectable distance once more.

So, while the rest of the world is setting goals to get themselves fit, my aim is simply to maintain my current and very enjoyable level of fitness. NYR #3:

Stay fit and keep running.

So…

So, no work-related resolutions, because who knows what this year will bring. I have the same problem filling in those “where do you see yourself in five years” questions on self-appraisal forms. At the moment, I’m happy, productive and relaxed – and I hope to be able to sustain this feeling well into 2012.

All of the data here comes from last.fm, which has dutifully collected my scrobbled tracks from both work and home, iTunes and Spotify, since 2005. Most links are to Spotify.

 Top 10 Artists listened to in 2011

1. Afghan Whigs
2. Arcade Fire
3. The Black Crowes
4. The Gaslight Anthem
5. Radiohead
6. Daft Punk
7. PJ Harvey
8. The Beatles
9. Foo Fighters
10. Elbow/Pearl Jam/Bon Iver

This was the year that I discovered The Afghan Whigs. I already had a copy of their album Gentlemen, courtesy of Jeremy Keith during the big Pownce shutdown of a few years back, but this year I obtained first digital and then physical copies of the rest of their back catalogue, and they are now one of my favourite bands. Lead man Greg Dulli’s current work with The Twilight Singers and (with ex-Screaming Trees and QOTSA Mark Lanegan) The Gutter Twins also ticks a lot of my boxes.

The rest of the top ten comprises a few new album releases this year (Arcade Fire, Daft Punk, PJ Harvey, Foo Fighters) together with some perennial favourites.

Top 10 Albums listened to in 2011

1. 1965 (The Afghan Whigs)
2. The Suburbs (Arcade Fire)
3. TRON: Legacy (Daft Punk)
4. For Emma, Forever Ago (Bon Iver)
5. Sigh No More (Mumford & Sons)
6. Amorica (The Black Crowes)
7. Wasting Light (Foo Fighters)
8. The Seldom Seen Kid (Elbow)
9. In The Aeroplane Over The Sea (Neutral Milk Hotel)
10. Play (Moby)

1965 had almost twice as many plays as the next album on the list, and would have been even more if my stereo scrobbled CDs as well. I also really liked Arcade Fire’s third album and Foo Fighters’ latest, and re-acquired a couple of old favourites lost in house moves or Spring cleans over the years. In particular, The Black Crowes Amorica has had a lot of love; for me, it’s one of those albums that reminds you of a particular time in your life.

Foo Fighters and Daft Punk were the only albums actually released in 2011, and the TRON: Legacy soundtrack was actually my first ever MP3 purchase from Amazon, a process that should be simple but is immeasurably over-complicated by their insistence on using their own download software.

The rest of the top ten – Bon Iver, Mumford & Sons, Elbow – reflects the realities of living with someone who doesn’t share 90% of your taste in music; inoffensive modern folk dominates our mealtime or evening listening.

 Track of the year

It should be no surprise that the track I listened to the most over the last twelve months (twenty-three times according to last.fm) is from the #1 album and band. The Whigs’ final album was recorded in New Orleans and has a real loose, sultry feel to it – “Uptown Again” is the standout track for me:

All of the albums above are available to listen for free on Spotify – I’ve collected them into a single playlist for easy exploration: 2011, My Year In Music.

Actually, that’s enough to put anyone off committing a crime on this street…

Finally the scaffolding and coverings have been (mostly) removed from the new Stedelijk Museum at the south-west end of Museumplein, and the new building is looking pretty impressive.

Like so much modern Dutch architecture it is big on counterweighted overhanging parts (see for example the various hotels and things up near the central library), and the material it is coated in has a strange, almost ceramic look to it. The doors have all been covered now so you can’t see the state of the inside, so hopefully it will all be completed in time for the planned 2012 re-opening.

The official website is a bit strange as well – the enormous fixed-position ‘T’ initially looks like part of the layout, until you start scrolling…

Last Sunday it was Amsterdam’s annual Sinterklaas parade, when the Saint and his ‘helpers’ arrive on the boat from Spain and parade through the streets of Amsterdam distributing sweets and biscuits to the children lining the route.

