Tag Archives | Technology
Pomodoro Kitchen Timer for Action Logging

Start Your Timers!

By on January 9, 2012 in Success
Pomodoro Kitchen Timer for Action Logging

Image by AndyRobertsPhotos via Flickr

Pomodoro technique until recently. I am was familiar with speed bursts and energy levels, but was surprised to know that there existed this whole school of thought and a plethora of online and mobile apps to support its usage. You learn something new every day! And if you don’t you are probably dead (that was my addition.)I have been ever so thankful to have unearthed this gem for sure! Here is a brief over view from http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/

What is it?

The Pomodoro Technique™ is a way to get the most out of time management. Turn time into a valuable ally to accomplish what we want to do and chart continuous improvement in the way we do it.

Francesco Cirillo created the Pomodoro Technique™ in 1992. It is now practiced by professional teams and individuals around the world.

How does it work?

The basic unit of work in the Pomodoro Technique™ can be split in five simple steps:

  1. Choose a task to be accomplished
  2. Set the Pomodoro to 25 minutes (the Pomodoro is the timer)
  3. Work on the task until the Pomodoro rings, then put a check on your sheet of paper
  4. Take a short break (5 minutes is OK)
  5. Every 4 Pomodoros take a longer break

For a more in depth discussion, you can download the PDF version of The Pomodoro Technique eBook or view the Pomodoro Cheat Sheet.

Since I tend to work and organize my tasks electronically, I use this technique in an electronic format. You can too! Instead of tracking my activities on a worksheet, I use my task list in Outlook and mark them complete as I go along. I use an electronic timer (I have been trying out some of the ones listed below,) but many varieties exist. You can use a web version, download a desktop version or find an app for your mobile phone…. use whatever works for you. I am finding myself competing against own productivity to see just how many segments I can complete and how much I can get done in 25 minutes!

Some resources to check out:

ChromoDoro – Google Chrome toolbar add-in -https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/edhkjecdcakijjmlelnjjiohjmlaikhb?hl=en-US

FocusBooster – Browser & desktop versions –  http://www.focusboosterapp.com/

OnlineClock.net – Online timers – http://onlineclock.net/about/

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Email Icon

The One Thing You Must Do to Gain Control of Your Inbox

By on December 19, 2011 in Productivity, Simple Steps
Email Icon

Image via Wikipedia

Simple Steps

Do you cringe when you open your email? How could you possibly have 42 new emails overnight you ask?

If you’re lucky they’re spam (that’s easy to take care of with a good spam filter,) but usually they’re not. Many of those messages are announcements, updates, sales or some other form of mailing list torture that you’ve somehow gotten yourself into; social media updates, group messages, retail ads, community, news or parenting digests, the list of our informational interests is endless.

You may have thought it seemed like a good idea at the time. Of course you don’t want to miss out on a good sale. You have to keep up with the latest news and industry updates. You never know when you’re going to receive a fabulous new recipe or tip that will change your life.  But now, the informational deluge is overwhelming. You cannot conceivably read every one of those emails if you ever want to get anything else done. They must be multiplying while you sleep…

You could just delete them. That’s probably what you have been doing, isn’t it? How’s that working?

Great for a few moments, but they just keep coming back, stalking you like that weird kid in 7th grade who wanted to walk home with you every day…but gave you the creeps. You just knew eventually you were going to have to tell him to leave you alone. Right? Or did you just try dodging him, ducking over to another street or walking fast so that he maybe couldn’t keep up? That’s just sad…

Well the same thing happens in your inbox. You can run, you can hide, but you will never get away from the unwanted stalker emails unless you take a firm proactive action.

Wait! It’s easier than it sounds.

Unsubscribe. Yep, that’s it. That’s all you have to do.

Look for the link at the bottom of the email. You may have to log in and change your email preferences or settings, especially if it’s a group or membership.

But that takes time. Stop whining and just do it. A few minutes now will save you minute after minute, week after week after week. Those minutes add up to many hours of your valuable time wasted.

I started doing just a few unsubscribes each day for a week or two. It took maybe 10 minutes at most. The funny thing is it would have taken me at least that amount of time to sift through them to get to the important emails. And after a couple of weeks my inbox was so light, I could see white space around the edges.

