THE WEEKLY REVIEW

Michael: The major problem with traditional schooling is the belief that everybody learns in the exact same way, and that by coming up with an effective curriculum, we can teach that en masse, and ensure that everybody learns and succeeds.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

When I began high school, I found each day to be severely repetitive and limiting. School was taking up every waking moment of my life, and I despised it. Aceing the tests and exams were worthless if I was miserable and felt that I wasn’t actually learning anything. Instead of being frustrated through the next three years, I decided to try an alternative—teaching myself.

A year later, I have no regrets. I couldn’t have made a better decision. I learn by teaching myself, and being able to cover the same material as a traditional school (sans the repetition) in a couple hours each day leaves room for me to pursue other things that I am passionate about—writing, photography, and design.

People often look at my pictures and ask if I’ve taken a photography class in school. They are shocked to hear that I’ve simply taught myself. Unfortunately, the society we live in subtly implies that the only way to learn something ‘correctly’ is through school. They couldn’t be more mistaken.

Michael: This is the number one question I get when asked about home schooling. There is no easy answer because, once again, it depends on the nature and character of the child.

In general though, I would say that the most fully developed children—in body, mind, and spirit—are the ones that interact socially both online and face-to-face. Younger children obviously need face-to-face interaction to develop communication skills as well as other characteristics that define who they are. But as a child develops, school actually limits their social development.

Restricting a child to school for their social development means that they are in the same environment, with the same people, throughout the first 18 years of their lives. They are only getting a single perspective on world issues and cultures. The school’s preach “no man is an island”, but they are the ones isolating the children from the world.

The Internet, on the other hand, opens up a child the world. No longer are you just communicating with people in your community, city, or nation. The Internet changes all that. You can chat with people on the other side of the world over Skype. You can wake up to people in the UK talking about lunch via twitter. We live on opposite ends of Canada, yet can carry on an interview over email. All of a sudden, you begin to develop a more global perspective of the world.

The Internet also opens the students up—possibly for the first time—to criticism. Traditional schooling shelters students into believing in a false reality. On the Internet, you’ll get it all—from role models to spammers to trolls—and it is up to you to filter out the good from the bad. Online interactions are a good introduction into the ‘real world’ for a lot of people. In order to ’succeed’ on the Internet or in the real world, you need to ‘grow up’ and mature—something that shocks a lot of people when they begin Day 1 of their lives after high school.

Michael: I’ve always blown off GTD due to the large overhead. All the GTD apps I experimented with required me to learn about contexts and projects and a bunch of stuff I didn’t care about. I just want to get something done. I don’t want to spend more time maintaining my todo list than actually getting things done from that list.

What I found over time though, is that as my tasks increased I naturally started looking for ways to simplify and become more efficient. The problem with GTD is when it gets in the way of actually getting something done. The ideal GTD system—in my mind at least—is one that allows me to quickly get down my thoughts, and syncs across all my devices. A true GTD system fades itself into the background allowing you to focus on your tasks.

Michael: Embarrassing enough as it is to admit it, I have no real GTD system. My tasks are scattered across multiple todo lists, and emails quickly sent to myself. There is nothing that I can show you to say “this is how I get things done”.

A lot of that has to do with my personality. I’d much rather sit down and brainstorm ideas in my head, then write them down. I’m sure that subconsciously I am constructing todo lists and plans for tomorrow in my mind, but you will find no evidence of that on my Mac or iPhone.

One system that I do use on a daily basis is my Inbox. I still remember less than a year ago, I simply left all my emails in my Inbox. There was a time when my Inbox was 2000 messages deep. Finally, I saw the light, and adapted Merlin Mann’s “Inbox Zero” strategy to my inbox. When an email comes in, it is automatically filtered through a group of rules in Mail.app, that aim to detect the importance of that email to my workflow.

Social network notifications, automatically-generated messages, and newsletters all go to my “Bacn” folder. The idea behind Bacn is that it’s not Spam—it’s mail you want, just not right now. This helps keep all those frivolous Facebook and Twitter notifications out of my inbox so I can continue to focus on whatever I’m working on. There is even a nifty Mail plugin that will make all Bacn messages appear as a different colour on the Mail.app Dock icon.

Email that comes into the Inbox is either replied to immediately, deleted, sent to the Archive, or filtered into one of my task mailboxes. @Action contains all emails that require me to preform some sort of task (I’ve also been using this as a makeshift todo list as of late). @Hold is for all the emails that require some sort of information that I need to use in upcoming projects, blog posts, etc. And @Reply contains all the emails that I want to put-off replying too.

