TaskTask

20 TIPS FOR GOOGLE SEARCHING

2007-06-09T18:51:00.000-04:00

Studies show that Google is the most popular search engine, and it continues to garner more and more of the search market. To get the most out of your searches, read 20 Tips for More Efficient Google Searching.

GET AN IMPORTANT TASK DONE BEFORE YOU CHECK YOUR E-MAIL

2006-10-19T17:00:00.000-04:00

This E-mail management tip comes from a lawyer productivity blog, but it has application way beyond the legal field:

Try this technique. Get one project completed in the morning before you even open your e-mail client. Time management experts tell us that we should try to get the most important thing we have to do that day done first. So complete your most important job before you open your e-mail, even if you are like me and a lot of your "real work" is done via e-mail. This is not an original thought by any means. I'd encourage all of you to read"Geek to Live: Control Your Workday"by LifeHacker's Gina Trapani. But this makes so much sense because reading your e-mail puts you in the reactive mode. Getting an accomplishment under your belt first thing may make the day go better. Perhaps the greatest benefit of adhering to this practice is that you will hopefully never again find yourself working after 5 p.m. (with your family holding dinner for you) on what should have been a short project when you've known all day that it had to be completed today. At first I thought this was a good idea that wouldn't work for me because always check my e-mail from home before I leave for work in case I want to contemplate anything on the commute. But then I thought that is why it should really work for me once I arrive.

Source: Jim Calloway's Law Practice Tips Blog, "E-Mail Overload, Redux"

Keeping Focused at Work

2006-08-14T11:59:00.000-04:00

From Dave Cheong, 18 ways to stay focused at work:

Write out a daily task list and plan your day.

Allocate time slots colleagues can interrupt you.

Apply time boxing (instead of working at something till it is done, try working on it for a limited period, say 30 mins. By that time, the task is either completed or you allocate another time slot, perhaps in another day, to pick it up again)

Setup filters in your email.

Do not check personal email in the morning.

Set your IM status.

Listen to the right types of music.

Use the headphones but leave the music off.

Fill up a water bottle.

Find the best time to do repetitive and boring tasks.

Bring your lunch and have it at your desk.

Don’t make long personal calls.

Clean up your desk.

Get a good chair.

Use shortcuts on your computer.

Close programs you’re not using.

Limit time on Digg, Delicious, news sites and blogs.

Change your mindset and make work fun.

TIPS FOR WRITERS ON HOW TO FOCUS

2006-07-06T10:36:00.000-04:00

Matthew Stibbe offers 11 tips to help you focus on your writing work when you have a deadline to meet. Many of these tips are also useful for getting anything done on a computer. Here's a quick overview - visit How to Concentrate on Writing for the full version of each tip:

1. Switch off email.
2. Isolate myself.
3. Think about Greed and guilt.
4. Stop with the blog already.
5. Get up early.
6. Give yourself little treats.
7. Chunking.
8. Go full screen.
9. Switching Word into full screen mode.
10. Shitty first draft.
11. Change location.

Planning your Workspace at Home

2006-02-28T14:58:00.000-05:00

More and more of us are telecommutors or otherwise work from home, at least part time. Much bandied about advice to be productive when working from home is to have a dedicated "work" area. Here are some things to consider when planning out your workspace, courtesy of 10 Ways To Help You Plan Your Home Office For Productivity, And Comfort - 1000cellphoneaccessories.com:

1. First figure out what you want this space to be able to accommodate.

2. Develop a floor plan and begin to draw where all of your equipment will go.

3. Don’t estimate the space - get out that measuring tape and measure where everything will go.

4. Plan for your plug-ins - electricity, phone jacks, etc.

5. Keep in mind who will be using the space - just you, your kids, your partner?

6. Check out the latest furniture, including home furniture that will store your computer and other electronic equipment.

7. Don’t forget miscellaneous storage space for all your supplies.

8. Remember storage for your paper filing, books, magazines, etc.

9. Plan for enough flat workspaces - desk, drafting table, folding tables for collating and big projects.

ARE CUBICLES ANTI-PRODUCTIVE?

2006-01-28T22:07:00.000-05:00

The use of cubicles in offices is often thought to enhance productivity, by enhancing informal communication. However, there is growing concern that cubicles lead to lack of concentration. The restriction on reflection and deep thought may produce more harm than the benefits arising from unstructured communication.

