Mark Shead&#039;s articles

Since we've nearly doubled our audience in the past few weeks, I wanted to post some links to some older content that has been popular in the past. If you enjoy reading this site, I'd encourage you to refer a friend. A great way to invite someone is to let them know about our current iPod Shuffle giveaway. Here are links to some of the more popular articles from this site over the past year: … [Read more...] about Past Favorites

Work Less, Accomplish More

In the United States, most people are paid for their time instead of for their work. In many other cultures this is unheard of. A young man from Africa was going to college in the U.S. and his land lady hired him to dig a ditch. She was going to pay him a reasonable amount per hour. He was horrified! Why would she pay him per hour? Time didn't represent the amount of work that was actually accomplished. Having a finished ditch was a much better measurement of work. If he went slow it would be easier and he'd make more money. If he worked quickly, it would be harder and he'd make less. They eventually reached an agreement, he dug the ditch and was paid a fair rate. This young … [Read more...] about Work Less, Accomplish More

Subscription Contest

By Mark Shead 10 Comments

Edit: Since we didn't have a winner the contest has been revised slightly because we really want to give away an iPod! Another recent feature of Productive Strategies is the ability to get new posts once a day as an email. The email list is managed by FeedBurner. To subscribe just add your email address to the form on the right hand column of the blog. See it over there? Just fill in your email address and you'll be signed up so you'll never miss a new post here. So you're still reading this? Why aren't you over on the side panel filling in your email address? Ok well maybe you need a little more incentive to type your email address into that little box. What … [Read more...] about Subscription Contest

Getting the Most out of Podcast Lectures

The list of podcast lectures has generated quite a bit of traffic to this site. I've spent quite a bit of time listing to audio lectures and taking other forms of distance education from various universities. It can be challenging to keep focused on difficult topics, when you don't have the visual input from actually being in a classroom. Personally I prefer to be in a classroom, but at some point in life, having a job and earning a living starts becoming a bigger priority. Audio lectures can be a huge advantage for those of us who can't attend school full time. Here are seven tips that help me keep my mind engaged to get the most out of audio only lectures: Decide what you want to … [Read more...] about Getting the Most out of Podcast Lectures

Free Academic Podcasts

By Mark Shead 42 Comments

About a year ago, I put together a listing 30 or 40 free podcasts of lectures from Universities. When I started putting together another list, I was amazed at how many more lectures are available. The lectures in this list are all free and don't require any type of authentication--you don't have to be a student to download them. The links are to the rss feed of class lectures. If you copy the URL and in iTunes click on Advanced > Subscribe to Podcast it will automatically download the lectures and new ones as they become available. I was hoping to find the Physics of Superheros in the list or a Pottery lecture. Maybe next year. Also be sure to checkout our study tips for students … [Read more...] about Free Academic Podcasts

Contest Winner

Congratulations to Barrett in Indiana on wining the Effective Executive book contest! We didn't have as many entries as I was expecting (considering we have about 100 people check the site every day in their RSS readers). All in all that says something about the audience of this site. I think most people who are interested in a blog about how to be productive, don't have time to add something else to their reading list. I guess we might do better with a contest that gives the winner an extra 30 minutes of free time. :) We'll probably do some more contests in the future that are targeted at people who already have a full reading list. … [Read more...] about Contest Winner

Contest: The Effective Executive Book

For quite awhile I've been meaning to run a contest giving away a book on being effective and productive. So here it is, we are giving away a copy of The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker. This book talks about how to be effective as an executive. Drucker defines executive as someone who is responsible for their contribution. Even if you aren't officially an executive at work, the fact that you are reading a blog on productivity means you do take responsibility for what you accomplish. The book talks about the need to focus on doing the right things. I found it to be very insightful and I've given away several copies to friends already. Ok for the … [Read more...] about Contest: The Effective Executive Book

Decisions in Advance take two

Today I was skimming an article on LifeHack.org that referenced another article. The quote made some good points, but it seemed vaguely familiar. On a closer reading I realized that it was a link to and quote from my article from this site about making decisions ahead of time. Reading it in this way gave me a fresh perspective and some other ideas on how to make decisions in advance. … [Read more...] about Decisions in Advance take two

Optimal Time for Productivity

Often times our productivity on a given task is very much tied to the time of day. For example, I find that exercising in the afternoon seems to work best for me because it lets me unwind from the day. I've always found it odd that my most productive times for programming are after 10pm. There are obviously advantages to doing things late in the evening--fewer distractions, etc. However, even when I'm not going to be interrupted during the day, I still can't seem to get into the "zone" as much as I can late at night. I think I've finally solved the mystery. When I'm working on a task that where I don't know how long it will take, I generally do better when I don't have any hard and … [Read more...] about Optimal Time for Productivity

Large Monitor = More Productivity

Apple hired a company to study the productivity impact of using a 30 inch monitor as compared to a 20 inch and 17 inch monitor. The results indicate that a user on a 30 inch monitor will save about 1.3 hours per week over a user on a 17 inch monitor. The report is based on what they consider to be normal usage. This isn't a huge productivity gain, but it might make it a little easier to justify upgrading your monitor. Also, even small productivity gains add up. At 1.3 hours per week, you'll be getting over half a day of savings each month. Depending on your work, the savings in productivity could be much greater. If you work with many different applications at the same time while … [Read more...] about Large Monitor = More Productivity

