Simplicity Rules

Adam DuVander on keeping it simple

There is No Egg Nog in August

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Six grocery stories in Portland have confirmed what I assumed was true: they only sell egg nog during the U.S. holiday seasons of November and December. Finding this out became one of the more outlandish tasks I’ve given to Fancy Hands, a virtual assistant service I have been using this year to simplify my life. It started with a conversation over egg nog–probably spiked with rum–over the holidays. Sipping the thick, sweet, milkish liquid, I wondered whether I could get it in a decidedly non-holiday month. So, I quickly added a task to Hiveminder and set a due date far in the future.

When it popped up in my todo list, I laughed aloud, thinking back to my silly December self, the only one in the house slurping down this beverage with an acquired taste. I didn’t want to let December-me down, but August-me had plenty of work to do. That’s when I gave the task to Fancy Hands.

Sure, I could have called one store and probably had the answer I needed. But I decided to know for sure I needed a mix of specialty grocery stores and larger supermarkets. And it took me less time to write out the instructions than it would have to make even one of the calls.

I pay $45 per month for 15 tasks. So, yes, it cost me $3 to find out that I’ll have to wait several months to buy egg nog. And given what I know about myself, I might have spent awhile making those calls myself (at least seven minutes, according to Fancy’s log). Even worse, what additional time sink did I avoid by not even starting the research, which easily could have ended with me reading up on the history of egg nog or looking for specialty online retailers who could overnight me a quart any time of the year.

It’s a struggle, but my goal is to use Fancy Hands anytime I open a new browser tab and begin typing a search query. That said, my most common task this year has not involved research. I have used Fancy Hands about twenty times this year to schedule (or reschedule) doctor and other appointments. Those are the sorts of things that stay on my todo list for multiple days. The best part about that type of task is that it’s free. Anything that ends up on a calendar does not count against my monthly tasks.

The assistants are U.S.-based and often offer suggestions beyond the task. When I was looking for some temporary housing, the assistant let me know about her favorite neighborhoods from her experience in the city. And when my task to find egg nog in August came up empty at all six grocery stores, the assistant linked to this video (embedded above) that teaches me how to make my own egg nog.

Now if only Fancy Hands would come to my house and clean it for me. (Oh, there’s a service for that, too).

Kill Your Favorite Ideas

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Sometimes the road blocks that are keeping you from where you want to go are actually the ideas you like the most. Perfection is the enemy of progress, but so is vanity. Learn to let go, says Henning, as he describes a feature he loved, but removed from his bucket list app.

My first app concept included just one screen for each goal. That screen had an area for a picture, and area for text, and a thermometer on the side, which would show your progress in achieving your goal. I envisioned the user sliding his finger on the thermometer to set the goal’s progress.

Today there is no thermometer. It was a bad idea. It took me a while to realize that, and I didn’t want to admit it at first. I just thought it would be cool, and my stubborn little brain didn’t see what a crazy idea it was.

Henning had to become comfortable “killing his darling,” a turn of phrase from William Faulkner that I first read in Lew Hunter’s screenwriting book. Faulkner and Hunter were both offering advice on writing. I think it works for many areas of your life, from product management to planning a vacation.

Ideas are nothing without execution and a misplaced idea that you love can be a major barrier to executing. Assumptions are powerful when you don’t take a moment to question them.

So, don’t kill all your favorite ideas, your darlings, but at least consider it.

The Opposite of Perfectionist

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If I told you there is a guy who travels the world dancing for a living, you’d call him a professional dancer. If I told you he had no formal dance training, you’d be impressed.

Matt Harding has paid his bills by dancing dorkily all over the globe. And in a great interview with the New York Times, he shares one secret to his success:

We usually only danced a short time for each clip. I knew I was only going to use four seconds, so I would just loop the move I wanted and we’d do it a few times; there wasn’t much point in beating it to death. When you’ve got a large crowd of untrained dancers, the challenge is keeping their energy up. The most fun and exuberant moments always come at the beginning, after they’ve gotten the basics of the move down, before they start looking tired, bored and cranky.

Also, I’m very lazy. If there’s a word that means the opposite of perfectionist, I’m that.

What are you spending too much time on now that would be good enough if you didn’t try so hard?

(This post written in about five minutes)

Simplicity Rules, Meet SimplicityRules.com

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The following is the not-so-simple tale of how I finally came to own the domain name that many people thought I already owned.

Why did my blog even need a name?

When I started this site in 2004, it was out of a mutual challenge with Mike Duffy. We were reading a lot of blogs at the time and it felt like we needed a way to participate beyond comments. So, Mike started up Smarter Stuff and I named what had been the news section of my personal website Simplicity Rules.

Maybe it was because Mike had a catchy name for his, but I also think I felt like a blog needed a name. I didn’t want it to be just my name, but something that described my ethos. I’d always liked the dichotomy of the simple and complex:

  • Simplicity can be the answer to complexity, like the old myth about the Russian space pen just being a pencil.
  • Simplicity can also disguise complex inner workings, like what Google makes available in a single search box.

