I recently finished Ali Abdaal's productivity SkillShare class, Productivity Masterclass - Principles and Tools to Boost Your Productivity.

It nicely laid out productivity principles in an easily digestible format and I highly recommend you check it out if you're looking for foundational productivity principles. What follows are my notes from the class.

• Source: Skillshare - Class Link
• How found: Free trial offer from Ali's video:
  • "A Productive Day on Vacation in the Canary Islands"

• Course Notes

  • Good skills
    • Communication
    • Empathy
    • Teamwork
    • Leadership
    • Handling problems
  • Reflective writing
    • The way to improve soft skills, the good skills above, is to actively reflect on what we're doing. What we did, how we can improve, how we did well. These move the needle.

  • The productivity equation

    • 
    • No point being productive if we're not being productive about the right things.
    • When stuff is fun,
      • doesn't feel like work
      • increases consistency
    • Pilot (spend 10% - 15% of time here)
      • Sets the course
      • Gives instructions to the plane
    • Plane (spend 80% of time here)
      • Follows the set course
      • Follows the instructions provided by the pilot
    • Engineer (spend 5% - 10% of time here)
      • Make sure the plane is efficient
      • Make sure the plane is fueled efficiently
      • Keep entire system organized
        • to do list
        • quick capture

    • Writing Prompt

      • Which do I struggle with most of all? The Pilot, Plane, or Engineer? In what specific ways?

  • 3 myths of productivity

    • MYTH 1. I don't have time

      • Remove "I don't have time" from your vocabulary
      • Quote "Time is what we want most, but what we use worst." – William Penn
      • It's not that you don't have the time, it's that you're actively choosing not to use your time on that thing.
      • Time is entirely within your control.
      • Don't use time as an excuse for not doing something that you actually want to do.
      • Exercise - Track how you're using your time for one to two weeks. Can be surprising.

      • Writing Prompt

        • What am I avoiding doing with the phrase, "I don't have time"?

    • MYTH 2. #motivation is a myth

      • Thought: "I should study"
      • Middle Man: #motivation (motivation is a feeling)
        • "I feel like studying right now"
      • Action: Studying
      • We often think we have to feel like doing the thing to do the thing.
      • Ideal world - have thought, do thing regardless of how you're feeling
        • Discipline
      • Relying on feelings as a way of setting course in life is a recipe for disaster
        • Feelings are temporary and unreliable
      • A three year old, does what it feels like
      • An adult does what it needs to do
      • We usually only need #motivation to do things that are short term painful and long term helpful.
        • Working out, etc
      • Success leads to #motivation, repeat
      • Long feedback loops make us think we need motivation to get things done. If the feedback loop is quicker, we don't feel we need motivation.
      • How to improve #discipline
        • Make the action more fun or pleasurable
          • Example: Going to the gym
            • Track workout and try to beat your last one
          • Example: Studying
            • Take the small hit to efficacy and list to music
            • Change location you're working
            • Give yourself coffee budget to spend when studying
            • Take nice pics for Instagram
        • Make consequences of inaction more painful
          • In school and work we'll usually get the thing done because the consequences of not doing the thing usually outweigh the pain of doing the thing.
          • Replicate that for your own thing
          • Put money on the line!
            • beeminder.com
        • Shorten the feedback loop
          • Turn things you need to do but don't want to do into a game
          • Have I lifted more than last week?
        • Make the outcome more salient
          • Look to someone else who is experiencing what you're aiming for
        • Treat your own interests with as much respect and attention as you do other people's

      • Writing Prompt

        • What's a goal I want to achieve?
        • How can I make the process more pleasurable?
        • Can I increase my odds of hitting the goal by putting money on the line?
        • How can I make the outcomes more tangible and desirable?

    • MYTH 3. Multitasking

      • Task switching impacts our attention
      • Much better to focus on a single task at one time and not task switch
      • Get into flow state
        • More productive, fun, happier - choose to avoid distractions
        • So engaged with a task that it consumes our attention and it is tough enough to keep us engaged but not so tough that it's a huge slog. The "stretch zone"
          • Examples
          • For studying - if the exam were tomorrow, what would I be least happy about? Then do that thing.
          • For business - What's the highest leverage thing I can be doing right now?
        • Avoid distractions when in the #flow state
          • Set devices to do not disturb

      • Writing Prompt

        • What's one or more situations when I was in my flow state?
        • What circumstances & mindsets led to that?
        • Can I manufacture those conditions for other stuff I need or want to do?