Death to the Cubicle!

Quick Productivity Tip

2005-09-18T18:01:00.000-04:00

Turn off the ringer on your phone and let voice mail pick up your calls for a while.

Desk Clutter

2005-09-07T21:22:00.000-04:00

We know that clutter impairs our productivity. But it could be doing worse things than that - what is the impact it is having on your clientele or your superiors when they see your messy office?

Imagine meeting an attorney for the first time, whose office is a cluttered mess - papers piled all over the desktop, mail and files scattered on the credenza, and an overloaded bookcase with stacks of books on top and on the floor. Regardless of the actual skill or reputation of that attorney, might your first impression be a negative one? Might your confidence in that attorney be lessened as well? In business, first impressions are important.

An important area to keep clutter free is your workspace/desk. Here are some tips from Monica Ricci on dealing with desk clutter:

Get a good desk. This doesn’t mean an expensive desk. It means one that is right for you and meets your daily needs. Your personal work habits as well as your business activities will determine what style and size desk is appropriate for you. If you refer to books, manuals or publications regularly in your business, a desk with an upright hutch would make sense. You can keep the books you refer to daily in the hutch. They will be easily accessed, but up off your work space. If books don’t need to be right at hand, a separate bookcase will suffice and you can go without the hutch in favor of a larger flat workspace. If you use a computer (and these days, who doesn’t?) and you have ample floor space, consider an L-shaped desk. You can keep your computer on one section and still have a large workspace on the other. This configuration allows you to avoid juggling two priorities on the same desktop. Another great aspect about an L-shaped desk is the additional room you gain for desktop tools such as upright file holders, stacking trays, baskets, portable hanging files, and your phone. Don’t forget all the space on your walls. When you can’t build out, build up! Shelves are a fantastic way to display personal items, awards, and photos while keeping your work area clean and functional.

Link

Helping the Negative Person

2005-09-06T18:53:00.000-04:00

Try as we might to keep a positive mental outlook, we are bound to mix it up with persons at work or home that have a constant negative attitude.

Nobody likes a negative person. Listening to complaints from someone with a
pessimistic, mud-slinging, doom and gloom attitude can drain your energy, push
your patience to the limit, and impact your mental and physical health.

If someone who's close to you is consistently negative, you'll want to do something to help them change their attitude. That's because you can see what they can't: that their comments and actions are negatively impacting their career and hurting their interpersonal relationships.

So what kind of things can we do?

cut them some slack
establish boundaries
ask for clarification
offer solutions
don't get baited
call them on it
don't let it get to you
remember negativity is contagious

Check out this website for more information on each of these coping mechanisms.

Using Thunderbird for GTD

2005-09-05T22:11:00.000-04:00

There are various ways to implement GTD in an email program, including David Allen's Outlook plug-in program. Mozilla's open-source email program, Thunderbird, provides a label feature that works well with GTD. For an interesting GTD system using Thunderbird, check out Entropic Principal's blog.

Link

Cut Off Your Time Stealers

2005-09-04T20:56:00.000-04:00

Think about the activities that steal too much of your time. For many of us, we spend too much time dealing with email. For others, we spend too much time IM'ing.

One way to deal with such time stealers is to put yourself on a time budget for those types of activities. For example, you can set a fixed block of time each day to deal with your emails. That way, you won't be distracting yourself all day long, and spending more time than it deserves. It may also force you into focusing only on the important emails, delegating some emails tasks where practical, and thus improving your overall time and task management.

Taming the Paper

2005-09-03T14:13:00.000-04:00

We are often told to handle a piece of paper only once - but what are we supposed to do with that piece of paper when we first handle it? A useful acronym to use is FAT - File, Act or Toss. Those are really the only three things someone can do with a piece of paper. We can:

-File it for future use or reference
-Act on it right now
-Toss it in the garbage.

Since much of what we receive we end up tossing eventually, toss it now, not later! That will get rid of quite a bit of stuff right off the bat.

Make the File part easy by having a readily accessible and easy to use filing system.

One thing I have found helpful is a scanner - if I'm not sure whether to File or Toss, worst case is I scan it into an organized computer file system so if I ever need it it will be there, and the paper end of the clutter disappears in either event.

