1. Good lighting

Typical webcams look 100 times better when they have enough light. Adding a few light bulbs can make a huge difference in improving the way you look on the screen. I purchased some large CFL daylight balanced bulbs. They keep me from looking pink or blue and make the quality of my images much better than what it looks like without the lighting.

If you can get sunlight from a window that is great. Just make sure it isn’t behind you otherwise the camera will compensate and make your face look very dark.

2. Good  camera

The camera built into your laptop is probably not the highest quality camera you have. I’ve had pretty good results using a camcorder as my camera. It lets me zoom in in order to show exactly what I want. I mounted it on top of my monitor using a flexible tripod that I can twist around to hold it in the right place securely. Many camcorders have a manual white balance which can go a long ways toward making your image look natural without needing to buy a bunch of color balanced lights.

3. Pay attention to how you look

Make sure you keep a preview window open to see how you look to the remote viewers. I’ve seen people work all day with the camera showing just their forehead or half of their face. Others look like they are in the witness protection program because a bright window behind them makes them show up as a silhouette.

4. Look them in the eye

If you want to make eye contact, you will need to look into the camera.  The ideal place for the camera is in the center of the image of the people you are talking to. Obviously that isn’t possible, but you want to keep it as close as you can. If you put your camera on the opposite side of your desk from the video of everyone else, it will look like you are looking away every time you look at someone to talk to them.

Even if you have the image and camera close together, you may want to try looking directly into the camera when you talk just so other people see you looking them in the eye. It is a small thing, but it can help make you more personable by giving people the same experience they have in person.

5. What is behind you?

Be very careful what is going on behind you–particularly if you are working at home. I’ve been on video conferences where the camera was pointed into the main part of the house and someone walked by wearing a towel!

6. Prioritize your bandwidth

If you are dealing with video and audio, it is probably a good idea to give it the priority over your other web traffic. Many mid to high end home routers come with the ability to prioritize some traffic over others. For example, if I am trying to load a web page at the same time my video conference is trying to send video, the video goes out first and the web page stuff only goes out in between what the video needs to send.

7. Mute

Make sure you have an easy way to mute an unmute and a way to tell whether you are sending audio or not. I was involved in a project where everyone worked together on video conference all day. I had to make a call to reserve a hotel and forgot to mute. Later people told me that I read my credit card number out to about 10 people.

If you work at home being able to quickly mute is especially important if you may have kids or pets suddenly making loud noises in the background.

8. Wear pants

You may think you will only be seen as a headshot, but don’t count on it. You might stand up, pickup your laptop, etc. I once heard about the CEO of a company who was doing a video conference from his home. He was wearing a nice suit, but when he stood up (thinking the conference was over) he was only wearing boxers from the waist down.

This past week I got a call from a company that is doing just that–being very creative. They are called Tie Society and the best way to describe them is Netflix for neckties. The idea started when Zac Gittens and Otis Collins began trading ties to keep variety in their wardrobe without buying new ties all the time. They took that idea and created their company that lets you borrow ties, keep them until you don’t need them anymore, and then send them back for different ties. Pricing is $11 to $50 per month. The cheapest plan lets you have a single item out each month while the top plan lets you have 10.

If you only wear a tie every few month, Tie Society may not make sense. But if you wear a tie every day the economics can start looking attractive–particularly if you are in a position where you need to have a lot of variety in the way you dress. Tie Society also gives you the ability to purchase the ties that you decide you need as a permanent part of your wardrobe.

In addition to ties, Tie Society also carries cuff links and pocket squares. The shipping process is very much like NetFlix. You get a mailer prepaid mailer that can be used to ship items back when you are ready for a change.

The thing that impressed me the most about Tie Society is the creativity that went into their business model. $80 seems to be typical price for a tie at a men’s clothing store, but sales are very common at up to 50% off. Tie Society skips the clothing store and buys direct, so their costs are presumably much lower. At their $30 plan, the cost is probably similar to buying a new tie every other month, but Tie Society gives you 5 items and the ability to swap them out at any time.  So for the consumer who wears ties all the time and needs lots of variety the pricing makes sense.

Ties are also one of the few things that are pretty much interchangeable. This let them launch their business without needing a huge inventory to start with. I can wear the same tie as 98% of the other men in the world. But pretty much every suit jacket I have has been altered in someway to make it fit better. Ties are unique in their interchangeability and allows this company to launch their business without requiring a huge investment of capital in nearly duplicate inventory.

Ties, pocket squares and cuff links also are easy and inexpensive to ship back and forth using the postal service. And ties don’t take up much space. They don’t need a huge warehouse to house there inventory.