Try it for a week and see if you don’t notice a difference.

*If you can’t possibly live without some of these updates, use your email program to create a filter for updates or sort them into a separate folder for later review. Pay attention to which ones you actually read on a regular basis and unsubscribe from the rest.

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Keys to Your Most Productive Life

New eBook – “Keys to Your most Productive Life” Will

By on September 7, 2011 in Productivity, Success, Tools

I’ve just released my first ebook!

Keys to Your Most Productive Life  is a brief, but valuable guide packed full of tips that will help you - Learn how to maximize your time and energy to live the most productive life possible!

Keys to Your Most Productive Life

Figure it out, Clean it up, Get it done

Do you never seem to have enough hours in the day?

Are you buried under piles?

Do you get to the end of the day and ask where did my time go?

Are you perpetually running behind?

Do you have projects, dreams or goals that you never manage to get to?

Do you feel that how you spend your time is out of sync with your life and work values?

It doesn’t have to be that way! Change is possible…

An invaluable guide at an affordable price – $4.99    Add to Cart

If what you’re currently doing isn’t working or maybe you’d just like it to work even better, then this short, but value-packed ebook will offer some simple steps to maximize your productivity, increase your effectiveness and get clear about what you really want. We all know the old adage; the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Clearly most of us are not insane, but for some reason we think this rule doesn’t apply to us. If we can just work faster, harder and be more determined we can whip ourselves in to shape.That’s just not reality.

Keys to Your Most Productive Life will help jump-start your productivity and guide you toward your most productive life… higher efficiency, organization, clarity, focus, success. This ebook will both the nudge in the right direction and the guide on how to get there!

Buy the ebook for only $4.99 now! And get started living a more productive life!  Add to Cart

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technology

Technology: Friend or Foe

By on August 15, 2011 in Tools
laptop

Image via Wikipedia

Is technology your friend or foe?

The answer…Both, probably.

Every form of technology has a dichotomy of usefulness – a bell curve of ROI of your time. Initially, you may invest time and money to get a new cellphone, computer, software or social media tool up and running. You learn how to use it and then start reaping the benefits (hopefully.)

But there comes a point where you begin to over use or misuse your technology. Remember technology is a tool, not the end-game. Each and every piece of your technology toolbox should serve some purpose:

  • save you time
  • cut expenses
  • help you generate sales or revenue
  • enable you to be smarter in your field(or at least appear that way)

Whatever your goals may be; technology needs to help you get there. If you’re aimlessly squandering time; surfing the internet, consumed by social media, obsessing about your budget or preoccupied with email; then your technology is not working for you, but against you.

Stop for a moment and reevaluate whether you are using technology tools or they are using you.

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A New Way to Read Favorite Blogs on iPhone

By on August 11, 2011 in Tools


Check out BloApp! It just might turn out to be a very useful tool in your mobile lifestyle. BlogApp is so simple. Just download the app to your iPhone or iPad and scan the QR code of your favorite blogs. That’s It!

Most importantly, don’t forget to add Productive Life Concepts to your app!

 

 

 

 

 

And while you’re at it…add my Guard wife blog as well (shameless plug.)

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manilla

A Better Bill Paying Solution to the Rescue: Manilla

By on July 27, 2011 in Success

Most of us hate paying bills. We worry that we’ll forget or miss a payment. We’re not sure how long to keep our records and we have bulging files to prove it. It takes too much time. It’s too much hassle.

A recent survey showed that bill paying is by far the most stressful and dreaded household chore. I think I may have found a solution that will ease that stress and make bill paying and organizing your finances much more efficient. It’s called Manilla. I had the opportunity recently to review Manilla and give it a test drive…and I was quite impressed.

What is Manilla?

Manilla provides a free online service to consumers seeking easier management and control of their household accounts: from banking, credit cards and utilities, to travel rewards and loyalty points.

Manilla

Manilla automatically retrieves and organizes bills, statements, and other account information, delivers offers, facilitates payments, and sets and delivers reminders – all through a very simple and clean interface.

How

Manilla also provides unlimited storage of account documents, removing unnecessary paper and unwanted clutter from consumers’ homes.

manillaThis free tool could simplify your financial bill paying in a big way! It’s free. What have you got to lose?

manilla

 

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watch

Use Time Management, Don’t Let it Use You

By on July 18, 2011 in Productivity

watchWe can get so involved in the quest for better time management that the process itself becomes another monster in our lives and we become slaves to it.

