getting things done

Do Loads! Productivity Links and Tips

I really enjoyed making the recent package for BBC Click all about productivity – and I got to meet some real masters of the art, which was eye-opening and rather inspiring!

click the pic to go to the BBC's site and watch the feature

RSS Readers /can’t see the link? If you want to watch it, click here.

This blog has links to everyone featured in the segment, and below that some hints and tips, both from the feature and also stuff that I couldn’t fit in. Between them, this lot shamed me into going through my inbox and sorting through all my stuff.

Featured Interviews

Professor Richard Wiseman, Psychologist, University of Hertfordshire www.richardwiseman.com

David Allen, Author, Getting Things Done www.davidco.com

Michael Sliwinski, Founder, Nozbe task manager www.nozbe.com

Websites mentioned in the feature

Productivity Blogs

Goal sharing

Task services

www.rememberthemilk.com

www.toodledo.com

Processes I use to keep my inbox empty and my tasks under control

NB these are not compulsory – I’m a big fan of whatever works.

General tips

As mentioned in the package, it’s impossible to respond to every single email you’ve been sent. But mark it as read or add it to a task, and your brain will know you’ve processed it.
Spend a day clearing your backlog, or process 100 emails a day if you have huge amounts, then you’re treated to a lovely clean inbox.
Close down your distractions – If I’m working on a script, then email and twitter have to be closed down – sadly they won’t help with the task at hand. Every now and again, I’ll take a physical break from my work area to refresh my brain. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t…
Rediscover the telephone as a means to get things done quickly – instead of 5 or 6 emails back and forth over 20 minutes, try a 5 minute phone conversation which gets it done in one go.

Finding stuff on your computer

Folders are useful for grouping similar files together in one place to copy, share and store, but not so much for finding stuff. I use my computer’s inbuilt search function instead, and name my files by thinking “What would I type in to search for this file?” – so far this has worked quite well.

Multiple inbox set up for Gmail:

A feature in google labs called multiple inboxes can be configured to send unread items to the top of your inbox. If I mark an item as “read” it means I’ve read it, dealt with it, replied to it or processed it in some way, like adding a Star or a label. Starred email is stuff I know will take more than a couple of minutes to deal with. I find it makes my inbox a lot more manageable.

Enable labs in the top right hand corner of the screen, then scroll down to Multiple Inboxes. Click Enable and then Save changes at the bottom of the screen.
Go to settings in the top right hand corner of Gmail
Click on Multiple Inboxes
Set up by typing the following into each pane to set it up to send Unread and Starred emails to the top of your browser screen.

Pane 0

is:Unread under Search Query, and Unread under Panel Title

Pane 1

is:Starred under Search Query, and Starred under Panel Title

Select number of conversations to display – mine is set to 30
And set the inboxes to “Above the inbox”
Save Changes and go back to see your starred and unread messages above your normal inbox.

TASKS: Any emails that require doing something move to tasks by clicking on More Actions

MARK AS READ KEYBOARD SHORTCUT: Mark an item as read by hitting Shift+i

Note on labels in Gmail: Increasingly, I use the very powerful search function over the folder structure. However, I still label a few emails to make them more search-friendly, such as “internet registrations”, “receipts” and “travel tickets”. This is so that if (for example) an internet registration email doesn’t have the word “user ID” in the body of the email, I can still find it.

Viewing Unread items in one place in Microsoft Outlook

Seeing all your unread items in one place in MS Outlook is easy.

Look in the Search folders under your folder list – one will be named “unread“.

TASKS: Drag an email to the task icon to turn an email into a task, and then you can set due dates and more options.

MARK AS READ KEYBOARD SHORTCUT: Mark an item as read by hitting Control+Q.

Note on folders in Outlook: I have only a few folders in my work outlook system, one is called “Important Reference” for stuff I keep having to refer back to, one is called “Current Ideas”, and one is “Personal” – I use the search function to find everything else.