So back to the idea of starting your own business, if you are looking for an example of a small business with a lot of creativity behind it, take a look at Tie Society. If you want to start your own business, don’t try to copy their business idea, but by all means pay attention to the way they creatively came up with a business that has a good chance of success without requiring a huge amount of startup capital.

Word was a much more powerful system than the mainframe word processor. The mainframe only offered basic formatting (bold, italics, and underline), a single mono-spaced font, and a few other features like tabs and the ability to center a line of text. It seemed obvious that individuals using Word would be much more productive than those who used the mainframe system. In actual practice, this was not the case.

The people who were switching to Word found that it was taking much longer to create documents than it use to take on the mainframe system. Word offered some definite advantages over the old way like real time spell checking, but in terms of how long it took to create a document, it was slower.

After talking to a few people, I realized that when someone created a document on the mainframe, they were faced with far fewer choices than in Word. While the flexibility of Word made it much more powerful, that power came at a price. The price was the number of decisions required to make a document. Word users had to decide what template to use, whether to change the font, if they should save the document on their computer or the server, whether to accept the Office Assistant’s offer to help, and and what font to use. And that is all before they even started typing on their document. I saw people spending hours selecting clip art, trying different fonts, changing margins and struggling with indents and tabs. These were all things that hadn’t been an issue before because they weren’t possible on the mainframe.

Your productivity with a given tool is inversely proportional to the number of unnecessary decisions the tool requires. Even if the tool doesn’t “require” you to make a decision, it will slow you down if it occupies your thoughts. This means that many “powerful” tools will actually make you less productive by offering you options that you will never use.

To be productive, you need to have the simplest tool that does everything that you need. A jackhammer is much more powerful than an icepick, but if you are trying to break up ice cubes, the most powerful tool is not the most productive.

Originally published on October 25, 2005.

Mark’s paperless project has always been a favorite of mine to follow. He uses DevonThink to manage incoming documents from his Fujitsu ScanSnap.

It’s a good system, but for me, it lacks two things:

1. It doesn’t handle all my files, such as Word documents, Keynote presentations and other file types well.
2. Third-party software independence.

In accordance with GTD, I like to have a comprehensive system that’s cross-platform and can live independently from software such as DevonThink.

While a system with DevonThink will work for many of you, I’m sure some of you out there will value a more flexible, portable system.

Here’s my filing system, using just Mac OS X and Quicksilver, and optionally, Leap.

The System

Single Alpha System

I have hanging folders for each letter of the alphabet as my physical storage system. I find this system works extremely well, as far as retrieval is concerned. There’s a maximum of 26 places I can look for in the worst case, usually you can narrow it down to 3 or 4.

It takes 10 minutes to make but is extremely easy to navigate as you’ll see.

This system resides within a Reference folder. This folder practically holds my entire life.

Filing Stuff

This is where Quicksilver comes into play. Quicksilver can be described as a launcher for Mac OS X, but it basically provides instant access to a lot of functionality and interaction with files. You can get it at Blacktree Software.

Let’s take a typical scenario:

You have file that’s landed in your inbox, either by downloading it from the internet, an email attachment, or a direct PDF scan from your scanner. Here, I have an eBook version of George Orwell’s 1984.

I want to achieve the following: Put the file into my system in a folder named “eBooks”.

Two problems arise:

1. The folder eBooks doesn’t exist yet.
2. Conventionally moving a file is a pain in the backside.

With Quicksilver, it’s easy:

1. Highlight the file with your mouse (click once).
2. Invoke Quicksilver.
3. Type “E” to go to your “E” folder.
4. Press Tab, and type “N” to select the “New Folder” command.
5. Press Tab again, and type “eBooks”, and Enter to create the folder.
6. Now type Command+G to drop your highlighted file into Quicksilver.
7. Press Tab, and type “M” to choose the “Move to…” command.
8. Press Tab and type “E” to go to the E-Folder.
9. Use the arrow keys to drill down to the “eBooks” folder, and hit Enter.

While the instructions seem lengthy, once you get used to it you’ll find it extremely fast and comfortable to do. The last two steps are necessary because Quicksilver will not have indexed your newly created folder yet, so you have to manually drill down. No big deal.

Retrieval

Finding a file is extremely simple, thanks to Mac OS X and the OCR software included with most scanners these days, including the Fujitsu ScanSnap. Since the files are simply living as normal files within the OS, Spotlight search finds them with ease.

Hmm… I had that cool novel about Big Brother… what was it called?

Ah, there it is!

