Clutter comes at a cost. A room with a lot of clutter takes longer to clean. A cluttered closet can make it nearly impossible to find what you are looking for. If you are looking for the clear tape in a few very cluttered drawers, it might even be faster to drive to the store and buy a new roll instead of trying to find the one you own. In this post we are going to look at 10 ways you can help keep clutter to a minimum. These aren't hard and fast rules--take what is useful to you personally and ignore what isn't. A few brief decisions acting as a de-cluttering superhero can reap long term rewards--particularly when you start fighting clutter at its source before it even makes it into … [Read more...] about 10 Ways to Reduce Clutter
Mark Shead's articles
Mark Shead
The Causes of a Messy Desk
Right now my desk is a complete mess. Now I have a pretty good excuse. I am in the middle of switching over to a new laptop. I'm also in the middle of trying to switch from AT&T to Sprint for cell phone service. An order of sample gifts for clients just came in yesterday. I have rebates from sales that are partially filled out and waiting for additional documentation that is on the way. I'm working with a graphic designer on a new logo, so I have samples stuck to my walls. I don't want to throw away any of the boxes for my new equipment so they are all stuffed under the desk or on a bookshelf. Etc. etc. I'd like to say that the picture above is just something I found on Flickr. … [Read more...] about The Causes of a Messy Desk
Personal Outsourcing Caveats
Asian Efficiency has a nice post on personal outsourcing. The article makes some good points, but it falls into a few common traps. I'd recommend reading the article and then coming back here to read my list of gotchas when it comes to personal outsourcing. 1. Not all of your time is valued the same It is easy to assume that if you make $20 per hour, any task that you can pay someone $10 per hour to complete should be outsourced. My normal rate for consulting is $145 per hour. If I was to apply this logic, there are very few things I'd do for myself. But, I have a limited number of hours each month that are worth my $145 rate. Those are my best and highest performance hours. Even if I … [Read more...] about Personal Outsourcing Caveats
Do The Work – Review and Free Book
Steven Pressfield is the author of a number of books including The Legend of Bagger Vance and War of Art. His newest book Do The Work walks you through a process for getting work done. This quote gives you a good idea of what you'll find in the book. Our enemy is not lack of preparation; it's not the difficulty of the project, or the state of the marketplace or the emptiness of our bank account. The enemy is resistance. The enemy is our chattering brain, which, if we give it so much as a nanosecond, will start producing excuses, alibis, transparent self-excuses, alibis, transparent self-justifications and a million reasons why he can't/shouldn't/won't do what we know we need to … [Read more...] about Do The Work – Review and Free Book
Excel Transpose Trick
This one minute video shows you how to take a list of items in a column and copy it to a row. It is pretty simple, but when you need it this can really save you a lot of time. … [Read more...] about Excel Transpose Trick
Should he drop out of college?
In a recent conversation, I had a friend explain how he was trying to talk someone out of going to college. The young man he was referring to was going to a community college to appease his mother who wanted him to go to a university. He was talented at computer repair and my friend thought he should drop out and focus on acquiring more computer troubleshooting skills. I disagree with my friend's assessment, but it made me wonder why I value college education so much. Surely there is something to be said for someone who enters the workforce and learns everything then need to know through on the job experience. Is my belief that getting a degree is better rational or is it just … [Read more...] about Should he drop out of college?