Let me know…

if you have some hints and tips you’d like to share, favourite keyboard shortcuts or productivity tips on these or other software
if any of these tips helped!

Good luck 🙂

How to Move to the Cloud

Well, it happened.

My life reached critical mass, I had lots of things to do in many places, all of which require a variety of internet access, and an infinite amount of patience.

If only I could defrag my brain this easily- Time to get organised

Time to move to the cloud …but how to do it without going bonkers? The subject of my latest post, I regret to admit, is the reason for a lot of non-blogging.

The mission was to move everything away from a specific platform (i.e. one laptop) and move it somewhere I can access EVERYWHERE, that would be on the mobile, both laptops, both desktops and at internet locations all over the known universe. Bleh.

Does that sound like a nightmare? It was. I’m nearly there, though.

So here goes.

1. I have 37,000 emails I need to have access to on my outlook email – how can I access them somewhere else?

First of all, I needed to find a way to see my old emails on the internet. As I own a domain, I opened a free google apps account – then took advantage of the free google email uploader.

I faffed about with pointing CNAMEs in the right direction etc and used the help pages quite a bit. Now your domain hosting service should be able to help out if you’re thinking of doing this too, and they will be the people to talk to if you’re having a spot of bother. It all worked fine after I’d sorted out the settings, but took AGES to run as there was so much email to upload. Happily, after leaving it to do its business, I now have a fully searchable online email database.

2. Can I get GMail on the move?

I use a Nokia N95 (although its days are numbered, poor thing takes a lifetime to go to “image gallery” now bless it) – and visited the Gmail mobile apps page to download gmail for my phone. The mobile application for Nokia is now playing nicely with google apps users (if you’re on the mobile reading this, then go here m.google.com) So now I access my Gmail from my phone and any computer with an internet connection.

Only problem is that it’s still pull, but I’m not too bothered about that at the moment.

3. I add appointments on my mobile phone and while I’m at the computer. How can I see everything without it all going wrong?

Goosync

Now, it so happens that there is a little programme called GooSync which will happily sync your calendar with your google calendar for free. If you want to do other things as well, you’ll have to pay.

(UPDATE – Goosync has now started charging as at 19-10-09 – £5.99 per year for this service. Oh well, there goes the “free”…)

Once set up (and GooSync will send you a text message to sort all your settings out) you just go to the Sync menu of your phone, and synchronize your calendar. Like Gmail on the phone, you have to remember to do it reasonably often – (do let me know if there’s a way to schedule it to sync regularly) – but it means I can sync my phone calendar without needing a computer USB cable.

4. What about stuff like Documents, spreadsheets – that kind of thing…?

Dropbox File Holder

Enter dropbox, a brilliantly simple and automatic way of keeping your stuff in one virtual place.

The way this works is you have a “dropbox” folder in, say, “my documents” and anything you store there gets Sync’ed up to your dropbox folder in the cloud, and back down to any other dropbox folders on, say, your other computers when they next connect to the internet. The whole thing is done quickly and without any drama.

I have a dropbox app on my (mobile) laptop, and one on my (stationary) monster Mac Pro. I access my docs on other computers by logging into the service online and accessing my files from there – downloading and uploading as I wish.

How clever – and great if you are on a work or shared computer and you don’t want to download your dropbox there.

Yes, of course I use Google docs but find that sometimes docs uploaded from Excel/Word don’t really like it up there, and go a bit squiffy. I love Google docs for the sharing, but not for the sort of anorak-style colour-coding obsessed spreadsheet madness that I’m afflicted with.

Dropbox is completely free for the 2GB version, however if you’re storing video or music, you might feel the need to upgrade to one of their paid-for options with more storage.

5. My infinite things to do list… er, a little help?

nozbe project manager

I’ve been using Nozbe for a while, which has a “free 5 project plan” that you have to hunt for on the home page.

