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Singletasking Tip - Work Like You’re on Vacation - NYTimes.com
Singletasking Tip: Work Like You’re on Vacation
By DARRELL ETHERINGTON of GigaOm
I have a singletasking tip for you, and it’s an important one: Work like you’re on vacation. Before you type up the smart-aleck response, “You mean don’t work at all?” let me explain. I mean work like you’re taking a working vacation. If you’re a full-time remote worker, you probably know the kind of focused working vacation I mean. Sometimes, you can pull one off without your employer even being aware that you’ve taken a vacation at all, if you’re experienced in the art.
The key to a successful working holiday? Good time management and prioritization skills. Having fun and distracting things, settings and activities all around you has a way of throwing what needs doing and what can be put off into sharp relief. The result, for me at least, is a kind of highly motivated tunnel vision that has me blowing through high-priority tasks in half the time I would normally take.
Since you’re not actually always on vacation, how do you replicate the effect in order to trigger task triage? The solution is to bring back the motivation, if not the exotic locales.
Fill Your Day With Extra-Curricular Activities
When planning out your work week, add in as many fun, after-work activities as you can manage. This might mean some personal blogging, joining a book club that meets regularly, participating in regular Twitter chat groups, or playing recreational league sports (I’ve just signed up for dodgeball, which should be interesting).
Not only will crowding weekdays with fun, social or active events and activities cut down on artificial work task exaggeration (you know that it shouldn’t take you three hours to finish that weekly status report, for instance), it’ll help you stay happy and healthy, too.
Knock Off Early
Take your usual workday end-time, and subtract two hours from that. No matter what the status of your work at that time (emergency priority stuff obviously excluded), you’re forbidden from doing anything else, professionally speak
How To Create SMART tasks
How To Create SMART tasks
May 5th, 2008 (2:00pm) Mike Gunderloy No Comments
We’ve covered task management a few times here on WWD – notably in our roundup of 20 different ways to track your task list. But picking a system to track your tasks isn’t the only prerequisite to getting them done. Even more important is creating good tasks in the first place.
If you just toss things at your task list whenever you think of them, you’ve made a start at not forgetting to do things. But that sort of non-system is likely to lead to one of the task list antipatterns: your task list will gradually fill with things that you can’t really get done, because it’s been used as a dumping ground.One way to make sure that your tasks are really tasks, and not memoranda or vague aspirations, is to use the SMART system. A term that started out in the project-management world in the 1950s, SMART is an acronym that gives you five guidelines for creating useful objectives:
Specific – The task has to be specified well enough that you know what it is. One way to think of this is that when you decide to tackle something on your to-do list, you shouldn’t first have to figure out what it means. “Revise web site based on client feedback” isn’t very specific. “Change to new color scheme and headers” is more specific.
Measurable – If you can’t measure your progress, how do you know when you’re finished? A simple done/undone task, like “Take out the trash” is measurable; you’re done when the trash ends up at the curb. A task like “Make sales calls” isn’t measurable (unless you’ve got a fixed list of contacts to call). Better would be “Call ten new prospects.”
Achievable – It doesn’t do you any good to have tasks like “Make a million dollars this year” unless you are in a very high-paying job already (or don’t mind staring at a task that sits on your list for years). There’s no reason not to have life goals – but these aren’t the sort of thing that should clutter up your task list. Save the list for things that you can knock off.
Realistic – For
5 Simple Ways to Boost Your Efficiency - NYTimes.com
5 Simple Ways to Boost Your Efficiency
By SAMUEL DEAN, GigaOm
New applications or enhancements to existing ones can provide big efficiency benefits, but there are also many simple tweaks, unsung tips, and new ways to think about the tools that you already use that can help you work better. In this post, I’ll share five ways that can help you accomplish more and experience less hassle. You can take advantage of many of these tips in minutes.