Personal MBA
Josh Kaufman sent me his new book The Personal MBA. His "Personal MBA" started out as list of recommended reading for someone who wanted to really learn how business works, but wasn't sure an MBA was really worth it. The list grew with input from others and now consists of this list organized by topic along with reviews of each book. Eventually Josh decided to distill what he had learned into his own book and the result was The Personal MBA. I think the book is excellent. He first talks about his quest for learning how businesses really work and lays out a pretty effective argument that top MBA degree programs are: A poor investment - If you use the things … [Read more...] about Personal MBA
5 Simple Networking Tips
As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, the importance of who you know keeps going up. Here are five tips for cultivating and growing your network. Note: I don't advocate doing any of this to simply take advantage of other people. Networking only works if you are genuinely interested in the people you are trying to connect with. If you try to fake it just to get favors from people, everyone will know. 1. Use Social Networking Tools Sites like Facebook and Linked In make it easy to find people you've known in the past. In particular, the ability to look at the friends of your current friends can save you a lot of time in hunting down acquaintances from school or previous … [Read more...] about 5 Simple Networking Tips
Un-Procrastination Book by Leo Babauta
Leo Babauta has written a nice little ebook called Un-Procrastination. If you struggle with procrastination this is a very good resource. I've seen a lot of stuff written on procrastination that basically says, "I never procrastinate and here is how to be like me." Leo is a bit more realistic and admits that sometimes he even likes to procrastinate. In spite of that he has been able to accomplish a tremendous amount of work by following the suggestions in his book. One tip that I think is particularly helpful is to make sure you really want to do something. I've touched on this idea before in When Procrastination is a Good Thing. Leo also discusses how to deal with the Internet and … [Read more...] about Un-Procrastination Book by Leo Babauta
Questions and Answers
Looking at my web stats, here are some of the frequent questions people end up coming to Productivity501 searching for. In this post, I simply wanted to list them in one place to make it easier for people to find the answers to frequently asked questions. What is a professional email address? A professional email address is something that you feel comfortable giving out to someone who might want to offer you a job. [email protected] is NOT a professional email address. A professional email address looks best when it is from your own domain. So [email protected] looks very professional. However, using gmail or another service can look professional as well. Something like … [Read more...] about Questions and Answers
7 Ways To Upgrade Your Brain
If you like this article, please share it with your friends on your blog, email, a thumbs up on StumbleUpon, Facebook or however else you share links. A person's mind is their most powerful tool. Yet very few people take intentional steps toward "upgrading" their brain and trying to become smarter. Here are some scary statistics from an article in The Economist: In 1991 a worker with a bachelors degree earned 2.5 times as much as a high-school drop out. In 2010 a worker with a bachelors degree earned 3 times as much as a high-school drop out. There is an obvious trend toward paying people who have "upgraded their brain" more money. This probably isn't too surprising, but … [Read more...] about 7 Ways To Upgrade Your Brain
Read Stuff You Don’t Understand
If you want to grow you must push yourself beyond where you are at. Sometimes this means reading material that you don't completely understand. Obviously you can't pickup a book in a completely foreign language and expect to get anything out of it, but you can pickup a book on a topic where you don't really have the right prerequisite knowledge to understand 100% of the content and still learn a lot. Lets say you are reading something where 25% of it is completely foreign to you. By foreign I mean that you understand the words, but you don't really understand what is being said. Many people would consider this a waste--because you don't understand it. However, your mind is a … [Read more...] about Read Stuff You Don’t Understand
American Express Concierge
American Express Concierge and Restaurants One of the best experiences I've had with American Express Concierge service was early in 2011 when spending a few days in Kansas City for my wife's birthday. On a whim, we decided to visit the Country Club Plaza and noticed a restaurant called Fugo de Chao. It is a place where they bring skewers of meat around through the dining area and cut off pieces at your table. My wife had been to one of their restaurants as a teenager in Brazil and had very fond memories. Unfortunately we were told that there was a 2 to 3 hour wait for "walk-ins". The staff suggested that we get our name on the list and check back in two hours to get a pager. We … [Read more...] about American Express Concierge
Your Money or Your Life