Nozbe Project Managment

If you’re a fan of “getting things done” by David Allen (and I am) , you’ll be familiar with the ideas behind this project management site – Although there’s a “nearly there” ipod touch/ iphone app which accompanies this website where you sync your “to-do’s” online with your nozbe account, I use Nozbe exclusively on a browser at whichever computer I’m plonked in front of.

This online project management tool will give you your “next actions” across projects. This means that once you’ve entered your various (and copious) things to do in different areas – say “music composing”, “home admin” and “holiday planning” – you can see what needs to be done on each project THAT DAY. Really good if you are working on a few different things at once 🙂

6. What about my contacts?

Everything needs to be sync-able with everything else, so any changes made on one platform have to be reflected in the other.

Zyb contact sync

I’m so close to getting my contacts sorted. Using zyb to synchronise my contacts from my phone to their internet site is pretty cool, but I’m still working out how to merge the ridiculous contact list on my phone with the laughably giant contact list on google apps. I also have a gmail account that could do with a bit of a tidy.

This is the only area where I’m not quite sorted yet – and yes, I bet there are lots of paid-for ways to get my contacts in order and in sync, but I want to do it for free. And not with an iPhone 🙂

So there we have it – a move to the cloud which I’ve nearly managed… please comment if you’ve found something awesome that I’ve missed.

Now for some chocolate.

New Year, Different Difference?

A slightly belated “Happy New Year” to you, Chinese and/or otherwise. The picture on the left is Twilight on Gerrard St, London, which is the main drag of Central London’s Chinatown area. The place looks magical, with lanterns swaying in the breeze attached to absolutely every possible stationary object. New Year fills us with optimism, that this time, things will be different; we will be different.

On my way to the gym this morning, I remember reading a statistic saying 97 % of all people who make New Years resolutions break them – 8 % of the total actually break those resolutions in the first 10 seconds, and it is with this thought in mind that I’m feeling pretty proud of myself about making my way to the gym on this freezing occasion, a full 1 months and 11 days into the UK’s new year. But this was not a new year’s resolution – I decided to join a gym in September.

Why did I not pressurise myself with a New Year Resolution this year? Because with an NYR, I’ll get 364 chances to fail – guaranteeing that every time I don’t reach my expected goal, it’s time to resign myself to endless telly, feeling dejected about the sheer mountain of unfinished business shouting for attention, and hoping that next year will be different.

So today, I’m going to challenge the popular assumption that an arbitrary day, zero hour, “wipe the slate clean on Day 1” mentality is the only way to get back on the self improvement train, and say instead that any day, at any time, when we make a conscious decision to do something different, that’s when persistence, determination, and that elusive, sparkly feeling that we’re “on our way” is a great and just reward.

Like many people, I’m interested in goal-setting, personal development and self-improvement, and writing down my goals and aims helps me to focus more. (If you’re looking for a goodie, I humbly suggest Getting Things Done, which I overhauled my life with a year or two ago). Last time I did this was in November – not conventionally a month for that sort of thing, unless it’s your birthday, perhaps.

Be Excellent to Each other!

Anyhow, this week I received some interesting emails, including one from the BBC, one from a short film producer, and the continuation of an exciting music project I’m currently sworn to secrecy about. All of these emails represent a move in the right direction – and I have to confess it’s all a little bit scary. I know I’m on TV already, which is a massive achievement, but these projects represent quite a big leap and I wonder why taking that step into the unknown brings up such feelings of vulnerability, even though what I want most in the world is to be knee deep in Music, TV and technology for the rest of my days.

I’m beginning to realise that the big change for me this day, 15th February, is that it’s time to be ready for the next level, which I’ve spent my whole life preparing for, so this year is as good as any. It’s time for all that hard work to be translated into amazing opportunity, and although it’s a petrifying concept, I think I can handle it. So Happy New Day to you, dear reader, and wherever we go, let us go boldly, as a certain Starship Captain or two might say. Live long, and Prosper.

lots of love, LJ x
spoken through SpinVox tweaked by LJ

LJ Rich

LJ Rich

getting things done

Do Loads! Productivity Links and Tips