Staying Focused When Working From Home

2005-09-01T12:48:00.000-04:00

More and more of us are working from home. For some, this is our full time job. For others, we are bringing work home or connecting with our work computers from our home computers.

Especially for full timers, it can be hard to stay focused on work. For some tips on keeping focused, check the link below. Here is one of the tips:

Don't permit your friends and extended family to run over you. Many people get the blind idea that if one works from home then they are not actually working.Well-meaning people may try to fill your doorway to bring advice about getting a real job. Others may simply believe that if you are at home, then you are fair game for chitchat and socialization.You must stand firm. You must make certain your friends and family understands that when you are working, then you ARE working! If they wish to socialize with you, then they need to do it during the hours that are not dedicated to your home business.You are the only one who can stand up for you. Your friends and family will seldom be able to appreciate your dedication to your home business, unless you make the effort to make sure that they have the same respect for your business that you do.

Link

Test Your Computer's Exposure to Internet Hackers

2005-08-31T22:21:00.000-04:00

If you have ever seen a firewall at work, you would be amazed at the number of intruders that are regularly knocking at the doors of your Internet-connected computer, trying to gain access. How do you know if your firewall is properly configured, or whether your computer is exposed to internet hackers? Shields Up is a fantastic service that will diagnose the extent of your computer's vulneribility to third parties.

Link

Using a Downloads Folder

2005-08-30T21:28:00.000-04:00

Do you have a Downloads folder on your computer (that is, a folder where you download programs to)? If not, it is highly recommended, since it will be a long term repository of programs that you have downloaded and installed to your computer. When such an installed program gets corrupted, it can be easily reinstalled from this folder. When you buy a new computer, the downloads are in one place for transfer to and reinstallation in your new computer. When your computer crashes, once it is reconstituted you can reinstall the downloaded programs (which of course are on some type of back up media). Lastly, when you download a program and want to install it, you always know where to find it.

Get Folder Size Data in Explorer

2005-08-29T19:27:00.000-04:00

While Windows Explorer reveals the size of files, it does not display the size of folders. This useful information must either by accessed through third party utilities, or an individual folder must be right-clicked and then its size determined using 'Properties.'

A useful Explorer extension exists that will display the size of folders. It will impose a slight load on your computer since it operates as a background process.

Link

The Overstuffed Inbox

2005-08-27T20:12:00.000-04:00

We all have had to deal with an overstuffed email inbox. This might have been when we started GTD or perhaps when we have not been diligent in keeping up with our regular email processing. Here are some tips from Dwayne Melancon on how to get through the job of processing an overstuffed email inbox:

Consider temporarily following a “one minute rule” for handling messages (instead of the "two minute rule" from the Getting Things Done book). During this process, I used the one minute rule for two reasons:
-I had too many messages to afford myself that much time per message
-I wasn’t very good at judging two minutes, and ended up spending 5+ minutes on things I thought were going to be two minute actions.

Sort by sender, then...
-Consider deleting:
---Messages from people you don’t know
---Message from people who are no longer with the company
---Newsletters you’ll never read (be honest)
---Messages from people who only send you lame jokes and hoaxes (you know who they are by now)
---Messages from benevolent Nigerians or foreign national lotteries claiming to have money for you

Sort by Subject / Topic / Conversation, then...
-Delete:
---Issues you don’t care about
---Outdated newsletters that are still there from the first pass
-Delete or file:
---Issues that have been resolved
---Decide whether you need to file the whole thread or just the one with the conclusion
-File things you want to retain for reference, like:
---Interesting factoids that you want to retain for reference
---Information for personnel files
---Information pertinent to your job, goals, hobbies, etc.
---Funny stuff
---Praise and criticism (I file these under Kudos, with a subfolder for Antikudos)
---References to useful resources

Link

11 Things That Will Steal Your Time

2005-08-26T20:18:00.000-04:00

Dr. Donald E. Wetmore discusses 11 "time stealers." Many of these we've heard about, some we haven't, but all worth reviewing:

