Lifehack

If I don’t wave back…

User ImageMichael | August 20, 2008


 

I’ve come to the realization lately (there was no real lightning bolt moment, it was a discovery that dawned upon me slowly) that I have some of my best, most lucid thoughts while driving around.

Many of my “Ah HA!” moments come to me somewhere along Steel Street; about the half-way mark on my drive home.

I don’t know what it is exactly, but it’s true.  Maybe it’s the fresh air (I drive with the windows down typically) or empty mind state (by your 30’s driving doesn’t take much thought, esp. on a well travelled route), or some combination of other factors…

Whatever it is though, I drive with a notepad and a digital recorder lately!

I guess what I’m trying to say is, if you see me on the road and wave, don’t be upset if I don’t wave back, I’m probably deep in thought.

Where’s your ‘Thinking Spot’?

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Topics: Errant Thoughts, Lifehack | Comments

GTD - Step 1 - Prioritize

User ImageMichael | July 11, 2008


On Tuesday I talked a little (ok, maybe a lot) about GTD.

To reiterate… Step 1 is all about taking care of the important things first.

And doing it is easier than you may think. I made this little image, printed it out and hung it on my wall (There has to be a name for this, I know I didn’t invent it!):

(* update - sorry, it won’t let me embed it! so I linked to flickr)

(* update 2 - added the image!)

That’s it.

Now EVERYTHING (and I mean everything) gets a label of 1 to 4. Everything I need to do that is going to take me more than 15 minutes goes on an excel spreadsheet and receives a rating of 1 to 4; then:

Things that receive a # 1 Get Done First.
Generally things that receive a # 2 Get Done Next, followed by things that receive a # 3.
And of course things that receive a # 4 get thrown out right away (very little gets a number 4).

It’s easy, it’s helpful, and it makes a huge difference.

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Getting Things Done

User ImageMichael | July 8, 2008


Wired man

I am Zen… I’ve discoverd my Tao… I GTD (Get things done)

Oh wait, reality’s setting in, yup, work’s still piled up to my eyeballs.

-sigh-

I love dabbling in new things & I love multitasking (I get bored if I’m not busy), but I have a problem.

Lately… ok, for years now… I’ve had some issues Getting Things Done.  Not that I don’t get things done, I do, but my list of things that NEED gettin’ done seems to grow faster than my list of things gettin’ done.

And I can’t stop.  Everyday brings new things to look at, play with, test, tweak, fix, and before I know it I’ve yet another thing on my GTD list.

Unfortunately, at least for me, a really long GTD list is a little depressing.  I know I can’t realistically get through it ALL, and if I try I won’t be able to really dig in and get it done in a way that would make me happy.  Pretty soon I stop doing the basic stuff (like trying to stay organized) because it all starts to feel like too much work.  And the snowball grows.

Eventually I get frustrated with my list of half completed projects, crumple my GTD list into a little ball (metaphorically speaking) and toss the whole thing out the window so I can start fresh; generally losing some things that really SHOULD have gotten done in the process!

So what do we do?

Todays world demands us to do things bigger, better, faster and more frequently, and many of us are happy to try and oblige.  But at some point it starts to feel like we’re going to, crack, explode, go crazy or otherwise expire.

Maybe it’s just me?  Maybe I’m the only one trying to fit way too much into way too little (time)?

I doubt it, most people I know are in the same boat to some degree or another.  Very few people are really good at just one thing, love to do that one thing, and spend all their time and effort concentrating on that one thing… It’s just not human! ;)

So again, what do we do?

Well, in the infamous words of Bob “Baby steps to four o’clock”.

Starting today I’ve decided (this has been building for awhile, I’m not making a rash decision :) to make some changes:

I’ve been agonizing over where to start for a while and am in the process of making a list of steps, but I think the best way to start is One Thing At A Time!  So, as of today, I’m going to be exrutiatingly meticulous with Step 1:

Taking care of the MOST important things first.

I already try for the most part, so it should be a relatively easy transition. It’s funny how so many of the less important things seem to take care of themselves eventually!

Step 2 will be:

Wake up at a consistant hour

I know this may sound like an irrelevant thing to worry over, but I get out of bed anywhere between 6:30 and 9:30 and the fluctuation really effects my day to day patterns. My goal is to get up everyday between 6:45 and 7 am.

Step 3 is Declutter

Both work and living spaces.  I’m bad. Really bad.  Not unorganized, but definitely cluttered (my parents, were they present during this conversation, would likely chime in right about now with some kind of ‘PackRat’ type comment)

But before I can get this far I need to deal with Step 1.

Starting now.

And right now the most important thing I can do is go home and spend a few hours with my kids!  Tomorrow I’ll talk a little more about How I plan to go about Step 1.

Wish me luck!

