But this post is about a life hack; one of those little things you can do to make everything just a little bit better. Many of us walk around with our nose buried in our cel phone or other portable electronic device, or attached to our MP3 player via headphones, or both. These devices are distracting and inhibit our ability to take in the outside world … which can be a good thing, but it makes dealing with people you need to deal with that much more difficult, and it irritates those that you deal with.

So when I’m plugged into my headphones or dickering around with my iPod touch or Sony Reader, and I make it to the front of the line at the airport or bank or whatever, here is what I do:

1. At 5-10 feet away, I start to put the device away entirely, or take my headphones out of my eyes. Both headphones end up tucked into the front of my shirt.
2. As I step up to the person I need to speak with, I look them in the eye, smile, and say “Hello.” If they ask me how I’m doing, I answer, and in turn, ask them how they are. After they tell me that how they’re doing, I offer the appropriate “That’s good to hear.” or “Ouch, that’s a pain. These lines do look brutal—hope that the rest of your shift is easier.”
3. Profit! Or Good Service! Maybe both? Why? It’s easy: by putting away your electronic crap and taking off your headphones, you’ve acknowledged to the person that you need to be able to hear and pay attention to them, that they provide value to you. By greeting them nicely and having a short conversation, you’ve shown that they’re a human, you’re a human, and whatever business may happen next gets off on a better foot.

A side tip: If you’re in a situation where things have gone poorly (You’ve missed a connecting flight, your luggage has been lost, your waitress was distracted and forgot to bring you your delicious cheesesticks, etc.) I’ve found the following style of phrase works out really well: “Actually, things are kind of lousy right now, and I would really like your help figuring out what I should do next.” (or: “And this is what you can do to help fix it.” Tell the person that you’re in a bit of a bind, or a bad mood, but make it clear to them that it isn’t their fault (unless it is) and that they can help you. Someone who wants to be helped is, shockingly, easier to help, and most people do like helping others, even if it’s their job.

©2010 Adam Jury. All Rights Reserved.

Here’s two other things that I think is necessary for efficient IM communications

Ask Your Question, Don’t Ask to Ask

Don’t say hello and wait for someone to respond; just ask your question. Don’t ever say “Hey, are you there?” or “Hey, can I ask you a question?” — just ask it.

Situation 1:

Bob: Hey Adam?
[time lapse of 2 hours]
Adam: Sorry, what did you want?
[Bob is now AFK, time lapse of another hour.]
Bob: Hey, I was wondering how big the Gear chapter was?
Adam: It’s 62 pages. [Total time lapse of 3 hours]

Situation 2:

Bob: Hey Adam, I need to know how big the gear chapter is.
[time lapse of 2 hours]
Adam: It’s 62 pages. [No matter how long the time lapse is here before Bob reads my IM, I've fulfilled my commitment.]

Situation 2 is far preferable. If you know that the person isn’t available, you may be better off sending an email or posting to whatever project management software you use — but simply saying “hello” does not get work finished, no matter what communications tool you’re using.

Use Auto-Away Sparingly

Some IM clients will set you as “automatically away” if you are idle for more than a certain period of user-definable time. In practice, I think this feature doesn’t work, especially when the time is set low, as the defaults often are. I notice that a lot of people, even when they’re working or otherwise busy, will notice that their IM client has set them to auto-away and instantly fiddle with their IM client to reset their status to Available — resulting in the user “bouncing” around their friend’s buddy lists.

If you want to use auto-away, I suggest setting it to a high value: at least an hour. That way it will work for you when you’ve been caught up in a long phone call or you fell asleep or got kidnapped by friends [or aliens!], but it won’t get triggered when you’re simply busy working.

Turn Your IM Client Off

I should probably do this more, at least with my business-related accounts: if you’re going to be unavailable on IM for a period of time that is extreme [such as an entire daytime period during your co-worker's workday] — turn your IM client right off. Seeing things like “(1d) Away” in my buddy list just frustrates me, like those people are wasting my screen real estate. I sort these people into a custom group, “Idlers,” and minimize that group so I never see them unless I’m specifically looking for them.

©2010 Adam Jury. All Rights Reserved.

©2010 Adam Jury. All Rights Reserved.

I’m giving it a try, and in addition to his Recently Viewed parameters, I’m also excluding it from a few mail folders that I’m unlikely to refer to as often, such as the folder where “Someone has replied to your topic/blog entry/etc” mail goes, and some mailing list folders.

Depending on how you filter and store email, that might not be necessary — or it might be easier to tell it to only look for Recently Viewed mail in certain folders, as opposed to not in certain folders.

©2010 Adam Jury. All Rights Reserved.

Before I started using Macs — and, really, before I started using OS X — I think I actually enjoyed fooling around with Windows, to a degree. There used to be some level of fun in installing new video drivers to make performance just a little bit better, and in running all sorts of little applications to tweak my computer. Once I learned that doing stuff with the computer was cooler than doing stuff to the computer, I began to resent the never-ending stream of maintenance that Windows seems to require: relatively frequent security updates, virus scans [and updating the software and definitions], spyware scans [and updating there, too], defragging, and as many hardcore users will say, a full reinstall roughly every year.

I don’t have time for that. More importantly, I don’t want to spend that much time doing “work” to maintain a computer that doesn’t do much work for me — time I spend twizzling with Windows is time I can’t spend on something more profitable, constructive, or fun.

I bought the current Windows machine [a HP, it has an AMD processor, some RAM, and perhaps a very small donkey inside] in late 2004. I’ve been faithfully upgrading my virus scanner, my adware scanner, and I defrag it on a regular basis. I’m such a good little babysitter. I’ve never had a virus on that machine, never had “adware” more intrusive than a cookie, and all in all, the machine is still pretty stable [although slower than it used to be ... something about "using it" that seems to make it slower.]

As of now, though, I’m stopping. I’ve set the virus scanner to run once a month, and to check for updates on the same schedule. I’m not going to run spyware scanning software out of habit anymore — only if I suspect Windows has become crudded up. I’ll upgrade the software firewall if it stops working for some reason or if I run into some sort of incompatibility, but I’m not going to touch it otherwise. Defragging? No. Scandisk? Only if I have reason to suspect the hard drive is failing. Windows Updates? Once a month, no more. I’ve turned off auto-updating in Firefox — the version I have works, and I have extensions installed that work. I’ll update them once a month if there are updates available. I am not even bothering to check if I could install Vista on it.

I’m going to set this up on a schedule: first Saturday of every month is “the day I am allowed to spend an hour — maybe two — dorking with Windows.”

At some point during the year I’m going to transfer as much of possible of the actual data on the drive onto an external drive, and back static data up onto DVDs. I’ll keep the external drive powered off unless I’m actively using it.

With minimal babysitting and sane browsing habits, I think there’s a fine chance of the computer staying relatively clean and useful for another year or two. At that point, it can go in the garbage and be replaced — or not — and I’ll feel fine about discarding something that I have so little investment in, and no valuable data on.

©2010 Adam Jury. All Rights Reserved.

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©2010 Adam Jury. All Rights Reserved.