posted at 08:00:00
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
Review

I was lucky enough to be contacted recently by the folks at Wiley Publishing asking me if I'd like a free review copy of of "The Myth Of Multitasking: How 'doing it all' gets nothing done" by Dave Crenshaw. Well, you know me and free stuff so I jumped at the chance.

I'd seen a few interviews with Dave Crenshaw and reviews of the book but tried not to take too much notice of them as I wanted to form my own opinion of the book so when I picked it up I didn't really know what to expect.

And I have to say I was really impressed with what I read, it certainly changes whole management book genre for the better. Unlike the usual dry style "informational" style of most management books, Crenshaw gets his points across in narrative format which is a refreshing change.

The book centres around "Phil", a time management/productivity consultant; "He....

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Sep

8th
2008

DocStoc - Online Document Storage Now With File Syncing

posted at 08:00:00
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
Review

I was contacted by DocStoc recently asking me to take a look at a new piece of software they've released called DocStoc Sync. I've written before about DocStoc but if you're not familiar with their service, its essentially an online document storage site that allows you to upload documents and store them publically or privately You can also embed documents in webpages as you can with YouTube videos, which is excellent for showing presentations.

Anyway, on to DocStoc Sync. You simply download the program (which works for Mac or PC) and you can set it to watch specific folders or manually add files to your DocStoc account.

This will be really handy for people who are remotely working on projects with others, or if you use different computers in different locations. I know there are tools out there that are similar such as BaseCamp but these are actually quite bad at document management.

I have t....

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Sep

4th
2008

Review: TUL.COM Online (comedy) Graphology Test

posted at 08:00:00
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
Humour

I stumbled across a rather amusing website recently advertising TUL Pens. I must admit I'd not heard of them before but I am a bit of a pen fanatic so I thought I'd take a look.

Basically, you write down the phrase "I truly need a new pen" and then answer a short series of questions on how you've written the sentance and certain letters.

It's actually quite amuzing but I was hoping I'd need the TUL Gel Retractable rather than the Dry Erase Marker!

Have a look at the TUL website and see what your handwriting (allegedly!) says about you. Remember "With the TUL Pen there's no wrong way to write".

And make sure you check out the "What is Graphology?" video - true genius!

Sep

3rd
2008

Review: iGTD Task Management Application

posted at 09:00:00
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
GTD/Productivity

When I had the chance to review Smart-To-Do List recently, I didn't think I'd find another productivity tool that would work so well for me, the only reason I'm not using it day-to-day is that it's unfortunately Windows only.So, I continued the hunt and the next program I found was "iGTD" - from the website:

You are a busy person, aren't you? And there's an easy way to track all things that have to be done... and to get those things done! iGTD takes some concepts from Getting Things Done methodology and makes them easy to understand and use in your every day life. But it's definitely not limited to the GTD concept - you can really use it the way you want.

When I first fired up the program, the interface did look a bit confusing and certainly not as simple and clean as Smart To-Do-List but there are a lot of handy tutorials on the site - in fact the program has some of the best documentation I've seen for a while for a free program.

The first step I took was to add a list of contexts. This w....

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Aug

29th
2008

7 Habits: Habit 7 - Sharpen The Saw : Principles of balanced Self-Renewal

posted at 18:29:44
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
Motivation

Habit 7 is the habit that makes all others possible (Er, so why isn't this the first one then or am I being picky?). Basically "Sharpening the saw" is the process of learning, evolving and building on the habits that we've mastered; It's self-improvement and self growth in all areas of our lives.

This habit sees us applying learning and growth over 4 main areas:

Physical (excercise, nutrition, stress management)
Social/Emotional (Service, Empathy, Synergy, Intrinsic Security)
Spiritual (Value Clarification & Commitment, Study & Meditation)
Mental (Reading, Visualising, Planning, Writing)

In order to "Sharpen the saw", we need to practice improving the Physical, Social/Emotional, Spiritual and Mental aspects of our lives. Covey breaks this down into sections and gives us pointers on what we could be improving in each of these areas:

Physical

Looking after ourselves
Eating properly
Resting properly
Exercise - Covey puts a lot of emphasis on this, tying mental and physical activity together.

Spiritual

This is highly related to Habit 2 (Start with the end in mind)
Meditation
Self Discovery
Self Examination of our inner se....

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Aug

27th
2008

New Productivity Blog Launched - SmartProductivity.com

posted at 09:00:00
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
Blogging

Scott Karstetter contacted me recently to let me know that he'd launched a new blog called "Smart Productivity".

Scott's GTD-esq task management program is a joy to use (you can read my review here), although it is Windows only (boo!), so when I heard he was launching a blog I couldn't wait to have a look.

Although it's in it's early stages, I can see Scott's blog as being one off the go-to places for productivity hints and tips from a software point of view - as well as here of course!

As Scott puts it:

The focus of the blog is to give tips and advice on software, GTD, to-do list hacks, productivity and life.

Some of the topics that will be discussed include software reviews, book reviews, interviews with productive personalities, lifehacks, and most of all, how to make your life better with technology.

So, head on over to "Smart Productivity" and add it to your feed reader, you'll be missing a wealth of information if you don't!

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Aug

22nd
2008

7 Habits: Habit 6 - Synergise

posted at 09:00:00
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
Motivation

Oh dear, the title of this chapter alone had me cringing before I even started to read it. I detest management speak and jargon and this word really grated on me. But, being the trooper that I am, I got over it and read the chapter anyway.

For those not familiar with the ~~evil~~ word "Synergy", the definition from Dictionary.com:

syn-er-gy

- noun, plural -gies.

combined action or functioning; synergism.
the cooperative action of two or more muscles, nerves, or the like.
the cooperative action of two or more stimuli or drugs.

Hmm... I think we can discount the last two, don't you!

The start of the chapter explains how all of the previous habits build up to reach this point of where we can interact in a "synergistic" way with others as synergy, Covey says, is the essence of "principle-centered leadership".

Covey defines his idea of synergy in a different, and slightly more fitting way than the dictionary definition:

The whole is greated than the sum of its parts....
[so] One plus one equals 3 or more

Basically, synergisti....

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