Double Up On Monitors. We’ve covered the efficiency benefits of using dual monitors before. While some users like sitting in front of one giant monitor these days, for the same cost you can buy two (or more) reasonably priced monitors, put them side-by-side on your desktop, and use the displays as one fluid desktop. I recently switched to this kind of setup, and I’ll never go back. The time I save simply loading web pages and applications is substantial, and it’s also just easier to work this way. Windows XP and Vista both offer dual-monitor support out of the box, as does Mac OS X. Give it a go if you haven’t tried it.
Flex Your Mouse Muscle. Some of the most surprised comments I’ve ever gotten for any post on this blog came in response to a post called, “Nine Ways to Make Your Mouse Roar.” I made the point there that you may well spend more time with your mouse each day than you do with any person, and yet, a lot of people install a mouse without ever consulting the documentation and finding out what it’s capable of. Do you have a mouse with a scroll wheel? If so, in any tabbed browser, just click your scroll wheel while hovering over a link on the web to open it in a new tab. Or try this: In the middle of a web page you’re looking at, click once on your scroll wheel. Your cursor should change shape. Moving up and down with the mouse will let you scroll the page, and do speed scrolling. If your eyes are tired, hold your Ctrl key down and lightly push your scroll wheel up a few notches. The size of the text on the page you’re looking at will increase, and you can hold Ctrl
BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | The cult of the to-do list
hose with too much to do may note down what they need to get done. But one time management system elevates the humble to-do list to cult-like status, says Ewan Spence.
They have an almost evangelical dedication to getting what needs to be done out of their heads, into lists and then acting on those lists.
But have the 400 people at the Getting Things Done (GTD) summit discovered the secret to organising their life, or do they subscribe to a theory that promises the earth with the occasional get-out clause?
THE GTD MANTRA
Write down ideas
Define the next step
If it can be done in less than two minutes, do it now
Or delegate it, or defer it
If it doesn't need doing right away, file it in a labelled folder
Review folders regularly
Fans of the time management system have each paid about $2,000 (£1,422) to spend two days in San Francisco with the man who started it all, David Allen, and other proponents of GTD.
Mr Allen is regarded as almost messianic by some. But he says his approach is "little more than common sense".
His 2001 book Getting Things Done in 2001 caused an explosion of admiration and recognition. Hundreds of thousands of people set about reorganising their lives as their prophet recommended.
But his system - which can be seen as little more than making good use of a notebook and a pencil - is said to have changed lives. Those who adhere to it claim to be able to organise busy social lives, family commitments, work and outside projects - and still get a good night's sleep.
Night sweats
"There is no more waking up in the middle of the night panicking about a project," says Mr Allen. "Thanks to GTD you have it written down in a list, ready to be actioned."
David Allen
David Allen reinvented the to-do list
His words are regarded with a mix of awe and enlightenment by the audience. Speaking to them two things become apparent. Firstly, there is something almost cathartic about writing everything down to clear one's head of that worry. Secondly, capturing every thought you have each day, every day,
Getting Things Done with Gmail Tasks
Getting Things Done with Gmail Tasks
March 16th, 2009 (12:30pm) Simon Mackie 29 Comments
While my search for the perfect Windows Getting Things Done (GTD) app continues, I’m resorting to using Gmail Tasks as an interim measure. While it’s not perfect — it’s nowhere near fully-featured enough for me — Google’s addition, last week, of the ability to move tasks between lists was definitely a step in the right direction for GTDers. You could use Tasks for GTD before, but moving actions between lists was painful, as you had to manually copy and paste the tasks: not fun.
Here’s how you can set up and use Gmail Tasks for GTD.
Rename your current list to Inbox
gtasksrename
Renaming a list in Gmail Tasks
Rename your current list by clicking the lists icon and selecting “Rename list” (or alternatively, set up a brand new list). This is the list to use as your collection bucket, where where you’ll add new tasks, either from email or as you think of them.
Add more lists
You’ll need to add some more lists to help sort and prioritize your tasks. Do this by clicking the lists icon and then “New list…”
gtasksnewlist
Adding a new list in Gmail Tasks
You need to add at least four more lists: “Next actions,” “Deferred,” “Delegated,” and “Someday/maybe.” I also set up lists for other contexts (”Home”). Because I only use GTD for work stuff (I know, I’m terrible), I don’t need anything more complex than this, but if I did use GTD for everything, the inability to handle contexts properly would probably be too limiting. Then again, if you’re a real GTD nut you probably have a more fully-featured task management app anyway.
