Reader Question - Checking Email Abroad

How do I access my email from a foreign country?

In most countries you can check your email just like you do in the US. If you are using a web mail provider like Gmail or Yahoo, you just have to find an internet connection. Many countries have internet cafes where you can use their computer for the internet by paying an hourly fee. If you are in China or another country where they limit citizen’s access to certain sites on the internet, it might be more difficult to check your email.

If you are traveling with a laptop and want to download your mail, things should still work about the same as in the US. Many internet cafes will let you connect into their network with your laptop for the same hourly fee.

When you are using another computer, be sure to clear all your browser settings. Be especially careful not to let the browser remember your password when you check your mail. If you are using your laptop, it is a good idea to make sure that you check and send email through a secure connection and that you aren’t sending your password as clear text where others can see it by watching the network. Also if your email provider offers SMTP on a port other than 25, you should use the alternate port. That way if some of the providers block port 25 to fight viruses that send spam, you’ll still be able to send messages.

A few weeks ago I had a discussion with some people who were missionaries going into countries where they were not allowed. The wanted to know how to avoid the government viewing their emails. I told them that if they used something like Gmail over the web on their personal computer, they were probably pretty safe. The traffic is encrypted between their laptop and the Google servers in the US. However, they would need to be careful about any unencrypted sites the visit.

Another problem would be using a public computer. Even if the connection to the email service is encrypted, the computer itself could be recording your interactions. If using a standalone mail program (instead of web based email) they would need to make sure that all of their traffic was going over SSL for both sending and receiving.

Reader Question - Credit Cards

Why do people use credit cards?

If you have financial self discipline, using a credit card can be much safer than using cash or debit cards. Credit cards offer you better protection from fraud. They are also setup to protect your rights as a consumer because you can leverage the credit card company against a merchant who sold you a defective product. In a previous post, I discussed 4 Reasons You Should Use A Credit Card.

Many people are conditioned to avoid credit cards at all costs. This is a good strategy if you have no financial discipline–just a like an alcoholic should steer clear of even driving near a bar. If you treat your credit card like a checking account and keep track of each purchase as if the money has already been removed from your checking account, you can get the benefits of using a credit card while avoiding the dangers.

Reader Question - Desk Organization

What should you have on your desk?

Everything you need to do your job and as little as possible to distract you.

Is a clean desk an organized desk?

Not necessarily. If you clean your desk simply be stuffing everything into your drawers, your clean desktop may just be superficial. The best measurement of organization is how quickly you can find anything you need. If you have to spend a lot of time hunting for files and bits of information, you are not organized–no matter how clean your desktop is. Also see the post 12 Tips for an Organized Desk.

On Fridays we publish questions from our readers. If you have a question you’d like to see answer here, please send it to questions@productivity501.com.

Reader Question - Lighting for your office

I have an office in my basement. My desk is a table with a fluorescent light over it. My question: should my desk be parallel or perpendicular to the light for best lighting? Thank you for your time and attention to this question.Sincerely,Lou Sartori
Louisville, KY

If the light is over the table, you will probably get the most even light by having the light parallel to the table. If it is perpendicular to the table your body and objects will tend to cast more of a shadow. With the parallel arrangement you have more light hitting your workspace from different directions which will help keep shadows off your work surface. I’m assuming you are talking about a 3 or 4 foot fluorescent light bulb, but the same thing will hold for shorter bulbs–the difference will just be much less noticeable.

Personally I wouldn’t use fluorescent lights. If you get a good light you can avoid the “buzz” and with good bulbs the color can be decent, but I still prefer incandescent. If you want to get even lighting inexpensively, you can buy a couple clip on flood lamps and put them on either side of your desk. Just be sure to get a soft white bulb to try to keep the lighting diffused. If your desk faces a white wall, you can bounce the light off the wall and on to your workspace. That will give you a very even diffused light that comes from infront of you, so your hands don’t cast shadows on your work.

The above layout works well if you are mainly working with paper or flat objects on your desk. You will need to adjust things if you have equipment in the way (like a large monitor). You might consider bouncing the light off the ceiling and then off the wall to prevent a shadow directly in front of you. The nice thing about clip on lights is that you can easily move them around to get the best lighting. Be sure to consider the color of the wall and ceiling you are trying to bounce the light off of because it will change the color of the light.

In my office, I have incandescent bulbs in the ceiling that lights the whole room from behind me and a halogen desk lamp that lights my work from in front directly and indirectly by being bounced off the wall. The desk lamp takes away any shadows that are produced by the ceiling light. I also have a window covered with thin mini blinds that lets in diffused light most of the day.

On Fridays we publish questions from our readers. If you have a question you’d like to see answer here, please send it to questions@productivity501.com.

