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Maybe the reason Homer is so happy is that he thinks fast.

A new study shows that some rapid problem solving, or even watching speeded up episodes of I Love Lucy causes feelings of elation.

Read the full article here.

I sometimes consider myself a connoisseur of comedy, which is the only reason I would offer you such purely recycled content. Watch as Neil Patrick Harris and SNL reveal the humor in one of life’s most futile, yet painful emotions: nostalgia.

Note: If you do not remember the television sitcom, Doogie Howser M.D. you will not find this funny

Which of these reminds you of the internet?

“Surfing the web” is a horrible and inaccurate metaphor. The artful physicality and subtleties of catching a wave have little to do with the hunched, glassy-eyed aimlessness of link-clicking.

The information on the internet is as vast as an ocean, but the waves don’t break that clean. The staccato click of the mouse and sudden jumps from web page to web page make browsing more like “sucking on the machine gun of the internet” than “surfing the web.”  Maybe, “standing beneath the mudslide of the internet” or “dumpster diving the internet” would work better.

Actually, the perfect word for what I do on the internet is also written on the button that I press to do it.

(For those of you who don’t know, StumbleUpon is part internet community, part really cool button that you can install on your web browser that sends you to web pages that match your interests. It has also surpassed television as most addictive piece of technology I have ever come across.)

Stumbling is aimless. Until now.

By having a creative outlet (a blog), a desire to share good information, a few pieces of technology, and a systematic way of collecting info, I turned previously aimless Stumbling into useful research. (If you just want to know the basics, you can scroll to the bottom of this post.)

Having An Outlet

Having a creative outlet and a desire to spread good information, is an essential part of why this new system is so awesome. For those of you who can’t imagine how they would use the info they take in by Stumbling, I encourage you to go cold turkey. Take in a sunset or a walk through your neighborhood instead of a digital image of a cat with a funny caption. This system won’t help you.

You don’t have to have a specific use in mind for every image, video, or piece of text that you Stumble across, but you should at least believe that one day, you may want to share it, even if it is only with your future self.

These are some recent changes that have caused me to increase my creative outlet:

• I cultivate my writing “chops” by writing several quality pieces a week.
• I quit drinking.
• I quit cigarettes.
• I am creating a blog that will have 10,000 readers by the end of 2009.
• I am saving money to travel to Argentina next year.

By telling all my loved ones and readers of my earlier blog that I committed to these changes, the changes happened. (We’ll see about Argentina and 10,000 readers.) I am not drinking booze or smoking cigarettes. I am writing nearly every day.

As a side effect, my Stumbling got worse, but, at the same time, the information I was blearily soaking up became more useful. Anything I now stumble across has the potential to become material.

The Parts of the System

As someone who has always been accused of being (or praised as) a day dreamer, I cling to systems that will help me stay organized and productive. Little did I know that one of these systems would one day help transform this…

…into something useful!

But first, a GTD Digression

I have been obsessed with time-management and productivity systems for the past five or six years. The system, or rather the collection of methods, that has really changed my life is know as Getting Things Done. It is so popular here on the webs that it is known simply as GTD. David Allen wrote the book in 2001, and I highly recommend it, but you can also find a lot of clear explanations of GTD just by googling it.

For the time being here is a super-brief overview of some of the relevant parts of GTD:

What is “stuff”?
Allen often refers to stuff as any “open-loop” – tasks, information, or objects, that need to be dealt with in someway or another.

How do you collect?
It is up to you, but usually there are only a few “buckets” – your email inbox, a paper or electronic list, or a physical inbox on your desk or by your door. If something doesn’t fit, you can just put a note reminding you to deal with whatever it is.

What does processing entail?
Processing entails going through your inbox(s), top to bottom, and either filing, doing, delegating, or deferring each item. There’s a lot more to processing, and many great tips on how to do it efficiently which I won’t go into here.

The overall idea is to create a system that you trust to capture everything and reveal to you, on time and on demand, what needs to be done.

Their are two difficulties with collecting the stuff that you stumble upon:

1. It is difficult to capture just the part of the web page that you want.
2. It is time-consuming to label or file each bit of stuff so that you know what it is about later. If you don’t, you waste even more time later, revisiting the web page and probably getting distracted.

I won’t go on in depth about my previous efforts to clip and collect stuff from my internet wanderings, except to say that none of the add-ons or systems I adopted were simple enough. Here are some of the things I tried:

• the built in bookmark feature of Firefox,
• social bookmarking sites like delicious,
• an add-on that would create shortcuts on my desktop called DeskCut,
• and, best of all, an open text file to paste interesting stuff in.

None of it worked, mainly because of the two problems above.

A third problem was getting access to my collection of stuff when I wasn’t at my own computer.