A number of years ago, I was managing the IT department for a large non-profit and I had an opportunity to interview for a well funded startup airline. The airline was just launching and they were going to fly me out to New York to interview for heading up their IT support services. Their plan was to go public within a few years, which at the time looked like it would be very financially rewarding for the early employees. From a money perspective it looked like a great opportunity. However, the more my wife and I talked about it, the more we realized that we'd be trading a significant part of our life away for more money. While this wasn't necessarily a bad thing--everyone does this … [Read more...] about Your Money or Your Life
Questions about Online Degrees
Here are some of the questions I've received from readers about online degrees. Most of these were prompted by my post about getting my masters degree from Harvard's Extension School. So would you recommend the Harvard Extension School program? ~ Dana Yes. If they have a degree that fits your needs and you can meet the residency requirement, the Harvard Extension School offers some of the best value in education that I'm aware of. Be aware that some of the students who are full time on campus have a negative view of the Extension School students. One of the main complaints I've heard is that it is too easy to get into the Extension School. Some students feels that their acceptance into … [Read more...] about Questions about Online Degrees
Skill vs. Better Tools
I have been doing quite a bit of programming over the past few months. Last night I took a few hours to see if I could find some better tools. I tried out a different programming environment and tested some tweaks to Eclipse (the program I currently use for programming). My goal was to see if I could find a way to get my tools to help autocomplete certain parts of the code I was typing into the web templates. For example, if I start to type " I found a few things that look promising, but I couldn't find anything that worked automatically out of the box. I started wondering if it was worth spending those hours looking for a better tool. What if I had of spent two hours in just … [Read more...] about Skill vs. Better Tools
When Procrastination is a Good Thing
Most of us think of procrastination as a bad thing--something we should avoid, but that isn't always the case. People focus too much on the task or job that is not getting completed, but you can't tell if procrastination is good or bad by looking at what isn't getting done--you have to look at what is getting done instead. For example, if instead of writing this post, I start fiddling around on the Internet and spend a mindless hour on social sites or reading jokes, that is probably a bad thing. This post is more valuable to me than an hour wasted on the Internet. However, if I decided I don't really want to write this post and instead decide that it is nice enough outside that I … [Read more...] about When Procrastination is a Good Thing
iPod Giveaway
Congratulations to Violeta on winning the iPod. If you are interested in other contests, go ahead and enter so you'll be notified when they run. We should be doing another one in the next few weeks. We haven't given anything away for awhile, so I thought it is about time we did another contest. Here are the details: The iPod is going to be given away to one person who likes both Productivity501 and Mark Shead's page on Facebook. If you have already liked both pages, you are already entered in the contest. If either page gets over 750 "likes" we'll give away two iPods to two different people. (So sharing the contest with your friends may double the number of prizes given out … [Read more...] about iPod Giveaway
Understanding Taxes
When it comes to your finances, there are few things you can do that are as beneficial as really understanding taxes and keeping up with current tax law. Most people don't realize just how much they pay in taxes every year. The government is always coming up with various schemes to get you to do this or that and most of the time they try to motivate you by giving you some type of tax rebate or credit. In the past year, I've been able to save over $15,000 simply by paying attention to the changes tax laws and taking advantage of different credits, lower tax rates, etc. That may or may not seem like a lot of money, but considering the average household income where we live is in the … [Read more...] about Understanding Taxes
How to deal with a boring job
Reader question: My job is driving me crazy! I work in tech support, so I'm mostly getting paid to be there if there are any problems that come up. This means many days I'm just sitting there dinking around on the internet for 2 or 3 hours at a time. This might be a dream job for some people, but I feel like I'm losing my skills. I'd look for another job, but I think my place is pretty secure here and I don't want to risk going somewhere else only to get let go in a bad economy. Do you have any suggestions for me? Brad Those are some good questions. I've previously talked about figuring out your work zone to help decide when it is time to leave a company and … [Read more...] about How to deal with a boring job
Lifehacker Password Hacked