When I empty the Inbox, along with all the filter folders, I declare Inbox Zero—one of the greatest feelings ever. You’ll also notice that I have some other folders for projects that I am working on. This allows me to setup Rules that will automatically send messages directly to that mailbox. Finally, I keep a Receipts folder around to manage all of the purchases and transactions that take place online. This makes it easy for me to then organize the transactions into a money-management app.

While I love using my single inbox to manage all my tasks, as it syncs perfectly with MobileMe across all my devices, I’ve reached the point where email doesn’t cut it. I need some other organization system in my life—or so I’m told by a little site known as The Weekly Review.

After much consideration, I think I will be going the route of OmniFocus. I love the ability to quickly input features, as well as the ability to organize actions into projects, and getting those projects done through the use of contexts. Having both Mac and iPhone applications, and allowing them to sync over MobileMe, OmniFocus seems like the best way to get into the whole GTD world. Only barrier to entry is the price—$100 for both apps. Quite steep. Of course, I’ll give Things from Cultured Code a fair chance before making a decision, as I’ve heard you recommend it many times.

Michael: Absolutely. Something that you wrote recently, put into words much of what I’ve been feeling about blogs and RSS subscriptions: “If I suddenly had to trim my news reader down to 10 or 20 feeds, the how-to stuff and news sites would go. I’d only have personal blogs left.”

I would probably do the same thing. Whenever I write, I keep this quote from Gruber in mind:

“I wanted to write a site for someone it’s meant for. That reader I write for is a second version of me. I’m writing for him. He’s interested in the exact same things I’m interested in; he reads the exact same websites I read. I want him to like this website so much that he reads it from the top to the bottom, and he reads everything. Every single word. The copyright statement, what software I use, he’s read it all.”

When I look at the big blogs in the tech-world (TechCrunch, Engadget, Gizmodo, etc), I don’t know anyone that reads them word-for-word, top to bottom. Sure some may read the headlines, and others may skim the subtitles, but does anyone actually get excited when they see a new Engadget post, and drop everything they’re doing until they’ve read every word in their post? No.

That’s who I write for. I write for that one reader whose face lights up when they see a new post on MichaelMistretta.com, and puts everything aside to read that post. And they won’t stop until they’ve read every word.

Back in February, the news sites were the only kind of blogs I read. And it showed in my writing. I began to make up killer headlines for my posts, and write them with easily skim-able headings. I’d make list posts, and try to get them to the top of Digg. And as you would imagine, the quality of my posts took a turn for the worse.

Then I discovered “personal blogs”. Not the ones writing about their dogs peeing on the carpet, or how horrible of a day they had. Blogs like yours and Shawn Blanc’s that give opinions and advice with a personal touch and personal experiences. I look forward to a nice, long blog post from one of my favourite blogs more than I would a TV show or video game launch. There’s something fascinating about getting someone else’s take on things—especially when it’s something they’re passionate about.

The most successful blog writing content like this that I can think of is Daring Fireball with millions of pageviews a month. And the philosophy of writing quality content with a personal touch has paid off—and has become the means on which he makes a living. While he may not have as much traffic or subscribers as a mega-blog like TechCrunch, there is no doubt that he has as much, if not more influence on the technology sector.

Michael: It’s probably one of my biggest struggles as a writer. Naturally, we all want as many people to read our articles as possible, and it’s easy become obsessive over our stats and the number of comments. There is a certain pleasure though, to simply hitting the Publish button in MarsEdit and feeling a sense of completion. Not judging a post by the number of comments or hits it receives, or by the number of blogs that link back to it. Whether one or one million people read the post, it does not affect your satisfaction with what you’ve written.

That, in my mind, is the sign of a confident writer, and I aspire to reach that level of confidence where numbers simply don’t matter.

That said, I generally pride myself in subscribers much more than traffic. Anyone that writes a list post with an attractive title can get to the front page of Digg, and get tens of thousands of hits sent to their site. But it takes a passionate, consistent, and committed blogger to build up subscribers.

Back in March, one of my posts got popular on Reddit, and in return, StumbleUpon. That month, I received 125,000 unique visitors for that post. I’d say that about 10 people stuck around as subscribers. And that was when I learned one of my biggest lessons as a blogger—aimless traffic is pointless. That’s right, pointless. All it does is crash your server, skew your stats for months to come, and leave you feeling disappointed and inadequate.

