Ever read 43 Folders? Right up there on the front page, it says “43 Folders is Merlin Mann’s site about personal productivity,” and it carries lots of tips to make you better at stuff. Not better at the high jump or getting to the next level on Donkey Kong, but better at stuff like remembering to cancel the papers when you are going on holiday and dealing with the 75,000 emails generated at work over a weekend while you’re sleeping. 43 folders can help you get over procrastination and clear your clutter (like Dawna Walter but without the Crusher). If I were pretending to be down with the kids, then I’d say it’s cool, which would only go to prove that I never was ‘down with the kids’. But it is a great site.
I digress.
I was sitting at work last week, feeling tired one lunch break after ploughing through however many hundred emails were in my inbox that morning, thinking that, like Nat West, there must be another way (see reference to free stuff here) when I weave my wandering web way to 43 Folder’s inbox zero pages. I think the uber cool refer to it as izero (or is it i-zero?), but we’ve established I am not uber anything.
Now, I know what you’re thinking, and it proves you are a smart cookie who can jump ahead in a story like this one. You’re thinking that I read Inbox Zero and got my inbox to zero right then and there while eating a Coronation Chicken bap and a caramel square. Admit it, that’s what you were thinking was next. And I don’t want to spoil your opinion of yourself, so, yeah, I did that (and I was eating that). It’s neat (see, down with the kids), but anybody can do it if you hit delete and pretend the server must have crashed on that important email from your boss.
It’s not the point. The point is also not that I sat and hit the delete key several hundred times while watching Merlin’s Inbox Zero presentation (yeah, right, like I don’t know about shift-delete) and felt good about myself. If you want to achieve the Zen-like state of inbox zero (sorry, izero), then watch the video. Merlin is presenting to what I imagine to be some brainy people at Googleplex, and I am not sure if they are taking it in or not. I imagined the really brainy folks would have asked more questions than they did. Not sure what that says about them. Probably says they were eating a Coronation Chicken bap and a caramel square (which, I gather, are free at the ‘plex).
And now to the key point, some 460 or so words into this little piece (don’t count the words; I edited a bit, and so that number, while once real, now resembles something I made up). Merlin’s presentation is great. Really good. But it’s not just good because it helps you get to an i0 state (i0, I just thought of that). No, I mean it’s a really good presentation.
I should write about my presentations. I think I will. But not now because I am talking about Merlin’s presentation (if I use only his first name, it’s like we hang together, right? I’m way cool). It’s done properly (his presentation, not the hanging). The slides are illustrations, and there are more pictures than words (pictures are good for recall, apparently). He doesn’t use the slides as a safety net in case something is forgotten. No, they illuminate and reinforce his points. They are there as visual support. I mean that his slides are not his presentation. What he says is the presentation. The slides are, if you will, the side slideshow. Useful, entertaining, but not the star attraction.
This really shouldn’t be such a revelation, but it’s an almighty, lightning-strike revelation. I’ve sat through hundreds of presentations. Hell, I’ve given hundreds of presentations and few, so very few, are like this. By which I mean most are rubbish (including some, although not all, of mine). It jumped off the screen at me.
I got so wrapped up in it that I had people standing around wondering what I was watching and how I could be so attentive and engaged by a video on the web. So, go watch it. It’s presentation porn, if you will (although you’ll learn more and there’s much less grunting).
On this day…
2005: Memories Of The Walkman2004: Digital Download Chart
2003: Silly Pop Stars
2003: Beep Beep To Profit
2002: When Love Comes To Town