Getting the Most Out of Magazines

Safety Tips

Personal Productivity from Management Theory

Take the Time to Play

Global Perspective

Check List for Email

Setting Goals

Iron Chef – A Productivity Fable

Perception of Authority

Adobe Buzzword

Mind Your Own Business

Hawthorne Effect

Interview: Effective Gadgets

Sharran Srivatsaa from Vanderbilt OwenBloggers (rss)

The idea of separating your organization software from your email is interesting.  Most people are trying to get tighter integration between email, calendar and tasks.  I can see the advantage the Sharran is talking about in getting you away from email.

I use the following…

1. Treo Smartphone for e-mail and appointments. This helps me remember appointments and is a great contact solution with e-mail. This unit does NOT work well as a phone (3 out of 5 rating)
2. Small digital timer for timing my 48 minute singletasking sessions. This little timer rules. I do ONE FOCUSED THING while this counts down.
3. Standard Ipod for taking Audio books along in the car or when exercising. Ipod Audio books have enabled me to listen to over 50 books a year when I’m otherwize non-productive (driving etc)
4. Ipod Touch for getting e-mail and entertainment when on the go. Wireless internet connection required. A fun addition to my technology collection. Great when you have to wait for long periods of time (jury duty etc)

John Richardson from Success Begins Today (rss)

I have an older iPod that is mounted in the trunk of our car in place of the CD changer.  Every once in a while, I will take it out and load it up with audiobooks and podcasts.  Since we spend a lot of time on the road this helps make sure we always have somethign educational to listen to while driving.

My Macbook is the hub of everything; I run my business from the road on it and use wireless internet connections wherever I find them to stay connected and keep in touch. I love the Spaces functionality which lets me have several desktops open at once – so I run Windows and Mac concurrrently on different desktops as well as having a “blogging” desktop and a “client” desktop.

An HTC TyTnII cellphone is a great backup for the Macbook as I can access email and use Skype wirelessly on it. I use it frequently to allow me to take breaks from the laptop and go and explore the latest place we’re staying in (currently Thailand) but stay connected to my business at the same time.

Digital camera (Canon Powershot SD700) which I use to ’scan’ important documents when I travel and store them on my hard drive.

Lea Woodward from Location Independent Living (rss)

The idea of using Skype wirelessly on a cell phone is interesting.  Earlier today I was placing some Skype calls over my MacBook Pro using a Sprint EVDO card.  It worked surprisingly well, but it looks like we are starting to see a carrier backlash as they try to control what applications you can run on your smart phone in order to protect their voice revenue.

Personally I find Skype to be a huge timesaver.  I can search my contacts and click to call.  Also since the new version will let you send your cell phone number as the caller ID that shows up, it significantly improves the experience–people don’t ignore your call because of the strange number.

I use my cell phone for organization more than I ever thought I would.  I send myself SMS reminders via GoPingMe.com and Google Calendar.  Ironically, usually the very act of setting up the reminder makes me remember the task without any help!

Also, if I get an idea, make an appointment, or am assigned a task that I can’t write down, I call my Jott account and speak the information, which is then transcribed to text and sent to my Gmail account, where it is filtered to a special label.

Damian Bariexca from Apace of Change (rss)

That sounds like a pretty nice setup.  I haven’t used GoPingMe, but I will check into them.

Only a Treo 700p. It tells me my calendar wherever I go. And I can get email and IM, too.

Brendon Connelly from BikeHacks (rss)

I used to carry a large Franklin Planner around everywhere with me.  It is nice to see how much smaller that functionality has become.

Gadgets are probably the bane of effectiveness!

Just kidding – it’s the user that’s the problem. I use Apple Macs and an iPaq PDA phone to do my day-to-day work, and an external hard drive to store extra stuff and just as a useful item to have when you’re out. This system allows me to get plenty done, wherever I am, though I have my Mac mini and home office set up just the way I like it with an ergonomic mouse and keyboard (you don’t know how great those are until you’re using them every day).

iPods are also great – I have to use my iPod nano at the studios, since the Pro Tools HD system sucks so much power from USB that it won’t run my external hard drive!

http://www.joelfalconer.com from Joel Falconer (rss)

I think that searching for the right gadget can be the bane of effectiveness.  Some people become so absorbed with finding the perfect gadget that they forget that it is supposed to save them time.

I use a cheap mp3 player, on which I have every lecture from my courses in the current semester of university. It means I don’t have to take notes, and I can revise while I’m walking to work, driving or doing housework. Plus, it isn’t nearly as boring as studying, and having something physical to do at the same time makes it easier for me to concentrate for long periods.

David Robertson from The Church of Chris Martin (rss)

Being able to listen to a lecture again is very helpful.  I was taking some college classes online and I found a plugin that would let me play the lectures faster or slower.  When I understood the material, I would play it faster.  If I was having trouble understanding I would slow it down.  When reviewing I would speed it up again.

I am a big fan of my Nokia N800 Internet Tablet. Nice high-res screen, great battery life, decent Mozilla based browser w/support for Web 2.0, not to mention open source so plenty of expandability. It is does a great job of filling a void until the next rev of the iPhone comes along.

It is nice to have at a meeting if ones needs to look up something on the web instead of having to do the same with a big, clunky laptop. Seems far less, well, rude. With this, my Levenger Pocket Briefcase and/or Field Notes notebook, I have a connected, pocket sized, total meeting solution.

Patrick Rhone from Patrick Rhone’s Journal (rss)

Of course the trade off is, that a small device that gets you to the internet can help waste time as well.  But we are seeing a shift.  There is a lot of information that used to require paper, radio, or TV that now is more efficient to lookup on the internet.  If I need to know the weather, I just type in weather and the name of my city.  If I need to look up a phone number, I just do it on Google.  A small device like you described could be very useful for those types of things.

The only real gadget I use is a travel alarm clock with a timer and alarm.  I set it for a certain amount of time and then forget about it and what time it is, which allows me to focus that much more Psychic RAM on whatever I’m working on.  It’s always visible slightly out of my primary field of view, but I hardly ever look at it, as there’s really no need to worry about the time.

Charlie Gilkey from Productive Flourishing (rss)

I think this is a very effective way to work.  It is easier to commit yourself to a particular task when you have a specific amount of time in mind.

Jott.com, in conjunction with my cell phone, lets me send reminders to myself via email and/or text message. It’s especially useful when I’m driving or running errands, and don’t want to fumble around for paper.

Eva Holtz from College Admissions Secrets (rss)

That sounds a lot safer than trying to type yourself a message on your phone keyboard.

I find too many gadgets can just get in the way and slow you down.  However, if you can find something simple, that does something well, it can be a great boost.  Two software gadgets I use are gmail.com and jott.com – gmail for managing all my email accounts and jott for text-to-email phone call notes to myself.

John Koontz from West Coast Shaving

This is a good point.  It comes down to having a purpose for each gadget and understanding what you are trying to accomplish.  I’v seen people so focused on trying to have a perfect gadget setup that they waste more time than they would have without using their gadget at all.

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