Welcome Stumblers. If you like this post, please consider subscribing to the RSS feed. This is the first of a three part post where we asked a bunch of productivity experts three questions. Read after the jump to see their answers along with my commentary about each one. Thanks to everyone who participated. What is the single biggest way people waste time without even realizing it? … [Read more...] about Interview: Biggest Time Waster
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Interviews With Productivity Experts
I have contacted a number of individuals who run blogs about time management, personal productivity, and organization. I asked them all three questions: What is the single biggest way people waste time without even realizing it? What change has made the most difference in making you effective in life? If someone were to read just one post from your site, which would you recommend they read and why? The response has been spectacular and I've thoroughly enjoyed reading all the different perspectives. One of the participants said this project was "ambitious". I didn't really understand what they meant until I started trying to organize all the information into a … [Read more...] about Interviews With Productivity Experts
10 Ways to Eliminate Distractions from FreelanceSwitch
Freelance Switch has a nice article called 10 Ways to Eliminate Distractions. Below is their list of 10 items along with my commentary. See the original post for their detailed discussion about each item. Turn of email notifications -- This goes along with the idea that humans can't really multi-task so you are better off only focusing on one thing at a time. I understand that in Switzerland some companies have policies only allowing employees to check their emails once each day to help minimize the interruptions from email. Your job may require to to check it more often, but each incoming email shouldn't jar you away from your current task. Remember, email is there to work for you … [Read more...] about 10 Ways to Eliminate Distractions from FreelanceSwitch
My Current Working Desk
After writing the post about 12 Tips For an Organized Desk, several people were interested in seeing my setup. I've tried to map my description back to my page of tips. I'm interested in any comments or suggestions. Am I overlooking something obvious that could make things work even better? When I graduated from college in 1998 I started looking for a good desk and chair. I found these and they have been my main workstation in the US ever since. While the glass tops make these a little hard to move, it is offset by the fact that the frames come apart, so the entire thing can be packed fairly flat against the wall in a moving van. It took me a very long time to find the chair. … [Read more...] about My Current Working Desk
TIP: Create Productive Time
Everyone has a different point in their day where they are most productive. Sometimes you can create a productive block of time to work by paying attention to how your body functions and what it takes to get you to peak performance. Many of the most productive people in the world do a great deal of work before others even wake up. I am not naturally a morning person, but I've found that capturing morning hours can be very very productive. If I get up early and start working at 5, I can be three or four hours into my day before the rest of the world even starts logging on to their computers. It can be hard to be fully functional at five in the morning if you aren't geared that way … [Read more...] about TIP: Create Productive Time
Google Gears
Google Gears is a project that, if successful, may be a bigger threat to Microsoft than about any other technology. The premise is simple. It lets you work with online applications even when you aren't connected to the internet. Right now it seems to be set up to work with Google Reader. This means you can take your Google feeds with you to read when you don't have an internet connection. When you connect back to the internet, it will sync with the web version and mark everything you read. This is probably going to be enough to make me switch from News Fire for my feed reader. The ability to read things offline was the main reason I had stayed with a stand alone feed reader instead … [Read more...] about Google Gears
New Changes at Productivity501
I'm moving some things around and switching from Typepad to Wordpress, so pardon the mess while I get everything sorted out. I'm afraid that FeedBurner may have reset the last 10 feeds, so I apologize in advance if a bunch of old posts show up as new again. There is still a lot of work to do in tweaking the site, but I think all of the links should work. If you come across something that seems to be broken, please let me know in a comment or email me at mwshead (at) gmail (dot) com. … [Read more...] about New Changes at Productivity501
How NOT to Wake Up
As a follow up to this mornings post, I wanted to show you a video of a new alarm clock called Clocky. It was developed by some students at MIT. The video will give you a good idea of how it works, but basically when the time comes, it shrieks, jumps off your night stand and starts running around the room making R2D2 noises. The idea is that you have to get up to turn it off. On the positive side of things, it will make you get up and move around a bit so you'll be awake. On the negative side, it may put you in a very bad mood. I heard that someone was designing something similar that would fly above your bed until you swat it down. Waking up to a giant electronic insect isn't my … [Read more...] about How NOT to Wake Up
Behance’s Action Pad Giveaway
Congratulations to Desi and John--the two winners of the Behance Action Pad giveaway. I'll be shipping them out be the end of the week. Thanks to everyone who entered by suggesting different ways to manage todo lists. You can read all the comments here. Here are a few random suggestions that I found interesting along with my comments: … [Read more...] about Behance’s Action Pad Giveaway
A Better ToDo List – Behance Giveaway
Yesterday we looked at Behance's Action Pads. Today we are going to give a few away to random commentors on this post. Specifically we are looking for comments, ideas, suggestions, or random thoughts about how to make a better todo list. So anything you've done to let you better manage, capture, or execute your list of actions is fair game. So to get things rolling, here are a few suggestions for todo lists based on my experience: Braindump list -- keep a list of all the random "todo someday" items that you think of. This gives you a place to capture them without cluttering up your daily list. Use objects -- sometimes using objects to represent your … [Read more...] about A Better ToDo List – Behance Giveaway