  • 3 laws of productivity

    • Parkinson's Law

      • Work expands to fill the time that we allocate to it.
      • What is your 10 year plan? Now let's say you have 6 months to achieve it.
      • Give yourself artificial deadlines
        • Hold yourself to these deadlines by:
        • "Put money on the line!"

      • Writing Prompt

        • Make a list of 3-4 long-term tasks you want do.
        • What would you do if you only had half as long to do them?
        • What about if you had to do them in the next 24 hours?

      • Book Recommendation]]: Zero to One by Peter Thiel

    • Pareto's Law

      • 20% of input results in 80% of results
      • Want to #learn #guitar? Free guitar lessons on justinguitar.com
      • What does your Pilot want you to achieve?
        • Now figure out the 20% of things you can do to accomplish 80% of that
      • The broad brush strokes and filling in the picture is far more important than worrying about the detail.

      • Writing Prompt

        • What 20% of my work is driving 80% of my 'useful output'?
        • What's taking up 80% of my time but not actually contributing much to my outcomes?

    • Newton's First Law Of Motion

      • If something is still, it will stay still. If something is moving, it will keep moving unless an external force acts upon it.
      • If we're still, it requires an external force to get us going.
      • If we're moving, we'll keep moving.
      • Two minute rule

        • Book Recommendation Getting Things Done by David Allen

        • If something is going to take less than 2 minutes, just do it now rather than putting it on your todo list.
      • Five minute rule
        • If we are struggling to get started on a task all we have to do is do 5 minutes of that task. It becomes much easier to get started.

      • Book Recommendation: Atomic Habits by James Clear

        • Best book I've ever read on habits
        • Keystone habit - when you get home from work, change into your gym clothes

  • 3 Powers of Productivity

    • 1. The Powers of Habits

      • Once something becomes a habit, it becomes so much easier to maintain
      • Identify yourself as a productive person
        • Power of the mind - tell yourself what you are
          • "I am a very productive person"
          • You'll reinforce this identity and feel off when you're doing something not aligned with it
      • If you can improve at a thing by 1% every day for a year, at the end of a year you'll be 37x better at that thing.
      • The biggest failing of the human mind is the inability to understand the exponential function #verify (attribution) #Einstein
      • Make tiny changes in your life to compound massively over time
      • When something becomes a habit it no longer takes willpower to do it
      • Habits aren't born in a single day
      • Power of social contracts
        • Publicly make your intentions or plan known or committed to
        • Schedule a meeting or a call, you'll go to it. If you leave yourself open, you'll waste the time.

      • Writing Prompt

        • What three things would boost my productivity if I made them a habit?
        • How can I help make those habits stick?
          • Keep them front of mind and write about them daily. The writing component isn't a habit at this time so that could be a weak link in this chain of success but I have the interest to write and write more and I've seen the value of doing it in the past that I think I should be able to sustain this. By writing about these daily and keeping them front of mind, I will be closer tied to them, won't forget them and work against myself. I think a large component in doing reflections like this is you can know what's right for you to do and say you'll do it but when it comes time to follow thruogh to yourself, you easily forget about what you planned and do something that is against it. You disrespect yourself. You need to do better for you. By doing better for you, you can do better for those around you.

    • 2. The Power of Productive Downtime

      • Every day we have downtime we don't do anything with.
      • Use that downtime to be productive, not waste of time things
      • Pick one thing that will be your highlight for the day
      • In the morning, brain dump a to do list for the day
        • refer to it throughout the day and during down time to make progress

    • 3. The Power of Productive Procrastination

      • Procrastination that is productive and fun
      • If you're going to procrastinate from what you should be working on, at least spend it productively
      • Environmental design
        • Structure your environment in a way that makes it easier to procrastinate doing productive things rather than non-productive things.

  • The Fun Factor

    • Enjoy what you're doing.
    • You choose to participate in these things, choose to enjoy them.
    • If you're not enjoying something, figure out ways to make it more fun.
    • At times it's better to increase the fun factor even if it decreases the productivity
    • Instead of thinking, "I have to do xyz..." we should think, "I get to do xyz..."
    • Read the Happiness Advantage
      • Success does not bring happiness, happiness brings success.

    • Writing Prompt

      • What do I have to do in my days that I'm currently not enjoying?
      • If I had to, how would I make this stuff more fun?

Starting something new is fun and interesting. It holds your interest until it gets tough and then you turn your attention in a different direction just to start the process over again. I've done this time and time again, I get it. While there are times that this is fine, like when it comes to your hobbies, if you're serious about envisioning a certain future for yourself, it's important to make a plan and stick to it. I've found this doesn't get easier with time or practice, but I have found ways to help me stick to something and I hope they can help you too.

