What's up at Producteev?

Thanks to those of you who’ve been persistent in getting roadmap updates from us! We even received the following feature request in our UserVoice idea forum:

We’re constantly improving the product, and here’s the short list of current projects:

• mac desktop app: done; pending app store availability
• native Android app: beta 

• surprise apps & features*: preparing for launch

• subtasks: started
• website redesign: started

*If we told you everything, it would kinda take all the fun out of it. ;)

The above list is in order of status, with the top projects being the most complete. Since we’re adding a few new pages to our website, the suggested Product Roadmap is under consideration as well.

More importantly :D we are open to empowering a small team of power users/brand ambassadors to take the lead with roadmap updates and become our Product Super Heroes. What this involves:

1. working closely with the Producteev team
2. serving as Features & Product liasons between the team and all users
3. maintaining roadmap estimates on a monthly/bi-weekly basis (method & frequency to be determined)

The approximate time commitment is 1-2 hours/month. Piece of cake, right!? If this volunteer opportunity excites you, drop us a line at: community@producteev.com. Perks include product exclusives, handwritten thank you cards with smileys & hearts on them, swag, and other cool things.

The bosses are out buying new desks today. The reason? Another new face at headquarters. Meet a second summer intern, Florian!

I’m Florian Auban, and I just joined the Producteev team for a six-month web developer internship.

I didn’t hesitate one second to leave the cozy French riviera and discover the City That Never Sleeps! I’m in my fourth year of engineering school in Nice after the 3 first years in Paris (following my high school in Carcassonne, in the south of France). In Télécom ParisTech, my engineering school, I specialize in Information and Web Technologies, Networks and Multimedia. 

I have been passionate about web social technologies for the past 5 years. I even developed a social cooking website for a school project! Cooking is another passion of mine :) 

When not coding, I love playing soccer. And even if it’s not America’s favorite sport, I hope to find other French and American players while here in NYC!

At Producteev, I already find inspiration from such a dynamic team, and being set in an exciting city is a bonus! Follow me on twitter @pioupioup. 

Thanks to everyone who came out to our 3 year anniversary party last night. We had a blast celebrating with Producteev users and friends! As Ilan Abehassera, CEO, said in a short appreciation speech, “We wouldn’t have made it without the support of investors, our loved ones and families, and you — our customers!” See you next year!

‘Work smarter not harder’ is one of the most popular catchphrases fueling the information age.  Yet most of us frequently overlook the fact that time is the only true luxury we have in life.  Being more productive doesn’t make you stronger, cooler, or wealthier.  It allows you to get more done in less time so you can use the time you save to get more enjoyment out of life.

Here are 50 ideas to help you do just that:

1. Do what you don’t want to do first. – If you handle the toughest tasks first when your mind is fresh, you’ll get done quicker and make the rest of the day more enjoyable.
2. Focus on high impact tasks. – Figure out what will have the greatest impact today, and make sure you address the most important stuff first.  Don’t get caught up in odd jobs, even those that seem urgent, unless they are also important.
3. Don’t confuse being busy with being productive. – Stop and ask yourself if what you’re working on is worth the effort.  Is it bringing you in the same direction as your goals?  (Read The Success Principles

   

   .)
4. Accept imperfections. – Perfectionism is the enemy of completion.  Don’t ignore the forest for the sake of one lonely tree.  Most of the time small imperfections aren’t even noticed, so don’t waste all your time on them.
5. Create and refer to a TO-DON’T list. – A to-don’t is a list of things not to do.  It might sound funny, but it’s useful for keeping track of unproductive habits, like playing online flash games, checking Facebook, etc.
6. Use productive shortcuts. – There are productive shortcuts for almost everything you do.  Finding and using them can save you a few minutes here and there on a daily basis.  If you use a computer, learn the keyboard shortcuts for the programs you use most often.  If you can permanently delegate one of your regular tasks to someone else, do it.  Is there a route to work with less traffic?  Where can you hit two birds with one stone?
7. Narrow the number of ventures you’re involved in. – Productivity is not usually my challenge, narrowing the number of ventures to be productive in is.  Even when you have the knowledge and ability to access super-productive states, you get to a point where being simultaneously super-productive on too many fronts at once causes all activities to slow down, stand still and sometimes even slide backwards.
8. Pick-up the phone. – We’ve become so accustomed to communicating digitally, sending emails, IMs and texts, etc. that we forget we can get some tasks accomplished in a fraction of the time with one or two quick phone calls.
9. Use technology to automate tasks. – From creating email filters, to automatically backing-up your hard drive, to automatic bill paying.  The more you automate, the more you can get done without with the same level of effort.
10. Learn to search Google effectively. – If Google is the portal to the information superhighway, Google’s advanced search operators are the most efficient vehicles on the road.  Once you learn them, you will find what you seek in half the time, every time. For example, with Google, you could search for “life lessons” site:www.marcandangel.com to find all of the life lessons posted on our blog.  Spending less time looking for information means that you can get more done.
11. Group similar tasks back-to-back. – Switching gears between different types of tasks can be tough.  It takes most people several minutes to get into a productive mental groove geared for a specific type of task.  Therefore, it makes sense to group similar tasks in an effort to minimize the number of rough patches, and thus wasted time, between task orders.
12. Pay attention and get it right the first time. – The better listener you are, the more you will learn.  The more you learn now, the fewer questions you will have later, and the less time you will spend searching for answers.  And obviously, doing things right the first time eliminates future delays.
13. Eliminate all distractions for a set time. – Distractions are everywhere.  They arrive via email, cell phone, coworker inquiry, etc.  I’ve found that cutting out all distractions for a set time is one of the most effective ways to get things done in less time.  You can’t remain in hiding forever, but you can be nearly four times as productive while you are.
14. Plan ahead and start early. – 10 minutes of dedicated time planning each evening will save you from 30 minutes of ad-hoc preparation each morning.  Likewise, starting your morning on purpose 30 minutes early will likely inject at least 60 additional productive minutes into your day.  Think about it.
15. Organize your space. – How much time do you think the average person wastefully spends searching for items they’ve misplaced?  Keeping both your living and working spaces organized will undoubtedly allow you to get thing done more efficiently.
16. Choose a dedicated spot. – Don’t put your car keys, cell phone, etc. in a different spot each evening after work.  Choose a dedicated spot and make it a habit. There is nothing more frustrating in the morning than looking for the stuff you need.  Morning scavenger hunts are a huge waste of time.
17. Productively use waiting time. – Waiting time does not have to be wasted time.  When you are waiting at the doctor’s office, the post office, or on hold for the next available representative, what simple tasks could you complete while you wait?  How about sorting through your snail mail or email, writing those thank you notes you’ve been putting off, reading the book you keep meaning to read, reviewing/editing your to-do lists, etc. 
18. Stop over-analyzing things.  – There comes a time when you have to stop evaluating something and just bite the bullet and do it.  Contemplating taking action isn’t taking action.  It gets nothing accomplished.
19. Handle 2-minute tasks immediately. – “The 2 Minute Rule” is single greatest tip I picked up from David Allen’s book, Getting Things Done

    

