Category Archives: GTD and Productivity Links

Productivity, Motivation, and Personal Development Links – 16th November 2008

Another productive week draws to an end. I submitted a major piece of work that I had been creating over the past couple of weeks. You cannot beat the feeling when you hit the submit button and the work is complete. Kind of like checking off those tasks on your task list.

Here are my collection of links for this week.

I am looking forward to some more GTD Application Reviews that I have already done and I am getting ready to post this week. They include apps such as Zenbe and GTD-Free.

Hope you are all still enjoying the blog!

Productivity, Motivation, and Personal Development Links – 9th November 2008

The last week has been a great week for this blog. I have seen a steady increase in Feedburner subscriptions and a considerable increase in traffic.

I closely follow the analytics for this blog and it is good to see the average page visits per user on the rise, along with the new visitors brought in from the search engines. I have added a few cool WordPress plugins to help with this, all of which I will blog about in the coming weeks.

Don’t forget, if you are not already a subscriber, please subscribe to this blog with either your favorite Newsreader or you can have the updates delivered via email.

Here are my collection of links for this week.

  • My first link for this week is from TechRadar.com and it is a collection of 50 time saving techniques for Ubuntu. I know from my stats that I have a considerable amount of viewers who use Ubuntu as their operating system of choice so I am sure this link will be useful.
  • My second link is a link to a Life Learning Device. Google Alerts are to thank for this one. It is like a little light that repeats words of wisdom when activated. Looks very quirky!
  • My third link is a link to a blog post about Getting the Most out of a Meeting from The Productivity in Context blog. This is a new blog for me and there are some great posts within.
  • My fourth link is a link to a new little App I have just began playing with called reQall. I briefly reviewed the application yesterday. As Jott is not available in the UK, this looks like the answer. I have to play fully with it and then do a more in-depth review.
  • My fifth and last link for this week is a link to the Top 5 Timesavers from Productivity501. Apart from the Blackberry, I do all of these tips.

Calling it a night now, busy weekend and another busy week ahead.

Thanks, Andrew..

Productivity, Motivation, and Personal Development Links – 2nd November 2008

Just watched Lewis Hamilton win the 2008 Formula One Grand Prix Championships. What an amazing grandstand finish. Lewis only needed 5th place to take the title and he was fifth right up to the last lap where he was overtaken. He managed to pull it back on the second to last bend, around 10 seconds before the end of the race to provide a real nail biting climax to a great F1 season.

Being proud to be British when it comes to sport is a rare feeling, so I will savor it..

Here are my collection of links for this week.

  • My first link for this week is from the 7Breaths blog and it is about how to set up Microsoft OneNote for Getting Things Done. I do not use Microsoft OneNote as I have a Mac, although the article does provide a good series of posts about how to integrate OneNote to a GTD system.
  • My second link is a good link from Productive Flourishing about why GTD Contexts are not right for the editor of the blog. This is a new blog discovery for me and there are some great posts on it worth a read about GTD and general productivity.
  • My third link is a link to a blog post showing Task Management on Windows Mobile and iPhone. Now the post is more geared towards Windows Mobile than the iPhone, the phone that I use but it still makes a good read.
  • My fourth link is a link to a post about tweaking your OmniFocus Workflow form the Poder.dk blog. I use OmniFocus as my current productivity application and I love any little nuggets of information such as this.
  • My fifth and last link for this week is a link to a great post over at GTD Times about how to perform the great GTD Balancing Act, the Weekly Review with Kids. Now, I have four children and I know how having children makes productivity and time management essential if you do not want things to slip, or kids that grow up not knowing who you are. The work/life balance with a large family is one of the hardest challenges that I have had to face and this post is a good read for everybody else, and there must be a lot of you in this situation.

That is it for this week. Looking forward to some more good posts next week where I will be revisiting my little Email Experiment!

Thanks, Andrew..

Productivity, Motivation, and Personal Development Links – 26th October 2008

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..

GTD and Productivity Links – 19th October 2008

I have been at the A4U Expo for the first half of this week and this gave me a well needed break from work to recharge my mind. Listened to some great search engine marketing talks from people like Joost and Mediadonis. Had a really good cruise down the River Thames on the Silver Sturgeon and generally enjoyed myself with old and new friends.

Oh well, back to work and here are the links for this week.

My new theme for this blog has now gone to coding so hopefully I can release it to you all in the next week or so. Looking forward to this as it is a well needed relaunch of the blog. The past few weeks have been very busy and I have a busy end of the month.

Hope you have all enjoyed your weekend.

GTD and Productivity Links – 12th October 2008

Well, this is the only blog post I have managed this week but there is a good reason. For the past four weeks I have been writing a new ebook for Cisco Press entitled Securing Networks with ASAs Fundementals.

