Productivity

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 ...

Sometimes I do stupid things that waste time out of habit. Most of the time I do that because it’s more convenient to keep doing things the way I know how instead of investing the time into figuring out the best way to do them. Here’s a recent example. This is my normal workflow for creating a blog post. ...

As our working world shifts from assembly lines and manual labor to a knowledge economy where we get paid for ideas instead of physical tasks, there’s an increasing likelihood you’ll be taking your work home with you. When you work on an assembly line, there’s not a whole lot you can do after hours. You might think about how you can process pieces faster or ways to be more efficient in your role, but you’re not lugging home a press, conveyor belt or pneumatic drill. Work is at work. When you arrive home, work is no longer part of the equation. ...

With hundreds of thousands of apps in the Apple App Store, it’s easy to give up finding quality apps that turn your iPhone into a robot more powerful than Optimus Prime. Finding new, useful apps is definitely a side hobby, and this curated list below is a dozen of my favorite apps. Please share your favorite apps in the comments so we can all have awesomer iPhones. $5 will get you the whole collection of apps below. [To check out volume one of my favorite apps, click here.] Mailbox This app makes me want to read my email. It’s all about getting through your inbox so nothing remains when you finish. It has slick gesture controls and I love the overall feel of the app. My favorite feature is the ability to delay email until later. Then, emails don’t sit in your inbox, staring you in the face, waiting for you to move. You can have emails reappear in your inbox when you need them like a perfectly timed ribbon-around-your-finger reminder. I use the delay feature to remind me of appointments or tasks I need to complete, but don’t need to do today. You also get to see a new jaw-dropping photo hand-chosen from Instagram each day when you get to #InboxZero, which is at least half of my motivation for getting through my inbox. A few downers: you must use Gmail or Google Apps and there’s no way to access labels from within the app. I understand, since it’s all about processing email, so I keep Sparrow around for when I need to search through labels. Also, you’ll have to get into a waiting line for access to the app, but download it today so you can start the timer. ...

Naturally, my life is as organized as an elementary school recess: lots of frantic running around, falling down, and then calling it quits once the bell rings for the day. Since I have a tendency to forget and lose things, I’ve had to train myself to spend my time more wisely. I have by no means mastered it. Time is a wild beast that can’t ever be perfectly tamed. I’ve come up with a system to hack myself a bit and make sure I’m accomplishing the most important things, which is ultimately the goal of time management. 1. Do the most important thing first, every day. Each morning I commit to reading the Bible before anything else. I’m trying to kick the habit of catching up on 100+ tweets when I wake up since I’m 6 hours ahead of most of the people I follow. I get distracted, start reading articles, and start thinking and reading and favoriting and linking and then my morning is blown. So, I’ve started jumping out of bed, throwing a pot of coffee on and cracking open the Word. ...

Finger fatigue. It’s what you develop after answering a crap ton (more than a normal ton, for those of you who aren’t up on your international measurements) of emails after the holidays. Well, prepare your fingers to do a little happy dance of relief after this delightful world of text expansion is revealed to you. There are certain things that you write frequently that are just a pain to keep typing out on your computer or smartphone. Things I’m always typing: my email for website logins, my address, bill payment information*, certain phrases at the end of emails i.e. “If you have any questions, please let me know”, etc. ...

Today I told The Resistance to shut up. It wasn’t easy. But I did it (and when it questioned me, I asked “Did I stutter?“) You see, The Resistance is a deceiver. It distracts and deters and diminishes and defiles. It tells you lies. Lies like: You can put off that project until next quarter. You don’t need to reach out to people. The status quo is all that can be expected. It’s the voice in the back of your head that all too often wins out. ...