Archives for March 2007

Previously we did a series of 5 posts called the Most for Your Minute on time management issues. Here are links to each of the five posts along with their titles. Time is an Investment The Order of Tasks Invest in Technology Simplicity Organization FYI: You can get Productivity501 fed directly into Google Reader and Desktop here: … [Read more...] about The Most for your Minute Posts

The March April edition of The Futurist has a short interview with John Robinson.  John has been studying how people spend their time for many years and was one of the pioneers of keeping time journals to help measure where your time is being spent. One of the things that seems to be changing the most is the way people are multi-tasking.  It is making the ability to track where people are spending their time much more difficult.  Beyond just making his job more difficult, he is concerned that multi-tasking is training people to be unable to concentrate on a single task in ways that are unhealthy. Other researchers are noticing the same thing especially in the younger … [Read more...] about A Time Expert’s Perspective

Since we recently moved, I had a chance to revamp the way my desk was organized.  Today, it suddenly occurred to me that some of my setup made absolutely no sense at all.  I had arranged things so it would look nice, but things that needed to be in reach were too far away and things I didn't need to ever touch were close by. For example, my phone was back in a corner of my desk where I couldn't reach it.  My wireless router was within easy reach.  The thing that amazed me the most is how long it took me to actually stop and think about how things were arranged. So here is a challenge for you.  Take 30 seconds and look at your desk top.  Are the things you need often within close … [Read more...] about Within Reach

The open in tabs command is a shortcut to opening multiple sites simultaneously.  This is a good technique when you want to be able to quickly open multiple sites.  I use this for opening daily news sites as well as the statistics pages for several of my servers.  This video shows how it works. Let me know what you think of the video and if you have any suggestions.  I'm still playing around with it and would appreciate any feedback. … [Read more...] about Firefox Tip: Open in Tabs

The iPod contest is providing valuable feedback on the Productivity501 website.  I wanted to share the comments we've received so far and I figured a Saturday post was a good place to do this.  If you aren't interested then skip this post as it is more about the site and less about actual productivity tips. However, if you'd like to see the debate about whether or not my photo is "creepy", read on. If you have any suggestions or comments about the suggestions below, please put them in the comments. (Or consider writing a review on your own site for a chance to win an iPod Shuffle.) John Chow thought the picture made the blog seem personable, but thought I should post more frequently. … [Read more...] about A Review of Reviews

Most people will change careers several times in their life, so it is difficult to use college to directly prepare for your career. Think of how many problems the average person has with modern technology.  Things are just so complex that to someone unfamiliar with them, it can be difficult to change your thinking.  This video illustrates a new technology being introduced.  Take a look at it below. … [Read more...] about Preparing for New Technology

Email has become a part of our daily lives.  For some people, 75% of their work time is spent just dealing with email.  Many executives have to block out hours each day, just to keep up with all the information coming into  on email.  The ease of sending email has lowered some of the barriers to communication.  On one hand this is a good thing because it promotes communication.  On the other hand it can promote unnecessary communication that results in informational noise. Here are a few select articles on dealing with email that may be useful in your quest for achieving balance with electronic mail: … [Read more...] about Links: Dealing with Email

Behance is an online magazine that targets "brilliantly productive creative professionals". Based on their work with creative professionals they have identified a three "bucket" (my term not theirs) approach to making sure you get the most from every idea. They call this their Action Method. Basically you take every idea and capture the following from it: Action Items - Things that need to be done. Backburner Items - Things that might need to be done. Reference Items - Things you need to record. Here is a graphic from their site that demonstrates the process: Lets run through an example. We could use something all business and work related, but right now I'm hungry which … [Read more...] about Behance’s Action Method Process

Productivity501 hit a milestone today.  If you look over to the right hand side of the site, you'll see that the FeedBurner subscribers is now at 1,007. So we've finally broken the 1000 subscriber mark. It will probably fluctuate, but that isn't going to keep us from celebrating! Hurray! Thank you all for visiting and subscribing.  If you have any suggestions on how Productivity501 could be better, please let me know. (By the way, don't forget about our iPod Shuffle Giveaway.  If you have a blog and are interested in winning an iPod, please consider entering.) … [Read more...] about 1000 RSS Readers

Like what you see? Click to add to Google Homepage or Reader. According to the 2003 Census report, the average commute time is 38 minutes each way for some parts of the country. That is 76 minutes each day, over 6 hours per week or 41 work days each year. If you live somewhere that has a long commute time, it is easy to see how much time is just spent driving back and forth. If you were able to eliminate the commute even one day per week, you would save over 65 hours per year. That is over 8 work days of time or equivalent to an extra 1.5 weeks of vacation. … [Read more...] about Convince Your Boss to Let you Work from Home

Here is a short video showing how to add short cut folders to your side bar in OS X.  The video shows me adding the folder ebooks and then removing the folder (it disappears in a puff of smoke). I use this to keep project files in easy reach.  Since it is simple to add and remove folder or other items, the side bar can function as a work area to keep track of things you need fast access to. One benefit of this is that the items will show up when you  do a "Save As" or "File Open" as well. This little trick saves me a tremendous amount of time because I can quickly reconfigure things for whatever I'm working on. When I'm busy with a particular client, I'll … [Read more...] about Adding Shortcut Folders in OS X

This week I was reworking the archives in response to some of the suggestions from the iPod Review Contest and ended up going through some older posts all the way back to 2005. I wanted to wrap this week up with a few links to some previous posts: Two Type of Technology Users - Also known as the myth of gadgets, this post looks at how different people approach technology. So which type are you?   Social Glass Ceiling - The people you surround yourself set a limit on how much you can accomplish. The Rat Experiment - Managing others perception can help you be more productive and effective. Investing in Exercise - Another rat experiment that showed the importance of exercise. The … [Read more...] about Previously Popular Posts

(In this series of posts, we are looking at some components of good time management.) Organization If you are disorganized, it will be very difficult to make good use of your time.  When you can't find important items, it is easy to spend 15, 30 or 60 minutes each day just looking for stuff. When you have a "place for everything and everything in its place" you can focus on your actual work and not just managing your "things". When I was in college, I asked my grandmother to make me a patchwork quilt and matching pillow case for my dorm room bed.  I liked it a lot and it gave my room a distinct look and made it trendy in a way that only dorm rooms can be. … [Read more...] about The Most for your Minute

I spoke to two community college classes this morning about technology and the internet.  I took a quick poll and was amazed at how few of them had ever bought or sold anything on eBay.  It isn't like eBay is some new tool, but most of them had never used it. … [Read more...] about Experiment with Online Tools

(In this series of posts, we are looking at ways to better manage time). Simplicity Complexity is the nemesis of productivity.  One of the fastest ways to gain time is to reduce the complexity in your life. Sometimes this means trimming functionality to the things you actually need to do instead of trying to do everything.  For example: Rather than invest a bunch of time and effort in setting up our home theater to show broadcast television, the VCR, game console, etc. I just set it up to play DVDs.  We could move some wires around to watch something else, but since that only happened 2 or 3 times a year, the simplicity of having one remote was well worth it. … [Read more...] about The Most for your Minute

In this series we are looking at different ways to manage our time or to "Make the Most of Each Minute". Invest in Technology Technology has an incredible potential for helping you make the most of your time. It wasn't that long ago that getting information took weeks because you had to call a company or write a letter and then wait for it to arrive in the mail.  Now you can get most common information online quickly and easily. … [Read more...] about The Most for Your Minute