I rest my case - Evernote and Shakespeare for personal creativity

I promised an update on my search for the optimal personal creativity app in my last blog post. In retrospect in became even clearer to me that it is more inspiring to be guided by Shakespeare and start every day by simply posing the question:

"Who do I want to be today ?" 

rather than what is my Todo list today ? Anyway, I did some googling and stumbled upon The four hour work week blog by Tim Ferriss. I was so curious that I downloaded his book on my Kindle. At first I was very sceptic (and I guess still am), but I must admit he has some very provoking and interesting thoughts on personal productivity and personal creativity.

He convinced me to give Evernote a new (and real try), and I must admit it has more or less all features I have been looking for.

1. Capture web pages (both just URL and complete page) using web clipper
2. Capture images
3. Capture documents like PDFs
4. A tagging systems - that allows you relate items along several dimensions and escape hierarchies
5. Instant Cloud based synchronization between all devices
6. Possibility to create lists
7. Sharing - by allowing shared notebooks.

The only thing I miss (a bit) is OCR recognition. It may be available in the premium edition I´m not sure.
After less than a moth of usage, I have already stored tons of data and I use it everyday. So my quest for a personal creativity app has ended - I will stay with evernote, and most likely turn into a premium customer very soon. I will dump my brain into this trusted external storage - naive as I am

ToDo or not ToDo - is that the real question ?

David Allen´s GTD promise of stress-free productivity suggest that lack of productivity is our main source of stress. Too much focus on productivity is stressful by itself.  Are we trapped into thinking about intellectual work using old models inherited from Adam Smith and manufacturing ?


I will rather go for plain creativity.


I´ve been a sucker for productivity and ToDo apps and tried many of them (Gtasks, Omnifocus, Evernote, OneNote, GoogleTasks including the yellow notes on my iPhone that is still a dear friend). I have read David Allens Getting Things Done, and it introduces some very useful ideas, but there is still something with this whole ToDo paradigm that gives me a creepy feeling.

The season of contrasts

In Bergen we do have four seasons, but we never know when we get them. In April and May we can get all in one week; snow, rain, warm and sunny. Sometimes I even have the feeling of getting several of them in the same day. On May 1st it was 17°C, first day of barbecue & shorts. Three days later it was snowing - and I was skiing. I just wanted to post some picture from last week.

Retro cab experience

Yesterday we took a cab to the city centre to listen to Goldenboy. Just as I was about to leave the taxi and looked at the taximeter, my eyes stopped immediately at this phone that should have been on a technical museum. According to the proud taxi driver,  it is 14 years old and still working. This phone was released 1996 so that may well be true. I asked if a could take a picture - and of course I could.