Technology

I’m always looking for the next best thing in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. The next best product, the next best app, the next best whatever that will make what I already do easier, faster, more effective. In the process, I’ve spent my fair share of digital cash on apps and software. A lot of my friends and family proudly tell me they never pay for apps. They own $600 unsubsidized smartphones and likely pay $75+ a month for them, but paying a buck or two for an app–come on! They aren’t billionaires. God bless irony. Sticking with free apps is absolutely their prerogative (and there are lots of good ones out there), but here’s a few reason why I regularly pay for apps. ...

The Dollar Shave Club commercial intrigued many. [Warning: some strong language bleeped out and one unbleeped dirty word]. It’s hilarious. Ridiculous. Completely over the top and worth talking about. As Seth Godin would say, it’s remarkable. I was tired of paying over $3 per cartridge (and many times closer to $4) for a 5-blade Gillette Fusion razor. It’s expensive because they market the Fusion as if it is the only solution to caveman-like beards. Guys, it’s not! It’s not the only way! Enter our friends from Dollar Shave Club. Their marketing alone sold me on the worthiness of trying it, at least for a month. This is a comprehensive Dollar Shave Club review in every sense of the word, so grab tightly to your can of shaving solution and get ready to nix your neck hair. (Here’s a quick synopsis of my Dollar Shave Club review: it rocks. Their blades rock, their service rocks, and I’m a believer. If you want to buy your next razor from them right now, here’s an affiliate link that gets me a month of free razors and will help keep my blog afloat as a nice little razor subsidy for me. If you want the full analysis, read on. Also, there’s a hefty amount of comparisons between the DSC razor and the Gillette Fusion because everybody and their mother has the Fusion. It was also my last brand-named, overpriced razor.) The Dollar Shave Club Blade Options ...

I hate wasting time. I’m totally on board with not multi-tasking, but some things are meant to be done simultaneously. I like listening to non-fiction audiobooks (library, FTW) when I drive and podcasts when I’m doing the dishes. They make driving and dish washing much more pleasant. Before I launch into a big pile of dishes, I always queue up a podcast. (Note: I normally do the dishes because Niki always cooks the delicious meals that made the dishes dirty. There should be a rule in families that no one can cook and do the dishes. That’s the worst) Here are a few of my favorite podcasts. I’d love to hear some of your favorites in the comments. ...

The mouse was a beautiful invention for the personal computer. But it’s mostly unnecessary. I still use it quite often, but I’m trying to move more swiftly through the digital world, rocking the keyboard instead of the mouse. It’s faster because you don’t have to move your hands and waste time repositioning (wow, I’m a nerd). (Confession: I just used the mouse and now I’m kicking myself. I definitely haven’t mastered this yet.) If you’re ready to be so fast and so furious, so you can get back to the things that matter, check out my favorite shortcuts below. I haven’t included every keyboard shortcut, but only the ones that I find the most helpful. I’d love to hear what some of your favorite shortcuts are in the comments. ...

I write about the apps I use really frequently (I need to justify owning an iPhone somehow). I recently discovered MacSparky, David Sparks’ website. He often highlights the home screens of his friends’ iPhones, and since I don’t have any friends, I decided to write about my own home screen. My home screen is in constant flux. I’ve moved the icons around a dozen times in the last week since being back in the States (au revoir, MagicJack and Ljubljana Bus app). It was time to get all efficient. I normally sell you on why I love apps, but this is more on how I use them and my general iOS workflow instead of just great apps. I’ve been thinking a lot about workflow lately thanks to the Mac Power Users podcast (by David Sparks and Katie Floyd) and my incessant urge to be ever more productive and efficient. ...

I love books and I don’t care who knows it. “The books you read and the people you meet will determine where you are in five years.” __ Charlie ‘Tremendous’ Jones. Books are second only to relationships when it comes to the trajectory of our lives. I set out with a goal of reading 52 books this year. In case you’re wondering, an 8.5 hour plane ride across the Atlantic last week helped me get back on track, and I’ve officially completed 28 books, putting me on pace to hit 52 for the year. [Full disclosure: A couple books are pretty short, around 100 pages, so that’s lame, but I’ll work on getting my page count up, ok, you guys?] So, I thought it was time for some musings on books.  ...

Email is a necessary evil and a wonderful tool for communication. It’s not going anywhere anytime soon. I wanted email to waste less of my time and be more effective. I’ve created a system that I wanted to share to help you filter your email to save time, see the important stuff and still not miss out on good but less urgent things (like sales from your favorite brands). Here’s what I do. This process is for anyone using Gmail or a Google Apps account, but I’d imagine (or hope) similar ideas could be applied to other email services. I’ll share the general guidelines first and then get into the nitty gritty.  Regaining Control of Your Inbox Through Filters and Labels ...

Great content deserves to be read and shared. The problem is, it can be difficult to find and cumbersome to pass along. Often our processes slow us down and keep us from sharing what the world needs to see and read. Here’s how to find and curate some of the most interesting links on the web, no matter what your interests are.  1. Twitter This is where it all begins for me. Twitter is, bar-none, the best tool for discovering great content. Facebook is good for discovering who is having a bad day or who just got engaged, but as far as brain-stimulation, going to Facebook rather than Twitter to learn something is like going a circus instead of reading a book. Here’s how I curated my list of great people to follow on Twitter. I follow very sparingly, and I even have a more select, private list of people who share the best content, all the time. If you don’t know any thought leaders in the area you’re interested in, check out Twitter’s suggested list of people to follow and work from there. You can also link your email account to Twitter to find people who interact with on the web. Don’t assume that everyone you know is a good sharer on Twitter, but hopefully some sharp people you know are using the tool well. ...

I love knowing how people get things done. Seeing other people’s arsenal of productivity weaponry gets me pumped up than a nerd at Comic-Con. Here’s the list of tools I use, in no particular order and how they help my workflow. Click the name of each tool for a link to download or purchase it. My Toolbox...

If you’ve ever wrestled with Microsoft Word for an hour trying to line up a few blocks of text and a couple of pictures to just create a one-page document, I feel your pain. At some point, everyone needs to make a PDF with pictures, lots of different text boxes and other vital information. We do this every month for our newsletter we send out to our ministry partners. It looks like this. Our monthly letters contain only two rounded rectangles (one at the top and bottom with our information), three main text boxes (for our main story, a box for prayer requests, and a caption for our photos) and two to three photos. It’s really that easy. Here’s how you can make a slick 1-page PDF in 20 minutes flat. ...