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Important Tasks

2009 by 2 Comments
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Have you ever started a day with some great ideas of everything you want to accomplish, but suddenly it is 6pm and you have nothing to show for your day?  While it is probably impossible to keep this from ever happening, we can minimize it by doing something very simple: Do something important first. That isn't really an amazing idea, but it is very very powerful.  If you can, early in the day, do one or two things that have lasting value, you'll be taking steps in the right direction--even if the entire rest of the day is shot. The goal of this approach is to make sure you aren't sitting still.  You want to make sure you are moving forward, and the best way to do that is to make … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Time Tagged With: , ,

Email Receipts

2009 by 14 Comments
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Some people are going to consider this an ugly hack, so I've been hesitant to share it.  However, it works very well, so here it is.  When I get an email receipt, I simply leave it in my inbox.  (As I've said before, I don't worry about trying to delete everything out of my inbox--I just keep everything I might need in there where I can easily search it.) So, all of my email receipts are in my inbox. When I import my credit card statement into my financial software, I like to add a note on each item saying what it was for.  I've found that the most efficient way to find the receipt is to do a search in my email program for the price.  Most of the time this is a unique number, and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Money Tagged With: ,

TIP: Wake Up Right

2009 by 7 Comments
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Imagine waking up to your alarm clock. Now imagine gently waking up as the sunlight fills your room with light. Which one seems like a better recipe for having a wonderful, high performance day? Alarm clocks are designed to wake you up, so they make annoying and jarring sounds to jerk you right out of your peaceful sleep. You have to wonder if this is really a good way to start your day. I mean, really, do you want the first few seconds of each day to be associated with something containing the word "alarm"? When I was a kid, my brother and a friend decided we wanted to see what the early morning cartoons were like. I constructed a device with a small fire alarm style bell, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Misc Tagged With: , ,

Messing with Other People’s Time Management

2009 by 9 Comments
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I write a lot about how to be more productive, but what if that really isn't your thing? What if you don't like productivity? What if your goal in life is to ruin productivity for other people? In an effort to expand our readership to people striving for unproductivity, here are six things you can do to guarantee that your co-workers get as little done as possible. Productivity501 takes no responsibility for the results of actually implementing any of these ideas. Randomly put entries on their calendar like: "1:30 meeting with John White Important!" or "Call Sally 535-321-1242". Place them far enough in the future that they won't suspect you did it. Write in fake delegated … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Time Tagged With: , ,

International Travel Tips

2009 by 4 Comments
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I've done a lot of traveling in the past, so I wanted to share some of things I've learned (many times the hard way) that make international travel easier. You should try to get as much information as possible about the country you are visiting, but this list of tips should give you some good starting points that are relevant for most any destination. A couple great sources for safety information on foreign countries are the CIA World Factbook and the US Travel Advisory site. Take Copies - Having a copy of your drivers license and the first page of your passport are very handy in getting your visa or vehicle permits.  They also serve as backup if your wallet and passport are … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Organize Tagged With: , ,

Tuesday’s Tip: Removing Superglue

2009 by 13 Comments
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Have you ever gotten superglue all over your fingers and had to live with it for two weeks as it wore off? There is a simple way to take it off, but first, let me tell you a story. When my wife worked in the ER of a large county hospital in Dallas, she saw a lot of very strange cases. One of the most interesting was the guy who came in with his eyes closed. Evidently, his wife had accused him of looking at other women and they got into a fight. Somehow, he decided that he could prove that he wasn't looking at other women by super-gluing his eyes closed. (I am not making this up.) After the glue dried, he began to think it wasn't such a great idea and got some people to drive him … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Misc Tagged With: ,

11 Steps in Becoming Educated for Your Dream Job

2009 by 8 Comments
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I had quite a few comments about taking classes online in my post "17 Things You Should Stop Doing".  When LifeHacker linked to the article, they had even more comments from their readers. Many of the comments were negative, saying that you shouldn't take classes online. So, I wanted to take some time to talk about the best way for college to fit into your career. First, here is a little background about my education to give you an idea of where I'm coming from.  I have a bachelor's and master's degree in music composition (both taken at physical universities where I was sitting in class).  I am currently working on my thesis for a master's focused on software engineering that I … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Development Tagged With: , ,

Facebook

2009 by Leave a Comment

You can connect with Productivity501 on Facebook by becoming a fan of the Productivity501 Page. Please consider helping promote the site by becoming a fan. Thanks! … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Asides

5 Tips for an Organized Computer

2009 by 14 Comments

1. Use Your My Documents Folder The My Documents folder is there for a reason. If you don't have a My Document's folder, create one. The idea is to keep all of your documents in this folder. This makes it easy to backup your computer and easy to find stuff instead of looking all over your hard drive. You can take this idea step further and create folders for the types of items you produce on your computer. Here is an example of how OS X sets up your home directory by default: One of the big benefits of this type of setup is that you can go to one place to start looking for anything you've previously saved. It also gives you a single place where you can tell your backup software … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Organize Tagged With: , , ,

