Found this on YouTube whilst looking for productivity related videos and I though that since it was Friday I would share it.
Morcambe and Wise were a great eighties comedy duo in the UK. Their Christmas Specials were legendary but I am guessing my US readers will have never heard of them?
Well, it is Friday afterall…
All have a great weekend.
If you are not already, now is a great time to subscribe to this blog in your favorite RSS reader so you can keep up to date with all the posts.
After a few tweaks here and there the new theme is a go and I am happy to say that I now consider the new site as fully live. I still have to add a few plugins and add some content to some more pages but I guess this aspect of the site will be work in progress.
I have never had a Contact or Advertise page on the site before.
Please use the Contact page to contact myself for any matters relating to the site. I am also looking for guest bloggers so please use this page to contact me if you have an interest in writing for Did I Get Things Done.
This site is for its readers so if you have any suggestions or criticisms, please do let me know so I can improve the site to benefit the readers.
I am also starting to take related adverts from sponsors in order to help fund the site and the ever growing hosting and management costs. If you have a product you would like to advertise, please let me know via the Advertise page and we can hopefully work something out.
I have quite a bit planned for the blog. I am trying to widen it from just a GTD blog to cover my main focus areas of Productivity, Motivation, and Self Development. GTD will always figure high in these as it is the methodology that I started to use over two years ago now.
I thank you for being a visitor to my site and I look forward to achieving my goal of becoming the number one blog for Productivity, Motivation, and Self Development.
I am currently hovering around the 2400 RSS Subscribers and I am trying to get to the next goal of 3000.
Whilst going through some old posts from this blog, I pulled out a review of a great book that I read, and reviewed pretty much within the first month of launching this blog.
The book was the Travelers Gift, Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success, by Andy Andrews. As the blog has just launched, I think I had around 5 subscribers and I knew all of them!
The book talks about the Seven Decisions for Success. These are based around a story that the author takes you on. This is a motivational and self development book that is based on a fictional story, very similar to the great Og Mandino books.
These seven decisions are based upon stories from inspirational figures from history. The seven decisions are as follows:
I created a free Mind Map for you all to download and read. The Mind Map contains the overview of each of the Seven Decisions For Success as told in the book.
Click on the thumbnail above to download the Mind Map or Follow this Link.
Be sure to also check out the Original Post Review of this Book.
I am thinking of doing some more Mind Maps like this so please let me know your thoughts and if you all like these or not.
Feel free to pass this post on and please share it, I would love as many people as possible to benefit from the Mind Map.
Evernote have just released version 1.4 of their fantastic note taking application for the iPhone.
The biggest feature for me is the ability to mark a note as a favorite and then view it when offline. This means that you can now use the power of the desktop client to utilize the file storage capability of the Evernote iPhone application.
I tend to add a lot of documents to Evernote from the Mac client, so the ability to mark these as favourites and always have them on my iPhone is a feature within Evernote that I have been waiting for.
I did a post yesterday about the YouTube Video Project from Evernote where they are getting users to create video notes of how they use Evernote in their daily lives.
There are so many ways to use Evernote and it seems that every time I speak to another Evernote user they enlighten me with some great way of adding another little trick to my ever growing arsenal.
With the local file storage capability it may replace my need for the file syncing applications on the iPhone as I will be able to do pretty much what I need on the iPhone.
As well as this, version 1.4 also brings:
You can download the Evernote iPhone application from the iTunes music store for free.
I am going to play with version 1.4 of Evernote over the coming few days and then I will let everybody know how I get one.
How do you use Evernote?, I would love to know..
Thanks,
This is a great little video from James Marwood about how he implements the Getting Things Done methodology for productivity.
This is a very in-depth 11 minute video where James goes into his full paper and electronic based system.
Great to see OmniFocus and also a MoleSkine. James has implemented pretty much the full GTD system including the tickler file.
Check it out to see what you think..
I personally think it is great that so many people are giving back to the GTD Community with videos like this. James’ system seems very organized, which I am sure helps him achieve his daily productivity goals.
The guys at Evernote have started a YouTube project to get people to share how they use Evernote.
Evernote really is a cool application for Windows, Mac, iPhone as well as the Web based Application.
There are already some good replies, both video and text, check it out..
