posted at 17:00:32
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
Business

The BBC is reporting that we're up to our usual tricks again - working too many hours overtime and not getting paid for it. From the article:

According to the TUC the average amount of unpaid overtime was more than seven hours a week, and workers were missing out on an average of £5,000 of pay.

£5,000? That's a lot of beer tokens!

I've written before about the state of UK working hours and our lack of Lack of enough public holidays in the UK so now it would appear that company's are using the current economic climate to eek even more work out of us.

Great.

We have some of the longest working hours in Europe and now, because we may all lose our jobs at any given moment we feel the need to stay chained to a desk for no extra pay. Plus you may still get made redundant even after all that hard work.

Mr Barber added: "Long hours are bad for people's health, and employers should never forget that each extra hour worked makes people less productive once they are over a sensible working week."

So, if your boss asks you why yo....

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Dec

22nd
2008

Multitasking revisited: How much time are we wasting?

posted at 10:16:33
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
GTD/Productivity

In an article published in the New York times in October (yes, I'm behind with my blogging, okay?!) entitled "Multitasking Can Make You Lose ... Um ... Focus" the author discusses something we've covered here at Flipping Heck before - how multitasking actually make you more unproductive. See my reviews of review of "The Myth Of Multitasking: How "doing it all" gets nothing done by Dave Creshaw.

From the article:

Although doing many things at the same time - reading an article while listening to music, switching to check e-mail messages and talking on the phone - can be a way of making tasks more fun and energizing, "you have to keep in mind that you sacrifice focus when you do this," said Edward M. Hallowell, a psychiatrist and author of "CrazyBusy: Overstretched, Overbooked, and About to Snap!" (Ballantine, 2006). "Multitasking is shifting focus from one task to another in rapid succession. It gives the illusion that we're simultaneously tasking, but we're really not. It's like playing tennis ....

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Nov

25th
2008

How to run Productive Meetings - Guest post at Simpleology.com

posted at 19:58:28
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
GTD/Productivity

I'm famous! Well, sort of.

I was asked by the kind folks at Simpleology to write a guest post on running productive meetings which went gone live a couple of days ago over at the Simpleology blog.

If you haven't heard of Simpleology before basically it's a series of 40 free lessons (with further paid ones available) taken over the course of 40 days.

The lessons cover a variety of subjects such as:

LESSON 1 The First Law of simpleology - The Law of Straight Lines

LESSON 2 The Second Law of simpleology: The Law of Clear Vision

LESSON 3 The 3rd Law of simpleology: The Law of Focused Attention

LESSON 4 The 4th Law of simpleology: The Law of Focused Energy

LESSON 5 The Scientific Formula for Success

LESSON 6 Step 1: See Your Target

LESSON 7 Step 2: Keep it in Your Sights

Each lesson is backed up by a Video and there's further reference material in the "Virtuosity Handbook", audio compaion MP3 and daily email reminders.

I have to ....

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Nov

21st
2008

"Productive" Magazine Launched

posted at 09:12:34
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
GTD/Productivity

Yesterday (yes, I''m a bit slow on the uptake!) saw the launch of "Productive!" magazine, a magazine dedicated to... er... Productivity!

Brought to you by the creator of Nozbe, the magazine''s mission:

Productive Magazine is a platform where the top productivity bloggers will share their best productivity principles and tips'n'tricks. Let's help everyone get more done and be more productive!

The bonus is the magazine's a free download!

I've only had a chance to have a quick look through the magazine (some of us do have to work you know) but it looks really well done - it certainly wouldn''t be out of place on the shelves in my local newsagent - and there''s articles with many well known GTD gurus including >David Allen himself and Leo Balbauta of Zen habits.

So, if you''re into productivity (which I guess you must be if you read this blog!) then head on over to "Productive!" magazine and download your free copy.

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Nov

18th
2008

Shock Horror! Obama may lose Blackberry priviledges!

posted at 09:58:30
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
Email

There's a lot of talk at the moment about Barack Obama having to ditch his Blackberry (read the full article "Say Goodbye to BlackBerry? If Obama Has to, Yes He Can" at the New York Times site) when he becomes President and I'm not sure what all the fuss is about.

Having recently sat down to dinner with someone who had "Blackberry Twitch" - you know the sort, the Blackberry's in their pocket and they're itching to look at it but know it'd be considered rude so they develop a nervous tick - and also been to dinner with someone who checked emails whilst they ate (excuse me?) surely it's better to have a focused, non-Blackberry twitching President? I mean, can you imagine him sitting in the Oval office talking to some official whilst browsing his emails? Me neither.

It's probably for the best when you consider that the current administration has potentially lost 5 million (yes, five million) emails - some of which may contain dodgy dealings of White House Staffers:

I wouldn't rule out that there were a potential 5 million e-mails lost," Perino told reporters.

The administration was already facing sharp questions about whether top presidential advisers including Karl Rove improperly used Republican National Committee e-mail that the White House ....

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Nov

5th
2008

The US Presidential Election, Motivation and Productivity

posted at 12:49:19
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
Motivation

Hah! Bet you didn't see that one coming eh? Yes, I am about to link the US Election to the topic of this blog - how genius am I?!

Firstly, before I begin my "mashup" of politics and lifehacking I'd like to give a big round of applause to all that voted for - who I personally feel - the best candiate we could have hoped for in terms of impact on not only America, but the world as well.

Plus I'd like to applaude everyone that voted in general. Exercising our democratic right to vote is something we often take for granted (although not so much in the UK as we haven't been given the right to vote in a General Election since 2005 the current guy just inherited his post and we therefore haven't voted in the ~~schmuck~~ "democratic" leader of of our country).

I do have to find it slightly amusing that the result of the US Election - which some pundits are already calling the biggest change to politics ever (er, I think that may be the voting system in general, no?) - was announced on the day that in theory could have changed the course of modern politics (including those of the States) forever. Yes, today is the day that poor old Guy Fawkes gets tossed on the bonfire - we omit the hanging, drawing and quartering bit as there are....

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Sep

17th
2008

Four Hour Work Week in the Real World? Dream on

posted at 15:43:04
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
GTD/Productivity

I've recently started reading the Four Hour Work Week* (hereafter 4HWW to stop me getting RSI) by Tim Ferris and, even though I'm only on page 97 I'm already a bit annoyed by this book.

In the chapter I'm currently on, Ferris talks about regaining time by only checking email and voicemail at designated times of the day such as 12pm and 4pm - and he stresses not to check email first thing in the morning. Doing so will save you x amount of time per day - but would this actually work in the Real World? I can't see how it could.

Now, I don't know if it's the type of job that I'm in that's leading me to the conclusion I've come to, or the fact that

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