You've got to appreciate some of the irony in that title. Lifehacker is part of the Gawker group of websites. Some hackers got into their system and downloaded their database and source code. They also ran some scripts agains the database and were able to find nearly 200,000 people who were using passwords that weren't very strong. I had an account on Lifehacker from years ago. Since I didn't consider it a huge security issue I used a simple five letter, single word password. Since it was easy to break this password, my username, password and email address was part of the roughly 200,000 released in decrypted form on the web. I panicked just a bit when I saw my password on the list. … [Read more...] about Lifehacker Password Hacked
Book Summaries Sale
Some time back I mentioned the free book summary from Soundview. It looks like they are running a sale where you can buy one subscription and get another subscription free to give as a gift. If you have a hard to buy for person on your shopping list AND you were thinking about getting a subscription for yourself, this could be a pretty good deal. Soundview Executive Book Summaries: Buy 1 Gift Subscription and Get 1 FREE! … [Read more...] about Book Summaries Sale
Online Degree Programs
Over the next ten years, I believe we are going to see an ever increasing shift toward online degree programs in areas where people have traditionally attended a physical university. There are a number of obvious reasons for this trend, but here are a few: Low cost to scale - A well designed online degree program may have a high fixed cost, but a low-cost to add an additional student. The cost to provide a degree program to 20 students vs. 40 students requires a much smaller percentage increase than doubling the number of student physically coming to class. Tighter focus on education - Online degree programs tend to be much more focused on the actual educational process with less of a … [Read more...] about Online Degree Programs
SpiderOak Storage and Backup Review
SpiderOak offers a service similar to Dropbox. However, where Dropbox seems to be concentrating on ease of use and simplicity, SpiderOak seems focused on creating powerful software with many different options. The downside is that SpiderOak isn't something you are probably going to have your grandma setup for herself. The upside is that it lets you do all kinds of things that aren't possible with DropBox. DropBox gives you a folder that you can sync across computers. This works well and provides a very simple mental paradigm. "I put something in the folder on Computer A and it shows up on that folder on Computer B. Spider Oak lets you backup arbitrary folders and lets you specify … [Read more...] about SpiderOak Storage and Backup Review
Executive MBA Programs
When I wrote Never Hire an MBA, I think some people thought I was recommending against any type of MBA degree. This isn't the case. If anything the arguments in that post would support the idea that an MBA is valuable. My main point was that employers need to make sure they don't get blinded by the MBA credentials and make sure they are hiring people with more than just a diploma. If you are an employee looking at an MBA, you have quite a few options. In this post I want to discuss executive MBA programs and how one of these programs might support your career goals. Executive MBA programs are designed for people with experience who are in the middle of successful careers and don't … [Read more...] about Executive MBA Programs
Self Directed IRAs
I've been learning a bit more about Individual Retirement Accounts and wanted to share a few things I've learned about how flexible IRAs actually are. Obviously talk to a qualified financial advisor before acting on anything you see here. If I got anything wrong, please let me know in the comments where everyone can read it. Most people think of IRAs as being something you can invest in stocks, bonds, mutual funds and that is about it. If you really look at the law, it is much more generic than that. In fact the actual tax law only lists a handful of things that IRA can not be invested in. Here is the list: Artwork Gems Antiques Coins Life Insurance … [Read more...] about Self Directed IRAs
Starting College
With school in full swing again it seemed like a good time to do a post geared toward helping people who are experiencing college for the first time. If you aren't in college, but know someone who is, please consider passing these tips on to them. Learn outside the classroom What you learn in the classroom will only be a very small part of your college education. It is easy to get so focused on the formal side of education that you miss out on learning from everything that is going on around you. College is a great place to learn how to interact with people from different backgrounds and cultures, deal with strange and difficult people, and negotiate. Too often, students overlook the … [Read more...] about Starting College
What is Holding You Back?
What is keeping you from reaching your full potential? Think of four or five things that are really holding you back. Better yet, write them down on that scrap of paper sitting on your desk. Did you write them down? Why not? Go ahead and do it. I'm not going anywhere. Did you write them down now? Ok good. Now, take a look at what you wrote down and divide them into two groups. Things you can control. Things you cannot control. In general I find that people who accomplish very little tend to see all of their obstacles in the second category, while people who achieve things see obstacles in the first category. In other word, successful people understand that they are the … [Read more...] about What is Holding You Back?
