Merlin's Fans (8)

Merlin Mann

Author profile

born

Cincinnati, The United States

gender

male

website

http://www.merlinmann.com

About this author

edit data

Merlin is best known as the creator of 43folders.com, a popular American website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.

Merlin was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and raised on Florida’s humid Suncoast. In his senior year of high school, Merlin dropped his 1st period BASIC class so he could strum Major7 chords in the school’s stage band. Somewhere in this is a story that should tell you much of what you need to know about him.

In 1990 — despite turning in a wildly mediocre thesis on the ideological hegemony of television — Merlin was generously awarded a B.A. from the prestigious New College of Florida.

Past lives have found Merlin toiling as a web developer, project manager, waiter, hardware store remodeler, court room e...more Merlin is best known as the creator of 43folders.com, a popular American website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.

Merlin was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and raised on Florida’s humid Suncoast. In his senior year of high school, Merlin dropped his 1st period BASIC class so he could strum Major7 chords in the school’s stage band. Somewhere in this is a story that should tell you much of what you need to know about him.

In 1990 — despite turning in a wildly mediocre thesis on the ideological hegemony of television — Merlin was generously awarded a B.A. from the prestigious New College of Florida.

Past lives have found Merlin toiling as a web developer, project manager, waiter, hardware store remodeler, court room exhibit designer, reluctant telemarketer, and enthusiastic but unprofitable indie rock musician.

Merlin’s writing has been carried in fine periodicals like WIRED, Make, Popular Science, and MacWorld, while 43 Folders has been featured favorably in The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, Time, and The Wall Street Journal, to name a few.

43 Folders is currently enjoyed by thousands of very good-looking visitors every year, with an oddly popular RSS feed that apparently gets loaded over 100,000 times every day. There’s just no accounting for taste, is there?

Aside from writing for 43 Folders, Merlin is also the creator of The Merlin Show, 5ives, and 30 Seconds with Phone Guy. But, his favorite thing he’s ever contributed to is a decidedly NSFW program known as, You Look Nice Today.

More recently, Merlin’s become a sought-after speaker and presenter, who’s received rave reviews for delivering his energetic productivity talks at Apple, Google, Yahoo!, Adobe, Xerox PARC, as well as many other esteemed companies and organizations.

Merlin currently does most of what he does in front of a MacBook in the western third of San Francisco, California, where the climate is foggy, the pork xiu mai is plentiful, and his outstanding wife and daughter are within arm’s reach.(less)

25 posts
Merlin Mann's Blog

Merlin Mann isn't a Goodreads Author (yet), but he does have a blog, so here are some recent posts imported from his feed.

Instapaper 4: Deciding to Read

Introducing Instapaper 4.0 for iPad and iPhone

The lede here is that my pal, Marco, has, has just released the stellar new 4.0 version of his Instapaper suite.

This is fantastic news, and–as if you needed one more of Marco's beta testers to say so–I do sincerely hope you'll mark the occasion (and support his hard work) by purchasing the Instapaper iOS app(s). I promise you'll be treating yo...

combine editions
Merlin Mann's Books

Average rating: 4.33 · 3 ratings · 1 review · 3 distinct works · Similar authors

	Inbox Zero 4.33 of 5 stars 4.33 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 2010	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Life Hacks by Danny O'Brien, Merlin Mann 0.0 of 5 stars 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2005	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	iPad at Work by David Sparks, Merlin Mann (Foreword) 4.11 of 5 stars 4.11 avg rating — 38 ratings — published 2011 — 7 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, click here.

Upcoming Events

No scheduled events. Add an event.

Quotes by Merlin Mann

“Put plainer, my sense is that western culture would be a damn sight poorer today if John Lennon had been forced to carry a goddamn BlackBerry.”
― Merlin Mann

6 people liked it

“Before you get good, you need to first stop sucking.”
― Merlin Mann

4 people liked it

“Small Changes Stick.”
― Merlin Mann

3 people liked it

See all Merlin Mann's quotes »

Is this you? Let us know. If not, help out and invite Merlin to Goodreads.