    .  If you roughly estimate that a task is going to take you less than two minutes to accomplish, do it right now.  It’s a waste of time and energy to keep small tasks like this on your to-do list on in the back of your mind.
20. Make reservations. – When a one minute phone call now can save one hour of waiting later.
21. Ask more questions. – The trial and error process can be a huge waste of time.  Often people view asking questions and relying on others as a weakness, but they are sadly mistaken.  Asking legitimate questions will bring you closer to the people around you and likely save you a huge chunk of time.  Win-win.
22. Buy in bulk and cook in bulk. – Buying stuff and cooking food are two of the most common unplanned consumptions of time.  Most people buy replacements in small amounts only when they need them and think about food only when they’re hungry.  The problem is these issues will often arise at inopportune times.  The most efficient way I’ve found to counteract this is by doing bulk loads of both.  I know I’ll always need gas in my vehicle.  So instead of putting in $25 here and $25 there, I top off my tank every time I’m at the station regardless of the sticker shock.  Likewise, I know I’m going to be hungry at lunch time every day this week.  So on Sundays I’ll grill up five extra chicken breasts and make a chicken wrap or sandwich for every day of the week.
23. Standardize common tasks. – If you find yourself performing the same set of tasks on a regular basis then it makes sense to establish an efficient, standardized way of accomplishing them.  Are certain tasks easier to perform in the morning?  Are there additional resources that can be utilized only at a certain time?  It’s up to you to find an efficient pattern, standardize it and follow it.
24. Stop consuming the headline news every day. – Most news has no long term value.  Mainstream media primarily focuses on ‘what’s hot now’ instead of ‘what will be useful tomorrow.’
25. Stop mindlessly browsing online ad infinitum.  – Web browsing is one of the immense black holes in time spending.  Before you realize it, you may have spent hours browsing while generating very little value.
26. Turn off the TV. – Nuff said.
27. Make better usage of commute times. – Listen to audio books, make calls, do some proactive time planning, etc.  I use Evernote on my iPad and capture tons of ideas and thoughts when I’m commuting and traveling on business.
28. Write things down. – Nobody’s memory is perfect.  If you don’t take notes and setup to-do lists for yourself you will end up wasting time several minutes of time every day trying to remember things that would have taken you seconds to write down.
29. Consolidate all daily errands into one trip. – Consolidate all of your errands into one trip instead of driving back and forth several times from home to the store to home to the bank to home, etc.
30. Exercise daily. – I know it sounds counter-intuitive.  You have to spend time exercising.  But exercise boosts cognitive function, creativity, problem solving and productivity.  In fact a NASA study showed employees who exercised daily worked at 100% efficiency after seven hours, while those who didn’t saw a 50% drop, meaning it took them twice as long to accomplish the same thing.  (Read The 4-Hour Body

    

    .)
31. Use a timer. – I use a timer to limit the amount of time I spend on daily tasks such as email, returning calls, cranking through my to-do lists, etc.  This keeps me from getting overly distracted from the truly important tasks I must accomplish during the day.
32. Harness the power of teamwork. – I heard a story once about some horses that were in a competition to see which could pull the most weight.  One horse pulled 3,000 lbs and another one pulled 4,000 lbs.  Someone suggested the horses team together to see how much they could pull.  Most guesses were in the 7,000 lb to 10,000 lb range but when those two horses worked together, they pulled an amazing 20,000 lbs.  That’s the power of teamwork.  Good teamwork can get a large project completed in an amazingly short amount of time.
33. Just say NO!  – While saying yes can take us down some wonderful roads, there’s also a ton of value in saying “no.”  We’re only given a certain amount of hours in our lives; do you really want to give yours away so easily?  If you don’t have to time to commit to a new project, complete a favor, or serve on another committee, it’s a good idea to just say “no.”
34. Focus your attention on one thing at a time.  – Cutting out multitasking (or “multi-slacking” as I call it) leaves you to focus more intently on one task and finish it to completion, rather than having many tasks started and nothing finished.
35. Create productivity triggers for yourself. – If you’re fighting yourself every step of the way, forming diligent habits is hard.  You need to create triggers to help you out.  A simple example would be packing your gym bag the night before to keep you from having an excuse not to go to the gym.  Or put the books you need to take back to the library in front of the door, so you can’t leave the house without seeing them and remembering they need to be returned.
36. Touch inbox items only once. – This one is difficult for most people (myself included), but it really makes a difference.  For new email or other communications, look over it and decide what to do with it right away: archive, respond, flag for follow-up, etc.  Regardless of how you process communications, just make sure you deal with them once rather than wasting time by looking at them without taking decisive action.
37. Clean up your inbox. – Your inbox (email and otherwise) should only be for priority communication; otherwise it just wastes your time.  Set-up email filters to keep things organized and filter spam in your email inbox (here’s how in Gmail).
38. Use time multipliers. – Effective delegation of lower priority tasks is a time multiplier.  Eliminating time wasting activities is a time multiplier.  Screening phone calls is a time multiplier.  By practicing creative procrastination on anything that doesn’t propel you toward your goals, you can multiply the amount of time you have to achieve those goals.
39. Relocate closer to your place of employment. – In every major city in the world there are people traveling over an hour to reach their work destination from home.  This is a huge chunk of time that could be used far more productively.
40. Avoid meetings. – Not all meetings are a waste of time, but many are.  If you frequently spend time in meetings, but would rather be doing your actual work instead of listening to other people talk about things they could have sent you in an email, see if you can get out of some of those meetings.  You’ll get a lot more done.
41. Let your mouse do the walking. – Shop online, rent movies online, pay bills online, etc.  It’s so much more efficient.
42. Keep it simple. – Keep your to-do lists and planning simple, and don’t waste time playing with new tools.  There’s always going to be shiny programs that promise to make your day faster and more efficient.  Stick with one, and learn to rely on it.
43. Tell other people and hold yourself accountable. – It’s always a smart thing to tell people what you’re working on.  If you tell your colleagues or friends that you’re going to get something done, it motivates you to see it through to completion.  People who have a support system almost always find it easier to make things happen.
44. Hire someone. – Sometimes it makes more sense to hire someone to do something, especially if your time is worth more money than you’re paying that person. For example, if I have a large yard that would take me five hours to maintain (it’s pretty big), it makes more sense for me to pay someone as I can earn more during those 5 hours by working. Other things you might pay someone for: other home maintenance projects, washing your car, doing errands or laundry, doing your taxes … just about anything where doing it yourself isn’t cost-effective.
45. Spend minutes now to save hours later. – During happy hour last Friday I spent some time listening to one of my colleagues confess her utter distaste for the Windows 7 Start menu.  “The system is organized all wrong.  The programs I need are buried and the ones I never use are right at my finger tips.  I waste so much time digging through menus,” she said.  “But you can easily rearrange that,” I replied.  She looked down with a despondent expression on her face.  “I know,” she said.  “Someone else told me that too, but I haven’t taken the time to figure it out.”  Bottom line:  Sometimes you have to spend a few minutes now to save hours of grief in the future.
46. Practice the 80/20 rule. – Generally speaking, the 80/20 Rule states that 80% of our results come from 20% our actual work, and conversely, that we spend most of our energy doing things that aren’t important.  Figure out what that 20% is comprised of and focus as much of your energy as you can on it.  (Read The 4-Hour Workweek

    

    .)
47. Time box. – Assign a set amount of time per day to work on a specific task or project.  Focus entirely on that one thing during that timeframe.  Don’t worry about finishing it, just worry about giving it your undivided attention for the set timeframe.  (This is the opposite of having fixed goals.  For example, you don’t get up until you’ve written a thousand words, or processed 25 orders, or whatever.)
48. Remove information sources containing little value. – Unsubscribe from RSS feeds and newsletters that give no bang for their buck, and set up quick email filters to delete or de-prioritize the junk mail that isn’t easy to unsubscribe from.
49. Don’t underestimate the time it takes to do something. – Know the opportunity cost of your actions and how long something will truly take to do.  All things being equal, the best solution is the one that takes the least amount of total time (including maintenance time for fixing and support). What might have been a great idea with an hour of projected work would likely be a horrible idea if it took all day.
50. Start now. – In the end, all the tips in the world won’t make as productive as you could be if you simply started to get things done right now.  Don’t waste another minute!  START!