That’s my portable filing system. It’s flexible, cross-platform, and I can whack all my files on a thumb drive and walk to Windows as well. If you enjoyed this, be sure to stay tuned to Mark’s blog right here and my new blog over at The Productive Student.

It is easy to think of email as a conversation. You say something and get a reply back and both parties hit delete and it is gone. However, in reality, much of the email you send is stored permanently somewhere–especially when you are dealing with corporate mail servers. If you send a message out, it will go into your sent items and will usually be backed up on your local mail server. Even if you delete the email from your sent items, it is likely to be merely “flagged” for deletion and still backed up.

When it gets to the other end, it is probably going to be backed up by your recipient’s IT department. In large organizations it may be backed up in a few more places along the way.

It is now standard practice to subpoena email records as part of a court case. This is what is happening to Mr. Tanin. He emailed someone saying that certain bonds were “toast”, but at an investor meeting, he told people he was “comfortable” with the investments.

Other money managers have had similar problems. Here are some of the emails that have turned up in court cases:

I can’t believe what a piece of sh– that thing is

–Henrey Blodget from Merril Lynch

Henry was referring to a company to which he inexplicably gave a “buy” rating.

Jack Grubman referred to executives at a company as “pigs” and then encouraged investors to buy stock in the company without mentioning the barnyard leadership team.

It isn’t just email that can turn up. The text messages from SkyTel were subpoenaed for Detroit’s mayor and led to the revelation that he was having an embarrassing affair which he had denied under oath.

In many cases emails and other forms of electronic communication are even more permanent than something written out on paper because of the multiple points of backup. If you are dealing with something that could come back to bite you later, pick up the phone, or better yet, go talk in person, but avoid email.

This advice isn’t meant to tell you how to hide things that are illegal. There are many email conversations that are perfectly legal that you still wouldn’t want to have showing up in a courtroom or made public.

(This is republished from July of 2008. The importance of understanding how permanent electronic communications can be is more important now than ever.)

Memorizing does not have to be as hard as most people make it. The problem is that most people only know how to memorize by reading the same thing over and over again. You have to learn to memorize. In this post we are going to look at how the brain remembers and then show how to use that knowledge to come up with a method for memorizing verbatim text.  Any tip or trick that will improve your memory even slightly is well worth the effort.

In this article we are going to focus on a technique that will let you easily:

1. Memorize a speech
2. Memorize the Bible
3. Memorize lines
4. Memorize Scripture

At the end of this article is a Javascript tool that makes it easy to implement this method. If you are reading the RSS or Email version, the tool may not show up.

Synapses and Neurons and How to Memorize

In the simplified model of the brain in this discussion, we’ll be looking at neurons and synapses. Neurons are parts of the brain that can send and receive electrical signals. Synapses are the paths between neurons.

When you remember something neurons fire signals down particular synapse pathways to other neurons which in turn fire signals to other neurons. The particular sequence represents a memory. In fact, scientists have been able to make people “re live” experiences from the past by poking around in their brain with an electric probe and starting this interaction.

Strong Pathways

Synapses appear to exhibit plasticity. The strength of the signal they convey is determined by use. The more a particular synapse is used, the stronger the signal it conveys.

For example, consider remembering your home telephone number. Since this is a number you use on a regular basis it probably comes very easily to mind. When you try to recall the number some neurons fire of a signal down some synapses that carry a very strong signal to other neurons which do the same thing. The number comes with very little effort.

Now consider a number that you will have trouble remembering. Lets say your driver’s license number. For most people an attempt to recall this number will cause neurons to fire down very weak synapses. If you are like me, the signal is so week that it will probably not create the necessary chain reaction to recall the number. In fact all I get is a vague impression that the first letter is an S or E. To improve your memory of this number it is necessary to fire a signal down the synapses that will trigger this memory.

How to Memorize – Practice Recalling not Repeating

This is the crucial concept of any type of memorization. The act of reading something you want to memorize fires different connections than the act of recalling. This is how you learn to memorize–your practice recalling, not repeating. This means that simply reading a particular piece of text over and over again is going to be the long road to memorization. You need to let your brain practice recalling the data so it can strengthen the same pathways that will fire when you need to remember the information later on. You can’t practice recalling until the information is at least partially contained in your short term memory.

Now lets look at coming up with a method for memorizing text using our understanding of how the brain works. So lets say we are trying to memorize the Gettysburg Address by Lincoln.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

The 278 word speech is not a particularly long oration, but it will work for our demonstration purposes. Our goal is to create a method that will force our brain to practice recalling the speech–even before we have it fully memorized. So first of all we need to get it into our mind so our brain has it–even if we can’t recall it. Here are a few methods that will work:

1. Read through it aloud.
2. Copy the text by hand.
3. Read through the text and create a short outline.
4. Have someone else read it to you.

