Posted March 7, 2006 — 19 Comments
by Josh
Back in elementary school I was in a class in which we did a study on dreams. Not just meanings of dreams and facts and the like, but actually ways to remember them. Not only was it pretty sweet to be able to wake up and remember a lot of the stuff you just dreamed, but it was cool to go back months later and check out the dream journal we kept and right then, vividly remember the dreams I had months before.
Hopefully something I’ll be able to do here on a monthly basis is post an “assignment” of sorts. An activity for you to do that will, in some way, provide a better understanding of yourself or your surroundings.
So this months assignment is to remember your dreams.
“How the flip flop do I do that Josh?” Ah, good question. Yes, there really is a methodology to this and yes, if done correctly, it will work.
Step 1.
When you lay down to go to sleep say out loud “Remember your dreams.” repeatedly. Say it atleast 10-20 times. The key here is “out loud.” Doing this trains your brain/memory to do just that…remember your dreams. All dreams are in some way affected by day-to-day thoughts/activities/etc and audibly saying “Remember your dreams.” puts the action into your brain.
Step 2.
After audibly saying “Remember your dreams.”, say it to yourself another 10-20 times. The same reason as Step 1 applies to this.
Step 3.
Make sure you have a notepad right beside your bed and the second you wake up, roll over and start writing. Write as many details about your dreams as you can.
Step 4.
There is no step 4.
That’s all there is to it. Yes, you might feel like an idiot saying “Remember your dreams” out loud, but that’s a HUGE key to this working. It might take a few nights for things to get moving with this and for you to vividly remember your dreams, but after getting in a habit of it you’ll train your brain to do it automatically.
Our dreams are some of the most creative things our brains throw together and being able to remember them can be extremely rewarding.
Good luck and sweet dreams!
Popularity: 98%
Posted in Productivity Tools, Methodologies — 19 Comments
Posted January 16, 2006 — 8 Comments
by Josh
Running a large number of sites I frequently get quite a bit of email that all have similar answers. Things like “Do you offer international shipping?” or “How can I submit an article?”...those sorts of things. All of these sorts of questions I have to spend time answering…time that could be spent much better doing other things.
Enter MailTemplate. Mactank’s MailTemplate lets you create predefined replies and new email messages that help you streamline common messages.
It’s only available for Mail and Entourage on Mac OS X and is worth every penny of the $14.95. Give it a try.
Popularity: 6%
Posted in Productivity Tools — 8 Comments
Posted September 22, 2005 — 13 Comments
By John Zeratsky
Modern technology is often blamed for adding complexity to our lives. I frequently hear references to “a simpler time” before we had computers, PDAs, cell phones and home theaters.
Well, that’s a bunch of crap!
Read more »
Popularity: 7%
Posted in Productivity Tools, Quick Tips and Tricks — 13 Comments
Posted July 26, 2005 — 6 Comments
Resource: Blinksale, a lightweight, easy to use, online invoicing application.
My friends over at Firewheel Design have launched a great new Web based tool that any small business owner should check out. It’s called Blinksale, and it’s a great, easy to use and learn tool for sending and managing invoices online. From the site:
Blinksale is perfect for anyone who needs to invoice customers and clients for services or products sold. As a design company, we created Blinksale with professional service industries in mind. Additionally, with time-billing invoices and product invoices, Blinksale is an excellent choice for attorneys, accountants, IT professionals, software developers, journalists, contractors, engineers, architects, videographers, and more. Basically, if you need to send invoices, Blinksale can work for you.
I’ve spent a bit of time with it and I’ve found it to live up to the hype. If you’ve wanted to have a simple yet powerful tool to help you with your invoicing, Blinksale might be right up your alley.
Popularity: 7%
Posted in Productivity Tools, Resources — 6 Comments
Backpack just got a whole lot cooler in my opinion.
Roling out an API, even a simple one, shows that they really mean it when they say things like “You should make the rules!” and “It’s organization the way you want it.” I can see how I might be able extend and “plug” backpack into my own way of working even more now, and that’s key in getting me up and running with any tool. Dashboard widget anyone? Customized reminder Web calendar? I was already impressed, but with this API coming out so quickly, I’m feeling really good about making Backpack one of my daily tools.
I can’t wait to see what comes of this. Makes me almost wish I was more of a programmer.
Popularity: 4%
Posted in Productivity Tools — No Comments
Posted May 16, 2005 — 3 Comments
Over at space-age wasteland you can find a some great tutorials about how to be more productive and Get Things Done (GTD) with Gmail. Personally I’ve not being using Gmail, but the more I hear about it the more I’m thinking I need to give it a try. In any case, they’ve recently published a white paper on the subject that makes for a pretty interesting read.
Get the whitepaper (pdf)
Popularity: 6%
Posted in Productivity Tools — 3 Comments
Posted May 13, 2005 — 4 Comments
GTDTiddlyWiki looks to be a useful tool that quite a few people are checking into. I spent some time with it last night and I’ve got to say, it’s pretty cool. I’ve got nothing more than a few initial impressions to share, but if you’re looking for more check out How are you using GTDTiddlyWiki? over at 43Folders.
My impressions:
- First thing you need to do: turn off animations under “Options”. I’m not sure why this is even in here, it adds nothing to the user experience that I can see. Other than that, it’s pretty easy to get around.
- No Safari support, but that’s not a huge deal.
- No server-side implementation. Well, I guess it won’t compete with Backpack. I don’t see this as a huge drawback.
- Since it’s a single file, the ability to have multiple files, for different projects or people for example, is nice.
Popularity: 4%
Posted in Productivity Tools — 4 Comments
