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I would be willing to wager that most people, during their first office supply shopping trip after having read Getting Things Done, pick up some binder clips. This is probably because they happened across the Hipster PDA at some point during their GTD travels and thought, “man, that looks like something I could really get into – and for like $5, tops…”. Hell, you could build Hipster PDAs for a small village for like $20, who wouldn’t be tempted by such a small admission price? I know I wasn’t – I’ve got a whole tub of probably 30-40 binder clips of varying sizes that has been very busy gathering dust for many months now.

If you find yourself in this boat, have no fear, for I have compiled some seriously hacky uses for all those binder clips. They may not all have mass appeal, but they are examples of how to take your productivity gear to places it was never intended :)

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digg_url = ‘http://blog.crankingwidgets.com/2008/05/05/get-a-tattoo/’; I have lots of tattoos. Something like 30 at last count, if memory serves. As tattoos have grown in popularity and social acceptance, it’s very likely that your average 20-something has one or more tattoos. And while I’m certainly not an expert on the art of tattooing, I’ve got a good deal [...]

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We’ve all been there. Something’s dreadfully wrong with your trusty computer – you can’t print, you can’t get on the web, you can’t play Bejeweled. For whatever reason, the problem is major enough to warrant one of the most desperate acts you can imagine – a phone call to tech support. Now, before we dig [...]

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Image courtesy of London Permaculture The following is a guest post by Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project We’re all looking for ways to work both faster and calmer, and I recently hit on a trick that keeps my desk tidier and my thoughts clearer. One of my most annoying habits is my tendency to [...]

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Like most adults living in America today, I get many phone calls. Some from my wife, my mom, my brother, my friends. But sometimes, I get phone calls from the local health club, the local car dealership or somebody trying to get me to buy 5 pounds of veal. Unsolicited phone calls. We all hate [...]

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I’m a big fan of Twitter (even though we’ve had our differences in the past – mostly due to my not “getting it”). While my updates may not be as fast, furious or incessant as some of the people whom I follow, I do try to pop on there as often as is feasible without [...]

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Photo Courtesy of uafcde It’s one of the best feelings in the world, heading in for your first day at a new job. Everything feels fresh and new, you feel like you’re starting with a clean slate and that you’re really going to ace this one. You’re just so positive about everything, especially if it’s [...]

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As I mentioned previously, i received an iPhone for this past Christmas. While I really love it, having to go from a 60gb iPod which held all of my music to having only 8gb of space took some getting used to. I started out by hand-picking various albums and tracks and changing the contents each [...]

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Within this little GTD cult of ours, there are an alarming number of battles fought over the best tool, notebook, web application, etc. In my mind, it’s a little silly – just use what works, right? Well, sometimes there will be two “competing” services/devices/things that both offer a compelling solution to a common problem. Today, [...]

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Your laptop computer. This is a picture of my Macbook after my 2.5 year old son got his hands on it:

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