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

Productive Brain Exercises?

I don’t know what some of these tips have to do with exercising the old noodle but I have never been one to let reality deter me from doing sometime.

Here are Dorothea Brande’s twelve mental exercises. Note: she wrote these in 1936, so you need to adapt of few of them.

1. Spend an hour each day without saying anything except in answer to direct questions, in the midst of the usual group, without creating the impression that you’re sulking or ill. Be as ordinary as possible. But do not volunteer remarks or try to draw out information.

2. Think for 30 minutes a day about one subject exclusively. Start with five minutes.

3. Write a letter without using the words I, me, mine, my.

4. Talk for 15 minutes a day without using I, me, my, mine.

5. Write a letter in a “successful” or placid tone. No misstatements, no lying. Look for aspects or activities that can be honestly reported that way.

6. Pause on the threshold of any crowded room and size it up.

7. Keep a new acquaintance talking about himself or herself without allowing him to become conscious of it. Turn back any courteous reciprocal questions in a way that your auditor doesn’t feel rebuffed.

8. Talk exclusively about yourself and your interests without complaining, boasting, or boring your companions.

9. Cut “I mean” or “As a matter of fact” or any other verbal mannerism out of your conversation.

10. Plan two hours of a day and stick to the plan.

11. Set yourself twelve tasks at random: e.g., go twenty miles from home using ordinary conveyance; go 12 hours without food; go eat a meal in the unlikeliest place you can find; say nothing all day except in answer to questions; stay up all night and work.

12. From time to time, give yourself a day when you answer “yes” to any reasonable request.

(via huffington post)

On Vacation

photo by bensonkua

Taking a vacation from the interweb and all of its frivolity to focus on that which is necessary…see ya in a couple of weeks.

GTD Power Links 08-18-08

Need some help keeping focus on a mac…Check out Isolator. The clever Mac app dims background application windows to keep you focused on the current application. Couple it with Menu Eclipse to dim your menubar, and you’ve got a distraction-fighting dynamic duo.

(via lifeclever)

Never forget anything every again! In order to capture every single little idea that we have, we’ll need to take a multi-pronged approach to capturing the little bits of genius that we have throughout our day. Here’s a list of tools that can help you capture your ideas no matter what the activity.

(via lifedev)

For the water heads in the house…Ideally, the best way to drink water on the go would be an aluminum or stainless steel water bottle, as they seem to exhibit the least amount of health concerns out of all the choices. Add in the fact that they can be used over and over again with no degradation and do not need to be recycled each time you use one, they really are the “green” choice. And since upwards of 40% of bottled water is actually just tap water in disguise, buying it seems like not only a health risk due to the plastic leaching possibilities, but also a wallet risk due to wasting money on something you already have at home!

(via the good human)

How to back up your lame non-iPhone…Those of us who have forgone a fancy BlackBerry, Treo, or iPhone know a standard cell phone is probably the most non-interactive, un-tweakable device in the gadget stable. But for many phones, there’s a way around overpriced cables, intentionally weak Bluetooth software, and lack of good syncing software. The multi-tool of phone data, BitPim, is a free, open-source, cross-platform solution that can back up all or most of your phone’s data, put your home-baked ringtones on your phone for free, and sync calendars and contacts between your apps and your vanilla phone

(via lifehacker)

3G iPhone has problems, really? Earlier this week, an analyst with Nomura Securities issued a research note claiming that the iPhone 3G connectivity and HSDPA issues being experienced by many users are likely thanks to faulty 3G chip by Infineon. According to Windsor, the chip problems likely aren’t firmware upgradeable, meaning Apple would need to replace the chips. Now another researcher, citing tests of the 3G iPhone, claims that the device’s problems began in the manufacturing stage. From the Assocated Press:

(via dsl reports)

Sleep in late and be more productive? There is a super-replicating false belief in our society that sleeping in is lazy. Sleeping in is not lazy- many individuals would actually be more productive if they slept in versus waking up early. But as a whole, promoting the belief that sleeping in is lazy serves the needs of a stable society, in which individuals are all on similar schedules.

(via life evolver)

That Red Bull in your hot little hand may be killing you slowly…A study of 30 university students aged between 20 and 24 years old found that drinking just one 250ml sugar-free can of the caffeinated energy drink increased the “stickiness” of the blood and raised the risk of blood clots forming. Using tests to measure blood pressure and the state of blood vessels around the body, the Australian researchers said that after drinking one can participants had shown a cardiovascular profile similar to that of someone with heart disease.

(via times online)

Technorati Tags: gtd,producitvity,iphone,red bull

Tanned Rested And Ready…

No internet, email or a thought about work for a whole week has done this soul much good. Now I’m back baby!

No I’m Not Sleeping At My Desk (Again) I’m Power Napping!

 

 

Are you just one power nap away from success?

 

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Technorati Tags: power nap

Power Nap Your Way To Greater Productivity?

Sounds like a good concept, but lets see if our evil over-lords buy it…

You probably know how it goes. You’ve just had lunch and you’re back at your desk. 3pm rolls around and home time is still some way off. Then the yawns start and all you can think about is curling up under your desk for a sleep. It’s a fairly normal response, and the subject of an abstract at Sleep 2008, the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies. A group of scientists from Loughborough University in the UK presented their work on daytime sleepiness, and whether the best way to combat it was to get up later in the morning, caffeine, or a 20-minute afternoon nap. (via arstechnica)

read the rest here

 

Technorati Tags: power nap