Effective time management can be a tremendously useful thing. It can help us look at how we spend our time. It can help us become more efficient in getting a job done and it can help us learn new ways of doing old things better. None of us is as efficient as we could be and efficiency is useful.

However, when we use any system to support our workaholism, or we get so focused on finding the next best thing, we get sidetracked from our purpose and that system becomes part of the problem.

Hopefully, we can develop better perspectives for evaluating our use of tools and techniques to make our lives more productive and useful. But remember…

I use tools, they don’t use me.

 

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Have You Tried Scheduled Replies

By on June 6, 2011 in Productivity

Action challenge – Try checking email less often.

If you find your productive periods of work ever shrinking because of email, phone, and other interruptions, it’s time to adopt a policy of scheduled replies. Some productivity masters recommend that you check email, VM, etc. only once or twice per day and batch your responses. You will find that often, many questions have already been answered and your participation really wasn’t required!

In an effort to practice what I preach, I am striving for twice per day. I have IM and text messaging for urgent matters, so I really am still reachable. Unfortunately, I find myself addicted to that Send/Receive button and suffer from the “disease of curiosity” whenever I get a voicemail, so I haven’t mastered this strategy yet. Still a work in progress….this week I am attempting to check only once per hour so that I can focus on my current task at hand.  One suggestion if you decide to adopt this routine, is to set up a VM or email auto-reply letting people know your new policy for responding to messages.

You decide what works for you! Let me know how it goes…

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email

Productive Email Strategies: Part 2 – “One-Way” Communications

By on April 13, 2011 in Success

emailI realize that for many, the issue of inbox overwhelm is very much about “one way communications.” Newsletters, sales and marketing, jokes, videos to watch, feeds, updates on varied interests and projects can make up a large portion of email piling up in your email daily.

While these communications may often be necessary, sometimes even desired, they can all just get to be too much. They can completely take-over your inbox and completely overwhelm even the most organized and efficient among us.

There are some simple steps we can take to combat this insidious dribble of incoming information. Simple yes; easy no. We humans are wired to seek information. We want to stay informed, in the loop, knowledgeable. We hate not knowing everything that’s going on around us. We might even go so far as to say that our insatiable curiosity has turned into an information addiction. Though many of us are still in denial about that…

What you can try to trim the incoming flood:

  • Chill with the newsletters. Really. Only subscribe if the information is truly valuable to you in some way. If you find yourself skimming or deleting without even reading, it’s time to unsubscribe.
  • Use an RSS reader. Instead of signing up for daily or weekly emails, subscribe to the sites RSS feed and use Google Reader or something similar to store and manage your information. Get it out of your inbox!
  • Be very selective when sending jokes, chain emails, video links, photos and that sort of thing. For the most part that kind of stuff is more appropriate to post on Facebook usually. Everyone loves a cute pet or a good laugh; once in a while is fine, but not on a regular basis.
  • Opt out of those sales alerts. If you need to buy something you can search the internet for sales or discounts. If you don’t need it then you shouldn’t be wasting time getting alerts about it. It is a waste of your valuable time and inbox space and will probably save you money too!
  • Likewise, opt out of those marketing emails. Nearly every time you sign up on some website and give out your email you are going to be placed on a mailing list. Unless you are waiting for some specific information from the website uncheck that box during the sign-up process. If there wasn’t an option or you missed it, opt out or unsubscribe as soon as the marketing emails start showing up.
  • Get it in digest format if possible. Instead of getting a notification every time someone posts on your LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook profile of conversation, opt for a daily digest. Another option is to use and inbox filter to divert them to a separate folder, get text alerts or turn off the notifications totally. You can always log in daily to look.

There are so many strategies we can employ to weed out and trim down our email volume. With a little diligence we can move closer to an efficient, streamlined inbox that is a useful tool to share valuable information. Isn’t that what it’s supposed to be for anyway?

If you missed Productive Email Strategies: Part 1 – Effective Communication, I highly recommend you go back and read it. The most effective approach to a manageable inbox is streamlining what goes out as well as what comes in.

 

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