Messy Organization
Not all organization effort is equal. Just because you organize something, doesn't mean it is going to make you any more productive. If you pay attention to the cost benefit of organization, you can keep from wasting time and focus on efforts that are actually beneficial. Lets talk about silverware as an example. Assume that after you run your silverware through the dishwasher you randomly place each piece somewhere in your house. You put some in the drawers in the bathrooms, others on top of books on the bookshelf, some above the fireplace, some in the refrigerator, etc. In other words your silverware storage is totally disorganized. Is that efficient? No of course not. Whenever you … [Read more...] about Messy Organization
Life Insurance
Shortly after my wife and I got married, I took out life insurance policy. When our second child arrived, I took out another policy just to make sure my family would be cared for if something were to happen to me. I started writing this post around that time and never got around to publishing it. When I heard the story below about two people I went to college with, it prompted me to dig this post out and go ahead and publish it. A few months ago, two brothers who I went to college with entered the hospital. The older brother had a liver problem and the younger brother was going to donate part of his liver. (Your liver is one of the only organs that will grow back.) I don't know exactly … [Read more...] about Life Insurance
Free Book Summary
I really enjoyed the book Talent is Overrated. It looks at how great achievers get and keep their high level of skill and talks about the need for specific intentional practice. If it sounds like a book you'd be interested in, you might checkout this free summary you can get in audio or written form. … [Read more...] about Free Book Summary
Craigslist Negotiating Secrets
Depending on your point of view, Craigslist is a cesspool of junk or a treasure trove of riches. CraigsList can offer some great deals if you know how to negotiate effectively. I've been compiling a list of best practices to help buyers get the best deal from Craigslist purchases. The bulk of this article is going to focus on a process for getting the best price on CraigsList items based on my experience. In the second section, I go through an actual email exchange to show how to offer substantially less than the asking price without insulting anyone. In the remaining sections of this post, I'm going to look at some other aspects of buying off CraigsList including a look at … [Read more...] about Craigslist Negotiating Secrets
Beware of False Praise
Every one likes to hear how awesome they are. I like it. You like it. One of the best things you can do to advance your career is to sincerely compliment the things you admire in the people around you. The key here is the word sincerely. However, you need to be very aware of praise that is being given to you with ulterior motives. Some people will try to flatter you just to get on your good side. Others will outright lie in hopes of getting you to make a mistake or look foolish. In 2003 there was a singing competition held in several major cities around the US. Contestants were selected, flown to Hollywood to take part in a competition. They were given vocal coaching, makeovers … [Read more...] about Beware of False Praise
Useful Links
Here are a few things I've run across that I thought might be worth sharing. If you find these types of things useful, you might want to subscribe to my personal blog at http://blog.markwshead.com. These are some of the types of things I usually post over there that may or may not eventually make it to Productivity501. Look for the red button on the right hand side to subscribe by email, or use an RSS reader. Charcoal Bob Charcoal Bob is a website designed to help you grill food. The main feature is a grilling calculator. You tell it everything you want to grill, what the temperature is outside, what type of grill you have, and when you want to eat and it will give you a minute by … [Read more...] about Useful Links
Be Brilliant
Are you average or above average? By definition, you are probably average although I like to assume that most readers of Productivity501 are above average. But for the moment, lets assume you are average. How can you become above average? Time is the great equalizer. Everyone has the same amount of time--whether you are average, below average or above average. The simple difference between people who are average and those who are above average is that above average people spend more time on the things that really matter. While this is simple to state, identifying the things that are really important and that really matter can be surprisingly. When Bill Gates dropped … [Read more...] about Be Brilliant
Money Myths
The older I get and the more people I meet, the more I come to realize that biggest thing that determines your level of financial freedom has to do with your beliefs about money. I'm not talking about the "if you think positive thoughts, you'll become rich" line of thinking. I'm talking about our expectations related to how we get money, what happens when we receive money, what are good ways to spend money, how you define wealth, etc. Here are some common myths about money: When I receive money, someone else loses it. From a total economic perspective, money represents productivity and productivity is not a zero sum game. A zero sum game is one where in order for me to win, someone … [Read more...] about Money Myths