As Nicholas is the patron saint of the city (as well as children and sailors) there is an amazing turn-out along the roads leading from the harbour through to Leidseplein, where he delivers a benediction from the balcony. Hundreds of blacked-up men, women and children also march along the route, representing Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) – variously described as a defeated devil, Ethiopian slave-boy, or a chimney-sweeping servant. Whatever the genesis of the Sint’s companion, it’s definitely one of the oddest things an ex-pat in Amsterdam is likely to see…

I can’t really see what the benefit of this decision is to Facebook. They will be losing a huge amount of content, all of which can be consumed within their application. Forcing bloggers, and other businesses that are automatically piping their RSS content through to their Facebook page, to manually recreate outgoing links can only lose them traffic and eyeballs for the ads that accompany content they display themselves.

There are a few applications and services that can recreate the Notes-import process, luckily (although I haven’t actually used any of these):

• ping.fm is “a simple and FREE service that makes updating your social networks a snap,” apparently, and looks pretty simple to set up;
• Within Facebook itself there are a few apps such as My Blog Posts which provide similar functionality.

One of my responsibilities at Booking.com is hiring new design talent, and inevitably part of that involves reviewing applicant CVs. The job description for our currently open Web Designer position states, among various other requirements, that applicants must provide a portfolio of work. But with so many experienced designers working in-house for corporations that may be unwilling to allow their internal workings to be exposed in public, is it fair to expect every applicant to be able to display their previous work?

As a hiring manager, I am looking for a designer or developer with relevant experience, and the right mixture and level of skills for the job; that means HTML and CSS at what I judge to be a decent quality, and (for designers) evidence of a basic grasp of the fundamentals of good web design. Of course, once they pass the initial CV review stage then other factors come into play: personality, communication style, and how they react to questions relating to the unique environment in which we work. But in the beginning, that 1-3 page summary of their professional life is all I have to go on. And that means that a good portfolio can really influence any decision.

Naturally this situation unfairly benefits those coming from an agency background, churning out designs and templates for hundreds of clients in an environment where publicising your previous work is actively encouraged. You can see this kind of designer represented every day on design galleries and “50 of the best designer portfolios” list sites; if your own site has a 60pt welcome message stating the obvious (“I design websites”) you’re probably one of them too.

And those applicants are easy to assess. I can flick through their portfolio and quickly form a picture of their design chops; are they comfortable working in different styles, do they have a decent grasp of layout, typography, colour theory, UX? For non-designers, I can View Source and rate their code quality; bonus points for using modern techniques, black marks if I see an MM_swapImage() function in there.

So what are in-house designers/developers to do? They might have 10+ years of solid experience – but if it’s all working on the same website, which in any case they’re not allowed to publicise, how do they prove they have the right skills for the job?

Some might say this is where personal projects separate the men (and women) from the boys (and girls). It’s certainly true that a well-written technical blog and some interesting GitHub projects can help to build a picture of a front-end developer’s area(s) of expertise, but it’s rare to find someone from the more graphical design end of the spectrum with much more than a simple Twitter account. Speculative work is a possibility, of course – but lorem ipsum filled homepages, no matter how beautiful, don’t give potential employers any idea of your ability to interpret business requirements or balance real-life client priorities.

In the end, I think much of the opportunity for these in-housers is tied up in their CV. A well-written summary of their skills and how they have been applied, their major achievements and projects, and evidence of increasing levels of responsibility or upward movement in their role should be enough to at least secure a first interview. Setting technical challenges or spec design tasks as part of the interview process would be another option, although personally I’m not in favour of that approach; I tend to feel that it doesn’t accurately reflect the work environment the applicant will need to work within, and also places an undue demand on their (unpaid) time.

So, is it an unfair situation or not? If you’re hiring designers, or you’re an in-house designer struggling to apply for jobs that require a portfolio of work, I’d love to know what you think.

I cycled past the #OccupyMuseumplein “protest” this morning; looks like they have a ways to go before they reach the scale of #OccupyWallStreet or #OccupyRome…