Reader Question - Uncompleted Tasks

I’ve been an avid enthusiast (not to say follower) of GTD and productivity blogs in general. (This one has long been chief on that list; keep up the good material without diluting it.) Currently I just started a new role at work where I have a bit more responsibility.To keep track, I’ve been using tasks–via Outlook 2007 and Remember the Milk. Both are great ways to quickly catalog things to be done.

However, the other side of my job is that I can get “interrupted” with urgent things that legitimately take precedence over my (usually) non-urgent tasks. So days can go by without me getting any tasks completed. This feels pretty crummy.

What do I do with that? Any mentality tips you can offer to help me go home at night feeling a little more satisfied with my progress?

Best regards,
Andrew Conkling

I would suggest that you divide your todo list into two types of tasks each day.  One group of tasks are the ones that you home to accomplish for the day.  The other group is much shorter and contains the three things that you are committing to get done for that day.  These three tasks shouldn’t be a full 8 hours of work.  In fact they may only take 1 or 2 hours of uninterrupted focus to complete.

The idea is to give yourself  a certain number of things that you are promising yourself to complete that represent the most important things you need to accomplish for the day.  If possible arrange your day so you can work on these items first.  That might starting work a bit earlier, or simply closing your office door from 8 to 10.  You also might consider doing these tasks before answering emails or checking voicemail.

Personally I am on a constant mission to do less.  I don’t think I’m made to handle 20 or 30 tasks in a day.  Even if I have a bunch of stuff to do, I’d rather give myself 2 or 3 tasks that will have the biggest impact and focus on whether or not I get those items done. With the other stuff I look for ways to delegate, automate, do less frequently, or stop doing all together.  I’m not saying you can get rid of all the other tasks, but by clearly defining what is most important you can end your day knowing that you did the vital stuff–even if you were interrupted for the rest of the day.

One of the problems with GTD (in my opinion) is that it encourages people to try to do more.  The people I know who are most effective are usually the ones that are only doing a few things.  They have figured out where they add the most value and concentrate on that.

On Fridays we publish questions from our readers. If you have a question you’d like to see answer here, please send it to questions@productivity501.com.

Reader Question - Working from Home

Why would it be valuable to work from home?

Lets say you commute 30 minutes to work each day. Working from home will save you at least 5 hours per week of drive time. If you apply this time to your job, you should be able to pull ahead of people who have to invest those 5 hours in driving to work. You can also choose to invest those extra 5 hours in sleep, your family, a hobby or whatever you like.

Sometimes working from home can help you focus. Being out of the office means it is more difficult for people to distract you–they can’t just pop into your office or cubicle. Of course if your home work environment is distracting, you may not see much benefit.

If you want to know more about working from home checkout this post: Convince Your Boss to Let you Work from Home

On Fridays we publish questions from our readers. If you have a question you’d like to see answer here, please send it to questions@productivity501.com.

Reader Question - Memorization

How should I memorize a speech?

I don’t generally memorize any of my presentations. If you create a detailed outline and then practice giving your speech to a few friends, you’ll probably do fine unless you have really bad stage fright.

If you do have stage fright, simply memorizing your speech word for word is likely to cause you problems because it will be difficult to remember while under pressure. If you want to give your speech word for word, you can memorize it, but keep the speech with you just in case you have to revert to reading the speech. If you do this, make sure you use some type of method to keep track of where you are in the speech. You don’t want to stumble around for 2 minutes trying to find your place if you get lost.

For verbatim memorization, checkout this method. It contains a simple tool for practicing memorization.

On Fridays we publish questions from our readers. If you have a question you’d like to see answer here, please send it to questions@productivity501.com. 

Reader Questions - Being Absent

I went through my site statistics and found some interesting questions that were typed into Google and led people to Productivity501. Over the next few fridays I’m going to attempt to answer some of these questions.

Should you call your boss if you are going to be absent?

Yes. I can’t think of any reason you shouldn’t call and let your boss know that you are going to be absent. It doesn’t matter if you are sick or have some type of personal issue you need to tend to. Simply not showing up is one of the worst things you can do.

Even if you don’t feel your current job is where you want to work, you should still approach it professionally. Treat your boss with the same courtesy that you would want to be treated with if you were in his place. You never know how people are connected. The boss that you don’t call today when you are absent may turn out to be a close friend of the boss who runs the company where you really want to get a job.

It is not uncommon for prospective employers to call up their friends to check out potential hires. You don’t want to miss out on your dream job because you decided a previous employer wasn’t important enough to warrant a telephone call when you were sick.

Reader Questions

In the next few weeks I’m going to start posting answers to reader questions every Friday.  I’m going to start off with some existing questions that have come in via email or on Google searches, but I wanted to open it up to everyone.

If you have a question you think would be interesting to see answered here, please send it to questions@productivity501.com.

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