One of the things I’ve noticed about the traffic from StumbleUpon, is that it’s mostly been Windows users— who likely wouldn’t be interested in a blog writing about Apple products among other things. Traffic is pointless unless it’s focused. Focused traffic comes from other sites writing about a similar niche. This adds meaning to your traffic, as you know that each hit is from someone who is in your blog’s target audience.

If your blog is truly writing good-quality content, focused traffic will lead to a much higher subscriber conversion rate, and is the reason it’s crucial to build relationships with other bloggers with similar interests.

Michael: Talking and interacting with other bloggers is one of the highlights of my blogging experience. I am a very reserved person, and find it awkward to communicate with bloggers on a more personal level such as email. Part of that is because I’d rather speak in front of a room of 10,000 people than talk to someone one-on-one.

Twitter has helped dramatically in that respect. Following bloggers writing for a similar niche will change the way you write, as you learn, interact, and redefine your writing in order to find your voice. What it comes down to though, is realizing that any blogger is just a normal human—and while it may be tempting to treat them like a superstar, being transparent and being yourself is always the best way to go. It hasn’t failed me yet.

Michael: If you’d asked me this a couple months ago, I would have said that I started photography back in December 2007 when I bought my first DSLR. In hindsight though, I’ve always had a fascination with cameras. While a lot of it comes naturally, part of it was because my dad, who has been into video for the past decade. He’d always let me goof around with the camera from a very young age (after our HTML 4.0 lessons, of course).

At family reunions and weddings, I was always appointed as the unofficial “camera man”—even though I knew relatively little about camera settings at the time. After being inspired by Glenn Wolsey and Jordan Chark’s Flickr photos, I found myself longing for a new camera (I was shooting on a 5-year old, first-gen, point and shoot digital camera at the time). So I bought myself a Nikon D40x, read the manual, and started shooting.

My biggest pet peeve is how most people are taken aback when they hear that I didn’t take a photography course in school. They cannot comprehend how I learnt photography by simply looking at photos online, and going out and shooting. But at the same time, that’s how I learned to blog—by reading and writing, and writing some more.

Flickr is the number one resource I’d recommend to any aspiring photographer. Meet photographers from all over the world, get inspiration from their photographs, and learn how they conquered certain challenges in their shots. Like most things, blogging included, you can learn all the specifics, but it takes time and consistent practice to become a pro.

I sure that photography and writing will be part of my career in some way (photojournalism maybe?), and the fact that I’m passionate about both excites me all the more. Of course, like designers, photographers are often given little consideration, and are asked for the impossible last minute. For example: “Hey Michael, I know it’s almost midnight, but can you make a super-quick slideshow of all the photos from the last 6 months for tomorrow morning. Thanks.”

Michael: If you are debating between a Point-and-Shoot or a low-end DSLR and have a decent budget, a Nikon D40 is the way to go. It’s the cheapest and smallest DSLR, and can now be found on Amazon for less than $500. That’s a steal considering my first digital camera (non-DSLR) cost $500 only a couple years ago. It’s now sitting in the closet doing what it does best—collecting dust.

Best of all, the D40 takes fantastic pictures right out of the box. Turn it on, set it to Auto mode, and fire away. No customizing needed.

A general rule of thumb in photography is the larger the sensor (the part of the camera that captures the image), the better the image will look. That’s why Digital SLRs typically take better pictures than traditional digital cameras. Add this with the fact that the D40 takes two and a half pictures per second with no delays, and you’ll be sure never to miss a moment again.

And while auto mode works fantastically, there is also a huge opportunity for growth. Over time, you will naturally start looking for ways to expand your photography, and the D40 has a huge amount of advanced features that you can learn at your own pace. If you are looking to understand a little more about how your camera works, take 20 minutes and read through this introduction to photography written by yours truly.

If you’re looking for a camera that will snap pictures of the kids at a moments notice, the D40 is the camera for you. Just remember: photography isn’t magic. Light your subjects well, keep your backgrounds clean and clutter-free, and shoot like crazy. Digital storage is so cheap nowadays, that it’s absurd not to have every moment of your life documented.

Up until today, I’ve shot exclusively with a D40x (exact same camera as the D40 with larger image sizes). Take a look at my Flickr stream to see just some of the things you can do with a DSLR and a creative imagination.

