The Examined Life

Write "letters" in Bento

Create a form using the Printing theme (it's a very plain theme, with no background or lines). Place whatever fields are usual in a letter. I use the Date Created and the Main Note fields. You can then print out the "letter" and send it either on paper or as a PDF. You can create text fields for a letterhead and a signature line if you like.

What's the advantage? The letter becomes part of your database. No need to change applications or attach a document to the database entry.

Lifelogging with Bento

What is lifelogging? And what is Bento?

Briefly, lifelogging is tracking all the details of your life, not for publication but for yourself. The concept is beautifully spelled out by Gordon Bell in Life Uploaded, which I will discuss in future entries.

Bento is a database creation application for the Mac and iPad/iPhone, which I have been using to create my lifelog.

Grace Suarez
Sent from my  iPad

Using Bento to organize ... well ... everything

First, let me be clear about databases. Even the easiest of them, Bento, requires time and dedication. It takes a while to get your head wrapped around the database mentality, because it's different than a word processing program or even a spreadsheet.

The first thing I suggest is that you look at all the free resources, starting with the Filemaker/Bento site itself. Then sign up for the Bento forums and look over the questions. Check out Don McAllister's excellent ScreencastsOnline (which is great for all things Mac). He has one on Bento 2, but it will give you a great introduction into the concepts.

After playing for a while, you may want to buy Using Bento 3, available from Amazon in either paper or Kindle format. It's a great book, and it will lead you through the process step by step. In fact, if you don't mind paying $10, you may want to buy it first.

Start thinking of all the information in your life and how it can be organized into databases. The possibilities are endless. For example, I was reading a book (on my iPad, of course), called The Private Lives of the Impressionists. It does not have images. So I decided to create a database called Art. Here's a screenshot:

I spent a few very pleasant hours Googling for Impressionist paintings and pretty soon I had a collection worth millions of fantasy dollars. The related library My Journal that you see in the lower right hand corner will let me record when (hopefully) I see the actual painting.

When you get into the Bento mindset, you come to realize that all aspects of your life are related to each other. For example, in LifeCentral (a sort of overview of all my libraries) I have a link to the library Menus, where I track meals I served (not all, just the memorable ones). In Menus there's a link to Notes (an all-purpose note taking library) where I enter a comment about the food. Here's a screenshot of the links page of LifeCentral:

I don't want to overwhelm you with information, but this will give you an idea of the power of Bento. The important thing is to be patient and to have fun.

The iPad: a digital photo frame on acid

Michael Norris, a senior trade analyst at Simba Information, called the iPad "a digital photo frame on acid." It's the best description I've heard yet. I love my iPad, no matter what President Obama says, and one of the reasons I love it is because of its ability to allow my reading experience to be so rich and multidimensional.

Right now I'm reading Sue Roe's The Private Lives of the Impressionists on my iPad. It's a wonderful book, but it has no images. So I created a database, using Bento (about which I have written much) to collect images of paintings. Here are a couple of pics which I hope will illustrate what I've done.

The Private Lives of the Impressionists on iBooks, with highlights.

My Art database created using Bento.

As I read the book, I can switch to the database and study the image. I can also put in notes from the book into the database (though not through cut and paste).

Using Bento to create a personal journal

Having decided to abandon my paper journal, I spent several hours and some money downloading iPad journal and diary apps. To make a long story short, none had what I wanted. So as I usually do, I turned to Bento, creating a new library using the Notes template as a start. Here's a screenshot of the library.

Grace Suarez
Sent from my iPad

Grace Suarez
Sent from my iPad

Using Bento to keep my focus on the task at hand

I've been reading a couple of articles about the distractions posed by multiple-use gadgets, and I agree they do lead to a lack of focus. When I'm reading a paper book, there's nothing else that I can do with it except read. If I read the same book on a computer (or an iPad) I can do a zillion other things: check email, tweet, watch a video, enter a task, etc.

One way I force myself to work on a single task is to use Bento (I use Bento for everything). I enter the task, and set a start time. Just knowing the clock is running keeps me focused on the task at hand. Of course, it's a great way of tracking billable time, but I use it for all sorts of tasks. Here's an example:

More Bento stuff - creating Life Central

I started using Bento (now on version 3) to organize my case work, but I've now moved beyond that, and use it to organize every part of my life. I call it Life Central. The main library (that's what Bento databases are called) is my Journal. It has related fields from all the other libraries. Here's a screenshot to give you an idea:

Here's the To Do library shown in the Journal library above:

Just about every library links to all the other libraries. I start out the day with the Journal and move to the other libraries as needed.

Life logging - an experiment

I've been keeping a detailed journal for the last several years, and it has improved my recollection and sense of organization. But after reading Gordon Bell's Total Recall I feel ready to take life logging (that's what Bell calls the process leading to Total Recall) to the next level. No, I'm not going to hang a camera around my neck or start recording telephone calls (my friends already think I'm creepy enough). I've been using the Bento database (now on version 3) to organize my case work, and I'm slowly expanding its use to keep track of all the stuff in my life. It takes time to annotate every action of some importance, and to scan every meaningful piece of paper, then to tie the two together. But I'm already seeing value. I spend far less time looking for information. Today I spent a few hours scanning high school photos my mother had kept in an album. The scanned photos look better than the originals, and I don't have to worry about fire or earthquake.

Bento 2: exporting Bento data to Pages

I put together a little Download Making-rd to show how I use Bento 2 to create my case summaries and export them to Pages, emails and blogs. You will need QuickTime to view the slide show.

Legal Research with Bento 2 - Screenshot

Here's a screenshot of the LawLib database where I collect my case summaries.