Your trusted system holds commitments you have made to others and also to yourself. From there, you can fulfil your commitment or drop the ball. In this episode, Jean and James talk about a third option—renegotiating your committments.

This episode also represents a renegotiated commitment of its own — shorter episodes for the summer while Jean and James are traveling and not able to record every week.

Plus: Jean gets some Slovenian phrase homework and James mentions the comedic properties of the phrase “Where is my hat?” in French.

James and Jean review their plans for WWDC week in San Jose, and what is still on their to-do lists. James reveals the secret phrase needed to obtain The Weekly Review stickers (hint: just ask!), and Jean talks about efforts not to overthink the Micro.blog meetup.

There are still some tickets left for Live near WWDC. Get yours today to avoid disappointment, because they will sell out before the show on June 5th. We hope to see you there!

If you want to come to the Micro.blog Meetup, here are the details.

This past week, App Camp For Girls announced some difficult news. In this episode, Jean talks about her history as founder of the non-profit and aspects of the program, including the curriculum and volunteers, who have had such an impact on many lives. James describes some of the challenges of producing a big benefit concert with changes being announced just weeks away from the event.

On June 5th, Jean and James will be performing nerdy music in San Jose:

James explains that the show will go on and other details in this show update:

So we lasted a whole five weeks since our Emailiversary show (Ep. 52) before we took up the topic of email processing again, probably because it has been a hard week and we are behind on email. Luckily we both have a sense of humor about it.

We also discuss listener follow-up to last week’s episode Whelmed, with a pledge to try a new suggestion as soon as we get unwhelmed after LIVE near WWDC.

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As the annual James Dempsey and the Breakpoints LIVE near WWDC benefit concert for App Camp For Girls approaches, James reports he has spent the past few days being ‘whelmed’ with show preparations.

Jean and James talk about these sort of times when you are so focused on a set of urgent tasks at hand that you might not look to your trusted system for guidance for a day or two. James wonders if it is okay to operate keeping a finite number of pressing tasks in mind for a short period of time.

Have you been ‘whelmed’ before? If you have tips, tricks, suggestions, or life hacks of how you deal with similar situations, we would love to hear from you on Micro.blog, Twitter or email us!

On June 5th, Jean and James will be performing nerdy music:

Jean returns from a week in Florida with her dad and siblings, where they took on the task of clearing out the home that the family has occupied since 1963. She shares her fresh insights into how to deal with stuff that has sentimental value, how to organize a family photo swap, and the joys of hiring a junk pickup service. Jean also describes the benefits of doing hard work on a project that has an immediate payoff.

Photo: Jean and brother Bob, circa 50 years ago, uncovered in the decluttering.

Jean and James talk with Ish ShaBazz, an app developer whose company Illuminated Bits recently released Capsicum, a new approach to the task management notebook. We learn what led Ish to the idea of building a notebook app, the power of round-trip translation with Boomerang, and how it felt for Ish be featured in the documentary App: The Human Story.

We also find out what the weather was on our birthdays in our respective hometowns in Florida and New Jersey, a nifty little feature of Capsicum’s integration with historical weather information.

Mentioned In This Episode:

Capsicum

Boomerang

App: The Human Story

In this episode Jean and James discuss how finding the right tool or appliance can change your daily routine for the better as well as have a significant effect on your day to day life. Jean tells the story of a hair dryer so good that it has put a bit of a strain on her relationship with her longtime hairdresser. James talks about switching to an electric razer that keeps him from letting his beard grow - eliminating the need for a periodic unpleasant whisker ‘hackathon’. Both describe the tradeoff between the expense of a really nice applicance or tool and how its affects can make your life better over time.

It’s been a whole year since Jean and James started their quest to get their email inboxes under control. Find out how they did over the past twelve months. Jean talks about the satisfaction of banishing marketing emails from her inbox. James reveals the secret little cheat that has kept his inbox from overflowing and steps he is taking to eliminate it. Plus, a bonus Emailiversary greeting card to download.

From all of us, to all of you, a very merry emailiversary!

Links:

Jean and James continue to ferret out overlooked inboxes and lists as part of our efforts to make sure that obligations and projects are correctly categorized. This week we look at a common spot where Someday/Maybe dreams hang out: the domain names that we own. We look at a few of the domains for which we have had ambitious if not actionable plans for, and talk about how to make the tough triage decisions.

One of those domains that we are definitely using is livenearwwdc.com, the information central for all things about LIVE Near WWDC 2019, the annual James Dempsey and the Breakpoints benefit show for App Camp For Girls, June 5th in San Jose! Tickets will go on sale soon, and you can be notified first by signing up for our mailing list.