Poor planning. People don't plan to fail but a lot of people fail to plan. Without a plan of action set up before your day begins you are likely to get caught up in "stuff", responding the loudest voice that gets your time and attention. Will you have been productive for the day? Sure, but not as productive as you might have been.
Crisis management. When a deadline sneaks up on you it robs you of all choice and you are controlled by the clock. Crisis management, for the most part, is poor time management because you're rushed and stressed, letting things slip through the cracks and often having to go back and redo what was not done well in the first place. Most of what puts you into crisis management is within your control, you could have seen it coming.
Procrastination. All the planning in the world does not substitute for the doing. Many find that they just can't get going on the things that will make a big difference in their success. They have "permanent potential". First thing in your day, get going on the most difficult tasks and get them out of the way.
Interruptions. Unanticipated events coming your way, in person or electronically, can steal your time away. Many interruptions are necessary and part of what you get paid for. However, most are unnecessary thieves of your time. Be less willing to automatically give away your time just because they demand it. Rather, determine whether or not they deserve it.
Not delegating. "If you want a job done well you better do it yourself." What a thief! Look at everything you have to do and ask, "Is this the best use of my time?" If it is, do it. If not, delegate it. There's a world of difference between "I do it" and "It gets done." Leverage your time through others and don't allow the things that can be delegated to steal your time.
Unnecessary meetings. If two or more people get together and nothing productive comes of the time spent together, that meeting was unnecessary and, sadly, most meetings are time thieves. Before meeting ask, "Is it really necessary?" If it is, then meet but take action as a result of the meeting and not let it be a time bandit.
The "shuffling blues". Many people manage their time through piles. Piles of appear on their desk. Piles of "to be read" emails on their computer and lots of "to be heard" voicemails stored away. The piles require frequent review creating the shuffling blues which surrenders valuable time. Keep a clean work environment. When encountering something new, schedule it to your day planner under the day you plan to tackle it and then put it away so you are out of the shuffling blues.
Poor physical setup. Not having the things you need the most often within arm's reach and having a lot of the things you rarely need close by causes you to waste a lot of time wearing out the carpet retrieving what you frequently need. And of course, as you pass others they will often pull you aside to steal some of your time. Have the most needed stuff near by, within arm's reach and save that stolen time.
Poor networking. Quality relationships with others can be a huge time saver as they open doors for you with all kinds of opportunities. Failing to develop a good network base will cause you to waste time creating what you might have had through your network. Be a good networker. Help them whenever possible. You want a friend? You have to be a friend.
Bad attitude. Nothing sinks a day more effectively than having a poor attitude. It causes you to dwell on the problems and not the solutions and makes it possible to throw the day away. When you are burdening others with your problems and complaints you are stealing your time and theirs. And the truth is that when you complain to others, 85% of them really don't care and the other 15% are actually glad it's happening to you.
Negative people. Some people are the life of the party and some people are the death of the party. The problem with having negative people around you is you wind up spending a lot of your time listening to their complaints rather than focusing on your success.

Link

Some Ideas to Help with a Messy Desk

2005-08-25T21:25:00.000-04:00

Often times, the problem is not cleaning the desk --though that can be a challenge-- but maintaining the clean workspace. Here are some tips to help keep the desk clean:

Sort your mail and toss junk as it arrives. Even with an in-basket, you need to process your mail daily to avoid accumulating a stack of paper.
Get rid of sticky notes and scraps of paper. Get a single notebook and use it to record notes, phone numbers, web addresses, ideas, to-dos, etc.
Create a list or binder of regularly referenced material, such as phone numbers, and keep it accessible in a desk drawer.
Schedule filing time at least once per week.
Add dated or calendar items to a tickler file system or a diary as soon as they arrive.
When you stop working on something, put it away until the next time you need it. Don't leave half-completed projects sitting on your desktop.
Keep nothing on your desk unless you absolutely need them. If you aren't joining sheets of paper with tape, move the dispenser off the desk. If you want personal photos in the office, restrict it to one or better yet, hang them on the wall.
Keep a reading folder for material you need or want to read at some time. Scheduling a regular reading time to clear that material.
Create a "waiting for" or pending file to hold items dependent on outside action.
Create a weekly appointment to clean your desk and this includes dusting or polishing. You might be less inclined to mess up a shiny desk.