There's a learning curve chart that I've seen that breaks down like this:

1. Okay, this seems fun.
2. What was I thinking, this seems hard.
3. Awww! I don't know what I'm doing but I'm doing it.
4. Oh hey! I get it!
5. Nope...
6. I know nothing.
7. Wait. That made sense.
8. Did I just do that?
9. I did it!

The process I've found to work best to get through this learning curve and achieve what you set to achieve is simple, but not easy and it's something that I still struggle with.

Here's the actionable advice, with details below it. The post is structured this way so once you're familiar with the content you can quickly refer back to the list in the future.

The List:

1. Determine your WHY and make it visible.
2. Create a plan for achieving your goal.
3. Trust your plan.
4. Discipline over motivation.
5. Re-evaluate your plan after an appropriate amount of time.
6. Don't beat yourself up for tripping along the way.
7. We are our own worst critic.
8. Set a deadline.
9. Find a way to help keep yourself accountable.

Now let's dive into the specifics of each of these points:

1. Determine your WHY and make it visible. Sticking to something over the long-term is difficult. To help us stick to something we need to get to the root of why we want to do that thing in the first place. I've found considering the reasons I'm taking on something and noting them are very helpful to keeping me committed to that thing. I prefer to put that information somewhere that I will see it every day, without having to go out of my way to see it.
   
   My specific solution for keeping me on track and making my WHY front of mind is that I mounted a small white board to the wall next to my bed. This is so I am reminded every night when going to bed and every morning when I wake up, why I am doing what I'm doing.
2. Create a plan for achieving your goal. So now you know what you want to achieve. And you have it readily visible. It's time to start planning the steps on how you're going to get there.
   
   You only know so much at the start so it's normal, and expected, for this plan to change as you learn more. However, it's important to have a plan that you can refer back to and modify as needed to keep you on track. As you'll see later, it's useful to set deadlines to milestones in your plan and have an ultimate deadline for your big goal/WHY.
   
   If you don't have a timeline, you'll find that you continue to find things to do to fill the time but they are not always productive or driving you closer to your WHY.
3. Trust your plan. Things will get tough. You will want to quit. Practice self-talk over self-listen.
   There will be days you wake up that you think you do not want to do that thing.
   You want to move on to something else.
   It gets boring.
   You want to sleep in.
   You're stuck on a hard problem.
   Silly reason XYZ.
   
   You'll come up with all kinds of excuses why you should quit or move on to something else. If you have that initial note of why you're doing what you're doing, it will help keep you on track. Trust the plan that you set because you created it to guide you to your why.
   
   The work or routine you set for yourself will probably not be easy. There will be so many voices in your head telling you to go back to bed or that you should quit. It's important to develop the skill to talk back to these voices and not simply roll over and listen to them. All too often we listen to that voice in our head and never talk back. Developing the skill to talk back and tell that voice what we're going to do is vital.
4. Discipline over motivation. Stick to your plan. Motivation is a farce. We don't wait to do things until we're motivated. We do things because we tell ourselves we have to do them. We set a goal. We define the path to get there. Don't wait for motivation to get started. Don't wait for motivation to kick back in to keep going. Just do it. You set a plan. Stick to your plan. Trust your plan. Do the plan. Accomplish your goals. This is the toughest part and its why so many people falter or don't achieve their true potential.
5. Re-evaluate your plan after an appropriate amount of time. After a while, maybe 1 or 2 months, see how you're progressing and if you need to make any changes to your plan. If you've stuck to your plan and stayed disciplined, you'll have come a long way. Don't write your progress off. Take note of it. Celebrate it. And then re-evaluate your plan. You know a lot more now than when you started. Are there things you need to adjust? Do you need to alter your plan as a whole? Set the new path if needed, and get back to following it. When the days get tough, remember to just follow the plan because it's guiding you to your goal.
6. Don't beat yourself up for tripping along the way. Humans are not perfect. Accept the trip up, don't label yourself as a result of it, and move back to following your plan. Something you can potentially relate this to is following a diet. You may mess up and divert course in a day or an afternoon. Instead of just saying that's your new you, it's not. You slipped one day, and tomorrow is a new day and you can get back on track.
7. We are our own worst critic. It's easy to start to tell ourselves we cannot do something or we are not good enough. If we talked to others the way we commonly talk to ourselves, we'd be called assholes. Don't be an asshole to yourself. Tell this voice to stop it because we have work to do and you're awesome.
   