Gmail Tasks lists set up for GTD
Gmail Tasks lists set up for GTD
Use notes to add information about your tasks
Unfortunately, Gmail Tasks doesn’t have the kind of task metadata that you take for granted in more fully-featured task management apps: tags, the ability to assign tasks to people, etc. But each task can be set a due date and you can add notes, so you can use the Notes field to add information
web work 101
Archives » “web work 101”
Get Started As a Web Worker
April 11th, 2009 (6:00am) Meryl Evans 1 Comment
I won’t rehash what we already know about the economy. But I will say this: I know far too many talented folks who have lost their jobs. With so few openings, however, some won’t wait for a job to come along but will instead start their own business.
A computer is all most people need for web working — though many of us are already web workers, including those working outside of the home. For those who don’t put yet put themselves in that camp, it’s important to note that web working also provides a minimal way to launch a career, especially for freelancers.
So how can you get started on your web working business? Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: web work 101
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Web Work 101: Wrap-up
March 4th, 2009 (2:31pm) Simon Mackie 5 Comments
Over the past few weeks we’ve been running a series of Web Work 101 posts. Whatever your reason for joining the growing ranks of web workers — whether your new business means that you’re working from home for the first time, you’ve been laid off and are doing some freelancing, or you’ve just found that dream telecommuting job — I hope you found the posts useful.
Here’s a summary of all of the great posts in the series. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: web work 101, highlights
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Web Work 101: 10 Apps You Can’t Do Without
March 1st, 2009 (9:00pm) Aliza Sherman 50 Comments
So you’ve been downsized. Or you’ve bailed before being booted because you saw the writing on the wall. Or maybe you skipped the steady paycheck for a go at being a freelancer. Whatever the reason you’re out there on your own now, we’ve compiled a list of apps you’ll need to run your web-working business.
This is by no means a comprehensive list, just a sampling of the apps and solutions that we’ve blogged about in the past.
Here’s what the new web worker needs to get the job done well:
Backoffice
1. Invoice management
I can’t run my business without my Freshbooks, bu
5 Most Popular Posts on WebWorkerDaily This Week
5 Most Popular Posts on WebWorkerDaily This Week
April 3rd, 2009 (3:00pm) Simon Mackie No Comments
Just in case you missed any of them, here are the five most popular posts on WebWorkerDaily this week:
* Coworking 101: A Brief History
New to coworking? Check out Imran’s roundup of coworking coverage
* How To Monitor Online Conversations
Interesting conversations are happening all over the web: about you, your company and your industry, and revealing many tips and tricks that you should know. Dawn shares her tips on how to monitor them all.
* Getting Things Done with Gmail Tasks
Step-by-step instructions on how to use Gmail Tasks as a Getting Things Done (GTD) system.
* How to Build a Standing Desk
Mark Hinton shows how he built his spine-friendly standing desk.
* The Home Wi-Fi Reboot: Don’t Neglect It
Sam explains why your home wi-fi network needs a regular cycled reboot.
Related Posts
* GigaOM: Welcome Simon Mackie, New Editor of WebWorkerDaily
* WebWorkerDaily: 5 Most Popular Posts on WebWorkerDaily This Week
* WebWorkerDaily: Coworking 101: A Brief History
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Corner Office - There’s No Need to Bat .900 - Question - NYTimes.com
There’s No Need to Bat .900
By ADAM BRYANT
This interview of John Donahoe, president and chief executive of eBay since March 2008, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant.
Q. What is the most important lesson you’ve learned about leadership through the years?
A. You can’t change people. As a leader, there’s a real temptation to try to change people or help people get to where you want them to go. And I learned, actually through experience, that you can’t change someone. All you can do is help them help themselves.
And so I spend a lot less time than I used to trying to make people do something that either they can’t do, or don’t want to do, and spend more time illuminating what needs to get done. And if they make the choice to do it, great. If not, get them into a role where they can do what they’re good at.