Photo by: Brandon Christopher Warren

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inSharePossibly Related Posts:

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Filed under Hacks, Life, Productivity

via marcandangel.com

5.5 UPDATE: Integration with Evernote!

Here’s just one more reason to really love Producteev – integration with Evernote!  Check this out – you can actually leverage the new note linking feature within Evernote to clip a link to your task. 

Then, create your task in Producteev, and paste the link from Evernote in the description! 

Then, when you are ready to take action on the task, you simply click on the link, and your computer will automatically open that note in your Evernote!  Genius, I tell you!

via dangoldesq.wordpress.com

Our sincerest thanks to Dan Gold, a mega super user and true Producteev Ambassador!

People no longer have to register for Producteev to collaborate together. This is good news for EVERYONE!

For Producteev users:
Any created task can be made public in one click. Simply select the facebook or twitter icon in the task details. A short URL for the public task will appear, indicating crowdsourcing was successful.

Your public task can then be broadcasted in your networks (facebook, twitter, email). To broadcast the public task via facebook or twitter, enter your facebook/twitter credentials to share the task on your wall or in your timeline. You will have the option to comment on the crowdsourced task, just as you would with any other link that you share via facebook and twitter. Instantly access your crowdsourced task by clicking View from the task details. Once a task is complete (yay!), or you’d like to remove access for any reason, it can just as easily be closed with the Make Private option in the task details.

For collaborators:
Any person with a link to the public task can participate. Comments and feedback are easily added: using Producteev — or for non-users — facebook or twitter credentials. A collaborator also has the option of email-subscribing to public task updates in one click.All comments and public tasks will match on both the crowdsourced link, as well as a Producteev user’s workspace (dashboard). Users can answer any collaborators’ questions, or simply add additional commentary, from within their workspace. Simply post a note to the public task from the Task List or Task Details page. It’s that easy! Your collaborators will see feedback immediately!

Pretty nice to be able to collaborate without the extra steps of registering, right? We think so. You’ll have some great tasks to crowdsource now, and we’d love to hear all about them. :)

Should you need ideas to help you get started, below are 10 examples:
Personal Productivity

•   plan a trip
•   raise donations for a cause
•   ask for assistance doing term paper research
•   plan a night out with your friends
•   hunt for an apartment

Productivity for your Business

•   get help with hiring
•   collect small-scale feedback on a new feature, product, or prototype
•   get tips for making event reservations
•   find vendors, get help with important purchases
•   receive other recommendations

Budgeting principles that transfer into a basic productivity paradigm

Give your desktop a productivity boost with these organizational wallpapers

7 ways using your calendar could actually diminish your productivity

Six ways to stay motivated during hideously boring tasks

Tips to increase productivity: Prioritize, delegate, beat procrastination, change environment, beware of perfectionism, and reward yourself

5 steps of long-term goal-setting for procrastinators

Focus on task management instead of multitasking: four tips to increase productivity

Turn up to music to motivate yourself and GTD

8 Gmail Labs features to boost your productivity

Forms of movement and breathing from yoga that can help you find efficiency and ease in your work

Photo credit: Sean MacEntee

Browse: Home / Featured, Statistics / Students that Use Twitter Score Higher GPAs

Students that Use Twitter Score Higher GPAs

By Erik Qualman | June 21, 2011

In a recent study (see infographic from Master Degree Online below)  of 125 students those that used Twitter for educational purposes in the classroom outperformed students using traditional learning methods.  Aside from higher GPA’s the Twitter enable students were also 2x more engaged in the classroom.

++ Click to Enlarge Image ++

Via: Masters Degree Guide

Posted in Featured, Statistics | Tagged Twitter in the Classroom, Twitter Infographic | Leave a response

 

Erik Qualman

via socialnomics.net

Thanks for participating in our developer throwdown! The deadline has arrived, so we’ve now closed the floodgates. Tasky, the beaver, is busy taking a look at the apps, but we’ll make sure that he posts them next week when you’ll be able to vote on them. Thanks again for participating and we hope that you’ll keep developing on top of our API even though the contest is over - there’s a lot of community-requested apps we could use your help with!

Hello community, Judi, your CM of one year here :)

In economics, we learned about something called the Division of Labor. It may sound fancy, but all it really means is people get better at what they do when they specialize. 

Wearing lots of hats as community manager is a challenge I’ve enjoyed meeting; however, starting today, with the addition of a Social Media-Community intern I’ll be able to specialize and give customers — like you — better support.

This is something we can all be thankful for! Without further ado, meet Tushar Khandelwal, the latest and greatest add to the team.

I’m Tushar, a recent engineering grad, who joined the team as the new Social Media intern! I was born in India, but grew up in Tokyo, and came to New York to get a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Columbia. I’m a self-proclaimed tech geek, read lifehacker and techcrunch, and have even served as an early adopter for everything from Producteev and Gmail to foursquare and other smaller startups.

I’ve been hardware hacking (with a little programming) for most of my life and besides serving as tech support for my family + friends, I also built an automatic wall painting robot! In the past couple of years, I’ve come to love the NYC tech and social media scene; as such, I’m excited for my internship at Producteev, helping people discover our apps and manage their tasks online.

When I’m not at my desk, you can find me biking the streets of New York or discovering new events and areas the city has to offer. My favorite productivity killers are Roll a D6 and a video I directed of my previous bosses madly running all over NYC. Feel free to keep in touch / follow me on twitter (@tushark) or stop by my blog at http://blog.tushark.com.

Photo credit: hawkexpress

We asked, and you answered! Here’s a list of “best” non-computer/non-software tools that increase productivity.

• highlighter
• pens
• set of 10 color Stabilo 0,4mm Fineliners (point 88)
• set of 6 color markers
• idea paint
• magnetic whiteboard
• moleskine white book
• contact manager
• daytimer (for those still not up with technology)
• index cards
• binder clips
• coffee
• train ride
• quiet time
• blocks of time
• productivity method or system
• networking
• social media – ways to get your message out to more people

Thanks to Producteev fans, Joseph Vilalta, and Ashton C. Mouton, Jr. for their contributions.

You might also like: The Endlessly Versatile Binder Clip

Five days til we call “time!” To enter to win the Developer Throwdown, be sure to get your apps submitted by midnight PDT on Monday, June 20, 2011!

OneTask - a new app to help you focus on one task at a time (think Pomodoro technique) - now syncs with Producteev. Put an end to the misleading myth of multi-tasking! Start one-tasking with OneTask & Producteev, to help you focus and get things done one priority at a time. ;)

See the complete list of integrations on our Directory of 3rd Party Applications. And if you’re a dev, hurry up and code something for our 2nd Annual API Contest. One week to the deadline is no hurdle for a hardcore hacker!

“No need to spend time writing long emails or follow up with colleagues on a specific task, Producteev takes care of it all! In the end, the collaboration tool makes work relationships seamless :)” - Mathilde Le Rouzic, CEO, epicurean, geek around the edges.

fave features:

• iPhone app
• calendar view
• labels

key benefits:

• management of multiple websites, from development to marketing
• scheduling flexibility
• greater team communication, greater actionable activity

Quaelead is an e-commerce suggestion engine. Mathilde le Rouzic is the founder, and she and her team make recommendations on gifts, decor, jewelry and other products. Created in 2009, the company manages 3 sites: UnCadeau.com (founded October 2009), jeveuxdesBijoux.com (founded November 2010), Bijouxpascher.com (founded January 2011).

Although Producteev is multi-platform, they mainly use the web application, with a workspace tab always open on each team member’s browser. “It’s part of the productivity trio: Gmail, Skype, Producteev,” Mathilde insists. As a busy and often on-the-go CEO, she regularly uses the iPhone app, especially while commuting to and from the office. “I use my down time productively,” she reveals, “to review my upcoming tasks, as well as my team’s tasks.”

