Michael Rill

Einfach machen

Tag: tools

  • My new blogging machine

    A few months ago I tried out ChromeFlex. This is a version of ChromeOS that’s easy to install on traditional laptops. I had an old Surface Pro 3 machine which was collecting dust. It just waited for me to carry it to electronics recycling. As it turns out, ChromeFlex gave it another lease on life. The installation was easy. You create a bootable USB drive via a Chrome browser extension. Then you can choose whether you want to just try (boot from USB drive) or go all in(wipe machine and install ChromeOS for good).

    The whole process took less than 30 minutes. Booting from pressing the on/off button to entering your Google ID to enter the machine takes 20 seconds. And then you are ready to go. The gist of ChromeOS is that everything runs in a browser. My nearly nine year old Surface Pro can watch YouTube, I can use the web version of WhatsApp, of course manage my email, run Microsoft Office in the browser (even inking in OneNote works without problems), … and last, but not least, write blog posts without problems. I have a dozen browser tabs open without any performance issues. There are some UI glitches on YouTube, but nothing that makes YouTube unusable.

    The wonderful thing about this approach are the limitations. There is not an unlimited amount of apps and configurations, and one has to get a bit creative on how to get things done. For example: How do I get images from my phone into my blog, while converting from Apple’s HEIC image format to JPEG. It took me a while, but now I know that …

    • selecting the relevant photos on my phone, …
    • uploading them to Google Photos to then …
    • download as JPEG and …
    • upload into the WordPress Media Library

    does the trick. Sounds complicated? It is. But WordPress is partially at fault, because I have not managed to understand how I could upload photos from my phone to my self-hosted WordPress instance. Somewhere between my phone, my host and my WordPress installation the system breaks. The workflow above is cumbersome, but it works. And it works on my new/ old machine. Because it is so limited, it takes out the complexity that comes with having degrees of freedom. Besides, creativity thrives under constraints. And ChromeOS has just the right amount of constraints while getting the basics (i.e. speed, speed, speed) right.

    Long story, short: If you have an old machine lying around, give ChromeOS Flex a shot. It is a lot less complicated than installing a Linux distro … although, ChromeOS is based on Linux itself.

  • Using brevity to write better

    Using brevity to write better

    For the past few years there has been a meme in the system about document-based cultures. I’m a big proponent of writing as a tool to sharpen thinking. At the same time, documents and writing are only a tool and not the goal in itself. All too often I find myself staring at a 15-pager with little structure and hard to identify key insights.

    The hard truth is: It is hard to hold the attention of an audience for 15 pages. But 15 pages is a good start. Take those and turn them into six pages. Six pages that provide enough context, lay out the challenge or opportunity that you are addressing, and what kind of change you want to drive and how. This requires making deliberate decisions on what is important and what isn’t. The goal is not to get as many points across as possible, but to land the few critical points safe and sound. Six pages seem to work well, but it if you can do it in four or three pages, go for it.

    Try to optimize not for brevity, but also for readability. Make sure that you use headings and sub-headings to help the reader with a structure. Use bulleted lists, and if the list has an order, use numbered lists. Write your sentences with simple words and avoid complex sentence structure. Form follows function. Do not optimize your sentence structures to fit a word count, but rather make them easy to read. If sentences sound complex, they are. Use features like “Read Aloud” to have your text read to you. Tools like Hemingway Editor also make your text more readable.

    Use the spell and grammar check to avoid unforced errors. Do not fiddle with line spacing, font size, spacing or page margins. The defaults work well for 99% of all documents. If you have data, go splurge on a chart.

    If there are gems that didn’t make it into the six pages, put them into the appendix. And make the appendix a separate document. Now you have a tight six-pager.

    Now turn the six-pager into a one-pager. Boil your message down to one page – still providing sufficient context, easy to read, well-structured, focusing on what change you want to drive and how. Again, do not fiddle with font-size etc. You don’t need it. By now you know your key messages and it rarely takes more than an hour to get the first draft of the one-pager.


    Now turn the one-pager into three bullets. They express the essence of what you want to advocate for. When you share your document, put those bullets into the email. Then link to the executive summary and your six-pager. While this takes time, it will improve your ideas. Ultimately, you want to get your reader to the point as fast as possible. Do not make your reader pay for all the good thinking and research that you have done.

  • Scaling yourself

    Scott Hanselman gave a talk in 2012 called “Scaling Yourself ” about personal productivity and not burning out.<footnote>As I learned today, he since has given a variant of that talk dozens of times and it probably has improved. However, I saw the 2012 version.</footnote> I would say it’s more relevant today than it has been then.