My deadline for the ebook was today, 12th October. I had a slightly delayed start to the project as I needed to free up one of my ASAs so that I could work through the configuration and make screenshots etc. So, for the past week I have been working on the ebook in every spare minute I have had. I have had around 5 hours sleep per evening and really put in the hours. Turning out 20,000 words and 82 figures for the ebook which Cisco Press will launch in a month or so.

Being so busy and so focussed has given me some ideas for some more posts, which I will hopefully get done this week as I am away for the next few days at the A4UExpo in London.

Oh, I also eventually got a 30″ monitor this week. Wow, how much better is working with so much screen real estate!

Here are my links for this week, although I have not has nowhere nearly as much browsing time as usual!

  • My first link for this week is has to be AwayFind from Set Consulting. AwayFind is a great new web application aimed to help you adopt an email practice where you check it twice a day but still get notified of urgent messages by other means, such as a text message to your cellphone. I have started using this and I love it as it fits in with my email productivity series perfectly. There will be more to come on this in the coming days. AwayFind is currently in private beta but be sure to check it out.
  • My second link is a great interview with fellow productivity blogger, Steve Pavlina. The interview is from the ZenHabits website. Great interview and I admire Steve for what he has achieved.
  • My third link is a link to a students GTD#1 – Collect. I always enjoy picking up on these lesser known blogs where real people are learning and writing about GTD. I like this purity of this one.
  • My fourth link is another great post from John Kendrick titled the five Ws of a weekly GTD review. John keep coming out with these great posts about how is he implementing GTD.
  • My fifth and last link for this week is How to Use Parkinson’s Law to your Advantage. Parkinson’s law states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. Check out this post and see how to use this to your own advantage.

So, off to London tomorrow for three days and the A4UExpo. Should be a great conference as the line up of speakers looks amazing and it is always good to meet fellow bloggers and affiliates to share knowledge, and of course a beer or two!

Have a great week, I am sure I will!

GTD and Productivity Links – 5th October 2008

Another busy week, mainly due to the fact that I had a news story published by the BBC in the UK and it got a lot of coverage. Sometimes things happen that change your planned work week and this week definitely was one of those weeks.

Here are my cool links of the week for all things GTD and Productivity related.

  • My first link for this week is a great post from upcoming GTD Blogger John Kendrick. The post is titled Journaling your way to GTD and is well worth the time investment.
  • My second link is a guest post by Leo from ZenHabits.com on the Four Hour Work Week blog. The post is titled How to Never Forget Anything Again and it is a great post that goes through some of the great tools that are available for running our busy lives.
  • My third link is a great post about Ubiquitous Capture from Freelance Switch. This is a great blog with some fab guest bloggers who write about a whole host of topics aimed at the freelance worker.
  • My fourth link is a collection of GTD Wallpapers from Smart Productivity. These are aggregated from other sites but brought together in a neat post. Gives me some ideas for my new rebrand which is coming soon..
  • My fifth and last link for this week is an old classic, but one that I just re-read recently. This is the getting started in GTD post from Merlin Mann at 43Folders.com. This is flagship content from Merlin Mann and a great post for anybody looking to get started with GTD.

I have a crazy week ahead as I have a book deadline for Sunday the 12th so I am going to be busy evenings this week writing away. I also have a new brand coming for this blog. All exciting stuff and I cannot wait to get it out there.

Have a great week.

GTD and Productivity Links – 28th September 2008

Last week has been a very productive week. Not managed to do another email post but I have to do one pretty soon as some unexpected projects have turned my email testing upside down and I think I have realized some shortcomings of fixed systems that I would love to work around.

It just so happens that I also have a beta invite to an email solution that may fit the bill perfectly for me.

Anyway, more about that later so let’s get onto this weeks links.

Calling it a day now. It was my son’s birthday today and we have had a rather busy day.

Thanks, and good night all..

GTD and Productivity Links – 21st September 2008

Time seems to have accelerated over the past week. It is a strange phenomenon that when you have a very busy week time seems to accelerate.

I have been out or away from home 5 out of the last 7 nights on work related trips and meetings. It is now Sunday night and I am eventually getting/making some time to write my thoughts down on my blog and letting you all know of what cool productivity and GTD links I have unearthed in the past week.

Well, without further undue, here are the links for Sunday the 21st September 2008.

Well, time to catch up on a few blogs and then off to bed, another busy week and I have a big project to start this week along with some learning I have to do for another looming project.

Hopefully back tomorrow with some more insights into my thoughts..

Thanks, and good night all..

GTD and Productivity Links – 14th September 2008

Well, I completed my 10K run today for cancer research with my wife, Helen. It is the furthest I have ever ran and we did it in 1:07. I was hoping for a time under and hour but we were really held up over the first 3000 meters due to hilly sections and a very narrow path. There were 1200 people running and the hill was a bit of a bottleneck that we got stuck in.

I have loved having this as a goal and it felt great to do it. I will start to look for another physical challenge now.

So, here are some links for this week.

Well, I am shot, and about to go to bed.

Speak to you all next week.