In either case, simplicity is amazing–it rules. And also, I decided, there must be some tenets to follow–rules of simplicity.

This blog was started to explore and celebrate simplicity, with a focus on the web in which I work.

Why didn’t I buy the domain from the start?

That’s the question I’ve asked myself for a long time. SimplicityRules.com was available when I started the blog. Apparently I thought the blog needed a name, but not its own URL. So, Simplicity Rules sat where it still does, at adamduvander.com.

Sometime in the months after I started this site someone else registered the domain, but he never put anything on it that I saw. It was just a parked page, with a cheesy graphic and spammy links. And that’s what I saw when I finally realized I’d missed my chance to register SimplicityRules.com. Over the years, I’ve received emails from friends telling me my site is down or parked. Here I had named my site something memorable and I didn’t own what turned out to be the domain people assumed I had.

Why didn’t I just pay the guy?

I figured with a parked domain that the owner would prefer to sell it to me than collect the pennies is may have been generating. His contact information was in the domain information, but I first decided to learn a bit more about him. It turned out there was quite the exposé in the newspaper asking Who is James Dicks?

I decided that I might not want to deal directly with him. So, I spent $69 to hire a reputable domain acquisition firm. Along with it came a free appraisal of the domain: $1,750. That was more than I was able to pay, but I proceeded with an offer of $500 from my representative.

Looking back, I think sending a third party sent the wrong sign. I let Mr. Dicks know how much I wanted it. He countered with $10,000.

That was the end of that.

Why did I register the trademark?

The attempted acquisition was in May, 2007. A year later I again found myself disturbed that the domain was in someone else’s hands. Still without 10K to blow on my personal blog, I set out with a new method. I’d learned there were rules in the domain world and one of them is that a trademark owner can obtain a domain that matches their mark. And since my first use of the term pre-dated the domain name, I felt like I was entitled to using this legal route.

In May, 2008, I registered the trademark. That October, it was granted. I could now write Simplicity Rules ®.

A funny thing happened around this same time. SimplicityRules.com went down. It was no longer parked with the cheesy graphic and spammy links. The domain was still registered, just not showing anything. I nevertheless continued with my plan and sent Mr. Dicks the following email:

I am the owner of the trademark Simplicity Rules. ICANN guards against
domains that infringe upon a trademark, so I would like to arrange to
have simplicityrules.com transfered to me.

Because I know this doesn’t come without hardship for you, I am
willing to offer the reasonable compensation of $200 US for the smooth
transfer of the domain.

It’s perhaps a bit presumptuous that someone who had counter-offered $10K and kept the domain for four years would roll over. He was cordial, but referenced an internal law firm that watches out for trademark issues. The domain had stopped resolving because that’s a loop-hole in the domain rules: if there’s no website, there’s no confusion in the market.

He was able to keep the domain even though I owned the trademark. Foiled! I probably deserved it–that was sneaky.

How did I finally get the domain?

Every January passed and as the domain expiration neared, the owner would re-register it for another year. In 2010, another friend emailed to tell me the domain wasn’t going anywhere. I sighed and replied back, “I don’t think SimplicityRules.com will ever be available.”

There’s a line at the beginning of Swingers where the main character is told the only way to get his ex-girlfriend back is to forget about her:

Rob: I mean at first you’re going to pretend to forget about her, you’ll not call her, I don’t know, whatever… but then eventually, you really will forget about her.
Mike: Well what if she comes back first?
Rob: Mmmm… see, that’s the thing, is somehow they know not to come back until you really forget.
Mike: There’s the rub.

So, I forgot about the domain. Until this April.

SnapNames sent me an email to let me know it had grabbed up the domain when it became available. At some point during this saga I had backordered SimplicityRules.com on the chance that it ever did go un-registered in all the future Januarys. Apparently it did in 2012.

Next I had to wait through an auction process, in case there was someone else who had backordered the domain. Thankfully, I was the only other person in the whole world who wanted SimplicityRules.com. I got it for the minimum bid of less than $100.

Now what?

If you go to SimplicityRules.com, you’ll find yourself redirected to adamduvander.com. Back before I forgot about it, I planned to move this blog over there, minus personal posts. I wanted to double down on exploring simplicity. Now I’m not so sure it needs its own site. There’s the rub.

It’s not that I don’t want the domain name. When I renew, I’ll probably max it out. Might as well. It’s now eight years from when I first started this blog. When friends type in SimplicityRules.com, for the first time they’re getting where they mean to go.

The Marathoner’s Guide to Accomplishing Anything

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If you want to run a marathon successfully without getting injured, spend four days a week doing short runs, one day a week running long and hard, and two days a week not running at all.

Now, that seems like a pretty smart schedule to me if you want to do anything challenging and sustain it over a long period of time. A few moderate days, one hard day, and a day or two of complete rest.

— Peter Bregman, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done