Her team is also a fan of Calendar View and the drag-and-drop interface. It helps them shift tasks around on any given day. From a team standpoint, they claim that Producteev has drastically reduced the number of emails they used to send to each other. Instead, they rely on the task manager for full online collaboration, including adding notes and files. They add that they use Skype for quick communication, anytime they’re missing elements to complete specific tasks.

Their single most used label is titled “DEVELOPMENT,” and all the technical aspects of all 3 websites are managed through Producteev. Being able to modify details, like assigning a task, priority level, deadline and so on, breaks down project management into simple task management for them. Each one of them freely rearranges their tasks through out the week.

In addition, Mathilde harnesses the power of Producteev for our a lot of Quaelead’s marketing campaigns, from newsletters, to coupons, to strategic partnerships…

According to her, Producteev has improved their business by making everything super efficient, as well as centralized in one common location. In fact, she’s going to launch a couple of other e-commerce websites, and once again Producteev will remain the central communication and productivity piece. “We’re just so satisfied with it,” Mathilde concludes, “and the more our team grows, the more we need it to manage our work!”

Bonus: What advice would you give to other entrepreneurs, especially in e-commerce, about productivity?
“Through the years, I got used to capturing a lot of notes, in the very moment that I thoguht of them. I continually take time off from answering emails and taking calls every day, in order to process my most important tasks. I also force myself to spend at least an hour a day on less important tasks. It’s not as interesting, but way less annoying than letting them pile up!”

Producteev is proudly available in French.

We’ve been focusing a lot on online collaboration and team task management, and we’ve got a few more lined up this month.

This summer, however, is going to be all about personal productivity and creative, individual and family use cases. Michele K. actually does use Producteev as a packing list and to check off items in preparation for travel.

You may have a really neat way to organize to-dos on Producteev. Leave us a comment below, we’d love to hear your ideas!

Productivity & Purpose from Life After College by @jenny_blake

Judi’s guest post on the Productive Life Concepts blog by Royale on June 8, 2011

Photo by Galo Delgado at The Photobooth Project

Life After College, a new book by Jenny Blake, has been full of productive inspiration for me. In fact, I had the pleasure of attending the book launch in New York City, where I got to meet Jenny. I was truly blown away by her charisma.

The major themes of Life After College are: seizing the day, as well as the counterpart to that, which is instilling balance. The race to success, especially wealth and prestige, are so ingrained in the American lifestyle that it’s sometimes hard to remember to pause and recharge for your longterm wellbeing.

However, Jenny’s book helps with that and offers practical advice, workbook-like exercises and even recommended reading. The format also includes quotes from both famous people and everyday people on twitter. Divided into several sections, Life After College delves into: an overview on life, work, finances, the home, organization, friends & family, relationships, health, fun, and my favorite: personal growth.

To paraphrase the chapter on personal growth, the takeaways include: embracing the moment, as well as choosing when not to work, and instead doing the things that make you happy.

Often underestimated, they’re actually fundamental to personal productivity.

According to Jenny, personal growth also entails treating yourself well — on a psychological level. She gives advice on friending your inner voice.

The most valuable lesson from Life After College is the inspirational aspect and somehow mustering the courage and audacity to dream. After reading, the work has prompted me to write my major life goals, a sort of bucket list, if you will. Though somewhere in my mental repository, I had procrastinated writing them down out of fear.

Change starts now.

In her book launch speech, Jenny told the story of how her book was turned down numerous times by the publisher, but she refused to give up on a project she believed in. Any book, whether about life after college, a different period of life or other self-help issue, that encourages grand actions and provides tools for achieving them, is a book you won’t want to miss. Consider it my summer reading recommendation for you, regardless if you’re a part of the recent grad demographic!

Tags: book bytes, lifestyle, personal development

via productivelifeconcepts.com

You might also like the following post by Jenny Blake: 5 Tips for Managing Your Energy, Not Your Time

The French iteration is now live! Thanks to the handful of volunteer translators who helped do the work. It was a labor of love, we’re sure!

More languages on the way. Feel free to comment below if you’re willing to help volunteer translate.

To enable, select the French flag from the drop down in the far right corner.

Thanks to Dave Weinber, of Silver Spring, MD for participating in our twitter contest yesterday. Producteev’s three-year anniversary is just around the corner and we’re throwing a little get-together!

Save the date for Tuesday, July 5, 2011 (the technical date of incorporation was July, 8, 2008). We’re planning a party here in New York City. So even if you can’t come, you can still help organize. 

Should we 

• go a tad formal and do wine & cheese, or
• make it a bit exotic with sushi!?

Beavers eat fish, right? You can count on there being birthday cupcakes. We’ll send more info and the link to RSVP in an upcoming newsletter. Keep your eyes peeled and your creative juices flowing. Cheers!

Photo credit: Josh Kenzer

We’ve kept quiet about Mark Hamilton, our new Windows dev. He’s been chucking away at over 4,000 lines of code. If you’re interested in beta testing what he’s developing (it’s going to kick A$#, by the way) drop us a comment below!

In Mark’s own words: 
Hello everyone, I’m Mark, a 24-year-old developer that just joined the Producteev team. I’ve been programming for most of my life, starting from the day my dad taught when I was a little kid. My focus has changed a lot over the years as I drifted from project to project, but it’s given me the opportunity to work on everything from palmtop computers and desktop applications to websites and video games. I’ve arrived here at these offices by happenstance, but my goal is very clear; I’m helping create a solid product that people use around the world.

When I’m not at the office, walking the streets of New York, or spending time with my family on Long Island, my rock star alter ego likes to come out and jam on the bass guitar. If you’d like to keep in touch, you can follow me on Twitter at @askmarkhamilton or stop by my blog at http://www.markhamilton.info.

Image via Wikipedia

“Life is a marathon, not a sprint.”
“I’m in this for the long-haul.”
“I can see the finish line — not letting up now.”
“I’ll sleep when I’m old” or “I’ll rest after I finish this next big phase.”
“I’m so passionate about what I’m doing that I don’t even NEED a break!”

If you’re anything like me, you’ve uttered one or more of these motivational phrases to yourself as you pursued a big project or business idea. As female business owners and entrepreneurs, we often try to do it all — build our business, eat healthy foods, stay fit, be social, take care of our home and loved ones, and be cheerful on top of it all.

It can be exhausting.

And contrary to all the popular mantras, treating life and business like a marathon might not actually be in our best interest. 

My Ill-Timed Book Breakdown

I experienced this first-hand after having a complete and utter breakdown three weeks before my book, Life After College: The Complete Guide to Getting What You Want, was set to come out.

I had been working on the project for over two and half years, and in the final months I ramped it up to an obsessive around-the-clock endeavor (in addition to my full-time job at Google). I felt like I was on Mile 23 of a marathon — I could see the finish line and now was no time to rest or let-up.

Because I wasn’t willing to take a break, life knocked me on my ass (that’s the technical term) and forced me to rest. Despite the fact that my book was going to be released in three weeks and I had an impossibly long to-do list of important tasks to complete, I was a miserable, crying, nonfunctioning mess. Even though I was incredibly passionate about my project, not building in any rest stops had been a recipe for disaster.

The Alternative: Manage your energy, not your time

Tony Schwartz, author of The Power of Full Engagement, recommends that we manage our energy not our time.

Rather than treating our life and businesses as a marathon, Schwartz advises we treat them as sprints and recovery (recovery being key here!).

We all know we are going to have big sprints — that’s what makes pursuing a project or business so exciting. But it’s imperative that we build in equal parts recovery.