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The new and improved ScribeFire

User ImageMichael | April 22, 2008


I love Firefox.

I have plenty of other browsers installed, some are good, some less so… but I’ve never found anything to coax me away from Firefox.

Believe or not though, this post isn’t about why I love firefox, but rather it’s addon capabilities.

There are a lot of smart folks who have produced a lot of smart addons that make my day to day life easier and more productive. (I’m sure most of those smart folks don’t read this blog, but if you do, THANK YOU!)

Specifically, the reason for my little ode to Firefox came about because I just installed the new version of ScribeFire.

I used to use ScribeFire back when it was called Performance or Performancing and for one reason or another stopped (I honestly can’t remember why). But I came across news on the newest release today and reinstalled it… and what a treat!

ScribeFire is a Firefox addon that provides you with full posting capabilities from any webpage.

Once you’ve set it up to talk with your blog (took about 15 seconds) you can create posts/notes/drafts/pages from anywhere! No more copy and pasting from one tab or window to another!

And the ScribeFire WYSIWYG is significantly better than any built in blog editor I’ve used before.

Other features from ScribeFire:

…categorize and tag your blog posts, upload images, set the timestamp of your posts, save works-in-progress as notes, post an entry as a draft, share your posts on social websites, and upload files via FTP.

You can also open multiple posts in ScribeFire at the same time, copy text from a website and preserve the sites formatting, copy text as a quote with attribution, supports common keyboard shortcuts, call up old posts in the ScribeFire interface, flip between code and design views, pull in images or video from flickr or youtube instantly and even promote your post via several social bookmarking sites right from the interface.

I love the fact that ScribeFire is tabbed and isn’t locked to the page you are on, so you can do some research, opening each source in a different tab, and then open ScribeFire and flip back and forth between all your sources, pulling what you need without interrupting your blogging interface!

A couple of funny things I did notice already (hey, nothing’s perfect right!?)…

All said this is a great addition to Firefox for any blogger and I heartily recommend giving it a try (I’ve only been using for 1/2 an hour and look what I have to say!)

This is the best lifehack/workhack tool I’ve tried out in a long time!

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2.9

Topics: Blogging, Lifehack, Tools | Comments

Twitter and Social Media

User ImageMichael | January 25, 2008


A new friend on Twitter, Christine Taylor, or MouseWords as I know her on Twitter (if you are on Twitter you should friend Christine!), recently asked me a few questions after I live-Twittered the birth of my third kid…

A Baby Girl!

A daughter, born January 11!

I’m going to dig (that’s dig with a single ‘g’) into the whole social media question more in the coming weeks and thought these questions were as good a place as any for me to get started…

Why Twitter our child’s birth:

This was our third child and one of the things that we noticed the first two times through was that there were always people we forgot to phone right away.

Social media provided a great way to remedy the problem.

From my cell phone I uploaded images to my flickr account, and sent regular updates via twitter.

I also setup my twitter account to forward to my facebook profile status.

It turned out to be a great way to include our family and friends (new and old) through the whole process without having to worry about who to call next!

An unexpected side benefit was the fact that it was really exciting for us to read the real-time encouragement and congratulations sent back to us via facebook and twitter (funnelled back to my phone via text messaging).

We were really happy with how it turned out and happy to share with everyone!

What is your opinion of Social Media’s influence on society in general?

For the general public, Social Media provides a variety of great and fun tools to stay connected with friends and family as well as connect with lost friends and acquaintances. I think SM services are getting more savvy all the time and we’re going to see more and more platforms that ‘do it all’, which will be a good thing; preventing us from having to log into 10 different sites to check up on all our friends.

From a business point of view, Social Media is becoming more and more valuable as more of the general public integrates their lives in the social web. SM is quickly changing the way we look at and think about media and its influence on our buyers.

Look at it this way… When most people make a purchase, it’s an emotional decision, and logic generally only enters to justify the transaction. As a company, we need to connect with our customers more powerfully than our competitors have in order to create a brand loyalty that will see people through a transaction. The better the connection we’ve made, the greater the emotional tie people have to our brands; and social media provides incredible ways to communicate and connect directly with the people who are already looking for us.

I like to tell people that in the wild pre-internet days companies would communicate with their customers via ads, in print, TV or radio; a communication style that isn’t unlike standing on top of a soapbox and yelling through a bullhorn, hoping your voice will be heard by the right people. All the advances, and globalization of TV and Radio that occurred by the end of the last century didn’t change any of that… they just provided bigger and bigger bullhorns to yell at audiences through.

But SM HAS changed all that. Social networks and social media and the internet in general allow us to find the people who are already interested in us and our products; talk to our customers one-on-one; and even proactively find disgruntled or dissatisfied customers instantly!