About

Productivity501 is a site dedicated to bringing you regular tips and tricks to help increase your personal productivity. This site focuses on original content, so the publication schedule is a little slower than other blogs out there. Generally we try to have at least one new article each week, but the focus is on posting when we have something that will benefit our readers. Author: Mark W. Shead - I work as a consultant using technology to solve business problems. This blog is a place where I can share ideas that help me be more effective in my practice that (hopefully) will be useful to others as well. Most of my formal education has been in music composition and software … [Read more...] about About

Tools that Waste Productivity

By Mark Shead 5 Comments

I got a Blackberry cell phone the other day, thinking that it would help me move to new levels of being super productive. So far, it has done the exact opposite. The device pretty much works as expected, but at least so far it hasn't made me any more productive. In fact, I feel that my 7100t Blackberry has made me less productive. First of all, there is the set up time. I've spent 2 to 4 hours just getting it configured with my email accounts, setting up the service with T-Mobile and learning how it works. While this doesn't seem like a whole lot of time, it seems like quite an investment for what the Blackberry can save me. If the device saves me 2 minutes each day, it will take me … [Read more...] about Tools that Waste Productivity

Productive Housing

Once upon a time we sold our house and moved into a nearby apartment complex. It was interesting adjusting to living in 1/5th the amount of space. There were some significant differences in how much free time we had available. Maintenance is handled by placing a phone call. It doesn't require any time on my part to try to fix something or to locate and hire a repair person. Snow removal is done by the apartment managers. I don't have to get up early to shovel. Less house to clean. It is a lot faster to clean 500 sq ft. than 2,500. Less paperwork. While it didn't take up too much time, there is definitely more paperwork involving a house. Of course, I still miss our house … [Read more...] about Productive Housing

Paperless Office

There is a stack of papers on my desk in need of filing (review, signatures, etc). Today, as I prepared to tackle the mundane job of sorting through all the paper, I wondered what became of the paperless office that new technology was supposed to enable. I'm practical. I don't think we are going to ever do away with paper entirely. But as I looked at the stack, I thought there had to be a better way to deal with all this information. I decided to go through the paper and see how much of it could actually be handled better in a "paperless" way. What follows is a list of my notes on how I can make my life more paperless: Blockbuster Online DVD - While this isn't necessarily … [Read more...] about Paperless Office

List of Academic Lecture Podcasts

By Mark Shead 23 Comments

This list has been updated for 2006. Here is the new list of academic podcasts you can listen to for free. I discovered early on that an iPod or MP3 player full of good spoken audio content went a long way toward keeping me productive when traveling, doing yard work, exercising, etc, but the charges from audible.com and buying CDs adds up quickly. Podcasts can automate the process of getting content and lower the cost, but much of the content available has more in common with radio entertainment than a well written book. Several universities are making lectures available as Podcasts. Not every class is work well on an iPod, but the content is much more directed toward people who want to … [Read more...] about List of Academic Lecture Podcasts

Writing Down Goals

Marston online has some comments on research related to productivity. The most interesting comment was: The researchers wanted to know what accounted for the dramatic difference between that top 3 percent and the others. They found that of all the possible variables, the only difference between the top performers and the rest was the the top 3% wrote down their goals. The research was done by the Ford Foundation, but I haven't been able to locate that particular study. … [Read more...] about Writing Down Goals

Some New Tools

By Mark Shead 2 Comments

YackPack is a tool to communicate with people in your "circle". It lets you click on someone and record a message for them to hear when they next log on. The founder has a PhD. in Physicology and the product was built as a solution to the disconnect that happens when groups communicate exclusively by email. Currently the product is free in its beta form. ActiveWords helps cut down on the time it takes to accomplish work with your PC. It allows you to type in a single word and push a button to do something. For example, you can type in "word" and push F8 to launch Microsoft Word. In some ways it brings the speed of working at a command line back to the computer. It also has the … [Read more...] about Some New Tools

Work vs. Time

A great deal of productivity is lost because people focus on time instead of work. It isn't the amount of time spent on a task that matters--it is the amount of work that is accomplished. Unfortunately, time is often the easiest thing to measure. Because it is easy to measure, most people are paid for their time instead of what they actually accomplish. Of course, in some rough way, time does translate into work. You can usually get more done in 2 hours than you can in 1, but the time element isn't where the focus should be. It is easy to spend 2 hours without really accomplishing anything significant. When we are focused on time instead of work, we tend to do the tasks that … [Read more...] about Work vs. Time

Collaborative Note Taking – SubEthaEdit

SubEthaEdit is a tool that allows several people to take notes simultaneously in the same document. While it doesn't work in every situation, it can be a surprisingly good way to capture everyone's point of view quickly and without interrupting the flow of the meeting. The example above shows SubEthaEdit being used to write a program with multiple people contributing at the same time. Each person's changes show up in their color and you can see the changes they are making in real time. SubEthaEdit is designed to create plain text files, so you can't do any fancy formatting, but for large groups of people, this helps keep the documents consistent. The newest version allows you to … [Read more...] about Collaborative Note Taking – SubEthaEdit

Links and Tools Roundup