All three were solved when I installed the Google Notebook extension and created a “notebook” called “INBOX”. Suddenly, I could highlight anything on the page, click my right mouse-button, select “Note This” from the context menu and, voila, I sent it to my “INBOX”. I rarely need to write comments on the clips because they are readable at a glance. If I do, the comment section is already selected by default and I just need to type a keyword or two.

All this without leaving the page I am viewing.

How to Turn Stumbling into Research (the nitty-gritty)

1. Have a purpose or the dream of a purpose – If you don’t have any reason to collect the information you are subjecting yourself to, that is OK. If you can’t imagine ever having a reason for saving or sharing whatever it is you’ve stumbled upon, then please consider trying to go cold turkey.
2. Sign up for a Google Notebook account – It’s free.
3. Download the extension – The link is for Firefox. There is an extension for Internet Explorer as well. (But you should just get Firefox. It is also free.)
4. Create a notebook called “INBOX” – or something similar.
5. Continue Stumbling. You don’t have to stop!
6. Start clipping – When you see something that you want to preserve, highlight it, and click the right mouse button. The menu that comes up (known as the context menu) will have a “Note this (Google Notebook” option. Make sure that what you clip goes into the “INBOX” notebook.
7. Get into the processing habit – Every few days, or before your inbox has more than 25 or so things in it, open Google Notebook in a full window and go through each clipping, one by one.
8. Create meaningful categories – I use other notebooks to file my stuff. Examples: Blog Content, Gardening, Recipes, Argentina, Writing Tips, Blogging/Business/Marketing Tip

A note on steps 7 and 8. Processing your inbox and creating a filing system for all the stuff you save off the internet is different for everyone. Here are some tips on how to do it.

• Imagine how and why you might use the item your filing - If you know what key words will pop into your head when you are looking for a particular bit of stuff, use those words to label or file your stuff.
• Don’t create too many categories – If you have a category for Writing Tips, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to have one for Poetry Tips too.
• Don’t create too few categories – The purpose of categorizing and filing is to be able to pick things out from a pile, not create piles.
• Try labels – I’ve read a good number of productivity geeks’ blogs that advise doing away with folders (or in this case notebooks) in favor of using labels. The idea is that folders aren’t necessary when you can easily search things. I have not moved over to the labeling system of organization because I like the idea of having all my relevant stuff in one place and my fear that I might use a whimsical label that I’ll never remember.
• Avoid a miscellaneous category – Miscellaneous really means “I don’t have the energy to figure out where this goes.” I think it is better to leave something in your inbox than to consign it to the miscellaneous abyss.

Using Google Notebook in this way feels like science fiction to me. It is an extension of my brain, one that allows me to reliably gather information, without being drowned by it.

My mind is free to wander, to float about, and sometimes even surf.

• Step 1: think about it, dream about it, talk about it
• Step 2: make a mind-map about it.
• Step 2.1: get distracted looking at mind-map web applications
• Step 2.2: write an article about getting distracted

Me and Mind Maps

I got into mind maps a couple years ago. I started out by reading The Mind Map Book by Tony Buzan, the slightly annoying man who attempted to trademark the word “Mind Map” and is often given credit as being the inventor. Despite being annoyed by the constant capitalization (of the letters and on the idea) of Mind Map, I found the book to be incredibly useful. I followed advice which suggested that I adhere to a particular set of “Mind Map Laws” until I had made 100 maps. I’ve drawn about 300 or so, written an article about them and given several workshops on the topic.

“Mind map” can mean a lot of things, but it usually refers to a visual representation of ideas, concepts, or facts that uses color and makes connections that radiate out from the center. Mind mapping is a great way to brainstorm and to organize thoughts about a project, idea, or piece of writing that is in its early phases. As a writing tutor, I’ve used mind maps to help visual and kinesthetic learners to organize their ideas into coherent papers. This is all to say – I love mind maps and I use them often.

3 Free Mind-Map Web Apps

• Bubbl.us has a very simple interface, which is important because you don’t want to stifle your creative flow by having to a lot of left-brain figuring-out-of-complicated-stuff. This is a mind-map I made for a presentation I was going to do at a tutoring conference. It may take a little while to load, but when it does you can zoom in and out and scroll around
• Text 2 Mind Map – was the first place I Stumbled Upon. This is a really cool app that takes regular text and creates one of those floaty, rubber-bandy, self-adjusting mind-maps. By using tabs in the text, you create “child” nodes that are farther out from the center. Unfortunately, it couldn’t handle my entire brainstorm and didn’t read all the tabs exactly right. Still, I love that my ideas were floating around, nervously bouncing off each other.
• Mindmeister – seemed to be a much more powerful application that offers several levels of membership above the free sign-up. I hope they are still working on it, because all in all, it is a good compromise between the all important simple interface and extended functionality. I use a slow computer and a slow DSL connection, so it was a bit frustrating when I uploaded the text that I had originally used with Text 2 Mind Map. Still, the fact that I could upload text and convert it to a mind map is awesome.