Link

Saving a Few Clicks

2005-08-24T18:56:00.000-04:00

Few persons who heavily use computers haven't had some ache or pain relating from that use, if not something more serious like Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. An interesting software tool that reduces the stress on your hands and arms is Nib software.

Essentially, what this software does is the mouse clicking for you. You move your mouse to where you want it, and then instead of clicking the mouse, the software has a timer that will click it for you. The software can handle double clicks, right clicks, highlighting, and drag and drop too. According to their website, mouse clicking is a large part of the stress put on the arms and hands from computer use. Since the software dramatically reduces manual mouse clicks, stress on the arms and hands is thus reduced.

I am trying out the software, using the 30 day trial period. Even though it is pricey, I really do enjoy it and I think it may have some long term benefits since I am a heavy user.

Link

Google Desktop Search Ver. 2 Beta - Sidebar

2005-08-23T19:58:00.000-04:00

Google's new Version 2 Beta includes many new productivity features. One of my favorites is the Sidebar, a new desktop feature that shows you your new email, weather and stock information, personalized news and RSS/Atom feeds, and more. Sidebar is personalized automatically, without any manual configuration required (though you can certainly make your own customizations if you want to).

Google has also improved the desktop search experience. With Quick Find, you can now launch applications and see search results as you type without even opening a browser. It has also extended its Outlook integration, so you can search Google Desktop with the Outlook Toolbar and see results within Outlook itself. Finally, you can search even more stuff, including your Gmail, files on network drives, many Outlook data types (including Contacts, Tasks, Calendar, Notes and Journal) and MSN Messenger chats. And if you yearn for even stronger security, you can encrypt your entire index.

Link

Online Bookmarks and More

2005-08-22T15:50:00.000-04:00

If you access the Web from more than one computer, you know what a hassle it can be to be able to make sure your regularly-used site bookmarks are available on all your various computers (including public computers). Sites like del.icio.us help us deal with this problem.

Another "multiple computer" problem arises if we track our task management system (such as Getting Things Done/GTD) on one computer, but come up with items to add to it while at another computer.

An interesting site helps deal with both these issues in one fell swoop. If one sets up a "home page" at www.protopage.com, you can then keep lists of frequently used links on that page. You can also keep "post-it" notes on that page, too. You can access and change these items from any computer you are working on that has Internet access. The post-it notes are useful to enter a task or Next Action that you want to remember, and then when you are at the correct computer, access and put into your task management system. Your home page also can allow access to search engines. By setting your personal protopage as your home page on your browser, you can further facilitate quick access to these saved links and notes.

While none of what protopage does is unique, the combination of items is a useful productivity tool.

Link

When You Have No Pen or Paper...

2005-08-20T18:03:00.000-04:00

What can you do when you have no pen or paper handy and you need to write something down? If you have your cell phone handy, one idea is to call yourself, and leave a voice message which you can receive later. You can take this a step further and sign up for a voice mail telephone number using a service like K7 - this service will forward your telephone message to your email inbox which you can read later.

The Philosophy Of Life Hacks

2005-08-19T20:32:00.000-04:00

Interesting article about the philosophies of life hacks and trying to be more productive, from the Financial Times:

The risk of life-hacking is that the time taken to read and absorb the hacks, let alone implement them, hugely outweighs the time they save. (This is true of computer hacks, too; Douglas Adams, no mean hacker in his day, wrote of the seductive delight of tinkering with subroutines that would save seconds each time they were used but took hours to write.) Devotees refer to this sort of thing as 'productivity porn' or, in the argot used by hackers to circumvent bowdlerising software, 'productivity pr0n'. The risk of eternal fiddling with no productive end result is all too real. I could probably increase my productivity at a stroke by not checking the Lifehacker and 43 Folders websites every morning.Life-hacking also runs counter to other productivity methodologies. In most other systems - Stephen Covey's seven habits, for example - the secret is to do less: to identify your ultimate life goals and then to eliminate any activity that does not help you work towards them. Life-hacking, by contrast, simply promises to make the things you do have to do take lesstime. It is a short game of tactical adjustments rather than a long game of vision and strategy.
Which one works for you is perhaps a philosophical rather than a practical question. Which sounds more like your life: a mounting burden of minute tasks to be rolled uphill, or the inviting view of a distant peak? Life- hacking, seen in this way, sounds like the counter-reformation. For its protagonists, however, it is closer to liberation theology.

