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Interview with Kevin Butler & Giveaway

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Fellowes, a company known for paper shredders, is promoting some of their ergonomic non-shredding products.  Their approach was interesting.  I was contacted and asked if 1. I'd like to try out some of their items, 2. if I'd like some free stuff to give away, and 3. if I'd be interested in interviewing their certified ergonomic consultant. I was particularly intrigued with the chance to ask a professional ergonomist some questions. This post contains Keven Butler's answers. Kevin  is a Board Certified Professional Ergonomist and works as a consultant for Fellowes, Inc. Make sure read through to the bottom for our first ergonomic giveaway courtesy of Fellowes. 1.    What is the most … [Read more...] about Interview with Kevin Butler & Giveaway

Gift Cards and Bankruptcy

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I've seen people talk about using gift cards as a way to save for large purchases.  Where I live this doesn't make sense because of the fees that chip away at the value, but some states like California don't have that limitation.  Regardless of where you live, gift cards become pretty much worthless if the company goes bankrupt as people who hold gift cards from Sharper Image and The Bombay Company are learning.  If you want to save money, the best place to keep it is in a bank. … [Read more...] about Gift Cards and Bankruptcy

Webinars? Input Please

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I am toying with the ideas of doing a series of webinars on some of the topics we talk about here at Productivity501.  The idea would be to bring in some experts for 30 to 45 minute live discussions on particular topics. What do you think?  Is this something that would interest you and if so what topics would you like to see covered?  (Also if you can recommend a particular webinar product, I'd love to hear what you have found works well for you.) … [Read more...] about Webinars? Input Please

Chimps and Children

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Psychologists have been doing some experiments with chimps and young children looking for differences in the way they solve problems.  In one of the experiments, they gave chimps a clear box containing food.  The scientists showed the chimp how to open the box, but included several steps that were obviously unnecessary.  When the chimps were left alone with the box, they retrieved the food imitating the method they had been shown.  However, the chimps eliminated the unnecessary steps. The scientists then tried the same experiment with 3 and 4 year olds.  Unlike the chimps, children imitated the entire sequence of actions they had been shown, including the unnecessary steps. This is an … [Read more...] about Chimps and Children

Perfect Tools

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One of the biggest hindrances to personal productivity is the search for perfect tools. Let's consider an analogy. John is a carpenter and he wants to be the most productive carpenter he can possibly be.  To reach this goal, he decides he needs the best tools possible, so he sets out to find the perfect hammer. John visits many stores and tries out different hammers.  They all work fine, but he notices subtle differences.  He finally settles on a wonderful  hammer that he uses for a week, but then he discovers that it gives him a blister, so he sets out to find a better hammer. John may or may not ever find the perfect hammer.  However, the productivity gain between a "good" … [Read more...] about Perfect Tools

Windows on a Mac

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If you use a Mac, but need to run windows programs you have two options.  Bootcamp (requires a reboot to change OS) and something like Fusion or Parallels (runs Windows in a box on top of OS X).  I've been using Fusion and am very happy with it, but I've found that XP performs much much better than Vista in this environment.  If you want to run Windows on top of OS X, I'd stick with XP for now. … [Read more...] about Windows on a Mac