   Something I've started making a habit of keeping front-of-mind is, "you're doing your best." If you do your best, no one, not even you, can tell yourself you're not good enough.
8. Set a deadline. Work expands to fill the time its allotted. Because of this, it's so important to set deadlines for milestones and our ultimate goal along the way. Yes, they can be adjusted but it's so important to set them and do your best to stick to them. Otherwise, you'll find all kinds of things to do in the name of productivity but which aren't actually driving you closer to your goal.
9. Find a way to help keep yourself accountable. This year, a good friend of mine and I started holding weekly get togethers or phone calls every Saturday to check in on our previous week. Sometimes we go out to lunch, but most of the time we just have a phone call.
   
   We hold a productive conversation that covers all kinds of stuff. It primarily focuses on how we're progressing along with our goals. We discuss what we've learned. What we got done. What we plan to do. This is helpful because we know each week that conversation is coming up and the previous week we set goals that were verbalized to the other one. If we show up not having met those goals, it will be questioned. We'll have to have an answer. There's a bit of a pressure there to want to deliver because you told that person you planned to deliver. Obviously by not doing so, the only person you're impacting is yourself but the extra person helps. It's a good reminder and way to keep and hold yourself accountable. If you want, I think it'd be awesome for you and I to have these conversations.

I hope this helps you in your journey and I hope to continue to be a part of it. I'm excited for what your future holds.

In the world of digital marketing, data plays a pivotal role. However, it's essential not to lose sight of the human element.

Data Driven Marketing

Digital marketing can be extremely data driven. Everything is tracked and analyzed and then we act on indicators that point us in the direction we strive for. This is because at the end of the day, the thing that matters most to a business, is the bottom line. How many dollars are you making.

Focus On People

I’m not saying there’s anything inherently wrong about being guided by data, only coming with a reminder. A reminder to not only focus on the impact but the people.

As marketers we’re in a really cool spot where we get to tell stories for a living. Don’t think you’re operating under that mindset? That’s fine, maybe it’s not for you. But if it IS for you, think about the things you can do now to start to move you towards it.

Bring Empathy

People don’t care to see advertisements but stories engage us. Tell a story. Make the mundane, extraordinary. See what stories are out there in your industry and tell a different one. Stand out, stand for something, target a small audience, be people driven and data guided.

I’ll Leave You With This

When you are wearing your consumer hat, you may find yourself using an ad blocker in order to avoid seeing ads. You may also find yourself getting pulled in and captivated stories. Now put on your marketing hat. Create the engaging stories that your audience wants to hear.

By embracing storytelling and meeting the desires of your audience, your business will not only gain their attention but also achieve its own success.

Many digital marketers can relate to this sentiment. It’s easy to get caught up in the pushes and pulls we get from everywhere. Whether it’s coworkers needing xyx from you or even yourself trying to figure out what the next hotness is and getting after it.

I often find myself feeling like an over-caffeinated bumble bee, buzzing around from flower to flower trying to work on it and then buzzing off to the next one. I feel this is common among digital marketers. I also feel that this is something we need to fix and that’s why I’m taking a step back to re-prioritize and refocus so I can come back at it to be the most impactful I can be.

In life and in work, you can have one of two modes: offense or defense.

Offense = making things happen
Defense = reacting to things happening to you

I’m more often than not, finding myself in defense mode. Not a mode I want myself to be in as I strive to be a marketing leader.

We need to step up from defense and get into offense to really start to see a big, positive, difference being made.

If you find yourself in the same boat, here are some ways I’m using to switch the tide that may be useful to you.

Figure Out Your True Priorities And Stick To Them

Instead of chasing every opportunity, or trying to do it all by yourself, figure out what your true priorities are. When new opportunities arise, now you should easily be able to look at them and determine if they are the best use of time and effort to get you to your goal.

Examine What’s On Your Plate Right Now

You may have current commitments that you’ve taken on that you now find are not inline with your priorities and goals. It’s up to you to decide if you will see these through or drop them. Doing a mix of the two is also an option, or getting creative and looking for other ways these can get done. Maybe there are other resources available to help lighten your load.

Create A Strategy Guide Or Prioritized To Do List

By putting your goals and strategies to achieve them into writing, you’ll be able to easily stay on task and reference them regularly to ensure you’re staying true to them.

You Don’t Have To Do This Alone

Consult with your boss to help align your priorities and current projects. Get their support and work together.

