Monthly Archives: April 2009

Issues 2 of Productive Magazine Out Now

The latest issue of Productive Magazine has just been released over at ProductiveMagazine.com.

I am happy to report that I have an article on page 16 of this latest issue. My article is about New Years Resolutions and what is wrong with them.

CLICK HERE to directly download the latest issue of this free magazine.

Productive Magazine

Here is a list of the articles in this new edition.

  • Interview with Guy Kawasaki
    by Michael Sliwinski
  • How to Set Goals That Lead to Success
    Dustin Wax
  • The Single Secret to Making 2009 Your Best Year Ever
    by Leo Babauta
  • How to Shave Ten Hours Off Your Work Week
    by Michael Hyatt
  • Why You Shouldn’t Do New Year’s Resolutions
    by James Mallinson
  • Say No to make Yes Sound better
    by Kris Rowlands
  • What’s Wrong With New Years Resolutions?
    by Andrew Mason
  • Making it all work with Mindmanager
    by Michael Deutch
  • Productivity For Groups – Because You’re Not Really In Control
    by Andrew Yang
  • Simply Get Things Done Course – Introduction
    by Michael Sliwinski

Productivity, Motivation, and Personal Development Links – 26th April 2009

I have had a week of report writing yet again. One thing for sure is that my report writing is really improving as is my ability to focus and deliver the report in the given timescales.

I am spending the best part of next week down at Earls Court in London for the InfoSec show with my company RandomStorm. We have a booth so if you are at InfoSec or Internet World be sure to pop by and say hi!

Here are my collection of links for this week.

  • My first link for this week is a link to a Lifehacker Post on how Steve Wozniak Gets Things Done. Steve Wozniak, or Woz is the original co-founder of Apple along with Steve Jobs and a much loved character. Interesting read to see how the great Woz Gets Things Done.
  • My second link is a great post about Getting Things Done with OmniFocus for the Advanced User. Great to see a post for the more adept user rather than the usual focus on the beginner who is either new to the tool or new to the Getting Things Done Methodology.
  • My third link is a link to a great little collection of Moleskine Hacks from James Mallinson at organizeit. I love my collection of Moleskine’s and I equally love these posts where others that share my passion release cool little hacks around these awesome black notebooks!
  • My fourth link is a link from Jesse Ruderman on how he uses GTD. Jesse is pretty new to GTD and started out after using Things on his Mac to Get Things Done. This is a nice little review of how one user implements the Getting Things Done Methodology.
  • My fifth and last link is a great post that I have featured before but some more sites have been added to it so I will run with it again. it is the 100 GTD Resource Post from Mashable.com. This is a great collection of GTD resources that you can get for free from the Internet.

Right, off to start packing for the week ahead at InfoSec and also I have to sort out some tech issues with a VMWare image, wish me luck!

Have a great week!

Productivity, Motivation, and Personal Development Links – 19th April 2009

Had a great weekend mainly due to the great weather in the UK and I have spent most of it outside. Lit my new Weber BBQ a few times and cooked some great food!

This week has seen me away for a few days without Internet access. It is actually quite nice not having connectivity as it really enabled you to focus on the task at hand.

Here are my collection of links for this week.

  • My first link for this week is a link to some rather funny productivity humor from Matthew Cornell. We all have to laugh at ourselves sometimes and I must admit that I can become obsessive towards productivity some times 🙂
  • My second link is a great post from the Climb to the Stars blog about how the blogger gets organized. MindMaps, Evernote, GTD, all sounds very familiar to me. I like it..
  • My third link is a link for TimeBoxed, a neat little Mac OS X app that acts as a timer. I have never really been into timing myself but I have started using this app and it is quite enlightening to see where your time goes. This app is very simple and easy to use and integrates with Growl.
  • My fourth link is a link to a great blog I found about via Twitter called Productivity Hacks. The content is very relevant to this blog and the blogger is obviously another Productivity Geek who gets things done on a Mac.
  • My fifth and last link is another comparison between Things and The Hit List as GTD Apps. The latest MacHeist bundle really has done wonders for The Hit List.

Just going to the gym now to hopefully kick start my summer workout plan and lose some of the excess winter fat!

Hope you all have a great week.

Evernote Adds Twitter Integration

I have a had a busy week working away on a client site with no Internet access so I have been rather cut off, enough to miss this little gem from Evernote.

I love Evernote and Twitter so the ability to integrate these caught my attention.

So, in a nutshell you can add selective Twitter tweets to your Evernote account by including @myEN to your tweet.

I have just enabled this and I am going to think long and hard for some good usability reasons for doing so.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this, good or bad.

If you do not follow me, please follow me on Twitter!

Productivity, Motivation, and Personal Development Links – 12th April 2009

Happy Easter to all!