5 Tips to Make Room for Recovery

1. Schedule it. No matter whether or not you think you need a break, schedule fun or relaxation activities in advance and stick to them.
2. Double the break you think you need. I know how this goes, “Sure, I’ll take a break — I’ll give myself a whole hour off!” Not good enough. Whatever the break you think you need, double it. You are most likely underestimating the toll that all of your hard work is taking on your body and mind — even if you’re having fun.
3. Enlist family and friends. If you schedule a weekend get-away with family or friends, you’ll have no excuse but to unplug. Family and friends can be great accountability buddies for taking the breaks you need.
4. Make a list of the benefits of R&R, and brainstorm your favorite rejuvenation activities. I know that even after reluctantly taking a break, I will come back refreshed, more cheerful and more creative — which puts me in an even better position to do my best work once I’m back at it. Making a list of the benefits will help motivate and remind you to actually take the breaks you’ve set-up. At a loss for what to do? Make a list of any/all activities that bring you joy or relaxation. For me that’s reading, yoga, a glass of wine (with chocolate) and watching a few shows on Hulu.
5. Break down your biggest goals into achievable, measurable chunks and reward yourself often! For every day that you make a massive to-do list, add a “reward” item at the end that brings you joy. Maybe it’s reading a book, a gossip magazine, or going out to dinner with a friend. For many of us, we only take breaks or celebrate when we hit the BIG goals — but those can take months to achieve. Instead, break them down into smaller parts and reward yourself for all of the smaller milestones you hit along the way.

So the next time you’re headed for a big business sprint, make sure you build in recovery rest-stops. For those of you who already do this, what did I miss on the list above? How else do you balance hard work with rest and play?

Courtesy of Y.E.C.

Jenny Blake is an author, blogger, life coach and yoga teacher. She is currently on a three-month sabbatical from Google to go on a self-funded 14-city book tour for her recently released book, Life After College: The Complete Guide to Getting What You Want. The experience of leaving school before her friends inspired her to start her blog, LifeAfterCollege.org, in 2007 which was later voted #1 Gen Y blog by her peers, and recognized by Suze Orman and the Wall Street Journal.

via Y.E.C.

Co-Founded by Natalie MacNeil and Scott Gerber, Y.E.C. Women is an initiative of the Young Entrepreneur Council, a nonprofit organization that provides young entrepreneurs with access to tools, mentorship, community and educational resources that support each stage of their business’s development and growth. Y.E.C. Women’s members are successful female business owners, entrepreneurs and thought leaders.

via blogs.forbes.com

I actually met Jenny Blake at her book launch in NYC! Feel free to check out the following

related productivity post: The Secret of High & Low Energy Tasks

Photo credit: Ed Mitchell

Most working professionals  complain about the volume of email they receive each day.  What they don’t know is that they have their eyes on the wrong target, and instead should shift their attention to the time demands buried in electronic messages.

To explain, let’s start with a definition of a “time demand,” which is nothing more than a mental, individual commitment to accomplish a task in the future.  It’s a peculiar invention of the human imagination, and has some distinct characteristics.  A time demand is:

• created in the mind of the person making the commitment
• automatically assigned a likely duration, and starting time
• something that disappears when the task is completed
• the cause of stress when too many of them are carried in one’s memory

Email, phone calls, text messages. physical letters, action items in meetings and tweets are just some of the carriers of time demands. We process these pieces of content, and as we’re doing so we create time demands.  The more content we process, the more time demands we are likely to create:

The average person in the year 1750 saw as much information in their entire lifetime as one sees in a typical Sunday New York Times.

However, the problem isn’t as simple as cutting back the number of emails received each day, or the number of pages read on one’s Kindle.  After all, we two hundred emails in a day might only result in 1or 2 time demands that require 15 minutes to complete.  In like manner,  3 emails could result in hundreds of time demands spanning several months.  The problem isn’t in the volume of messages we receive, but their contents, and how to process them.

Given that fact, it’s not hard to see that the modern workplace has progressed tremendously since the widespread adaptation of email in the 1990’s.  Back then, time demands were transmitted in two ways:  through real-time conversations and via paper memos.  Today, in addition to these two channels, the average working professional must also master a number of others, such as text messages, email, social networking updates, instant messages and voice-mails.

Also, we must all must deal with the fact that our access to these channels has shifted.  In a smartphone world, access to them has become a 24 hour per day, 7 day a week phenomena, rather than one that is restricted to “working hours.”  (In fact, the very concept of “working hours” is fast receding due to the fact that the work of processing time demands never seems to stop.)

When we forget that we are looking for time demands within incoming messages, we often learn the bad habit of “skimming.”  Instead of dealing with each message once before dispensing with them, we take a quick look and then decide to take action “later,” before moving to the next message.  In no time, we end up with inboxes that are overflowing with time demands that we have put off until some time in the future.

These time demands prey on our minds, and make us feel overburdened as we realize that we’re not very good at remembering the exact nature of each item.  We feel stressed when we realize that some are falling through the cracks as our memory fails. 

Thankfully, there are better techniques available. Our research shows that it’s better to switch to keeping lists, once the number of time demands exceeds a certain threshold.  This works for a while, until another threshold is reached, and at that point it’s necessary to switch to keeping a single, electronic calendar.

We don’t know that a hard and fast rule exists about when these upgrades must happen, as they depend a great deal on the user.  Our coaching is simple:  make the upgrade when you sense that your peace of mind begins to suffer by trying to mentally keep track of too many time demands.

When possible, process emails immediately. Make it a routine to archive and delete messages once a week, perhaps during your weekly review (for those who are fans of GTD).

Focusing on time demands, and their effect on our peace of mind, is the best way to make these changes, and to avoid making the mistake of focusing too narrowly on email volumes.

Francis Wade is a proponent of Time Management 2.0, and writes for several newspapers, as well as his research website: http://2time-sys.com. He is @fwade on twitter and can be found on our productivity resources twitter list.

For help with Producteev email sync and integration, check out the following options:
http://www.producteev.com/#emailsync

If you’re at TechCrunch Disrupt come say “hey.” We’re in aisle B of Startup Alley!

Photo credit: TechCrunch

Here’s some great reading for working better, cheers!

101 Tips for Becoming a Productivity Superstar

How To Manage People Distractions

3 Power Tricks to Supercharge Your Day with Gratitude

7 Not So Obvious Habits to Maximize Your Productivity

9 Famous Quotes that Will Super Charge Your Day

Kickstart Your Creativity by Writing 750 Words a Day

3 Simple Steps to Chilling Out When You are Having a Negative or Overwhelming Day

How to Make a Mind Map for Maximum Productivity

The Really Simple Way to Get Work Done

How to Pay Attention & Not Lose Your Job: 5 Myths About Multi-Tasking

Photo credit: Sam Randall

[UPDATE DEC 18, 2012]: This is no longer available, but two features we planned to bring back at some point.

We’re launching two-way task sync for both Outlook To-Dos and Google Tasks, which are linked to the top two email clients out there! Are you jumping for joy right now!? 

View feature specifications, download & install, and watch video tutorials at:
http://producteev.com/#emailsync

Here are some brief notes on installation:

Once the Outlook Plugin is installed, go to your Outlook Tasks. To the right of the Producteev tab, select settings. Enter your Producteev credentials and log in. Adjusting other settings are optional (sync frequency and direction). The important thing to note is that changing which workspace is synced can be accessed on this tab. Press sync on Outlook to force sync. Refresh the task list on Producteev to sync.

Connecting Google Tasks Sync is easy. From your Producteev workspace in the left sidebar, select Workspace Administration and the Email/IM tab. Scroll down to Google Tasks (immediately after Google Calendar), and hit connect. Grant access to Google, and you’re set! Refresh the task lists to force sync.