What I Learned

I did very little new thinking about building my website while clicking around looking for a way to mind-map online. The internet is for gathering new information and it is too tempting to click around, trying out new features. Even if using a particular webapp became second nature, every time I used it, I would be thrown into a temptation rich environment. As Timothy Ferriss might put it, I would be thrown off my information diet.

For me, mindmapping is about making new connections between ideas and information you already have. The big idea that results is a new idea, but not new information. It is an amalgamation of information that you have already gathered.

So, sitting at a table with a blank piece pf paper and some colored pencils is where creative organization is going to happen for me. I won’t stop checking out the mind map apps though.

More Mind Map Resources on the Web

While stumbling around, I came across a few cool sites, and some disappointing ones. Don’t go to Wikipedia to find a list of mind map apps. It is ridiculously short. On the other hand, mind-mapping.org has a huge database of mind mapping software. A great free application that you have to download and install is the open-source Freemind. I’ve used it a lot.

Another resource, a little closer to home, is my article on how to use mind maps to improve your writing.

There is a great scene from the 80′s movie, Broadcast News, where Holly Hunter’s character, Jane, has what I like to think of as a scheduled breakdown. She is in her hotel room and has just agreed to meet her co-worker in the lobby in half an hour.

She hangs up -- takes the phone off the
hook and lays it on the bed for a moment's
solitude.  She sits stiffly, palms on top of
her legs.  It looks like someone with unusually
good posture, waiting for something, and now
we BEGIN TO SEE the first signs redden and
she begins to cry.  Now she sobs -- then
miraculously shakes it off and exits quickly to
the bathroom.  This crying episode is clearly
part of her morning routine.

You can check out the full screenplay here.

Over the years, I’ve come to accept that every couple of months or so, I have a similar breakdown. It lasts longer than Jane’s, and isn’t really scheduled…so I guess it isn’t that similar, except that it feeds the same need…the need to wallow.

My Recent Wallowfest

I spent the last 3 days neglecting nearly every one of my responsibilities.

Here’s how you do it:  Let everything drop, isolate, watch TV and order delivery. Play spider solitaire for five hours. Click the “Stumble!” button on your web browser until your eyes lose focus. Watch TV. Feel depressed.

Shutting down for a couple of days is a childish, “mom, I’m sick” type of thing to do, but there is something to be said for wallowing every once in a while. I don’t want to rationalize it, but I would like to make peace with it.

Why Wallowing Ain’t All Bad

The practice of wallowing does have its benefits. Here are a few lessons I learn and relearn during my time on the pity-pot:

1. The world does not fall apart. Although some of my wallow fests have resulted in minor damage (missed assignments, appointments, or showers), most of the time nothing at all happens. Life goes on.
2. I feel better eventually.  This too passes. No matter how much I cling to the nothingness of depression, it eventually ends. This is my own experience, not meant to be universal advice, particularly for people who have chemical or neurological reasons for being depressed.
3. It is possible for me to enjoy something and hate myself at the same time. Wallowing has the same obsessive-compulsive quality that drug use has. Take the 15 episodes of Arrested Development that I watched during my most recent wallow. I enjoyed each episode, but I never quite silenced the inner voice that told me that I was wasting my life.
4. Great advice is annoying. “Buck-up”…”take baby steps”…”let go and let God”…”this too shall pass…” I’m wallowing right now, please leave a message at the tone. No matter how well intentioned, advice on how to “fix” my attitude and get out of my rut annoys me. I have learned to nod and thank the advice giver, then go back to watching crap TV.
5. Philosophy will not get me out of a rut. Big ideas tend to reveal big tragedies when I am wallowing. It’s all meaningless after all, what with us dying in the end and God being either dead or invisible. When I am wallowing, I am feeling, not thinking.
6. Simple things will - I like to work from the bottom up. No matter how stuck I feel at the beginning of a wallow, I will come out of it at the end because I’m ready and because I start doing something simple like:

• Waiting. See #2.
• Cleaning. A clean room may not give my life meaning, but it will put me in a better mood.
• Taking a shower. There is nothing more depressing than smelling your own butt.
• Taking a walk. Although I will reject this piece of advice if someone offers it, getting out of the house can often lead to miracles.
• Accomplishing a very small task. “The day wasn’t a total waste, I took the trash out!”  During this last wallow, I made an origami picture frame and caught some ladybugs to eat the aphids off my girlfriend’s houseplant. I was a whirlwind of activity!
• Making a plan. At some point, I decide that tomorrow I will reenter the land of the living. It helps to have a few tasks written down.

And oh yeah…I’m still not drinking and it is day 32!