Pogue’s Productivity Secrets Revealed | Hacker News Reader

Pogue’s Productivity Secrets Revealed

nytimes.com

29 pointsjwecker9 comments

I'm just the sort of person who kind of knows what he wants to say; I can't remember ever staring at the blank screen, trying to think of what to write.

This, I suspect, is actually an effect, not a cause. Isaac Asimov and Piers Anthony (both famously prolific writers) have said that they don't get writers block because they never go a day without writing, not the other way around. In other words: the more you write, the more you'll be able to write.

That's not always a good thing, the world might have been better off without some of Piers Anthony's work.

I said "prolific", not "good". Though, Asimov is likely my favorite author, and ordinarily I'd be loathe to mention Anthony and Asimov in the same breath. Just goes to show that both good and bad writers can be more successful just by virtue of writing a lot.

"(Yeah, I know, Windows has a limited version of this, involving shortcut icons. But I want to make up my own keyboard shortcuts, and as many as I want.)"

Vista has this built in in the new launcher. For me to open word, I hit Windows, W, Enter. Boom. It's smart enough to prioritize by your most common programs.

Along the same line OS X has has this too with Spotlight. Though quicksilver is more adept at the different tasks that he is looking to do.

Pogue says he uses "typing expansion software" -> http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/typing-expansion-s...

That must take some getting used to. I use a similar feature in Netbeans for Ruby programming but didn't know there was a feature like that for regular English words. Pogue has said previously that he has suffered severely from RSI so it must be related to that. He has advocated Dragon Naturally Speaking so much that I assumed he didn't type at all.

Open Office writer has this to a limited extent - I find it useful.

I believe Word has this as well. A mixed blessing.

Steal this document, with my compliments.

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