Q. How has your management style evolved?
A. I was blessed with being part of a really professional service firm, a talent firm, at Bain & Company, for years. I got rigorous performance reviews every six months or so, and in those learned what I needed to develop and work on to go to the next level.
Interestingly, when I became C.E.O. of Bain, I used to get a performance review where my assessment committee would interview 40 partners in half-hour interviews, and I’d get a performance review that was 20 pages thick. Everything I could possibly do better was included in that.
In many ways it was liberating, because I realized feedback’s a gift and I wasn’t afraid of the feedback. I’d look at it — and a third of it, I said: “You know, that’s exactly right. This is going to be a long-term area I’m going to have to get better and better at, and I want to make progress next year, and it will still be an issue that year.”
It’s kind of a lifelong journey. About a third of it was: “Oh, wow, I didn’t realize I was doing that and need to stop doing it, or someone wanted me to be doing something else that I agreed with.” And then a third of it, I said: “You know what? Thanks for the feedback. I’m going to ig
New reQall offers location-based reminders - Computerworld Blogs
New reQall offers location-based reminders
4 comments
* TAGS:Blackberry, iPhone, reqall
* IT TOPICS:Mobile & Wireless
The best product I've ever used for reminders and personal productivity is a free service called reQall. Today, the company announced improvements to the free version, now called reQall Standard, plus an all-new Pro version that takes "memory jogging" to a whole new level. reQall Pro costs $2.99 per month or $24.99 per year. (The first year for existing users cost $19.99.)
If you're not familiar with reQall, the service lets you add reminders, action items, notes or whatever you want, which the reQall sorts for you. It will alert you about those items when you tell it to, and it will also occasionally "jog" your memory with well-timed reminders.
I use the voice-recognition feature mainly. I just launch the reQall app on my iPhone, press the "Add by voice" button, and start talking. If I say "talk to Kevin about upgrading my laptop," reQall transcribes my voice into text and adds my words to my "Today" list on the reQall web site and also on the phone itself. It's there when I go looking for it. But if I say "talk to Kevin about upgrading my laptop tomorrow at 10am," then my phone beeps tomorrow at 10am with my reminder.
reQall transforms even a forgetful, scatterbrained person like me into a highly organized guy who pretty much never forgets anything.
The most exciting and useful new feature announced today is location-based reminders. Brief Janet on upcoming budget meeting? reQall Pro reminds you at work. TiVo "Dancing with the Stars"? reQall Pro reminds you at home. Buy a loaf of bread? The reQall Pro app will remind you when you arrive at the store. You can even do crazy-cool stuff like telling it "Order the linguini" while sitting at a restaurant. As you arrive at that same restaurant a year later, your phone beeps with the reminder. "Pick up dry cleaning" alerts you as you're about to drive by the cleaners.
The reQall service can be used and accessed on the Web or via e-mail. B
Forget-me-not helper ReQall launches pro service | Webware - CNET
Reminder service ReQall is launching a new "professional" service aimed at business users. The service, which costs $2.99 a month, or $24.99 a year, lets users integrate their ReQall tasks and reminders with both Outlook and Google Calendar. It also organizes and groups together tasks and items by location, and has a new memory jogger tool that guesses which of your tasks will be forgotten and gives you an extra reminder.
Of all of the features, the calendar integration is likely to be the most alluring. It lets you use multiple devices to manage upcoming tasks. It also makes it easier to use additional third-party scheduling services without having to worry about having to re-enter the data in ReQall.
The memory jogger is also a great idea, although could be hit or miss depending on how good you are at keeping to your schedule. Proper planning on your part can help avoid missing a deadline or forgetting to do something, although a good nag at the right time is what the service is all about. For now the tool employs SMS messages, e-mails, and instant messages to send these alerts, however only pro users get access to SMS. Apple iPhone users can expect to see a move to free alerts once Apple releases firmware 3.0, which has free push notifications for applications baked-in.