I hope you are not all sick and bloated after consuming your fair share of Easter chocolate! It is nice to be writing this from home as I have done the last two weekly link round ups on the train from Leeds to London.

Here are my collection of links for this week.

  • My first link for this week is a link to an Interview with David Allen from the Effing the dog blog. The interview is in two parts with a link to the second part being found via the link I provided. I would love to Interview David Allen myself and this is something I may try to make happen as I have some great questions I would ask him.
  • My second link is a great post from Zen Habits titled Seven Productivity Tips for People who Hate GTD. Now I love GTD but the article still makes a good read.
  • My third link is a link from Rob Corddry via Lifehacker about Getting Things Done as an Actor. Great read and great exposure for GTD!
  • My fourth link is a link to a great review and comparison of the three top Mac GTD apps, namely OmniFocus, Things, and The Hit List. I have seen a lot of traffic on this blog from people searching about the Hit List and I am sure that the inclusion of it into the latest MacHeist Bundle has driven productivity and GTD!. OmniFocus is my current ap of choice, but that may change…
  • My fifth and last link is another Things v Hit List comparison. May as well read both of them at the same time to get two peoples takes on these cool apps.

Well I am now off to watch the final round of the US Masters. It is shaping up nicely with Phil Mickelson making a charge!

Adding iCal events with Quicksilver

If you use a Mac, you should be using Quicksilver. I got into Quicksilver as soon as I bought a Mac after reading a post from Merlin Mann over at 43Fodlers regarding Quicksilver.

Most people only use the application launching capability of Quicksilver but if this is all you do, there is so much more that Quicksilver can be used for to make you more productive.

The following video is from Derek Neighbors and is part of some fantastic productivity videos that he produces on Vimeo.

The video shows you how to use Quicksilver to add a calendar entry into Apple iCal.

I hope you agree that this is a neat little video!

Some Different Free Productivity Tools

Sometimes a productivity system just isn’t right for your lifestyle and it can be a massive headache to discover this too late: such as after you’ve already taken your wallet out to give it a spin.

To help with this problem, DIGTD wants to showcase a few different but still useful productivity tools that won’t require any payment to try out.

Firefox

The first area worth looking into is Firefox-based add-ons; small plug-ins that can provide a little extra functionality for your browser. Mozilla’s Firefox 3 has swept the browser market so thoroughly that many computer users are already familiar with the program and this has resulted in the availability of a massive number of community created add-ons.

They can be a bit difficult to wade through however and it is for this reason that we want to detail a few of the better productivity focused extensions worth an installation.

OpenItOnline is a great time-saver that allows users to bypass the traditional launch of word processing programs such as Microsoft Office and instead open documents straight from their browser. Rather than requiring the installation of an Office Suit package, OpenItOnline gives Firefox users the ability to directly access .doc, .xls and many other common extensions right from their browser. It also hosts compatibility with Google Spreadsheets, Docs and more.

Screengrab! is another invaluable Firefox add-on that can be used for a variety of different, time-saving functions.

Users can save or copy image files of whole pages, rectangular sections or visible portions of any browser displays for later reference without having to print out the entire page.

Firefox ShareaholicShareaholic is a fantastic tool for the demographic that uses the Internet for regular linking and news sharing, allowing for a substantial cutting down of the usual amount of time that frequent access can require.

The add-on supports popular services such as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Delicious and Digg and hosts the option to quickly check traffic rates and comments without actually having to visit the given network’s site.

As well as Firefox, Shareaholic also supports Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 and above as well as the Flock Browser.

This really is a great tool to help you build you collection of social bookmarks for various sites that you visit. There may also be some Search Engine Benefit in making sure most of your pages are bookmarked on various social bookmarking websites.

HP Smart Web Printing is one of the rare free extensions that is actually made available from a leading technology company. The Web Printing add-on allows for an excellent shortcut and editing program to be accessed directly from Firefox. Users can save pages as .pdf files, arrange and delete information exactly as they wish and combine multiple pages into one document before printing.

Evernote Web Clipper is an add-on from the popular productivity developers, Evernote, and functions as a free extension to help users conveniently import information to their Evernote account. A handy toolbar menu allows for in-depth context sorting and quick data management without actually requiring the user to launch Evernote.

Evernote Web Clipper

Evernote is another of the big companies that offers a free GTD-centred service. Although it does cost more to fully register with a “premium account” most of the key features of Evernote are available with a no-charge account.

There are a few Getting Things Done programs that can be downloaded completely free of charge as well and it’s a good idea to have some of these bookmarked to try out for yourself. The sign-up and/or installation of these applications is usually extremely simple and quick, something that makes a trial run of any of them well worth the required time.

Nozbe is one of the leading developers in the GTD community and it has definitely earned its place by virtue of some fantastic work on the software client. For strict adherents of the GTD system Nozbe is well worth a shot due to its careful consideration of Allen’s directives and suggestions.

