Lately, I have taken on large tasks that are primarily my own responsibility. I have a little help but I alone comprise the bulk of the team. These tasks include moving a home-grown company intranet to an open source content management system and relandscaping my whole yard.
By Keith
I’m a firm believer that work should be fun. Hopefully lots of it.
However, we all know there are way to many tasks, even in a fun job, that simply are no fun to do. Anything you have to do routinely, for example, can be a drag. Checking and responding to e-mail, answering the phone, doing your accounting, etc. These things are, by simple nature, not a whole lot of fun. But that doesn’t have to be. Adding a little play into your day can make things quite a bit better.
By Bob Walsh
If you’re not already using Google’s new Desktop Search (Beta 2) released a couple of weeks ago as part of your Getting Things Done process, you are missing out on a seriously useful tool that costs nothing.
With this latest version of Google Desktop (GD):
* Most of the pain of using Microsoft Outlook goes away,
* You can quickly find the information you need right now from a variety of sources,
* You can stop worrying about where your information resides.
In future posts here, I’ll illustrate the second and third points, but for now, I want to show you how win the battle with Outlook. Once you’ve installed GD, you’ll find that two manifestations of Google: a new Google Search toolbar in Outlook, and a Google Search toolbar in your Windows Task bar or along the right hand side of your desktop (the Google Sidebar).
Given Google’s ultrafast search, every incoming email can be processed the correct GTD way:
* If its not an actionable email that triggers a specific task it gets dumped into Reference. I used to have over a hundred folders for all my email – project folders, vendor folders, folders within folders within folders. No more. Save non-actionable to Reference, and let Google sort them out.
* If an email does mean I need to do something on of my current projects (taking longer than 2 minutes), I dump it into to that project’s folder in my Favorites Folder list. I’ve “promoted” just my current project folders to be Outlook Favorite Folders (an Outlook 2003 feature). Even if I miss and dump it in the wrong folder, Google can find it in an instant.
* I can use Outlook’s email into appointment feature to deal with anything that should be an appointment.
* My Inbox gets emptied and stays that way every time I check email, and that a very nice feeling.
(Dumping to Reference and letting Google sort it out.)
You can search emails alone via the Google Search Toolbar, but I prefer the incremental results search I get using the Google Search Toolbar in Windows Taskbar.
(Google Desktop Search Results.)
Here’s what I got as typed in “to”:
(Incremental Search in progress.)
Often, I’ll spot other things I need at the same time.
Needing and using one search engine for everything from the web to my files and emails make life easy, and just as there are little power tricks for searching the web with Google, there are desktop search tricks (more tricks here):
* subject:spirit returns all emails with the word "spirit" in the Subject: field.
* subject:"Will Eisner" returns all emails with the exact phrase "Will Eisner" in the Subject: field.
* subject:(spirit eisner) returns all emails with both words "spirit" and "eisner" in the Subject:field. Both words must be present in the Subject: field, but they can be in any order and do not have to be next to each other.
* subject:spirit eisner returns all emails with the word "spirit" in the Subject: field and the word "eisner" anywhere in the email, including the body.
Bottom line, I get back all that time I used to spend trying to “manage” all the non-actionable emails I had to spend in Outlook, and like you, I can really put that time to better use!
Author Bio: Bob Walsh divides his time between improving and selling MasterList Professional, a personal task management application, writing a book for Apress (Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality) on how to start a self-funded startup, blogging here and at http://www.todoorelse.com, writing custom software applications for companies with needs and budgets and trying to remember what the words “time off” and “vacation” mean. He can be reached at [email protected].
It’s all too easy to let your newsreader quickly fill with feeds from sites you find interesting, only to realize weeks later than you don’t have the time nor the interest to scan half of them. It only takes a couple days of being offline for thousands of unread posts to tell you that something is not working.
It’s important to devise a method to make sure you get the most out of your feeds, and make sure your feeds don’t drive you crazy.
We tech nerds like to think we are prepared for every possible contingency that could come up during the course of our day. One only has to look at the “What’s in you bag?” stream at Flickr to know I am not alone in this statement. Need a box opened or a screw loosened? I have two multi-tools that can do the job. When I need to look up any personal contact’s phone number, I have at least three devices at my disposal. I can even take a picture with any one of four devices at a moments notice. See what I am getting at? I carry a lot of useful, yet redundant, wasteful and potentially unnecessary, stuff. So much so that my computer bag is less of a superhero utility belt and more of a ball of kryptonite that I swing around my neck.
In my continued efforts to carry less with me I have come up with some thoughts on how to attack this bane of our daily journeys.
We all experience moments of change in our lives. In can be a tragedy, like the folks in Louisiana coping with the effects of a major disaster, or it can be something good, like me getting married. Sometimes we force change and sometimes it’s forced upon us. Change comes in all shapes and sizes and can be a very disruptive force in our lives.
Even small changes, like a rip-roarin’ summer, can throw us out of balance. Sometimes it’s as simple as a routine, or good habit, being broken. If enough time has passed and enough disruption has occurred, it can be hard to get back on track. Part of a maintaining a good work/life balance is taking a break now and again. The problem lies in that sometimes, a break is such a disruption you can lose momentum in various aspects of your life.
In my experience the best way to get back to normal (or what feels like normal) is to take a holistic approach as opposed on taking on one aspect of your life at a time.
Below are a few steps that I’ve used in the past to help me back to normal after a significant break of routine or other change. My hope is that they’ll be helpful to you as well.
It’s been a busy week or so and I’m working on some new content for To-Done that should be up soon. In the meantime, I’d like to make a few quick announcements.
# I’ve been given the wonderful opportunity to be an associate editor for Lifehacker. It worked out perfectly for me so that I can pitch in a bit there and still have plenty of time to work on stuff here. Plus they’ve got me doing a few features a month over there that should be good.
# I’m looking to add some voices to the mix here at To-Done. One of the things I’ve been really interested in is community and discussion and I’d like to offer y’all a chance to become more involved if you want. So, I’m looking for original articles on work/life balance, productivity, motivation, health and similar topics to publish. I can’t pay, but you will keep the copyrights and hopefully get get your work seen by lots of people. If you’re interested send an e-mail or submit your article (or post, etc.) to [email protected].