Archives for 2007

I'm right handed, but I feel for people who are left handed and living in a world where so many common items are designed for "North paws".  Sometimes there isn't much you can do about it, but when it comes to the standard wooden pencil, left handed writers no longer need to suffer.  Here are the steps to convert a normal right handed pencil into one designed for left handers. Start with an unsharpened number 2 standard lead pencil. Wiggle the metal that holds the eraser until it comes off in your hand. Push the metal over the opposite end. (The end the right handers usually sharpen.) If necessary, use a pair of pliers to help crimp the metal back to the pencil. Sharpen the end … [Read more...] about Left Handed Pencil

We've previously mentioned the benefits of working from home, but this won't work for everyone.  An alternative is to only work one 40 hour shift each week.  So if you come in to work Monday at 7am and work until 11pm Tuesday night you will have worked just as much as your co-workers who come in for 8 hours 5 days a week..  The benefits are huge.  Just think, you could drive to work just one day per week. If your boss seem reluctant to let you do this, just point out the benefits of being able to really focus in for a whole 40 hours instead of interrupting things every 8 hours to go home and come back. … [Read more...] about 40 Hour Work Day

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

For the past 6 months, my wife and I haven't had our own place.  We've been all over the US and Mexico staying with friends, relatives, and in hotels. It has been an interesting experience and I've developed a few practices that help me be the most productive while working out of a suitcase. Obviously you would want to tailor these for your own line of work, but hopefully everyone can find at least a few tips that are helpful. Work Bag - For me, this is my laptop bag.  Almost everything I need to work goes in the bag.  If I am approaching a deadline, I can stop anywhere with internet access and get right to work without needing to pull things from several suitcases. If you do a lot of … [Read more...] about Working from a Suitcase

The last two lists of academic podcast lectures were quite popular, so I've created an updated list for this semester.  Universities are starting to limit podcasts to registered students and some have given up on podcasting.  As a result our list is shorter than last semester.  However, there are still over 60 classes publishing public RSS feeds--most people should be able to find something interesting for their daily commute. The list only contains actual courses.  Many universities have distinguished speaker podcasts that are intentionally not included in this list.  If you are aware of other podcasts of current courses please add them to the comments.  … [Read more...] about Free Academic Podcast Lectures (Spring 2007)

We got a Yorky puppy about 5 years ago. We had resolved that she would be a very well trained animal, etc. etc. She isn't. She is sweet and we love her, but she is spoiled and thinks she is a person. However there was one thing we did that was turned out wonderfully and made our lives much easier. When we first got her, we bought a small bell and hung it from the door in our apartment where she could reach it with her nose. Every time we took her outside, we'd ring the bell with her nose. She learned to ring the bell when she wants to go out and this has proved to be even more convenient than we thought it would be. Whenever we travel, we can just take the bell with us and hang … [Read more...] about Tuesday’s Tip: A Bell for Your Dog

This week we reached the 250 mark for email subscribers and randomly selected one individual to receive an iPod Shuffle engraved with www.productivity501.com on the back. The winner was Conrad Zhuang and he should be getting his iPod in the next week or so. Thanks to everyone who entered the contest.  If  you subscribed just for the contest, feel free to unsubscribe now. :)  In the coming months we'll probably do another contest to encourage people to subscribe to the RSS feeds.  If you have any suggestions of something that would make a good giveaway and would cost less than $100 please leave them in the comments. As a side note, I want to mention another 501 site: … [Read more...] about We Have a Winner!

Take a few minutes to reflect on what you've read over the past year.  Now assume 2007 will consist of a similar "intellectual diet".  Will you feel like you've adequately invested in yourself at the end of 2007? If you feel that you'll be pleased with your personal growth in 2007 based on this exercise then you are in good shape.  You already place an adequate emphasis on your personal development. However, for me, this shows how much I fall short of my ideal personal investment. Our health is determined by what we eat on a daily basis.  It doesn't really matter what we do as part of a 1 week diet.  Our intellectual health is determined by what we do … [Read more...] about Intellectual Diet