Reader Questions
Here are some random question we've had from visitors to this site along with some attempts at answers: How does a paperless office work? A paperless office means different things to different people. Some people consider themselves paperless if they aren't storing any paper. Other people are trying to keep from producing or consuming paper. I once worked at a hospital that switched to a paperless system in order to save a couple million dollars in medical records storage space. They still produced and consumed paper, but the eliminated the storage part. Most people who want to move to a paperless office are going to try to find some way to scan in their existing documents so storage … [Read more...] about Reader Questions
Work From Home Tips
1. Go to work When you work from home, your workspace may be just down the hall, but you still need to intentionally go to work when you are ready to start your day. Some people will walk around the block go to work in their home office and then walk around the block to "go home" at the end of the day. It may seem silly, but you will be much more productive by making a concrete breaking point between when you are at work and when you are off. You can still take advantage of a zero commute by breaking your day up and perhaps doing a few equivalent hours of work late in the evening or early in the morning--just be intentional about it. You don't want to get into a situation where your work … [Read more...] about Work From Home Tips
TIP: Where Do I Look For It?
When it comes to organizing your stuff, most people deal with every item and ask "Where do I put this"? This is not the question to ask. When you go to look for the item you may or may not be able to remember the answer to the question "Where do I put this?" The real question to ask yourself is "Where will I look for this when I need it?" There seems to be a big separation between the way the brain makes connections when you are trying to store something and when you are trying to retrieve it. This makes sense because when you ask yourself "Where do I put this?" your brain is going to start thinking in terms of size, available storage space, danger to surrounding objects, etc. … [Read more...] about TIP: Where Do I Look For It?
Graduate School Options
Graduate school is the next academic step after getting a bachelor's degree. Graduate schools award masters and doctorate and several other types of recognition. In this post, we are going to look at some of the different types of graduate school options and talk about what each one entails and how it benefits you in the job market. Graduate Citation A graduate citation isn't a degree, but it recognizes the completion of a collection of classes on a particular topic. A graduate citation is similar to a certificate (see below), but smaller in scope. It is the smallest unit of work you can do beyond a single class that is formally recognized. It generally requires three or four … [Read more...] about Graduate School Options
Solving the Wrong Problems
It is amazing how good people are at problem solving. Think of all the inventions and methods people have come up with to fix everything from minor annoyances to large scale worldwide problems. Even as good as everyone seems to be at solving problems, we are notoriously bad at identifying the correct problem to solve. Let me give a few examples. Aviation safety Our public aviation security in the US is based around the idea of keeping bad stuff off airplanes. The idea is that if we can keep anything dangerous off planes, we will be safe. Lots of problem solving effort has gone into keeping dangerous stuff off planes, but is that the real problem? There is stuff all over in a plane … [Read more...] about Solving the Wrong Problems
Other Side of Productivity
Occasionally I'll get some criticism that I'm too focused on productivity. People say that I need to lighten up, etc. The problem is that on this site we focus on productivity--not on what to do with the free time that being productive buys you. Here is a short video about enjoying the fruits of productivity--free time to do things with family. (If you want to more of the other side, you can checkout my personal blog.) The Other Side of Productivity from Productivity501 on Vimeo. It's great to strive for efficiency, but it is also important to make sure that being above average in what you accomplish buys your above average rewards. … [Read more...] about Other Side of Productivity
My Company Newsletter
My company spends about 25% of our effort doing consulting with other businesses to help them become more productive and efficient. If your job encompasses any type of business responsibility, you'll probably benefit by signing up for my monthly business newsletter. The content covers a wide range of business and technology information that will help you make better decisions, avoid dangerous technology mistakes and make your business operations more efficient. You can sign up using the form below (you may need to click through to the website if viewing in RSS or email) or go to my company site and sign up in the right sidebar: Xeric Corporation Xeric Corporation … [Read more...] about My Company Newsletter
