Talking Tools is an ongoing series of interviews with people whom I respect as creators, communicators and craftspeople. The goal is to dig deeper into how these people work, what their toolboxes look like and how they engage in their own processes.?
Today, we’re talking to Chris Guillebeau. Chris writes about unconventional strategies for life, work and travel at his blog, The Art of Non-Conformity. In his spare time, he travels the world (like, all of it) and is preparing a huge North American tour in support of his first print book, The Art of Non-Conformity, which comes out this fall. Chris is a friend and unofficial mentor of yours truly and I’m excited to share this with you guys.
Let’s start with computers and things that are computer-shaped. Tell us a little about your hardware.
I use a 13” MacBook and a cheap-ass netbook from Best Buy. The netbook is mostly a backup—pretty much the whole operation is on the MacBook. I’ve thought about getting a desktop setup for the house, but I don’t like buying stuff, so I’m sticking with the mobile setup for now.
Since writing is how you put food on the table (and your own hindquarters in countless airplane seats), what types of tools do you use when composing/editing? Do you use different applications when writing for your blog than when you were writing your book?
I write almost everything in OpenOffice, and do the initial outlining in a paper notebook. I also use Evernote to keep ideas and notes. With writing, I think the important thing is to make sure the tools serve the craft instead of the other way around.
Being a successful web-based entrepreneur undoubtedly involves a great deal of email. Tell us a little bit about your email toolbox and how you keep a fountain of an inbox at bay.
Yes, I process quite a bit of email. The first thing to say is that I like email—the trend of autoresponders, virtual assistants, and outsourcing is not something I’m interested in. When people care enough to write me a relevant message, the least I can do is respond.
Getting off the soapbox and answering your organization question, I use Gmail for almost everything. The Offline feature helps a great deal when I’m traveling, at least when it’s working. I’ve thought about migrating to Apple Mail, but the couple of times I’ve tried it, it hasn’t worked well for me.
Obviously, you spend a whole lot of time away from home. I imagine you check in with your wife on a somewhat regular basis - can you talk a little bit about your phone situation?
Yep, I check in with Jolie, and also have to do various work calls from time to time. I don’t have any kind of world phone, though—I just use Skype.
Do you have a specific piece of software or hardware that you use to keep track of the places you’ve been? Your living room slideshows must be frickin’ ridiculous.
We need to improve that, actually—right now the tracking is pretty minimal. I have a guy who’s working on some kind of tricked-out thing that is built with Google Maps.
I spend most of my day with a paper notebook open on my desk between myself and my keyboard. Do you employ any “analog” tools in your work life? If so, in what ways are they better for you than digital tools?
Yep—same here. I find it easier to keep data in two locations, even if there’s some overlap. I don’t have my laptop everywhere, but I always have the paper notebook.
How do you fill the time during those insanely long plane rides?
I catch up on email (with the help of Gmail Offline), I write, I read, and once in a while I’ll watch a movie. I don’t watch TV or movies elsewhere, but in the skies I’ll take a look and see if something is decent. Right now I’m drinking coffee and writing these answers for you from the FRA-DEN Lufthansa flight. I came in to Frankfurt last night from Almaty, Kazakhstan. I was tired due to the 4:00 a.m. departure from Kazakhstan—with a 4:00 a.m. flight, you basically get no sleep whatsoever due to checking in at 1:00—but after I slept for the first couple of hours of this one, I woke up and got to work.
Most bloggers I know spend as much time reading as they do writing - RSS feeds, books, magazines, all that stuff - how much of this is true of you? What types of things do you enjoy reading and how do you go about it?
I’m not sure of my ratio between reading and writing, but I certainly read a lot. I subscribe to about 10 magazines—The Atlantic and The Economist are my favorites. In terms of books, I try to read at least one a week, mostly business, travel, and literary fiction. Lately publishers have been sending me a ton of books in hopes of blurbs or reviews. This is a little challenging, because most of the books are good and I don’t want to disappoint a fellow author, but if I read them all, I’d never read anything else. So I have to triage somehow, and I do give the rest to other bloggers so that they can check them out.
I’m a very bad RSS reader—I only pay attention to a couple of blogs there, and catch up on the rest once in a while.
Let’s say you’re sitting in your hotel (or the local equivalent) after a long day. You’re pretty much out of gas, but you’re not quite ready to hit the sack and you’ve already seen the episode of Magnum PI that’s on television - what are some of your favorite digital distractions?
Twitter, checking on things (statistics, shopping cart, mailing list growth), and just hanging out online.
What (if any) parts of your workflow would you like to streamline? Is there a mystical tool that you wish existed for accomplishing a certain task or filling a specific need?
I’m continuously challenged with the imperative to get online all over the world. I never know before I’m going how good, if existent at all, the connection will be. The funny thing is that it’s not always the developing places that are most difficult. Last year I was in Irbil, Iraq, and the airport had free WiFi on a fast connection—something that my home airport of Seattle didn’t provide at the time.
Then last month I was in Germany and went to stay at the Marriott so I could catch up on a lot of online work. My theory was, well, at least I know I can count on a fast connection at the Marriott. But it turned out they were changing over the system or something, and the entire Munich Marriott had no internet for 36 hours. So much for that plan!
If you can fix this problem with a mystical tool, I’d be grateful. :)
Super nerd thanks to Chris for taking the time out of an excruciatingly long flight to answer my goofy questions. Be sure to check out his blog and be sure to assume the position for his Daily Ass-Kicking on Twitter at @chrisguillebeau. Oh, and if you haven’t already pre-ordered The Art of Non-Conformity, quit dorking around and go pay $10 for what should cost like $50.
Photo by jenlemen
Hey thanks, dude! Honored to be featured here. And thanks for pimping the book as well.