Tame the email beast! ;)

A special thanks goes out first and foremost to all our beta testers. You help great apps happen! Lastly, none of this would be possible without the skills of CTO Aric Lasry (behind Google Tasks Sync) and David Podhola, a third party developer based in Prague. 

A wise Windows developer and gamer once said, “Outlook is one of Microsoft’s more diabolical creations.”

Photo credit: Lou Gallois-Disant

Team Spotlight: Ilan Abehassera — CEO, husband, father

fave features: 

• natural language processing
• collaboration
• priority

key benefits:

• control of email based workflow
• convenient access
• high flexibility

In the past I’ve shared how you can use Producteev for your CRM needs, but this is what I am going to focus on now: how I use it in my daily workflow, focusing only on tasks.

Mail-to-Task
Like a lot of you, I manage a great quantity of emails every single day. I personally hate that actionable emails sit on my inbox for ever, because there’s no way to rank them by priority or set deadlines.

Since I’ve been using Producteev in my work life, I simply forward those actionable items to task@producteev.com and let Producteev do the rest. I use our natural language processing features a lot, and that saves me time and ranks those emails into my task list automatically.

iPhone
One other reason why I am using Producteev on a daily basis is: shopping lists. Of course, we can use pen and paper, and lots of people are using emails… I use Producteev so my wife can create lists for me, I get it automatically on my iPhone when I am shopping, AND I check off what I am buying one by one. Works like a charm. Simple, and collaborative. Remember, you can collaborate with one other people on Producteev for free! So try it out by inviting someone to your workspaces.

Desktop & Web
The way I am updating Producteev is really as multi-platform as you can imagine, I use pretty much all of our integrations: IM, Email, iPhone, Google Apps and Gmail Gadget, and the Mac app (yes you’ll have it too!). At the end of the day, I use Producteev as my task dropbox, and when I get to the office, I simply open the desktop app (formerly the web app), rank my tasks by priority (because this is mostly the way I get things done), assign some of my tasks to teammates, and get cracking on that to-do list!

Bottom line, I don’t use all of our features, but I certainly harness the power of the platform we’re creating. Producteev gathers all my tasks across other tools I use, and then lets me access and track them no matter where I am working.

Photo credit: Hector Pierna Sanchez

It’s morning. You’re staring at your Next Actions list like you would a creature out of nightmare — something huge and ugly that’s reaching out to crush your soul into unproductive little pieces. It’s been this way for a week or so now, maybe more; you’ve lost track. All you know is that this GTD thing everybody goes on about — the super-productivity system you thought would save you from overwhelm — has turned on you. And it’s seriously kicking your ass.

Something has obviously gone wrong. But now what? You’ve invested a lot of valuable time into Getting Things Done, and the thought of starting all over again, either with GTD or some other system, is near mind-shattering. The longer you stare at your computer, though, the more appealing the idea of taking a hammer or some other blunt instrument to it becomes — and that can’t lead anywhere good. So again you ask yourself: Now what?

We’ve all been there (I’ve probably been there more than many, in fact) and it always seems bleak — but it’s a lot easier to get your productivity system back on track than you might think. It just depends on your approach.

If you’re anything like me, you got into GTD to take control of the crazy amount of things you need to accomplish on a daily basis. At least, that was part of it for me. I was also afflicted with the “big think” virus: I would have a goal (or 10) in mind — something huge and fantastically creative of course — and then I would just jump in to it (them) with both feet, flapping my arms about wildly while I tried to figure out a good place to start. My old vocal coach-slash-counsellor called it “Trying to build a house from the roof down.” Eventually, I would expend so much energy flapping, that I would just burn myself out. That lead to last-gasp analytics of the projects, which would inevitably end with me so overwhelmed by what needed to be done and how to go about it that I would just say “screw it” and go play video games. What I needed to break things down to a manageable level, and David Allen’s Getting Things Done system seemed like the perfect thing to help me make that happen.

In the beginning, it was all roses. I got my system set up — I even figured out how to integrate it with Evernote, and then later with Producteev — and got things humming along just nicely. Unfortunately, as time went on, I ended up with longer and longer lists of next actions. My contexts were bursting at the seams, and there was just no way for me to keep up.

I looked at my lists and felt that old overwhelm creeping up on me again. Then I started to avoid looking at them altogether. I didn’t even realize I was doing it, at first, and the problem was, to make myself feel like I was still continuing with the GTD system, I was still collecting new tasks. In the end, the tasks weren’t even making it to the processing stage anymore, and I found myself with a faux-GTD system that was all Inbox — just a fancy shell over my original way of (not) doing things. I had completely reverted — and my computer was shivering in fear of the imagined sledge hammer by my desk.

In any case, that was the past. I now have my GTD system up and running again, and it’s working the way it should be. To get there, all I had to do was follow these five relatively simple steps:

Identify the Problem
Start by taking a step back. Overwhelm is an insidious beast and you won’t be able to do anything about it unless you approach with a clear mind. Think of it like cleansing your palate while eating particularly rich foods. Everything will taste better, and you’re that much more likely to make it through the meal.

Now pull out a pen and paper and start to write down your main goals again. If you have trouble doing this, you have already discovered the core of your difficulties. Nothing ever truly gets accomplished without a clear goal to apply it to.

Once you have your goals in hand again, use them as a focal point as you examine your approach to productivity over the past few months. Try to identify what worked and what didn’t work, what you liked, and what you found frustrating. Think about the tools that you use, any modifications that you made to the methodology to suit your life, and the different projects you’re engaged in. Then do your best to identify all of the other things that you’re giving your attention to. Write it all down. This is the best way to discover where the bottlenecks are, and what about your approach has allowed things to backlog.

For me, the problem was as simple as not adding how long a task might take (which lead to scheduling too many things on any given day), combined with collecting things under the banner of my overall goals that really should have been either ignored, or put into Someday/Maybe-land. A little more analysis also revealed that I was not nearly disciplined enough with my weekly reviews, which would have helped me to identify those two problems in the first place, thus saving me from the hole I had dug myself into. Finally, I discovered several things outside of the GTD system that were distracting me. Things like keeping my email open, social media notifications, and working in a place easily accessible by my lovely wife and extraordinarily cute little girl. They don’t mean to be distractions, but how can they not be?

Once you’ve identified the problems that have lead to GTD-breakdown, find ways to streamline your system. Remove extra steps, use a better tool, cut out (or at least cut back on) distractions, and do whatever else you reasonably can to deal with what is getting in the way of your productivity.

Reprocessing
This might sound scary, given that you are here because of an already overwhelming amount of task data. Don’t worry, though — at least half of the work has already been done for you. You already have things collected, and a number of those things are already processed into tasks. Now, all you need to do is take a look at those tasks, and reprocess them based on your newly refined goals, working around the problems that you identified in the first step. Chances are good that you will find a lot of tasks that are already complete, or no longer relevant — and every one of those tasks that you get rid of will make you feel just a little bit better. Kill them dead with impunity!

The easiest approach to reprocessing may be to start with your Projects list, as it will be smaller than your combined tasks, and it will be easier for you to identify the projects that can be removed completely, or added to Someday/Maybe. Once you have gone through that list, you can simply throw away any tasks related to those removed or moved projects, which will speed up your overall processing time, and get you in the right frame of mind to approach other tasks in the same way.

If this still seems overwhelming, then do the reprocessing in chunks. You won’t lose anything if you don’t do it all in one day — just make sure that you keep coming back to it until it’s done.

Reestablish the Collection Process
Now that you have the backlog out of the way, it’s time to start collecting again. The difference here will be that you are once again sure about your goals, and your system will be tweaked for optimal collection and processing. That’s a fun and fancy way of saying that you’re back on track, focused, and ready to rock your way to the productive lifestyle you aspire to.

