Write Off Unproductive Days

There are days when it seems that I can’t get any­thing done, I lack the focus I des­per­ately need. When an unpro­duc­tive day comes along, I choose to write it off. I accept that noth­ing is get­ting done and go do some­thing else. Typ­i­cally I go to the store, run errands, shop online, play games, read news, any­thing that I want — just so long as I am doing some­thing. The still­ness of star­ing at a mon­i­tor, or a blank page is makes me not want to... Read More

Keeping Your Inbox Empty

Inbox Zero is a con­cept by Mer­lin Mann that I embrace fully (he is writ­ing a book on it due to be out soon), and most email hogs have a love hate rela­tion­ship with Inbox Zero. The thing is, most peo­ple have Inbox Zero wrong. Not being the inven­tor of the con­cept, I should say that most peo­ple approach keep­ing noth­ing in their inbox the wrong way. Keep­ing your inbox empty is not about react­ing to email quickly and effi­ciently – keep­ing your inbox... Read More

63 Spring Cleaning Tips

Here is a list of 63 ways to help you with your spring cleaning. 1. One Room at a Time: Pick a room in your house/office and start there, don’t move rooms until you com­plete that room. Com­part­men­tal­iz­ing a larger build­ing by rooms makes orga­niz­ing seem far less daunt­ing. I rec­om­mend start­ing with the room that is most orga­nized, it will take the least amount of time and give you a visual goal for the rest of the home. 2. Have You Used It in the... Read More

12 Reasons Why Meetings Waste Time

Dis­claimer: I hate meet­ings, all of them. I posted a while back about how 90% of meet­ings are a waste of time, here are some of my thoughts on why they are a huge waste. 1. No One Comes Pre­pared: What are we meet­ing about? If a meet­ing starts with any­one ask­ing that ques­tion it is guar­an­teed that the meet­ing is a waste of time. The con­fused party is either in the major­ity, or will waste the majori­ties time try­ing to fig­ure out just what is... Read More

Timeout Programs Are a Waste of Time

I saw a cool pic­ture of an office that uses a Mac pro­gram called Time­out (the pic­ture showed all the office com­put­ers with a ‘time­out’ at the same moment) and decided to give the pro­gram a try. I had used sim­i­lar pro­grams before and I said this about them: There is a pro­gram for the Mac called RSI­Dock that forces these breaks, but I find the best method is just to remem­ber to look away every once in a while. Now Time­out is sim­i­lar to RSI­Dock... Read More

Why Dropbox Rocks

I have briefly touched on Drop­box a few times, but I wanted to take time to explain what makes Drop­box great. I know a lot of peo­ple that don’t ‘get’ Drop­box are usu­ally peo­ple with only one com­puter, they see Drop­box as a way to syn­chro­nize files across mul­ti­ple com­put­ers and noth­ing more. Drop­box though is much more than just a syn­chro­niza­tion tool and, if you use a com­puter at all, you should be using Drop­box. Here are the... Read More

Why Task Management Apps Still Suck

Not a day goes by where I don’t use my task man­age­ment apps in some form. For that rea­son there is not a day that I am not let down by those very apps. The Prob­lem The cur­rent slate of task man­age­ment apps are not what we, the users, need. They are loaded with fea­tures that look great on web­sites, in pro­mo­tional videos and var­i­ous other mar­ket­ing tools, but are utterly use­less in real life usage. (It is impor­tant to note that I am talk­ing... Read More

Computing Simplicity

I have on more than one occa­sion, includ­ing today, writ­ten about how we need to sim­plify all that is going on with regards to our com­puter screen. Less icons, less dis­tract­ing wall­pa­pers, no clocks, no bat­tery sta­tus and so forth. I then read this post by Chris Bowler where he states: I’m fairly sure I could lose 2 days of work look­ing for ways to con­fig­ure those tools to be accessed in some other fash­ion. But why? Just so I can post screen­shots... Read More

Why I Use OmniFocus

I have, and con­tinue to try all sorts of new task man­age­ment pro­grams out there, from the sim­ple Taskpa­per to the more com­plex solu­tions such as Lotus Notes. Every time, with­out fail, I come full cir­cle back to Omni­Fo­cus. I found myself ask­ing myself what it is about Omni­Fo­cus that keeps me com­ing back, and what it is about Omni­Fo­cus that keeps me want­ing to try new programs. The Why As it turns out the ‘why’ of the ques­tion is fairly... Read More

Background Zen

As I write this I have two fold­ers on my com­puter that con­tain desk­top back­grounds (wall­pa­pers) that I have col­lected from var­i­ous places online, total­ing 165 dif­fer­ent back­grounds to choose from. So what do I do? I have been talk­ing a lot on this blog about some­thing I call Desk­top Zen. Cre­at­ing a com­put­ing envi­ron­ment that is relax­ing and con­ducive to cre­ativ­ity and work­ing. Of those 165 back­ground pic­tures (some... Read More