Link

Creative Whack

2005-08-18T16:34:00.000-04:00

Are you stuck creatively on a project? Creative Think will give you a “whack” that will help dislodge you. Here’s an example:

"I'm not returning until you fix it," bandleader Count Basie told a club owner whose piano was always out of tune. A month later Basie got a call that everything was fine. When he returned, the piano was still out of tune. "You said you fixed it!" an irate Basie shouted. "I did," came the reply. "I had it painted." Are you solving the right problem? Is there a more significant problem you could be addressing?

Smile Reminder Client Reminder Service

2005-08-17T20:32:00.000-04:00

Smile Reminder is a patient messaging software system that provides a secure and effective way for practices to directly communicate with patients by automatically sending personalized, real-time text messages to patients on their cell phones, email addresses, pagers and more.

Consider that 50% of all missed appointments are missed because they are forgotten. Smile Reminder uniquely addresses this problem by sending same day reminders an hour or two before appointments. The messages are extremely effective in that they reach the patient wherever they may be. Smile Reminder is focused on increasing profitability and productivity by reducing no-shows, filling late cancellations and building patient loyalty.

Smile Reminder is a patient messaging software system that provides a secure and effective way for practices to directly communicate with patients by automatically sending personalized, real-time text messages to patients on their cell phones, email addresses, pagers and more.

Not a free service, but one that may pay for itself in avoiding missed appointments for professionals.

Link

Cool/convenient lists to have

2005-08-15T21:39:00.000-04:00

There are critical reminder-type lists that we all need to let our brain relax (re: outcomes and actions). There are other lists, though, that can be useful, fun, and interesting, that fit in the area of 'reference' or 'support.' The David Allen Company provides a number of such lists.

Link

Use the 80/20 Principle

2005-08-11T21:41:00.000-04:00

There is the big pile, the 80 percent pile, that takes a lot of energy but delivers pitiful results, sometimes even making things worse. That is the mass of trivia that surrounds us and normally engulfs our life. We can call this big chuck of our lives the trivial many. Then, there is the small but vital 20 percent pile, which comprises the few things that work brilliantly. The vital few, that bring happiness to you.

Read up on how to apply the 80/20 principle to help you focus on what you should.

Link

ActiveWords and Wikipedia

2005-08-10T19:18:00.000-04:00

For ActiveWord users (and for those of you who aren't, why the heck not?), there is an ActiveWords script to get you right into the search window of Wikipedia, bypassing some preliminary mousing and clicking.

Link

Software to Keep you From Going Off-Task

2005-08-10T19:08:00.000-04:00

Free Software: Temptation Blocker - WebJillion: So, have a major deadline looming or ripe opportunity closing and just don't have time to waste playing Half Life 2 or checking Bloglines one last time? Well then, add Half Life 2 and Firefox to the list of programs you want to block in Temptation Blocker, set the timer for how long you want to block them and then hit the 'Get Work Done!' button.
Now, everytime you try and access Half Life 2 or Firefox, you'll get a dialog box telling you how much time you have left before you can access that program. During this blocked time, you can't access those programs. You also can't access Temptation Blocker during this time without entering in a random, 32-character string. This acts as a deterrent from you getting to your program before time is up, but it also lets you access it if you really need to.

Link

Linux in the palm of your hand?

2005-08-09T21:18:00.000-04:00

The Ubuntu H2 Linux Drive. 135.00 Euros buys you a 3GB USB microdrive with bootable Linux, Open Office, Firefox et al all onboard ready to rock and roll. Just plug in and play. Although it's one of the smallest portable USB drives, the Ubuntu H2 Micro USB drive can easily handle sharing digital photos, MP3s, video clips with friends and even homework. Making it a great way to move files from one computer to the next. Challenging the notion that USB hard drives are just good for portable storage, the Ubuntu H2 is the first USB hard drive with an onboard OS and office software. The device is bootable from any PC with an x86 processor supporting USB boot.

Link: The Red Ferret Journal

Speed Up Your Bathing

2005-08-08T21:55:00.000-04:00

What better way to kick off our new blog on personal productivity links, then a story on speeding up your time in the shower?