Here are a few of the good links and fun items I've run across this past week.
The "Now Defunct Museum"
The Now Defunct Museum is a Squidoo lens dedicated to remembering some of the things that once seemed everywhere, but now have vanished from our everyday lives. Very entertaining - I like the picture of the old-school NBA uniforms (at right), for example.
How to Create a 15 minute Presentation in 1 Hour or Less
Cliff Atkinson, author of Beyond Bullet Points, has posted an excellent walk-through post showing how to create a 15 minute presentation very efficiently.
i-Lighter now has a Mac version
A few weeks back, I wrote about i-Lighter as a wonder tool. Good news - they now have a Mac version available! Check it out at the i-Lighter home page and download a free copy.
Can you hear me now?
I was thumbing through the SkyMall catalog on a flight home this week, and saw something I just had to tear out and post here. It's a hearing aid disguised as a Bluetooth headset - I love the way they spin the value in the ad (click the thumbnail at left to read it yourself).
I just wonder what people will think when you have this in one ear and are holding your phone up to the other ear when someone calls you?
If you want one, head over to SkyMall.
Read MoreHere are a few items I've found or found out about recently that I thought would be interesting to you:
New "Feedables" feed on Efficiency
Feedables is an RSS aggregation service I really like. I have been following their "Gadgets Feed" for a while, and really like it. I just found out they have added an Efficiency feeds page. Good stuff - check it out.
5x5: Five Things for Five Minutes
An oldie but a goodie, rediscovered. Tim Milburn's "5x5 Worksheets" are an awesome approach to getting more done in 5 minutes than most people do all day. I'm glad Tim's teaching people - he's got the knack.
Wrike is better than before
I have written about Wrike as a GTD application before. It's good for group collaboration and project management. They've recently added time tracking for tasks, among a number of other useful features. The time tracking is great for time auditing. Wrike is also a good, low cost alternative to products like Groove.
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I work at a software company, and our dress code around the office is fairly relaxed most of the time. Therefore, when I'll be in the office all day and not seeing any customers in person, I usually wear blue jeans.
The other day, I didn't have any clean jeans so I threw on a pair of khaki trousers from The Gap and went to work. I got quite a few comments like, "Why are you so dressed up - is a customer visiting today?"
Why was I surprised by this reaction? I was (literally) wearing all the same clothes --right down to the shoes-- that I usually wear to work except the blue jeans. Changing my trousers noticeably changed others perception of my professionalism.
This small effect reminded me that it doesn't take much to positively influence how others perceive us. I'm not just talking about clothing - I think the "little bit extra" factor can make a difference in a lot of things we do.
Becoming purposeful
Now, I'm trying to be more conscious of when I could add a "little bit extra" to key activities and deliverables in my job to positively impact others' perception of my work. For example, some examples of areas I can improve are:
- Planning more for meetings I chair and sending out agendas, expectations, and pre-reading ahead of time.
- Being more conscientious about follow-up after meetings and calls, including sending out meeting recaps and action items.
- Being more proactive in informing others in my team about things that I'm working on which may affect them.
This is not an overnight change, as it takes time to develop new habits in this area, but I think it will be worth it. Just added a Next Action to my "@computer - web" list to order more khakis...
What about you - have you discovered any small changes that make a big positive difference?
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After reading an article from the Nov. 21 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, I wanted to get a pedometer that I could use every day. You see, the study says that people who use a pedometer to track their daily steps tend to increase their step count by about 2400 steps per day. I guess it's one of those "That which gets measured gets improved" situations.
Trouble is, I didn't want to hang some funky pedometer on my belt (most pedometers I've seen are either too bulky or gaudy for me to want to wear them every day). I still haven't found a "businesslike" pedometer, but I've found the next best thing: the ThinQ Pocket Pedometer from Sportline. This is designed to fit in your pocket (I find it works great in either your pants pocket or shirt pocket).
It seems about as accurate as my older, geekier pedometer and it is very unobtrusive. The ThinQ also has a clock, a stopwatch, and calculates the distance (be sure and set your stride length for more accuracy) and estimated calories burned through walking.
The ThinQ comes in blue, orange, and green and you can get it on Amazon, and it is on sale at the time of this posting through REI.
By the way - the AMA article also suggests 10,000 steps as a good goal for most people. Walk on, everyone.
Read MoreThanks to my dear friend Rosa, I have been reading a great post from Web Worker Daily on "Getting Things Done (GTD) for Bloggers."
As the name implies, this article is an adaptation of David Allen's Getting Things Done, geared toward bloggers. I think it does a fantastic job of mapping GTD activities to the tasks of blogging. I'm tempted (but maybe not that tempted...) to produce such a mapping for my "day job," too.
Innate or acquired productivity?
As I reflected on this, I was wondering: how much of productivity is learned, and how much is wiring? I have three children, and they each approach organization and planning in very different ways. My youngest is a natural listmaker and planner. For example, this past weekend, she had a sleepover at a friend's house. The Sunday before, she had her bag packed and had created a little sign that she put on top of her bag, reminding her to put her toothbrush, toothpaste, and her favorite stuffed animal in the bag before going to her friend's house.
She's only 7 but she is by far the most "together" member of the house - and this is all stuff she picked up on her own.
So, what do you think? I consider myself to be productive, but not naturally so. I've learned some tricks and techniques to help with organization, but I must work at it to stay with the program - what have you observed in your own life?
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