Before you get going here, however, do a final check to make sure your refined Inbox is as easily accessible as you need it to be. If you are using Producteev or another online tool, be certain that the email addresses, extensions, apps, and other methods to send things into those services are in your contact lists, installed, and/or otherwise ready to go. Give yourself some leeway here, as well. It’s possible that things may not work entirely as you thought they would, so you may need to do a bit more tweaking over the next week or so.

Create Good Habits
GTD or any other productivity methodology is really nothing more than a collection of habits. It starts with discipline, certainly, but after a while the things that you do daily to maintain the processes should become second nature. Problems arise, however, when we have or create conflicting habits that could drag the system into another breakdown. Since you’ve already identified the bad habits that contributed to the last crash and burn, you are already a step ahead in the game. Unfortunately, bad habits don’t go quietly, and creating good habits in the face of the bad is not easy.

The key here is to not try to do everything at once. If you try a massive attack against all bad habits, trying to replace them with the new good ones, you will end up with a fight on your hands that will lead you back down the path to overwhelm. Instead, go with surgical strikes. Make a list of those bad and good habits and attack them one at a time. If you lapse here and there, don’t flay yourself over it. Just methodically get back on the proverbial horse and eventually, you will be successful.

*The Weekly Review is Your Friend
It’s human nature to get a little lazy with things now and again, and this can be a problem, if you let it. Again, don’t be overly harsh with yourself, as it will only make you more likely to abandon your system. Who wants to do anything daily that is attached to self-recriminations and other forms of negativity? Not me — and probably not you, either. Instead, just make sure you keep up with the parts of the system that are there to help you keep things together. Chief among those is the Weekly Review.

The Weekly Review is where you get the chance to check on the health of your system. You can see where your projects are at, and can examine what worked and what didn’t work over the past week. I can’t put enough emphasis on the importance of taking the time to do this — and thoroughly — every single week. If you let it slip too far, you will miss out on key indicators that could help you catch a problem before it starts or spins out of control. Schedule at least an hour every week — two hours, or more, if necessary — and go through your review in detail. If you get done early, that’s a bonus for you! Either way, the time spent will be worthwhile, and will save you more time in the end. Just make sure you reward yourself when you finish so that you have incentive to keep coming back.

As a final thought on getting back to (and keeping up with) GTD, remember that good visual presentation goes a long way. This isn’t to say that a pretty app or sexy Moleskine notebook is the best approach for your system, only that anything that makes it easier for you to look at and process your data will increase the likelihood that you’ll keep coming back.

Bonus:

• Make sure that your contexts are clear and well organized.
• Keep next actions on any given project down to one or two at a time, if possible.
• Make tasks obvious that will take a while to complete.
• I’m sure you get the idea…

Most importantly, if your system starts to break down again, don’t wait until you are on the verge of a mental breakdown before you do something about it. GTD can be a powerful ally to the productivity Jedi — but if you give it enough leverage it will turn around and give you an ass-kicking you wouldn’t believe. Eternal vigilance and such, dig?

Share what you do to keep your GTD on track!

Bobby Travis is a geeky dad with passion for writing and online marketing, coupled with a serious bent for productivity systems. You can chat with him on Twitter (@bobby_travis), connect with him on LinkedIn, or read more of his work on 40Tech. He is also a big fan of money, so if you want to hire him for some freelance work, he won’t be mad at you! Email him at contact@bobby-travis.com.

Learn more about Producteev weekly digests. Tune in to our first twitter chat about productivity! 
Wednesday, May 18, 2011 from 1pm - 2pm EST. Topic: Getting Things Done.

How to Deal When GTD Kicks Your Ass

 

It’s morning. You’re staring at your Next Actions list like you would a creature out of nightmare — something huge and ugly that’s reaching out to crush your soul into unproductive little pieces. It’s been this way for a week or so now, maybe more; you’ve lost track. All you know is that this GTD thing everybody goes on about — the super-productivity system you thought would saveyou from overwhelm — has turned on you. And it’s seriously kicking your ass.

 

Something has obviously gone wrong. But now what? You’ve invested a lot of valuable time intoGetting Things Done, and the thought of starting all over again, either with GTD or some other system, is near mind-shattering. The longer you stare at your computer, though, the more appealing the idea of taking a hammer or some other blunt instrument to it becomes — and that can’t lead anywhere good. So again you ask yourself: Now what?

 

We’ve all been there (I’ve probably been there more than many, in fact) and it always seems bleak — but it’s a lot easier to get your productivity system back on track than you might think. It just depends on your approach.

 

If you’re anything like me, you got into GTD to take control of the crazy amount of things you need to accomplish on a daily basis. At least, that was part of it for me. I was also afflicted with the “big think” virus: I would have a goal (or 10) in mind — something huge and fantastically creative of course — and then I would just jump in to it (them) with both feet, flapping my arms about wildly while I tried to figure out a good place to start. My old vocal coach-slash-counsellor called it “Trying to build a house from the roof down.” Eventually, I would expend so much energy flapping, that I would just burn myself out. That lead to last-gasp analytics of the projects, which would inevitably end with me so overwhelmed by what needed to be done and how to go about it that I would just say “screw it” and go play video games. What I needed to break things down to a manageable level, and David Allen’s Getting Things Done system seemed like the perfect thing to help me make that happen.

 

In the beginning, it was all roses. I got my system set up — I even figured out how to integrate it with Evernote, and then later with Producteev — and got things humming along just nicely. Unfortunately, as time went on, I ended up with longer and longer lists of next actions. My contexts were bursting at the seams, and there was just no way for me to keep up.

 

I looked at my lists and felt that old overwhelm creeping up on me again. Then I started to avoid looking at them altogether. I didn’t even realize I was doing it, at first, and the problem was, to make myself feel like I was still continuing with the GTD system, I was still collecting new tasks. In the end, the tasks weren’t even making it to the processing stage anymore, and I found myself with a faux-GTD system that was all Inbox — just a fancy shell over my original way of (not) doing things. I had completely reverted — and my computer was shivering in fear of the imagined sledge hammer by my desk.

 

In any case, that was the past. I now have my GTD system up and running again, and it’s working the way it should be. To get there, all I had to do was follow these five relatively simple steps:

 

Identify the Problem

Start by taking a step back. Overwhelm is an insidious beast and you won’t be able to do anything about it unless you approach with a clear mind. Think of it like cleansing your palate while eating particularly rich foods. Everything will taste better, and you’re that much more likely to make it through the meal.

 

Now pull out a pen and paper and start to write down your main goals again. If you have trouble doing this, you have already discovered the core of your difficulties. Nothing ever truly gets accomplished without a clear goal to apply it to.

 

Once you have your goals in hand again, use them as a focal point as you examine your approach to productivity over the past few months. Try to identify what worked and what didn’t work, what you liked, and what you found frustrating. Think about the tools that you use, any modifications that you made to the methodology to suit your life, and the different projects you’re engaged in. Then do your best to identify all of the other things that you’re giving your attention to. Write it all down. This is the best way to discover where the bottlenecks are, and what about your approach has allowed things to backlog.

 

For me, the problem was as simple as not adding how long a task might take (which lead to scheduling too many things on any given day), combined with collecting things under the banner of my overall goals that really should have been either ignored, or put into Someday/Maybe-land. A little more analysis also revealed that I was not nearly disciplined enough with my weekly reviews, which would have helped me to identify those two problems in the first place, thus saving me from the hole I had dug myself into. Finally, I discovered several things outside of the GTD system that were distracting me. Things like keeping my email open, social media notifications, and working in a place easily accessible by my lovely wife and extraordinarily cute little girl. They don’t mean to be distractions, but how can they not be?

