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- 8 Ninja Uses for Binder Clips
- Reasons to Get a Tattoo (and Reasons Not To)
- Getting Things Done with 37signals’ Backpack - Why I’m Switching Back
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- Keep Your Notes in Order with the Daily Scratchpad
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14 Numbers Your Cell Phone Can’t Live Without
Not so long ago, cell phones were reserved for society’s wealthy and privileged. Yes, carrying around that small suitcase only for the pleasure of spending $.50/minute to call your stock broker or nail salon - that’s what separated the haves from the have-nots.
Thankfully, those days have ended. Everybody and their freakin’ mother has a cell phone these days - and why wouldn’t they? They’re ridiculously cheap to acquire and use (relative to just a few years ago) and even the freebie models come with more features than a stock install of Windows 95™.
Announcing the LifeRemix Blog Network
It gives me great pleasure to announce the launch of a new venture (along with my good friend Glen of LifeDev.net), the LifeRemix blog network.
Glen and I have hand-selected what we feel are the best and most well-written blogs around. They all deal with the notion of making life a little better (in one aspect or another). You’ll find much more than just productivity blogs here. The blogs range from GTD/productivity to organization to general health and happiness. Our goal is to give our readers a series of sites that will provide great advice and interesting reading. All of our blogs are syndicated on the front page of the LifeRemix site, so it’ll be a great stop on your daily web travels.
A quick run-down of our current roster:
Merlin Mann Drops some Knowledge at The Google
Everybody’s favorite productivity guru/wordsmith gave a Tech Talk at the Googleplex on getting your inbox to zero. If you’re a 43f reader, this will likely be a rehashing of some older material, but still worth the time. If you’ve never heard of this man(n), you’re in for a treat.
Have a great weekend, everybody!
Positively Gigantic GMail Resource Collection
Let’s face it - GMail is pretty much the coolest webmail application in existence. It’s simple design and slick interface (not to mention it’s unparalleled search capabilities) make it a pure joy with which to work.
Having said that, there’s something to be said for standing on the shoulders of giants, so to speak. A great many talented hackers and designers have created and extended GMail into even more of a powerhouse than the vanilla version. The Free Geek has put together a rather exhaustive list of all of the different add-ons and skins available for GMail, some of which I wasn’t even familiar with (and I’m a complete Google fanboy, in case you were wondering)…
How to Easily Track How Much Your Gift Cards are Worth
A few months before my son was born (about 2 years ago), my wife had her first baby shower. She received a plethora of gifts from family and friends - baby clothes, diapers, you name it. I went and picked her up and brought all of the crap home so we could sift through it and figure out what we actually wanted to keep. We ended up returning something like half of what we had received (because most of it wasn’t purchased from our baby registry), most of it to the same 2-3 stores, each of us issuing us a gift card for the total value of what we’d returned.
Don’t Take a Break Unless You Need One
One area where I find myself disagreeing with many of the community gurus is the area of breaks and the taking of breaks. Many will say that one should work n minutes per hour and take a 60-n minute break, like clockwork. I disagree. Attempting to shoehorn humans into a robotic schedule when their work doesn’t dictate such a schedule is, in my opinion, counterproductive. After all, when you take a break, you’re no longer being productive (and, yes, I understand that “recharging” is important to overall productivity - I just don’t believe it to be something that should be scheduled).
We’ve all heard about “the zone” (though, perhaps by a different name). Those rare occasions when you’re completely focused on what you’re doing and you’re at the peak of productivity. The rest of the world has faded into the background and it’s just you and [your task]. For those of us who have been there, it’s a bit like a good night’s sleep: you don’t realize how awesome it was until it’s over. This is my main reason for not taking scheduled breaks.
Invites Available for Pownce, the Twitter Killer
Just a quick one, kids. I was recently invited to test drive the new Twitter-ish web app, Pownce (from Digg-founder Kevin Rose and others). It uses the new AIR interface stuff from Adobe, and it’s pretty slick.
My only complaint thus far is the inability to send messages from my cell phone. Otherwise, it’s pretty nice - looks a lot like the Twitteriffic application for windows.
At any rate, I’ve got 6 invites available for the first 6 folks who comment here. Cheers!
The Productivity Trifecta, Part 1: The Word ‘No’
…your “Delete” key. It is in a three way tie with for the best productivity tool ever with the Trash Can and the word “No”. - Org-Fu Überpost - Productivity Whitepaper by Patrick Rhone. This statement is the inspiration for this series of posts called The Productivity Trifecta.
Of all the things you can do to limit the amount of input you’re forced to deal with, this has got to be one of the hardest. Having to look somebody in the eye and tell them that what they’re asking isn’t worth your time (because, really, that’s what you’re saying) is tough business. People don’t tend to react well when they’re told they can’t have what they want in the workplace. Why is that?
Why Most People Don’t Care about GTD
One of the first things I notice about many new GTD converts (says the guy who has been doing it for all of 8 months now) is how ready they are to try to recruit their friends and family (myself included). I would venture to say that Getting Things Done is lent out more than any other book in my house (and we have a mess of books here). If I’m not rereading it again, I’m forcing it on one of my poor friends, telling them about how it will make their life so much easier and how it will help them lose weight and be a better lover. Ok, so that last part might be a slight exaggeration, but the point is this - GTD begets GTD, I think. People who really get it are excited to share it with others.
Here’s a cold, hard fact about GTD evangelism: Most people don’t care and aren’t interested.
Friday Fun: Law and Order Drinking Game
As some of you may already know, I’m a big fan of Law & Order. It’s by far the most Tivo’d show at my house, hands down. I’ve been known to plow through 4-6 episodes on a lazy Saturday night - I’m not joking about this, I’m a fan. 
So, as any avid fan would tell you, there are a handful of things that tend to happen pretty regularly on the show. And while I’m a little old to be doing shots (got that out of my system awhile back), I would imagine it would be quite entertaining to watch a group of people play the game I’ll be describing in a second.
Basically, the rules go something like this: Whenever any of the following things happen on the show, a drink is taken. Sure, I could have certain events be worth more shots than others, but frankly I’m too tired to think about it that much
Here’s the list of “drink triggers” (note that these apply to the original Law & Order, not the spin-offs):