The Sacred To-do List
Everyone is familiar with a to-do list, but most people don't really understand the importance of having a list of the things you want to accomplish. Creating a to-do list is creating a list of goals. The list tells you what you need to do to achieve some larger outcome in your life. The power isn't so much in the list itself, but in the overall goal it helps you to achieve. A list is a way to break down your life goals into easy manageable steps that you can complete in a specific amount of time. In this sense, your list becomes a guide showing you how to succeed in life. The way most people start off creating to-do lists, isn't particularly effective. It is easy to end up with … [Read more...] about The Sacred To-do List
Productivity501 Design Update
I've updated the design of Productivity501, please check it out and let me know what you think. In particular, let me know if you see anything that looks wrong or needs fixed. The design is similar to the original so you may not notice too many changes. The biggest differences are in the ways the site deals with images--it will now autosize images so we don't have to do quite as much work in an image editor. Let me know what you think! Also if anyone has suggestions for improvement, please let me know. I can't change to match every suggestion I get, but I'd appreciate any feedback about any aspect of the site. It helps me plan ahead for the next time we revamp the design. For anyone … [Read more...] about Productivity501 Design Update
Power of Routines
Routines are a simple method to guarantee that you do the same thing at the same time in the same way every day. Routines allow you to decide ahead of time what you are going to do, make the decision once, and then spend all of your effort executing rather than pondering what you should do next. Here are some examples of beneficial routines: Reading something helpful for your career for 15 minutes each day during your lunch break. Going for a 30 minute walk every evening. An hour first thing in the morning spent with 15 minutes organizing your desk, 15 minutes sending networking emails and 30 minutes writing for your blog, Those are just some simple examples, but the point is to … [Read more...] about Power of Routines
Letting Go of Paper
I've been surprised at how difficult it is to let go of my paper. As I move more and more of my paper to a digital format I keep finding myself hesitating when I get ready to shred a document. We are trained so very well to keep our paper records. Has anyone else experienced this? I think part of the issue is that most people have suffered some type of data loss with their computer. Even though I have multiple systems in place for backup I'm still haunted by losing important files years ago. Another issue is the physicalness of paper. You can hold paper in your hand. Spread it out. Write notes in the margin, etc. Not that I ever do that with my car insurance statement or gas … [Read more...] about Letting Go of Paper
Apple’s Patent on Destroying Productivity
Apple has a patent for displaying ads in an operating system. Basically, ads would pop up and prevent you from doing work every once in awhile. The patent shows a mechanism where the ads could be delayed for 10 minutes or you could view one immediately so it won't interrupt you for a bit longer. What do you think? Are people so accustomed to being interrupted during work that they would accept something like this? … [Read more...] about Apple’s Patent on Destroying Productivity
Fire (or keep) the Workaholics
A while back Jason Calacanis made a list of things to save money in a startup. One of his points was to fire people who aren't workaholics. David from 37 Signals responded with a post saying that you should fire the people who are workaholics. Since then Jason has changed his position, but the idea of how much time you should expect employees to dedicate to their work is thought provoking. Both of these posts are worth reading--even if you have no intention of starting a business yourself. Behind the work you do is a problem that needs solved. Your work solves this problem. Your paycheck reflects that somewhere in the value chain, someone is willing to pay for your ability to solve … [Read more...] about Fire (or keep) the Workaholics
Evernote Book
Brett Kelly has written a book called Evernote Essentials. If you've been considering using Evernote, this Evernote book is the guide you'll want to makes you are getting the most out of it. The PDF is well illustrated and covers a lot of the details that you probably won't discover on your own. It took me about 3 minutes of skimming through the book to discover 5 huge timesavers that I didn't previously know about. The book isn't just limited to Evernote. It shows you how to integrate other services as well. For example, there are detailed instructions showing how to set up Gmail to automatically log receipts from Amazon purchases into Evernote. The PDF book is $25 and is highly … [Read more...] about Evernote Book