SM will likely never replace the 30 second spot (TV commercial), but any company that doesn’t invest a little time and energy to at least BE where their customers are, are going to find themselves losing out to their more savvy competition who realize Social media is an increasingly integral part of any marketers toolbox.

 

 

 

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Topics: Conversations, Lifehack, Social Media | Comments

The Ultimate WordPress Plugin List

User ImageMichael | October 16, 2007


While I’ve always believed in working hard once I’ve set my mind to something, I’ve spent a lot of time over the past year or two trying to teach myself how to work SMARTER as well.

One of the ways I try to do this is by automating my daily life as much as possible. This allows me to slice the time I DO have just a little thinner.

In fact, it’s one of the reasons I love apps like Wordpress and Firefox (although I definitely DON’T like how heavy the newest Firefox runs). Some of the plugins available for these programs are incredible and allow me to squeeze more work into less time by taking advantage of the work of other very smart people!

I owe a BIG thank you to the 2,000′ish people who’ve taken the time to visit and help make my first couple of weeks on the new blog great! And, as I continue to tweak the template and improve the SEO’ability of the blog I’ve received a few emails asking about what it is I’ve been doing - and why!

So instead of sharing individually over and over again, I thought I’d just bare all (so to speak) and compile a list of ALL the great wordpress plugins I’m using, have used, or may be thinking about using…

The Ultimate WordPress Plugin List:

There are a few other good ones out there, and I’ll be updating this list over time, but this is an excellent place to start and should cover all the major bases you’ll need!

And if you use any plugins that you can’t live without but I’ve somehow missed (it happens more than I like to admit!), I’d love to hear about them! Let me know what they are and where I can find them and I’ll add them to the list and credit you with the addition!

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3.1 (1 person)

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Office A.D.D. or, Email - the Brain Grenade

User ImageMichael | October 2, 2007


I just came across a fascinating article on MensHealth.com regarding the frantic pace of office life now-a-days.  I’ve copied some of the most interesting information below, but recommend heading HERE to give it a read in full (you’ll find more information and tips on overcoming problems):

“Our brains field more data than ever before,” says noted psychiatrist Ned Hallowell, M.D., “and with no acknowledgment of it.” Indeed, though most of us act as if nothing big has changed in our lives, Dr. Hallowell says we’re actually in the midst of a historic shift not seen since Gutenberg fired up the first printing press.

After all, do we not have big brains? Are we not multitaskers? The short answer, unfortunately, is no. Study after study shows that our gray matter really can’t handle two complex tasks at once — at least not without slowing us down or screwing us up.

“Our brains have billions of neurons, each making thousands of connections, and yet the truth is we can really focus on only one thing at a time,” says René Marois, Ph.D., a neuroscientist and an associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University; who proved that an actual neural bottleneck occurs in our frontal lobes when we attempt to do two tasks at once.

“Every e-mail interruption is like a hand grenade being thrown in the middle of your brain,” says Dr. Hallowell

Hallowell says that when it comes to technology, we tend to operate in one of two modes. The first, when we’re performing well, he calls “C-state,” C standing for calm, cool, collected. Its opposite is “F-state,” meaning flustered, frazzled, frantic. Not coincidentally, the symptoms of F-state look a lot like those of A.D.D.: difficulty focusing for more than a few seconds; a tendency to have a lot of projects going at once, with trouble completing any of them; a constant search for stimulation; and trouble with time management, including a tendency to procrastinate. “The busier you become, the less sense of time you feel, so that pretty soon there are only two times in your mind: now and not now,” Dr. Hallowell says. “You try desperately to put as much as you can into the pile of not now.”

Many days, <we> might as well have an F stamped on <our> forehead. …constantly interrupted by e-mail at work, unable to cut the cord between work and home, putting in 12-hour days, yet still feeling constantly overwhelmed from the bombardment of messages.

Obviously, F-state can take its toll at work. But the problems run deeper. Dr. Hallowell says that in a 1970  paper called “The Experience of Living in Cities,” the psychologist Stanley Milgram foreshadowed what many of us are now experiencing. Intrigued by the 1964 murder of a New York City woman named Kitty Genovese, who was stabbed to death as 38 people watched from their apartments and didn’t call the police, Milgram was able to show that the more data we process, the more we’re forced to screen out. It’s why people who live in small towns tend to make eye contact and say hello when they pass each other on the sidewalk, while people who live in cities pass each other blankly. Milgram said people’s “span of sympathy” decreases as the amount of data they have to process increases.

“This is the great danger of mental overload,” Dr. Hallowell says. “You lose your judgment and ability to empathize with other people.” It may be the greatest irony of the age we live in: The more ways we have to connect to one another, the less connected we really are.

Ultimately, the only way to stay in control of message overload, the only way to avoid F-state, is to artificially impose the boundaries that once existed naturally. More than anything, that means avoiding the temptation to check work email from home.

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