Michael: It started four years ago with a simple youth event. They talked about missions and going into the world to touch people’s lives. I was 11 at the time, and probably didn’t understand most of what they were saying. But it struck me hard. And I wanted in.

My mother wasn’t too keen on the sending-your-eleven-year-old-son-to-the-other-end-of-the-world thing, but when I hit thirteen, I was able to raise the money and go to South Africa for two weeks. I was young, it was a short trip, but I saw things there that very few people see in a lifetime. Two million people living in pieces of cardboard and tin within a couple mile radius. Being able to go and see poverty first hand is lifechanging. It’s much different than seeing it on a TV screen. Those two weeks changed my life.

So I’ve made it into a habit. Giving a month or so each summer to go and help those in need. People who have been abused. Orphans that have never felt what it’s like to be loved. And worst—heart-broken, hopeless people, that walk the streets believing in their hearts that they are living for nothing.

In 2007, I went to the remote jungles and islands of Panama, and this year, I went to Zambia. The purpose of our trips often change depending on our location. Sometimes, it’s building houses. Sometimes, it’s bringing food and water and school supplies. But that’s not why I go.

I’ve been criticized by some: “Why spend money going to Africa, when you can simply send the money and help people’s practical needs?” Obviously, a comment like this comes from people who’ve never been to Africa. Money is important, yes, but without people, it’s possible to reach the impoverished. You’d be amazed how willing most are to give money, but how few actually go.

No amount of money will solve the AIDS problem. I’ve seen firsthand, orphans that would give away everything they have (which isn’t much) to spend a day with us. These are children that have been forced to work in mines and drop out of school to support their brothers and sisters. They’ve never felt fun. Never felt love. Never thought that anybody in the world cares about them. Some who’ve been abused by uncles and distant relatives. They feel dirty. They feel hopeless.

And then in come white teenagers from “America”. The only time they’ve ever seen white people are on TV—as celebrities. In their minds, white skin equals celebrity status. Then these white “celebrities” come and pick them up, take them in, feed them, give them a place to sleep, love them, and give them hope. Money is not the answer for these kids. Hope is. Hope that they don’t have to live their lives in a mine. That they can be anything they want to be. That they can do anything they want. It’s a total revolution in their lives.

And I guess that’s why I do it. It’s been such a change in my life as well, that I feel it’s simply part of something I do. It’s part of who I am. My love for photography just escalates my need to travel the world, and capture the sights I see, and emotions I experience. And it’s something that will always have a place in my heart.

Michael: Yes, exactly. I had the chance to sit next to a professional malaria expert (i.e. mosquito chaser) on the plane home from Africa, and he brought me up to speed on how much of a killer malaria is. To give you a quick comparison, malaria on average, kills more Africans a year than HIV/AIDS.

Organizations and funds have the money and the technology needed to go on a massive anti-malaria campaign, and wipe out malaria from Africa (similar to what they did in the US and Canada in the 20th century). The problem is that Africa is so vast and disperse, that if would take a group of millions of people to distribute the vaccines, and control the mosquito level.

Money is an issue, yes, but organizations are lacking human resources much more.

Michael: In their minds, “white people” equal Americans, and Americans equal people of authority. When they see “Americans” that have come all the way to Africa to serve them and love them, they are blown away. They value that more than anything else. It’s more than a verbal autograph—it’s us showing them that we love and care about them enough to come half-way across the world to reach them.

As for our lifestyle here, yes, it’s selfish. It’s definitely a humbling experience to go away for a month. Coming back can leave you subject to culture shock, in more ways than one. But that doesn’t stop me from buying cameras or lenses or other material “things”. Having the things is not the fatal flaw—being consistently self-centered is. Remember you’re blessed, invest in the tools, and create something wonderful.

No selfishness in that.

Michael: Our society, frankly, is based on people striving to succeed whatever the cost. There are so many people screaming from all different directions their measure of success. Look around at all the “Get rich in 60 days” books being sold. More than ever, we want to do something that will be noticed. I know, because I’ve tried. And I’ve seen other people live their lives miserable in the name of success, and I’ve vowed never to stoop to that level.

I guess one could say that most teens my age don’t get the chance to experience different cultures and travel to the ends of the world. Most adults for that matter, don’t realize that the world is more than the USA. Or Canada. Or their neighbourhood.

One thing that surprised me while in Africa is how much of an influence the US is on their society. We bumped into two men one night, that were as well-versed as any American about McCain and Obama and American politics. I expressed my amazement, and they said, “People don’t realize, but the world is watching America. Whatever happens to America affects the rest of us.”

