Productivity Power Links 12-10-09

Ok this is somewhat cool…

You don’t have time to tether yourself to a wall while your cellphone, PSP, DS, or other gadget charges. Next time your portable gear starts running low on juice, strap on gadget manufacturer Brando’s clever wristband battery recharger and keep on keepin’ on.

via lifehacker

Getting to much done?

Too much GTD or too much effectiveness in your life can become annoying at some point. Being highly productive can really help you become some sort of a freak, even if you obviously don’t want that. All those lists, thoughts capturing devices, advanced task processing systems. All those fancy words like “next actions”, “hipster cards” or “mind like water”. All those tasks carefully squeezed into your agenda, well, all that could give you a very hard time in a normal, non-productivity related, social conversation.

via dragos roua

Trying hard not to player hate this guy…

This past summer, for example, I completed my PhD in computer science at MIT. Simultaneous with writing my dissertation I finished the manuscript for my third book, which was handed in a month after my PhD defense and will be published by Random House in the summer of 2010. During this past year, I also managed to maintain my blog, Study Hacks, which enjoys over 50,000 unique visitors a month, and publish over a half-dozen peer-reviewed academic papers.

via i will teach you to be rich

What to eat if you want to be unhealthy…

Cattle evolved to eat grass, not grains. But farmers today feed their animals corn and soybeans, which fatten up the animals faster for slaughter. More money for cattle farmers (and lower prices at the grocery store) means a lot less nutrition for us. A recent comprehensive study conducted by the USDA and researchers from Clemson University found that compared with corn-fed beef, grass-fed beef is higher in beta-carotene, vitamin E, omega-3s, conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), calcium, magnesium, and potassium; lower in inflammatory omega-6s; and lower in saturated fats that have been linked to heart disease. “We need to respect the fact that cows are herbivores, and that does not mean feeding them corn and chicken manure,” says Salatin.

via living healthy

Woo Hoo Quicksilver has been updated…

Quicksilver’s been updated!

Quicksilver is one of those applications that simply genius and once you’ve used it you can’t understand how you survived all these years without it.

Get it here.

via minimal mac

Visual alerts don’t work…really?

Growl notifications, alert add-ons for Firefox and for the desktop, and other tools can all help you keep on top of goings-on in your digital world by displaying visual cues whenever new activity appears on your social networks, email, or other web apps. A new study, however, indicates that these tools might not be helping you at all. In fact, they could be seriously hamstringing your productivity.

via web worker daily

It’s That Time Of The Year…

 

A sure sign that a new year is about to spring forth is when I make my annual trek to the local bookstore to pick up a new Moleskine Planner.

This time I got a Red Moleskine Weekly Notebook Planner.

 

Technorati Tags: moleskine,productivity,gtd,lifehacks

Howdy!

Been busy actually doing stuff…will be back soon with more of the same.

Shalom

Big Fun With Outlook 2010…

So I get this wonderful email from Microsoft on my Blackberry telling me I have been chosen for the Office 2010 Technical Review. I get home and reinstall Windows 7 on my Macbook Pro on a Bootcamp partition and download Office 2010.

To make a long frustrating story short, during the setup of my email account Outlook was adding the name of the computer to my Exchange Server account name.

So I ended up having to change the name of my computer to match my Exchange Server account name to get it to work.

I’m going to Amazon to per-order Snow Leopard so I can gets me some native Exchange Server support with Apple Mail…

Technorati Tags: office 2010 technical review

Less Is More…

My desktop is designed give me the information that I deem necessary and nothing else.

I use a free application called Dateline to display the date and Geektool to display the time.

Productivity Power Links 07-21-09

Mr. obvious strikes again!

You know what you need to do. You know why you need to do it. You even know what steps you must take to get it done. But there’s one small problem: you can’t seem to get moving. It’s a common problem. Maybe it’s chronic procrastination or maybe you’re just so overwhelmed that you feel paralyzed.

link: 10 Ways To Give Yourself A Procrastination Inoculation

Darren please tell us how you gtd with Evernote?

I have been using Evernote as one of my capture tools recently. I set it up with 3 and only 3 Notebooks. Simple. My default is INBOX. This is where all my incoming notes, emails, photos etc go. This is my collection bucket and is completely unprocessed. I get this INBOX to zero daily most of the time.

link: GTD and Evernote | darrencrawford.com

Skype for OS X is updated…thats good right?

Mac OS X only: Back in January Skype released a beta version of the popular VoIP application that added screen sharing tools, integration with Wi-Fi access service Boingo, better audio and video, and several other improvements.

link: Skype 2.8 for Mac Adds Screen Sharing, Wi-Fi Access, and More – Skype 2.8 – Lifehacker

How us home bound info workers can be better slackers…

But we do all need mental breaks to recharge. I can’t just not take breaks because taking them is too much work. So to cope with this challenge I’ve developed a system of being able to partially dial back my level of work activity. This gives me some of the mental feeling of taking time off without the break itself causing a stressful workload.

link: How to Take Mini Mental Breaks

What is productivity in the light of our post modern reality????

There has been rising concerns that “productivity is dead” and that people are moving on to new things. The conditions have changed that created the initial excitement around “productivity.” Most people are now comfortable with the internet, their computers, and the associated “knowledge work” that they no longer need ways to help them cope. In that sense, “productivity” is no longer needed.

link: On the Horizon: The New Productivity

After 12 years of waiting….

Many, many months ago, it looked like an official solution for syncing BlackBerry devices with the Mac (including media and iTunes playlists) was right around the corner. Now, almost a year later, RIM is finally making it official. But don’t get too excited. You still have to wait until September before the new software will be available for download.

link: Official BlackBerry Desktop Software for Mac Coming in September

Hacking your sleep? Riigghhhhhttttt….

One of the ways to force your brain into REM sleep and skip the other phases is to make it feel exhausted. If you’ve gone 24 hours without sleep, you might notice that you drift away into dreams straight from being awake. This because your body goes instantly into REM sleep as a protection mechanism. The way to hack yourself into entering REM sleep without being exhausted is to trick your body into thinking you’re going to get a tiny amount of sleep. You can train it to enter REM for short periods of time throughout the day in 20-minute naps rather than in one lump at night. This is how polyphasic sleep works.

link: How To Hack Your Brain, Part 1: Sleep | Dustin Curtis

Again With The Seinfeldian Chain

The infamous Seinfeldian Chain is back with a new printable implementation. Don’t know if it’ll actually produce any positive results but it sure looks good, which of course is half the battle…

Refocus is a simple printable template that allows you to lay out a handful of goals and track your adherence to those goals over the next 30 days.
Tracking goals in a concrete and visual way is an excellent motivational tool. The Seinfeldian Chain, previously covered here, is certainly a strong example of the effectiveness and popularity of the technique when used as motivation for a single goal. The ReFocus worksheet allows you to track up to five goals over a month. From the author’s web site:

via lifehacker