Text and Image Documents

2009 by Leave a Comment

There are two basic types of documents you can use in a paperless office.  The first type of document is text based.  These are formats like .TXT .RTF .DOC, etc.  These store text as editable information.  You can go in and change the document, fix spelling, copy sentences, etc. The second type of document is an image based document.  This includes formats like .TIF, .JPG, .PNG, .GIF, etc.  These documents just represent a bunch of pixels.  The computer can't edit the words themselves other than by deleting pixels and putting new pixels down.  You can't copy a sentence and paste it into another program if you are using this format. The advantage of the text-based formats is … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: , , ,

Your Employer Owes You Nothing

2009 by 23 Comments
Your Employer Owes You Nothing

I see many people working a normal job with the idea that if they work hard they will be rewarded for their good service. That isn't the way it works. Your employer owes you nothing. It doesn't matter how long you've worked at the job or how loyal you've been. In the end, your years of service aren't going to turn into some valuable investment that you can cash in. Just the other day, a friend of mine was let go (along with all the other employees) at a business where he had been working for the past several years. The sad part is that, he had several offers over the past few months for jobs that he really wanted to take, but he decided to stay out of loyalty to his current … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Misc Tagged With: , ,

Integration is More Important than Features

2009 by 3 Comments
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I am working with a client that has about 10 employees. They are starting to hit a wall when it comes to productivity. While each of their systems have a bunch of nice features, none of them integrate with each other. As a result, they spend most of their time moving information back and forth. The more their business grows, the slower their back office processes become. Here is an example: when someone buys something from the online store, that information has to be manually entered into the accounting software. The customer information must be manually entered into the customer relationship management system. If a customer gets a refund, the accountant handles the refund, but then … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: , ,

Where Did My Day Go Contest Winner

2009 by 1 Comment

We have a winner in our most recent contest. Chad Harless won a copy of Where the !@#% did my day go? by Matthew Cornell. I'd encourage you to subscribe to Matt's RSS feed or newsletter for more tips on his time management method. Thank you to everyone who participated. If you'd like your own copy of Where the !@#% did my day go? or his other ebooks checkout his products page. Also … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Time

Learning to Stay Current

2009 by 10 Comments
life-main

Imagine that your memory was only good for two years. Anything that you learned over two years ago was forgotten. The only education you had at your disposal was the things you had learned in the past 24 months. This should be a pretty terrifying prospect for anyone. However, some people would find themselves unable to function at all, while others would find themselves merely handicapped. It all depends on how much effort each individual has put into learning new things in the last two years. Some people graduate from college with the idea that they can stop learning. They pick up some additional education in the form of on-the job-training, but the amount they learn each … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Development Tagged With: , ,

Interview: Productivity Tool

2009 by 8 Comments
tool-tall

In our interview series we asked a number of people the following: What do you feel is your most important productivity tool?(1532) The metaphorical axe - no bit of software or technology would help me if I didn't know how to constantly remove anything from my life that is getting in the way of living in a balanced and productive manner. Joel Falconer (rss) The word "No". I am getting really good at establishing boundaries and saying "No". "No" is probably THE most difficult thing for anyone, like me, who is interested in everything, loves talking with people, and has no internal time clock.  I love generating ideas and options.  I truly do not naturally like to say no … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Productivity Tagged With: , ,

Tuesday’s Tip: College Records

2009 by 3 Comments
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When I was in college, I quickly learned how important it was to keep records. You can't rely on your university to keep track of everything correctly. Maybe they will, but just in case they make a mistake, you need to be prepared. One habit I formed early on in college was to get a copy of my transcript each semester. One semester, there were an extra 15 hours of credits on the transcript for classes I had not taken. After doing some checking, it became clear that they had accidentally given me credit for someone else's work. I explained it to the university and they straightened out the records. However, I imagine it was much easier to get something taken off than it would be … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Organize Tagged With: , ,

Working with Your Spouse Financially

2009 by 4 Comments
spouse-tall

In the book The Millionaire Mind and The Millionaire Next Door, the authors point out that millionaires tend to marry people who support them financially.  One of the easiest ways to wreck your financial plan is for there to be competition between a husband and wife, financially. If you have ever heard a couple say things like, "well, you bought a new dvd player, so I can go buy a new dress" or "you spent $300 at the mall, so I decided to go buy a new television." You know what I'm talking about.  If the members of a marriage feel like they are in competition with each other for spending, they are off to a bad start.  Here are some simple tips to avoid this type of … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Money Tagged With: , ,