There are other methods as well, just do something to get a general familiarity with the piece. Now we need to come up with a method to give our brain, just enough information to recall the original text without simply reading the original.

F s a s y a o f b f o t c, a n n, c i L, a d t t p t a m a c e.

N w a e i a g c w, t w t n, o a n s c a s d, c l e. W a m o a g b-f o t w. W h c t d a p o t f, a a f r p f t w h g t l t t n m l. I i a f a p t w s d t.

B, i a l s, w c n d — w c n c — w c n h — t g. T b m, l a d, w s h, h c i, f a o p p t a o d. T w w l n, n l r w w s h, b i c n f w t d h. I i f u t l, r, t b d h t t u w w t w f h h t f s n a. I i r f u t b h d t t g t r b u — t f t h d w t i d t t c f w t g t l f m o d — t w h h r t t d s n h d i v — t t n, u G, s h a n b o f — a t g o t p, b t p, f t p, s n p f t e.

What we’ve done is taken the first letter of each word. Now try to recite the speech while looking at the text above. You’ll probably get part way into it and get confused. Backup a few letters and look beyond the letter you are struggling with to see if you can figure it out. Remember you are trying to help your brain find the right connections. If you have to consult the original, make note of what confused you and start over.

I have found this method to be much more productive for memorizing verbatim text than just about anything else. I used it extensively in school when I was trying to find how to memorize scripture quickly. It will help improve your memory by giving you a way to practice. However, keep in mind that it is simply one method. When you need to memorize something, think about how to help your brain practice recalling the information–not merely reading it over and over again.  Your goal is to quickly get the information into your short term memory so you can start practicing the recall process and move the information into long term memory.

Below is a tool to help you produce first letter text as shown above. Simply paste the original text in the top box and hit the button. All the letters other than the first one of each word will be stripped out and placed in the bottom box. You can then copy this into a document for printing.

When we purchased our first house we put down a large down payment. Our realtor was surprised to find out we didn’t have any other debt. Getting the loan was no problem as we bought quite a bit less house than what the banks said we could afford. This all seemed normal for us–we try to live within our means if not a little below it.

Several years later the realtor stopped by to say hi. He said, “You and your wife were really an inspiration to me. We’ve started paying off our debt and trying to get our living expenses under control.” Evidently his normal customers weren’t people who lived beneath their means.

When you spend less than you make, you are buying flexibility and freedom. You gain the ability to change jobs or move to another area of the country. You are buying the ability to say yes to the things that matter because you save on the areas that aren’t as important to you.

This isn’t something most people do. If all your friends spend every penny they make it is easy to feel like you are doing well by just not going broke. There are people who are quite wealthy even if you’d never know it. They have chosen financial freedom over financial exhibitionism.

Unfortunately it is easy to notice the people living beyond their means and harder to spot the people who are living within it.  This means we tend to see reckless spending as normal simply because it is so noticeable.

Do you have any examples you’d care to share of people living beyond their limit financially?

Good management of your finances can have one of the biggest impacts on your productivity because it determines how efficient you convert your time into money into the things you need.

If you feel drained because you haven’t had enough rest, the best thing you can do is go ahead and get some sleep. This is a little like asking “How can I stop from feeling thirsty when I haven’t had anything to drink?” Your body is trying to tell you something and you should listen to it. There are somethings you can to to help stay awake, but you can only trick your body so long. Here are a few things might help if you are having trouble focusing because you are tired:

• Take a short walk - The exercise will help wake you up.
• Lower the temperature - If you feel overly warm your body may start trying to go to sleep.
• Work standing - This gives you a little more physical activity.
• Change your environment - If you can go somewhere else it may be easier to stay awake.
• Get a light crunchy snack – Many people find that eating helps keep them awake.
• Get sunlight - Sunlight can help reset your body’s clock and tell it to stay awake. You can also try turning on additional lights in your work area, but nothing will beat actual sunlight.
• Take a short nap - This can be tricky because if your body needs to sleep, taking a nap may leave you even more tired than before. If you can wake up in your first sleep cycle, you may be able to wake up refreshed. (There are some watches that are supposed to track your sleep state and wake you up when you will feel most refreshed.)
• Talk to someone - If you are having trouble concentrating because you are tired, spending a few minutes talking with a co-worker can dramatically get your brain back into gear.
• Read a joke or mind puzzle - The goal here is to try to help activate your mind. If you feel tired and your brain is bored, it will try to shutdown your body by making you feel tired. Give your brain something to think about and you’ll often feel more awake.

