These have served me well so far. Maybe there’s something interesting here for you too.

1. Start with nothing. Add only what is necessary.

2. Write down everything you might care about.

3. Judge ideas fairly, not quickly.

4. Most bad ideas are just incomplete ideas. Save them for parts.

5. Start and end projects liberally. Only continue down a path as long as the destination matters to you.

6. Don’t solve made up problems. Don’t help people who do.

Learning CAD to do inexpensive, independent 3D printing is going to become the new “learning word processing to do independent desktop publishing,” and it’s going to happen fast.

I think we’re currently in the “crappy dot matrix printer, paper with tear-off holes, monospaced fonts and abysmal clip art” stage of the 3D printing industry.

Or, for people starting to think about the possibilities, for whom experimenting with it isn’t prohibitively expensive anymore, the “well, it isn’t pretty, but I made it myself and I’m proud!” stage, which will eventually become the “wow, there’s demand for this? I see problems I can solve because I’ve been here long enough to notice it — I’m a pro at this!” stage.

Which means a lot more opportunities are about to come over the horizon, for people who can figure out which direction to look in.

Peter Drucker is fond of pointing out that the last buggy whip manufacturers were models of efficiency. So what? What happens if you are efficient at doing the wrong things? That cannot be labeled progress. In fact, one indicator that an industry is in the mature or decline stage of the product/service life cycle is when it is also most likely at the apogee of its theoretical level of efficiency.

The point is this: In industry after industry, the history of economic progress has not been to wring out the last 5 to 10 percent of efficiency, but rather to change the model in order to more effectively create wealth. From Walt Disney and Fred Smith, to Bill Gates and Larry Ellison—these entrepreneurs did not get where they are by focusing on efficiency. All of these entrepreneurs created enormous wealth by delivering more effectively what customers were willing to pay for, not by focusing on efficiency.

– Ronald Baker, Pricing on Purpose

I think the iPad fits this description pretty well. It’s nowhere near as “powerful” as a modern laptop, yet millions of consumers are choosing it over the $1500 machines they would’ve used a decade ago.

There are a lot of constraints built into the iPad, but those constraints haven’t cost us much in terms of what an average user can accomplish with it. Average users don’t buy computers for their gigahertz or gigabytes. They buy computers for their ability to browse the web, check email, and look at Facebook.

None of those things require a whole lot of “power.” They don’t require the ability to have two windows side by side, either, and the iPad does just fine without the ability to do so.

This works out just fine for just about everyone, even a power user like myself, because I know I can only really focus my attention on one thing at a time.

It’s amazing how many “power” problems become non-issues for average users, by simply restating the problems of computing with that simple truth in mind.

In designing that constraint into the iPad, Apple took advantage of the limits of human attention to build an operating system that knows how to use more of the “power” it has on just the thing we’re doing right now.

Growing up with computers has become the new normal. Now I’m thinking a lot about the next new normal: growing old with them.

I’m going to get old in a world where the computers in my pocket, in my backpack, and in my home all know how to do more and more of the things I ask of them. The less capable my mind and body become, the more I need the help, the more they will be there to pick up the slack for the things that I don’t do so well anymore.

There are a lot of tiny, transactional, everyday activities that I don’t want to have to rely on another person to help me with. Play this song. Dial this phone number. Tell me what this says.

If this is the direction technology is going in, then to me, that represents an opportunity to get recurring frustrations out of the way so that I have more time and energy to spend sharing the gifts I’m excited to give, with the people around me.

Right now, my most powerful technology-enabled superpowers are all about being able to reach anyone, anywhere, to talk about anything. But I think the next superpower we’re going to get, and the one I’ll definitely want when I’m old, is to not need to use that on the hundreds of tiny, recurring challenges that creep up on me.

When Apple introduced Siri, plenty of people hopped up on their well-worn soapboxes to shout to the rest of us that they don’t want some damned computer replacing their human relationships. They’re afraid that technology is making our relationships impersonal. I think they’re dead wrong. But maybe that’s because I’m not in the habit of letting insignificant problems define my relationships.

I don’t believe using a computer to tackle recurring, transactional, everyday problems gets in the way of my personal relationships one bit. If there’s ever a way that I can make a recurring problem disappear by saying a few words to a computer, that’s what I’m going to do. I’ve learned how to ask for help when I need it, but I also don’t mind not needing help with things that don’t matter.

As I become more conscious of just how limited my time is, I just want to maximize the amount of energy I’m able to spend chipping away at problems greater than my own. When my body starts to get in the way of my mind and my work, I want whatever superpower will make that a non-issue so I can get on with it.

That’s not impersonal. In fact, getting my own problems out of the way so that I can work on solving yours is about as personal as relationships can get.

Nerds seem to think it’s become a status symbol of intelligence to whine about how unexciting Apple’s events have become. It’s everywhere, all over Facebook and Twitter and every tech blog imaginable. It’s probably all over the comments on those blogs too, but I don’t have the stomach to scroll that far down. It always feels like I’m scrolling into the bad part of town.

Everyone who expects Apple to keep up their excitement, their secrecy, and especially their momentum, will eventually be disappointed. Many already were by the announcement of the iPhone 4S, even though it’s a great mobile computer in its own right. Is there some reason we can’t judge the design of the damn thing on its own merits, instead of comparing this year’s hype to last year’s hype and making that the basis for our opinion?

Is there a reason, besides our lack of thoughtfulness and appreciation, that we suck at appreciating just how much power we’re packing in our pockets, compared to the featureless lumps devoid of character that we were all carrying ten years ago? All the money in the world back then couldn’t buy the superpowers that we now take for granted every day.

The software gets better. The processors get better. The batteries get better. The cameras get way better. And a wait-and-see attitude toward NFC (and every other fad-technology that attempts to interface with the “real world,” yes I’m looking at you QR codes, you miserable failures) is justified.

Most of the low-hanging fruit has been plucked at this point. So, what is there really left to design, that doesn’t amount to diminishing returns?

Maybe the only answer to that is “whatever exciting and secretive thing will cannibalize the smartphone as we know it.” Let’s follow up in a few years on how that all worked out.

We might get minor revisions to the iPhone for a few more years, even if there’s something truly mind-blowing in the works. That pattern is written all over their product history, if you know where to look.

The most well known example is the Apple II, the lifespan of which was extended to fund the development of the far-superior Macintosh. They didn’t stop selling minor revisions to that product just because something better was coming. That’s not the way this business works. There’s always something better coming. That’s not the basis for business decisions, nor purchasing decisions.

The iPhone is a tool. I’m not really convinced that excitement or secrecy are important factors in the tools I use to make and organize things. How much my tool of choice changes year over year is less important than what problems I’m trying to solve with it, or what art I’m trying to make with it, or what event I’m trying to put together with it.

When there are better features, or better tools, I’ll make the most of them. But I’m not even using the tools I’ve got to make the best work I could be making, so why should I get distracted by the lack of excitement about someone else’s work, when I can’t even demand as much exciting work from myself as I’d like?