    A lot of us have been working from home since early 2020. We’ve had to re-arrange childcare, supervise remote learning, take care of family members and adopt new protocols such as social distancing – all against the backdrop of a global pandemic, an economic downturn and social unrest. We are not just transitioning to work-from-home, but rather dealing with multiple severe crises that force everyone to stay at home while still trying to work.

    While Scott’s talk does not solve global healthcare, he has a few actionable suggestions that might lighten the load. Below are more notes:

    • There is a fundamental difference between efficiency (reducing the effort to get things done) and effectiveness (doing the right things). Efficiency will come with time and experience. Effectiveness can be improved immediately.
    • Each week set aside time to define the work that needs to get done. That makes sure that you are working on the right things.
    • Say no/ drop things off your todo list. We can only do so many things and even fewer things really well. Give yourself permission to say “no” or re-negotiate your commitments.
    • “Being busy is a form of laziness”. Instead of taking care of everything as if everything is of equal importance, invest the time to triage work, i.e. make some upfront decision about if this needs to get done, whether you are the best person to do it and by when it needs to get done. Don’t just jump to the conclusion that add it to the top of your todo list.
    • Save your keystrokes: When writing longer instructive emails, consider putting them in a document or a blog post instead. That way you can share more broadly with others and don’t have to repeat yourself.
    • At the beginning of a day or a week, pick three things that you want to get done. As work and life now blends it is even more important to set boundaries and set yourself a bar for success to make sure you don’t end your day without guilt. If you don’t set that bar, your workday will never feel done and you will continuously carry the psychic weight of unfinished work with you.

    Scott does a much better job at telling stories around these concepts. Give it a shot, it’s only 30 minutes that will pay off later: Scaling Yourself – Scott Hanselman

  • Momentum from Day One – Getting Onboarding Right

    Momentum from Day One – Getting Onboarding Right

    Creating a good onboarding experience as a manager is tricky at the best of times. It’s even harder when you are forced to work from home against the backdrop of a global health crisis. It is harder to recognize the challenges of new hires and it’s harder for them to ramp up and integrate in the absence of ambient hallway chatter.

    At the same time, it is possible and achievable. Looking back at my own onboarding journeys, I’ve learned a lot from the good, the bad and the ugly. Most learnings are transferable into distributed settings.

    Let’s look at the bad ones first. Once, my new boss told me in our first meeting that he’s moving teams – I just relocated to the other side of the globe to work with him. That was also the job where I did not have a computer or a phone for the first week – particularly funny as I worked for a telco and had to read printed PowerPoint decks for the first week. Another time, I was put into “stealth mode” … without ever re-emerging. Or that time when I did not have a project to work on for the first two months – it was called “being on the beach” and it drove me up the walls.

    But there were also the great experiences. When my new boss walked me through everything by himself – not just giving me the opportunity to ask questions, but guiding me through what he considered important. Or when I arrived at a desk with a brand-new machine including access to all relevant systems. Or the onboarding buddy, who took it as a matter of personal pride to make sure that I had a great start.

    First impressions matter. Starting on the right foot and getting momentum is a great confidence booster for every new starter. At the same time, without guidance, new hires have to work twice as hard to learn what they need to be productive. When working from home, it takes a more deliberate effort to give new hires the necessary experiences and exposure for a solid start. Always remember that it is a bigger deal for them than it is for you. They will remember it, one way or another. Your job is to make sure those will be good memories.

    Below are a few ideas that I collected over the years.

    (more…)

  • HuffDuffer – The best tool that probably nobody knows

    If you like podcasts, keep reading. If you don’t, you can stop here – the rest is probably not interesting for you.

    Have you ever received a YouTube link to a talk that you wanted to watch, but never got around to it? Or did somebody recommend you this one episode of a podcast, but you didn’t want to subscribe to the entire podcast? HuffDuffer is a service that let’s you pinpoint interesting MP3 files so that they are automatically downloaded with your normal podcasting app. Here’s how it works:

    1. You find a link to the episode or YouTube talk that you’d like to listen to at a later time.
    2. You use a handy bookmarklet to pinpoint HuffDuffer to the file.
    3. That file is now added to your podcast and will be automatically downloaded by your podcasting app.

    The service does a lot more and it does take a bit of time to set it up, but it is well worth the time investment. By the way, once you have set it up, here are the instructions to add the audio tracks of YouTube or Vimeo videos.

    Give it a go here.