help – LJ Rich

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 🙂

A two-fold post for you this time:

Part 1: More about the Blogging feature on BBC Click

Part 2: Why do we Blog?

Part 1.

This week was busy – the latest episode of Click Bits -the little 3 minute tech newscast – is now online… Click on the pic if you want to watch it.

(RSS Readers/can’t click on the pic to view? link here: Http://bit.ly/clickbits006 )

…and my blogging piece on BBC Click is on this week’s show.

Thank you very much Judith Lewis , Mike Robinson , Marko Saric, Clare English and Andy Bargery for their cameos. They each gave me about 20 seconds’ worth of blog tips on video, which I integrated into the piece.

I took a few 3 second shots of some blogs at the beginning of the package

They are listed here:

Going Underground eccentric blog all about things that happen on London’s transport system
cat-fest I Can Haz Cheezburger and its sister site failblog
unchained guide showing the best independent shops in cities,
Black Phoebe, a beautiful photo blog

Below are a few more blogs I’ve enjoyed reading in recent times:

Something to be said – breathtaking prose and inventive fiction – with teeth
Dead Hub – raw music and rock blog
Rocketboom – internet culture blog

You’ll be able to read the whole transcript of the blogging feature here.

part 2.

Making the segment got me to thinking about when I first started blogging, so I went back and read my “Hello World” post i.e. the first post I ever wrote, which was about 90 posts ago.

(If you absolutely have to, you can read it here. <cringe>)

Then I wondered: What makes us blog? What drives us to leave a mark of our mundane existence on the internet? Who do we imagine writing to when we’re typing?

So, of course, I came up with a thoroughly empirical theory.

As a human, I normally spend a lot of time thinking, but my mouth blurts any given thought out after little (if any) moderation from my addled, overworked, overclocked brain. I’m assuming that other humans experience this too.*

If that is the case (and if we have the desire to do so) then writing could give us the freedom and time to craft a sentence, play with the words, and get a sense of perspective we can rarely access “in the moment”. We can proof-read our thoughts in type, then adjust that thought until it “makes sense” – to us, the authors, as much as any reader. This crafting of ideas into concrete might even result in learning something about ourselves we didn’t know until we saw it on the page. Or of course, it could be nothing of the sort. We could just want to post pictures of cats because we love cat pictures.

Incidentally, the above paragraph took 35 minutes to write, and included moving the sentences around, working out what I wanted to say – then making it sound nice to read in my head. I’m now doubting whether or not it’s a self-indulgent paragraph of pointlessness, and now I’m thinking it’s dinner time soon, and I should probably turn the computer off and deal with this later.

Indeed, none of the above musings touch on the obvious love of story that permeates our very existence – mythology, fairy tales and even documentaries – but that is most definitely another post all on its own.

So, please leave your comments: Bloggers, Why do you blog? Readers, what do you read? I’d be honoured if you left your thoughts below.

*to paraphrase the great Douglas Adams, and probably a few others, the worst assumptions are the ones you don’t know you’re making.