The Cranking Widgets Blog

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 [...]

How to Construct the Perfect Email Subject Line

How many times have you received an email with a subject line that said something like “Question” or “FYI”? Or, worse yet, had no subject at all? For all the millions of email messages that traverse the Internet every day, the ability to effectively formulate an indicative subject message seems to be fairly [...]

Productivity Infused with Style: Behance Action Products

(Disclosure: Behance is a sponsor of Cranking Widgets – but that doesn’t mean I am obligated to give anything but my honest opinion regarding their products. The following review is comprised of my untrammeled thoughts and reactions – nothing more, nothing less)
The first thing I noticed about the sample product I received from Behance [...]

The Single Biggest Enemy of Workplace Productivity

If you asked 100 people what keeps them from accomplishing their goals, completing tasks at the office, etc., I imagine you’d hear answers like “procrastination”, “interruptions” and the like. And while those things are definitely formidable foes in their own right, I believe there’s a single object that, for all the benefits it brings, [...]

8 Habits of Highly Ineffective Emailing

Of all the possible uses for a computer, email is probably the most pervasive (perhaps second only to regular web browsing). From Bill Gates to your Aunt Betsy, everybody’s got an email account these days, possibly multiple accounts. It takes very little effort or know-how to get an email address, and there are [...]

Hacking Work: Getting (and Keeping) Your Desk Clean

Came across a great post over at Ian’s Messy Desk about the importance (and achievement) of a clean workspace. I especially like #2:

Get rid of sticky notes and scraps of paper. Get a single notebook and use it to record notes, phone numbers, web addresses, ideas, to-dos, etc.

I can’t tell you how many times [...]

How to Talk to a Programmer

Just about anybody that works in medium-to-large size company has probably experienced the dreaded IT/Help Desk guy. You know the one I mean – the poorly-dressed, over-confident, slightly smelly guy who knows how to get your deleted email back or maybe get rid of those annoying pop-up windows. Well, if you think that [...]

Increase Workplace Productivity by Not Being a Jerk

Some of you are probably thinking “hey, aren’t you the guy who advocated completely ignoring coworkers?”. Well, yes, but that’s only in special cases – like when you need to get things done and they’re interrupting you with relatively unimportant stuff. This post will deal with your overall demeanor (and, subsequently, reputation) in [...]

Maintaining Focus: All Hail “Uni-tasking”

It seems like everywhere I turn, somebody is talking about how the ability to multi-task is an essential part of a person. Poke around on monster.com or dice.com to see what I mean; everybody out there can’t say enough good things about those who can effectively multi-task. Frankly, I don’t understand why this [...]

No Mouse Required: How to Create and Send an Email in Outlook Using Only Your Keyboard

I spend a whole lot of time in front of a computer. It was (and still is) my hobby, and subsequently became my profession. And being a GTDer, I’m constantly looking for ways to streamline my computing processes. After about 7 years of full-time computer use, I’ve discovered one of the greatest [...]