Another feature included in the pro service is e-mail integration that lets you create reminders by sending an e-mail to a private ReQuall address. It pulls time and date information from the context and lets you click on it to jump to that person's contact information or map location (kind of like the iPhone does). It also pulls out names, phone numbers, and addresses from ReQall items based on the contact list on your phone, which is now accessible through the app.
Not to be left out, free ReQall users are also getting some new goodies like a new contact management interface, and the capability to make recurring events then share them with contacts who are not ReQall users.
Previously: ReQall 2.0: Now somewhat smarter
Slideshow: New ver
State of the Art - Goodbye, Sticky Notes; Hello, Reqall - NYTimes.com
Reminders From Out of the Blue
By DAVID POGUE
Positive economic news! Get your positive economic news here!
Yes, amid the smoking ruins of the financial system, some green shoots are popping forth. And one of them is called Reqall.
The service has been around for awhile, but it was just reintroduced with new features and a Pro version; more on this in a moment.
In a nutshell, Reqall is an effortless personal reminder system. You speed-dial its toll-free number (888-9REQALL) and dictate whatever it is you want to remember. “Meeting with Jacobs Monday at 5 o’clock.” “Buy frozen grape juice.” “Remind Shannon to pick up the kids early tomorrow.” “Anniversary present every Sept. 15.” “Idea for Act 2: Henderson turns out to be an android.”
(You can also create these reminders by e-mail, by typing them into a Firefox plug-in, or even by typing them into an instant-message program once you’ve set up Reqall as a buddy. But unless you live at your computer, using the cellphone is the real killer app.)
That’s it. You go through your life, dictating these little tidbits that would ordinarily be relegated to scraps of paper or the back of your mind — and therefore, probably, lost.
Reqall transcribes your utterances into text and collates them at Reqall.com. You can also have them sent to you by e-mail or as text messages to your cellphone.
If your reminder included a date or time, Reqall recognizes it as a calendar event. It can shoot a reminder to your cellphone 30 minutes in advance.
Or, at your option, it can add these appointments to your Google calendar, your calendar in Microsoft Outlook, or any calendar program that can subscribe to Web calendars (like Apple’s iCal or Now Up-to-Date).
But wait, there’s more. If your utterance contains the word “buy,” then Reqall adds the transcript to a master shopping list.
The Help screen wryly urges you to be careful. “I don’t buy your argument” also lands on the shopping list. At any time, you can call in to hear your shopping list read back to you, or request to have it
reQall Helps You Remember Stuff, Anywhere - NYTimes.com
reQall Helps You Remember Stuff, Anywhere
By MERYL EVANS, GigaOm
reQall is “a voice-enabled memory aid that seamlessly integrates your mobile phone, email, text messaging and IM into a powerful organizer, reminder system and productivity assistant.” It provides a personal notes and reminders system that you can access anywhere: over the phone, over the web, over email and over IM. Because it’s voice-enabled, you can access your to-do lists with a just a phone; you don’t need a laptop or Internet connection. If you’re looking for a system to manage to-do lists that you can access from anywhere, reQall is a good choice.
Capturing and Tracking Your Thoughts
To use reQall over the phone you just dial a toll-free number and talk to it. reQall accepts voice commands to add items, share a reminder with another reQall user (a useful feature for teams of web workers), listen to your current lists and ask reQall to send a list to your phone.
reQall’s call-in system works for me even though I’m deaf. The detailed step-by-step quickstart guide shows how to call reQall to add an item. It transcribes your audio message into text and keeps the audio file. The system did a decent job of transcribing my notes, although it missed a couple of things with my imperfect speech. Still, the accuracy is impressive and you can edit anything it gets wrong. The system publishes the audio recording to your account on the web site in an instant and the text version of the audio shows up within a few minutes.
Of course, you can also enter capture items from within the web app, in the large “Add” box on the left of the screen, as you can see.
Communication Options
There are many ways to view your lists from the reQall application. In fact, at first it can seem a bit overwhelming. You can receive transcripts of new audio items by email, text message (SMS) or instant message (IM). You can also receive reminders and shared items in the same way. reQall sends a daily memory jog by email at a scheduled time.
You can also interact with it ove
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