Free Nozbe accounts can access all of the sorting and information entry features responsible for making Nozbe so reputable among its users and purchase of the full version unlocks absolutely everything for the serious user.

Nozbe GTD

ThinkingRock hosts great functionality, community and ease of use without requiring any payment. The developers at ThinkingRock are great at keeping up with their user’s needs and latest editions of the productivity client are always improving on an already formidable GTD system.

Thinking Rock GTD

The shareware and freeware communities are always worth a shot as well. One of the best results of the GTD explosion the Internet has seen in the last few years involves the massive amounts of programs constantly developed by enthusiastic developers, eager to try their hand at the perfect adaptation of Allen’s system. Try a few out for yourself and see how they work for your purposes.

Email sorting has long been a popular area for Getting Things Done adherents to work on and better manage, incorporating GTD organization as a front-line method for dealing with new, incoming information.

Here are a few cost free solutions to email clutter and inbox sorting.

To start off it’s a good idea to take a look at Google’s Gmail and the organization possible through making use of a few of its built-in features.

Gmail is a great email service for message organization, context sorting and more. Setting the site to HTML or Google Docs viewing can allow for the opening of .doc files for starters, allowing for much deeper levels of customization and specification.

Gmail users can also install Greasemonkey (designed by a Google Reader engineer) for free and then widely enhance the functionality of the email client by sorting contexts and actions as soon as emails enter the inbox.

Email Templates is another quality extension that uses Microsoft Outlook as its basis. Email Templates allows users to create custom frameworks for email sending, a feature that can make it into an invaluable tool for anyone that needs to send mass emails or standardized messages to multiple recipients.

Each of the frames created in Email Templates can be applied to as few or as many contacts as desired, making it into a great way to add personality or regular form to any message without spending a lot of time doing so.

There are also a number of other email add-on services that offer free trials to demonstrate the true value of their software. Additional worth for users committed to default email clients can be important and this is where most of these titles come into play. Here are a few licensed programs that deserve a trial run before purchase.

Thinking Rock GTD

Mail Act-On is a great program to increase the usefulness of Apple Mail and boost the productivity of the email client’s regular users. The plug-in allows Mac fans the ability to assign hot keys or reference pop-up menus in order to quickly navigate the most valuable Mail features with ease.

The Rules panel in Mail Act-On expands for great sorting, providing a handy method for the context filing of all sent and received messages. Combined with hot key shortcuts, Mail Act-On is a fantastic way to immediately sort and clearly organize all of your messages before they get a chance to clutter up your message folders.

Claritude Software are another provider of email productivity tools based on Microsoft Outlook so Windows only.

Claritude Software offer a 30-day trial that gives users the opportunity to try out the powerful sorting engine available with the program.

The main benefits of Claritude are found in the organizational potential that is brought forth by being able to quickly file both outgoing and incoming emails, saving large amounts of time while allowing for easy GTD sorting. Find-as-you-type file searching is another well developed aspect that makes navigating an inbox much faster, cleaner and simpler.

Trying out the above programs is a great way to find your favorite systems without having to spend a dime to do so.

Take a few of them for a spin yourself and then explore the categories on your own as well in order to get the most productivity potential possible out of your everyday software.

Have I missed any free apps that I have not covered before? If so, please leave me a comment so that I can readdress this post.

Thanks,

Productivity, Motivation, and Personal Development Links – 5th April 2009

I am again sat writing this on the train from Leeds to London. Still enjoying the Free WiFi on the train and looking forward to another two days on a course down in London.

Life is still very busy for me. We had our best ever month at my business last month so there is plenty of work to do which is keeping me busier than I normally like.

Lots of projects to work on and lots of chance to test my productivity and organizational skills. I have just taken the decision to employ our first administrative assistant and I am looking forward to working with her to remove some of my administrative burden.

Here are my collection of links for this week.

  • My first link for this week is a link to the GTD blog of Kelly Forrister and a post about the GTD for Personal Finance. With the economy being in the state it is, I am sure that this is a good read that will be shared by many due to the ideas presented.
  • My third link is a link to a great post from Mashable which is a guide to better web working from your Apple iPhone.
  • My fourth link is a link to the latest release notes for Jello Dashboard. This is a Microsoft Outlook GTD Dashboard that I am sure I would take a better look at if I was a Windows user. I would be interested to hear of any good or bad reviews of this product.
  • My fifth and last link is a link to a great blog that I have just found called Books that can change your life. As you would imagine, this is a blog about some great productivity and motivational books that can change your life!. I found this via the authors review of the Getting Things Done book from David Allen.

Wishing you all a great week! Hopefully I will get some more posts out of draft and onto the site this week!