How do you use Evernote?
Well, my new theme is up on the site but not yet live as I still have to tinker with bits here and there to improve the way it works and looks. I have been a bit under the weather this weekend, picked up some viral bug from my kids which has left me a bit ill.
Hopefully I will be able to get the site live tomorrow with all the new gizmos and gadgets. I have some great ideas for new WordPress Plugins after seeing some great presentations at the A4U Expo.
Here are my collection of links for this week.
Well, this rounds off this weeks lists. Just checked the preview of this post and it looks awful. Got to get the CSS changed to make it look prettier. I think the post font is also too small.
Calling it a night now as I don’t feel too clever.
Thanks, Andrew..
I have mentioned in a few posts that I have been working on a new theme for this site and also looking to update the content to broaden the sites horizons.
Well, I am glad to say that the new design is imminent and hopefully will be on the site in the next couple of days.
I have used Unique Blog Designs to carve me a custom theme to facilitate my new launch.
Got a few things planned for the new site that should widen its appeal.
Over the next few days the format and layout may go a bit strange whilst we iron out any issues.
Look forward to speaking to you all via my updated blog.
Thanks, and have a great day!
I cannot believe that I have never done a Top 5 list on this blog. In fact I have never done a blog entry based around a list before so here goes.
What better place to start than with a list for my Top 5 Productivity Tools on the iPhone.
I love my Apple iPhone. it has to be the single gadget that has most affected my productivity. Being an advocate of the Getting Things Done methodology, I love to talk about ubiquitous capture, and the iPhone is my capture device of choice.
In my opinion, Apple have brought together an amazing collection of tools that you can carry around as a single device in order to help you achieve what is required from your working day, as well as leaving some room for the fun and social aspects of the iPhone.
Here are my Top Five iPhone Apps for Productivity.
I would love to hear from the rest of you to see what your best apps are for productivity on the iPhone.
Thanks for your time.
Andrew..
I came across the ProBlogger site when I first got into blogging a couple of years ago. I used to read the ProBlogger blog and picked up some great tips from it in the early days. The ProBlogger blog is written by Darren Rowse.
The Problogger book caught my attention when it first came out although I never got around to buying it. I then met Chris Garrett at a Northern UK Bloggers Meetup and thought it was only right at this point to buy the book and see what I could learn.
One Amazon order later and the book arrived.
The book is 211 pages long split into 10 chapters. Each chapter is written by either Darren Rowse or Chris Garrett.
The book is about blogging for money. The reader is introduced to the concept of blogging and taken through the necessary steps to set up your blog and the popular blogging platforms with the emphasis being placed on WordPress as the blogging platform of choice.
The chapter on blog income and earning strategies was very useful and provided me with a great insight into what can be done with your (and my) blog. The book then goes into blog networks and blog promotion and marketing.
The main purpose of the book is how to start a blog and monetize it in order to one day become a six figure blogger. I must admit that the blogger lifestyle does appeal to most but in practice the self discipline needed to write is not for everybody.
I wrote a review of a great book called the War of Art, be sure to check this out if you have not already done so. This book covers the demons, or muses that we have to fight against in order to produce creative work. One statement from the War of Art that I love is the following.
The act of writing is not hard, the act of sitting down to write is what causes us the challenge.
The same can be said about blogging. If you can get over the first hurdle of starting a blog, and the second hurdle of passing the six month stage, as I heard over 90% of all blogs stop after six months, then you are in a good position to make the blog pay.
The book is written by two authors and it is clear from the writing style that the book was split into two, with each author writing their own content. The book is complete, and the chapters flow nicely into each other. All the jargon is explained before it is used and all in all I really like this book.
The typography of the book is good and to the usual Wiley standards. This helps in making the book a pleasure to read. I am still amazed when I read books like The Magic of Thinking Big and see how bad the type is. This makes the book much harder to read in my opinion and maybe this is one area where the second generation of eBook readers will really win.
I feel that I could give this book to a novice blogger and they would get great benefit out of it as well as to a more advanced blogger who would be able to skim a lot of it but still pick up some very good advice.
I learned some things from the book and it gave me some great ideas. That makes it worth the price.
As always, would love to hear any comments about this review, or the book.
Thanks.