As I said earlier, you shouldn’t fight your body’s request for sleep. These tips are only temporary solutions that will help get your mind back in gear when you are feeling tired at an inopportune moment.

When it comes down to it, you work for yourself, regardless of who is the owner of the company that cuts your check. It is your responsibility to market yourself, develop your skills, identify trends and position yourself to profit. Abdicating these responsibilities doesn’t somehow put you into an “employee” category where you have more job security.

Most successful people see their jobs like this. They are in a business relationship with their employer, but they see the employer as their client. This represents a significant change in mindset for most employees, but if you can get your mind around it, it can be one of the most powerful changes in perspective you will ever have.

Here are some ways that being an employee is very similar to being self employed:

• Your employer/client can get rid of you at any time.
• There is minimal job security from any one employer/client. You need diversification.
• Economic forces often determine if you keep the job/contract.
• Clients and employers aren’t required to be rational – even if you make them money and are valuable, you may lose your job/contract.
• Your ability to command large sums of money is directly related to your ability to “walk away” and find another client/employer.
• Employers/clients want people who bring significant skills to the table.
• Even if you are 10 times more productive, it may be hard to convince people to pay you 10 times more. (Although it is harder as an employee.)

If this is true, why aren’t more people their own boss starting their own business?  It mostly comes down to education. Most people have an employee mindset. They don’t know how to get the things that their employer provides for them and assume they need to work for someone else to get those things.  Here is a short list of some of the things that people tend to rely on their employer for and keep them from starting their own business:

• Retirement plan
• Health insurance
• Tax witholding
• Vacation and sick pay
• Marketing (finding clients)

None of these are particularly hard to get/do for yourself if you start your own business, but you have to put some effort into learning how they work. If you think you may want to be in business for yourself at some point, it is time to start researching the above list and learning how you can provide those things for yourself. You are a lot better off having a solid knowledge foundation ahead of time. Not only does it take away some of the fear of the unknown, but it can help you understand how to structure your business in a way to maximize your profits.

Maybe you shouldn’t start your own business. However, everyone can benefit from acting as if they are in business for themselves–regardless of who actually signs their paychecks.

It turned out it wasn’t the colorful balls or toys. it all came down to the exercise wheel. Even though the mice loved the toys the thing that made them smart was running on the wheel. The intelligence followed the exercise wheel–not the toys.

This has some interesting implications for people who want to perform at their peak mental capabilities. Maybe exercise is the one of the best ways to invest your time in getting smarter.

I’ve been writing some posts for Manilla and they asked me if I’d be interested in working with them on an iPad contest giveaway for Father’s day. The long legal rules are here, but here is how it works in a nutshell.

• Once a day from now until the day after Father’s Day I’m going to tweet a question from @Productivity501 tagged with #manilladad.
• Tweet back an answer (also tagged with #manilladad, so we can track the answers) and you will be entered in the contest.

It doesn’t get much simpler than that. Manilla is going to handle contacting the winner, etc. If you want all the legal details, check them out here.

Hope to see  your answers on Twitter!

Capsul8 is a startup that solves this problem by giving you a simple way to take a snapshot of a web page and collect these snapshots into a “capsule” where each web page is a different “chapter” that you can easily navigate through and share.

Some of the capsules listed on the Capsul8 home page include:

• A collection of web pages paying tribute to Steve Jobs.
• Articles about the artist known as Bansky.
• The front page of the final publication of News of the World along with its Wikipedia entry and other news stories.

Capsul8 captures the html and images from a web page, so even if the site changes or is taken offline, you have an accurate view of what it looked like when you added it to your capsule. It currently doesn’t snapshot videos and flash media, but it will embed them. So a YouTube video will still show up unless it is taken off of YouTube.

In playing around with Capsul8, I thought of a few use cases that would be helpful to me:

• I try to keep track of what people see when they search for my name. I could create a capsule for each search engine and add a snapshot every year. Then I could easily walk through them to see how they changed over time.
• I wish I could go back and see how Productivity501 has looked over its many iterations. I can do some of this through www.archive.org, but it doesn’t always work.
• When Productivity501 gets mentioned in the press or on another website, it would be nice to capture that in a way that wouldn’t disappear in the future.
• I occasionally run across a website with a funny mistake on it. Right now I’ll just take a screenshot, but I could see using Capsul8 for this type of thing.

The service is still in beta and while you can browse the public capsules the actual service is invite only. Capsul8 has graciously offered to give 100 invites to Productivity501 readers that want to check it out.  You can sign up with the form below. (If you are reading this in an email or feed reader, you may need to click through to Productivity501 to use the form.)