That said, I don’t think that we should feel guilty living in a first-world country. We’re blessed. And with that blessing comes a responsibility.

These trips have changed my life (and the direction of my life, at that). It’s taught me to value people a lot more than things. I love gadgets and gizmos and new tech as much as the next guy, but there’s a problem when that becomes everything you’re living for. It’s a major problem in the online community especially—young teens enthusiastic about technology and revolving their lives around it. In all honesty, I’ve tried that, and it just leaves you high and dry. There’s something more; something deeper that people are missing out on.

The thing is: I don’t want success like the world wants it. I’ve constructed my own definition for success: connecting with the God I love, spending time with the people I love, and doing things that I love that will leave an everlasting impact on other people’s lives.

When we shift our focus from “things” to “relationships”, life has a bigger, better purpose. Being able to create something is fine and dandy, but being able to change a life—well, that’s true success.

Michael: Prioritize. You have to take five minutes, sit down, and think about what you value in your life. That won’t always give you the right answer, but it allows you to take a step back and look at your life. Knowing what you value, and seeing if you value it with your time.

Balance isn’t exactly my forte. I like to envelop myself in a single project and work till I drop—forgetting everything else until the job is complete or I collapse from exhaustion. I constantly have to retrain myself and force balance into my life.

With school during the day, and my evenings filled with online projects, photo editing, and blogging, there’s little time left in the day for spending time with my family or relaxing to a good book. And while I love doing all these projects, and chatting with friends, there are only 24 hours in a day. And I can’t blame anyone for using up those hours but me.

So there are two things I (try to) do to create balance in my life—simplification and focus.

Starting a project is easy, it’s living up to the time commitment that’s the challenge. My goal is to do everything I do with excellence. If an additional “thing” gets in the way of that excellence, I’d rather cut it out than have it degrade the rest of my work. It’s better to be known for doing one thing exceptionally, than doing everything haphazardly. I try to keep the number of projects I’m working on simultaneously under three. I also try to limit the number of social networks I sign up for. There’s nothing worse than spending more time twittering about what you do, than actually doing it.

Your mileage may vary on how many projects you can have on the run or the amount of time you can spend communicating. But never let communication get in the way of you doing what you love. Because, when it’s all said and done, twitter isn’t very high up on my priority list.

Second, is focus. Focus is underrated in our society—especially by the tinkering, geeky, I-wonder-how-this-works crowd. Today it’s all about multi-tasking and being able to do as many things at once as possible. Merlin Mann. on 43Folders, has the best 2-minute talk on multi-tasking and why it’s a myth. We really can’t do more than one thing at a time, and if we try to, we are simply splitting our attention in multiple directions, and spending time switching between tasks.

There is value—a real value—in focusing on one task. One thing at a time: what a revolutionary concept! We waste way to much time during the day glancing over at Twitterrific or responding to a quick email. If we simply dedicate all our creative juices to one task at a time, we can get more done and free up more time to be with the people we love.

Michael: I’m not gonna lie, it’s something I struggle with every day.

The independent, rambunctious, zealous side of me wants to do things my own way. Especially for someone who has already discovered what they are passionate and excited about, it’s easy to leave God out of the process. To think that you know best and can do it all on your own.

And then, well then I have these humbling periods. Times where I realize I can’t do it all by myself.

But I struggle with it every day—discerning between what’s my will, and what’s His. Learning from my mistakes is one thing, but learning from mistakes that I made while knowing better is tough.

I have strong convictions. I am thoughtful. I am observant. I know what I’ve seen and I hate with all my heart and vow to never become. I know who I admire. And I know there’s a fine line between copying those I admire, and being inspired by them.

That said, I cannot see more than a few years ahead of me. Sure I have goals and aspirations, but I can’t see five or ten years into the future. And sometimes, that’s best. Cause it leaves me realizing that I’m dependent on Someone greater that doesn’t care how many times I try to do it on my own and fail.

I think some lyrics from the song Twenty-Six Summers by Vicky Beeching are appropriate:

“I don’t know what the future holds
or what lies beyond my horizon
the years ahead are just out of sight
well, I think sometimes that You hide them
so that I’ll walk by faith not sight
so I’ll take Your hand, holding tight”

High school is coming to a close and I have to make some pretty “different” decisions to make in the coming months. To be honest, I’m glad I can depend on an all-knowing God instead of leaving it up to a young, know-it-all teenager.