Evolve

These are thoughts and ideas I’ve recently started thinking on and may evolve as time goes on. Goals and priorities evolve as time goes on.

I’ll Leave You With This

In conclusion, as digital marketers, it's all too easy to get swept up in the constant demands and trends that surround us. However, by taking a step back, reevaluating our priorities, and embracing an offensive mindset, we can regain control and make a substantial impact. Remember to focus on your true priorities, seek support and collaboration, and document your goals and strategies. By doing so, you'll not only break free from the defensive mode but also pave the way for innovation and success. Embrace the power to create your own trends and stay committed to your current tasks. With these insights in mind, may you find the clarity and determination to navigate your digital marketing journey with confidence and achieve remarkable results. Best of luck!

Today was the first of two days of the Digital Summit in Minneapolis, a conference where marketers gather from all over the country. The day was filled with motivated attendees and smart and inspiring presenters.

Presenters

Well known Seth Godin kicked things off as the keynote speaker and had great insight and advice to share with marketers and their managers alike.

This was my first time seeing Seth present live and I was impressed. He is able to quickly but concisely articulate ideas and connect non-obvious things to one another to make a point. He’s definitely a sharp thinker and is motivating to hear present.

With so many great presentations going on at the same time, I was only able to attend four sessions, excluding the pre workshops and keynote. With that, here are five things I learned or observed from today’s conference.

1. The Need To Cut Through The Noise - Be An Empathetic Human

There is an increasing amount of noise online and everything is trying to grab our attention.

During multiple presentations, marketers mentioned the need to bring empathy and humanity to your messaging. Realize you must be human to human thinking in your marketing rather than presenting features.

A fun example that was shared was based around comedians: What is the ultimate goal of a comedian? Nope, it’s not to make us laugh. Making us laugh is an outcome of the true goal that all comedians share. Their goal is to make us think they are funny. To achieve this goal, they show us that they are funny by, well, being funny. They don’t stand in front of the audience for 10 minutes saying, “I’m funny. I’m funny. I’m funny!”

So why is it that so many marketing messages do this?

2. Study The Competition

Multiple presenters mentioned how uncommon it is for marketers to study their competitors strategies to find out what works and what doesn’t work for them.

This allows multiple benefits for you: If you see something not working for a competitor, it could mean their execution is poor, which is a fantastic opening for you to do a better job and see success.

It also means that it just might not work for your industry. By studying your competitors, you also learn how a page should be structured to have a chance at ranking well for a desired keyword. By simply taking the time to learn the competition’s strengths, weaknesses, successes, and failures, and staying on top of that, you can know where there are gaps you can fill or where the bar is set so you can aim to do better.

3. Marketers Struggle To Keep Up With Trends - You Don’t Have To

Often times marketers become marketers because they are creative and see the potential to use marketing as their creative outlet. Often times, many fall into a new mindset, one of a researcher. Researching what the latest marketing trends and technology are.

Sure, research can be fun but if that’s all a marketer’s role has become the creative outlet is no longer there. How is this solvable? By bringing the creative process back into marketing and creating campaigns that are effective and what you want to create. Instead of mimicking what’s out there and saying, “Hey! Me too!,” start creating original and fresh content that doesn’t follow what everyone else is doing.

4. Marketers Have Many Disjointed Databases - And It’s Solvable

Many marketing departments use many tools across the web, from different vendors, to create their “marketing stack.”

Many of these tools can capture information about your audience and track that within each respective tool but their identification system between each varies. There isn’t a cohesive way to connect each of these pieces of data together, which means there's a lot of lost potential because of this fragmented picture. By unifying the data from every source we can more accurately market and make informed decisions.

What can be done to solve this?

By creating a standardized ID that can be included with each record that is consistent no matter the database or service. This is something that is being worked on right now so it’ll be interesting to keep an eye on.

5. Don’t Be Data Driven, Be Data Informed

There is so much data created and tracked when it comes to digital marketing. Often times marketers are easily caught up in making their every decision based on what the data shows them. This can work but what if there’s a better way?

According to multiple presenters, there is. Being data informed. It’s about understanding the data and what it means but not forming every single decision based on it. You’re still making informed decisions but sometimes you may want to test something that is outside of a data set or you can’t always only listen to what the data shows.

One example given was from a recipe website that said something along the lines of, “If we listened to the data, we’d only have pork, pancakes, and burger recipes on our website because those are the top categories by far.”

If they listened to that data, they wouldn’t have the success they have today.

