A great list of lessons

I know I took a shot at Leo Babauta last time, but it's important to remember that everyone makes mistakes.  Maybe I'm wrong; maybe he is.  Whatever.  I can say that there's some things that he and I do agree on.

Leo compiled a great list of "life lessons" that I would encourage everyone to read and adopt as rules to live by.  They distill in words far clearer than anything I've come up with, some ideas that I've had myself but couldn't quite verbalize.

I'd suggest only one modification, to Leo's first lesson about always being willing to apologize.  I don't believe in apologies.  An apology accepted is just permission to make the same mistake again.  And an apology denied is, well, useless.  Don't apologize. Instead, explain that you understand what you did wrong, and that you'll do your best to learn from the mistake.

I would note also that Leo's lessons seem to be good principles to achieve what I call balance. Balance is about finding that sweet-spot in life where you've got what you need, just enough to be good and happy, doing things that matter, with a minimum of stress.

I know what I'm going to do: build Leo's lessons into my own rulebook.

The myth of the myth of discipline

Normally, I have high praise for Leo Babauta's blog Zen Habits. However, I came across his page on the myth of discipline.  I don't get this page, because while arguing against "discipline," Babauta keeps talking about how to make habits.

And if you look up the word "discipline" and "self-discipline," you'll find that the ability to form habits is pretty much what discipline is.  It's a bit confusing.  Babauta is usually quite insightful.  That he didn't bother to study the dictionary definitions of discipline is atypical.

In point of fact, and using words as they are generally defined in English, discipline is just self-control based on a consistent system of rules.  So the best way to get discipline is to build habits.  And that's just how it is.

Of course, anyone can make mistakes, and this doesn't diminish the general validity of Zen Habits.  I guess the real lesson here is to remember to be flexible and adaptable, because one can never tell where a problem will come from, but come they will.

Chrome extension for Google Tasks

Google recently released a long-awaited API for Tasks.  They also immediately made available, code and all, an extension for Chrome that lets you access Tasks via a toolbar button.  This is great news for people who use Tasks.  (Previously, you'd have to have Tasks open in a window or tab, or access it via Gmail.)

A particularly cool feature of the extension is that you can add a task in two interesting ways:

1. you can just type t your new task in the Omnibar, no matter what web page you're on, and the task will be created; or
2. you can highlight text on any web page, right-click, and add that text to a new task.

This is good news for minimalists like me.  I'm going to have to seriously reconsider Tasks for my own task management system.

Google Tasks finally gets an API

Google finally announced on 11 May that they've published an API - an application programming interface - for its Google Tasks app.  Gtasks, as it's sometimes known, is a minimalist take on task management that I've written about before.  If you don't need projects, and contexts, and priorities, and stars and fancy stuff like that, you should look at Gtasks.  There are gtask apps for every kind of mobile device I can think of, and it links to Gmail and to Gcal.

An API is a standard way for programs to access other programs.  So for all of those people who write, say, iPhone apps that interact with web services, APIs are absolutely essential.

Gtasks has been around for a while now, and by far the most requested feature for the app was an API.  Since it was a long time coming, several programmers managed to figure out how to get their apps to talk to gtasks on their own - thankless task at the best of times.

Those days are, thankfully, over.

I predict there'll be a flurry of activity, especially in the mobile app world, as extant and new task management apps are written to take advantage of the new gtasks API, followed by a flurry of new products and apps to help us get things done fast and well.

I will keep an eye out for developments and post them here as quickly as I can.