Why do marketers often focus on vanity metrics rather than real performance? What if instead of looking at open rates for emails, we focused more on what readers did once they opened the email?

Why do marketers use so much brain power to often focus on tiny, incremental improvements to things like email open rates rather than using their creativity to create new, interesting, engaging content that will grow their audience by leaps and bounds?

Bonus - Market To A Small Group & Stand For Something

Figure out what it is that you do and who you do it for. Create your messaging for that group and don’t divert. This is the mentality that many very large and successful companies have taken and have seen work.

There was so much great content today and it will take me time to digest it all as I go back over the slide decks and my notes. However, this is an important step to do to get the most out of any event or class. For what is new knowledge if it isn’t applied? Wasted.

I’ll leave you with this.

Relax, don’t stress. Focus on the people, do good work, don’t be afraid to fail because failing is the best teacher, and the rest will follow.

People don’t read advertisements. They read things they are interested in. Create interesting content. They don’t want products. They want their inherent needs met, their problems solved.

In order to be the best marketer you can be, take a step back from your own thoughts and actions as a consumer.

Try and observe yourself and what you find useful in your day to day search.

If you find that you frequently refer to pictures for information about a particular product or topic you’re looking at, recognize that and assess whether your audience has the same thoughts. You can then adjust your marketing strategy to reflect this.

By being able to observe yourself, your thought process through reflection, you can really improve your marketing strategy.

As marketers, we are driven to acquire leads. We set up all sorts of tracking codes and services like Google Analytics to see where our site traffic is coming from and when conversions are happening. Have you taken a moment lately to look at the last 30 days of traffic?

Rather than looking at sessions from each avenue of acquisition, look into which channel produces the highest percent of conversions. This is an indicator of where you could spend more resources for getting more leads.

For me, social media is ranked fifth for new sessions in the last 30 days but first for highest % of conversions. You can bet I’ll be spending more effort on social media content in the coming months and measuring that performance.

This was a bit of a surprise when I saw the higher conversion rate among social media visitors compared to organic search or even direct visits.

What exists in your data that might be a surprise to you?

You need a mission statement.

Your company needs a mission statement.

These statements help guide you and your company to remember what is important; what your goal and collective goal is.

If you or your company do not have a mission statement, I challenge you to spend 15 minutes today to start thinking on what it could be.

What do you get when you combine my interests of productivity, efficiency, security, privacy, tech, a good challenge, and collaboration? A project that I’ve been working on for a few weeks now. A project management system.

I’m calling it PM232 and it is a collaborative, self-hosted project management system. Simple & easy to use. No feature bloat. What needs to be worked on, who's assigned to what, and when's it due?

Excitingly, my wife Ellie, has chosen to get on board to help with the product direction and bug testing, acting as the Product Manager. This is huge as her experience in non-tech industries is another face to the cube that I haven’t had much exposure to.

The system is still in its semi-early stages of development, though it has some basic features already.

I’ll be revealing more information over the coming weeks as things progress over at the project’s official website.

Thanks so much for your support.

My wife Ellie and I are always working on some new project, and the past few weeks since our wedding have been no different. (Oh, ya! I got married a few weeks ago. It was the best wedding we could have asked for.)

This past Saturday, we officially launched our new website, PulpSmash.

It's a place that offers to-be-married couples tips and advice regarding wedding planning and the big day that we learned from our recent experience marriage experience. We also offer wallet friendly, hand-made designs for purchase that range from invites to wedding signage and even bottle stickers for thank yous.

Some designs require customizations for each couple, while others are offered for immediate download. All files are laid out in an easy to print way and in a file format that everyone has access to. Printing the various signs and invites can easily be done at home or at a local print shop.

We used OfficeMax/Depot for all our printing and paper needs.

We envision the site growing in information and product offerings. Everything we sell and plan to sell is hand-made by us.

Keep an eye on PulpSmash over the coming weeks as we build it out with more products and helpful information!

After recently using the Migration Assistant to transfer almost my entire late 2009 iMac data to my new late 2014 iMac, I found that Google Drive wouldn't work properly. Scratch that - wouldn't work at all...

The program would not launch, wouldn't show the icon in my toolbar, and it would only take my to my local Google Drive folder. After some digging, here's what I found.

Solution

You simply need to delete the following entire folder:

Alternatively, if you know your way around Terminal, you can use the following:

Once you delete that folder, launch the app again. This time it should ask you for your Google credentials and you'll be back up and running!

Hope this helps!

Notes

These instructions were created on Jun 12, 2015.

I am running OSX 10.10.3 (Yosemite)