 

Once you’ve identified the problems that have lead to GTD-breakdown, find ways to streamline your system. Remove extra steps, use a better tool, cut out (or at least cut back on) distractions, and do whatever else you reasonably can to deal with what is getting in the way of your productivity.

 

Reprocessing

This might sound scary, given that you are here because of an already overwhelming amount of task data. Don’t worry, though — at least half of the work has already been done for you. You already have things collected, and a number of those things are already processed into tasks. Now, all you need to do is take a look at those tasks, and reprocess them based on your newly refined goals, working around the problems that you identified in the first step. Chances are good that you will find a lot of tasks that are already complete, or no longer relevant — and every one of those tasks that you get rid of will make you feel just a little bit better. Kill them dead with impunity!

 

The easiest approach to reprocessing may be to start with your Projects list, as it will be smaller than your combined tasks, and it will be easier for you to identify the projects that can be removed completely, or added to Someday/Maybe. Once you have gone through that list, you can simply throw away any tasks related to those removed or moved projects, which will speed up your overall processing time, and get you in the right frame of mind to approach other tasks in the same way.

 

If this still seems overwhelming, then do the reprocessing in chunks. You won’t lose anything if you don’t do it all in one day — just make sure that you keep coming back to it until it’s done.

 

Reestablish the Collection Process 

Now that you have the backlog out of the way, it’s time to start collecting again. The difference here will be that you are once again sure about your goals, and your system will be tweaked for optimal collection and processing. That’s a fun and fancy way of saying that you’re back on track, focused, and ready to rock your way to the productive lifestyle you aspire to.

 

Before you get going here, however, do a final check to make sure your refined Inbox is as easily accessible as you need it to be. If you are using Producteev or another online tool, be certain that the email addresses, extensions, apps, and other methods to send things into those services are in your contact lists, installed, and/or otherwise ready to go. Give yourself some leeway here, as well. It’s possible that things may not work entirely as you thought they would, so you may need to do a bit more tweaking over the next week or so.

 

Create Good Habits

GTD or any other productivity methodology is really nothing more than a collection of habits. It starts with discipline, certainly, but after a while the things that you do daily to maintain the processes should become second nature. Problems arise, however, when we have or create conflicting habits that could drag the system into another breakdown. Since you’ve already identified the bad habits that contributed to the last crash and burn, you are already a step ahead in the game. Unfortunately, bad habits don’t go quietly, and creating good habits in the face of the bad is not easy.

 

The key here is to not try to do everything at once. If you try a massive attack against all bad habits, trying to replace them with the new good ones, you will end up with a fight on your hands that will lead you back down the path to overwhelm. Instead, go with surgical strikes. Make a list of those bad and good habits and attack them one at a time. If you lapse here and there, don’t flay yourself over it. Just methodically get back on the proverbial horse and eventually, you will be successful.

 

The Weekly Review is Your Friend

It’s human nature to get a little lazy with things now and again, and this can be a problem, if you let it. Again, don’t be overly harsh with yourself, as it will only make you more likely to abandon your system. Who wants to do anything daily that is attached to self-recriminations and other forms of negativity? Not me — and probably not you, either. Instead, just make sure you keep up with the parts of the system that are there to help you keep things together. Chief among those is the Weekly Review.

 

The Weekly Review is where you get the chance to check on the health of your system. You can see where your projects are at, and can examine what worked and what didn’t work over the past week. I can’t put enough emphasis on the importance of taking the time to do this — and thoroughly — every single week. If you let it slip too far, you will miss out on key indicators that could help you catch a problem before it starts or spins out of control. Schedule at least an hour every week — two hours, or more, if necessary — and go through your review in detail. If you get done early, that’s a bonus for you! Either way, the time spent will be worthwhile, and will save you more time in the end. Just make sure you reward yourself when you finish so that you have incentive to keep coming back.

 

 

As a final thought on getting back to (and keeping up with) GTD, remember that good visual presentation goes a long way. This isn’t to say that a pretty app or sexy Moleskine notebook is the best approach for your system, only that anything that makes it easier for you to look at and process your data will increase the likelihood that you’ll keep coming back.

 

A few tips here:

1. Make sure that your contexts are clear and well organized.
2. Keep next actions on any given project down to one or two at a time, if possible.
3. Make tasks obvious that will take a while to complete.
4. I’m sure you get the idea…

 

Most importantly, if your system starts to break down again, don’t wait until you are on the verge of a mental breakdown before you do something about it. GTD can be a powerful ally to the productivity Jedi — but if you give it enough leverage it will turn around and give you an ass-kicking you wouldn’t believe. Eternal vigilance and such, dig?

 

Share what you do to keep your GTD on track!

 

Bobby Travis is a geeky dad with passion for writing and online marketing, coupled with a serious bent for productivity systems. You can chat with him on Twitter (@bobby_travis), connect with him on LinkedIn, or read more of his work on 40Tech. He is also a big fan of money, so if you want to hire him for some freelance work, he won’t be mad at you! Email him atcontact@bobby-travis.com.

As mentioned in yesterday’s blogpost , the founders are wheeling and dealing at Google I/O this week. It’s pretty fancy, the developer sandbox especially, which is by invitation only and limited to about 100 developers from around the world. You can find the Producteev booth in the Google Apps section (map). Definitely say “hey” if you’re around!

Tune into CEO Ilan Abehassera giving a speech at 4:30pm PDT on Wednesday. Access the live stream here: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/bringing-google-io-direct-to-you-with.html.

Photo credit: Ryan Cain

The founders are off enjoying Google IO - the geekiest event ever. To celebrate and to kick off our 2nd Developer Throwdown, an API contest running through June, we’re compiling a list of all Producteev applications. To complete the directory, let us know which Producteev integrations we should add! You can also help us win a glorious prize at Google IO by voting for our short form video. Cheers!

*iGoogle gadget
http://www.producteev.com/igoogle/producteevgadget.xml

*Contextual gadget
https://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/viewListing?productListingId=5887+4708068531850389144&pli=1

*iPhone app
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/producteev/id306289289?mt=8

Chrome extension
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/jcaeahkofldkofgllnfkbnbjhclnbiha

Opera extension
https://addons.opera.com/addons/extensions/details/producteev-extension/0.2/?display=en

Astrid
http://www.androidtapp.com/astrid-task-todo-list/

Task List Pro
http://www.androidzoom.com/android_applications/productivity/task-list-todo-list-pro_lkjp.html

Taskee
http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/13801?lang=en

Voice2teev
http://www.appstorehq.com/voice2teev-android-311814/app

MPM mobile project manager
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.hawkmoon.mpm.trial

Target Date 
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.mpm.projectarget.alpha

OneTask
http://www.onetask.com/ 

*App designed in-house

 

“I’ve fallen in love with Producteev and keep it open on a Firefox tab all day. It really hit the sweet spot and helps me stay on top of a bajillion tasks” - Rosemary O’Neill, President, community manager, movie nut, & mom of three. 

fave features: 

• calendar view
• sorting by labels
• reminder notifications

key benefits:

• daily organization
• less mental energy to do more work

Rosemary O’Neill, president of Social Strata, manages work, family and side projects in Producteev. 

She came across Producteev by googling for apps to help her get things done. Five task managers were tested before she finally settled. The O’Neill party of 5 has now been using Producteev for six weeks and has decided that it is the productivity tool for them. 

“I am all in!” Rosemary shares, “The most important thing about Producteev is being able to switch between the list view and calendar view. This helps me organize my tasks on any given day.”

Separate workspaces are also used, which are categorized into her day-to-day activities (both work and family), and special projects. It’s actually pretty smart so that her calendar - with daily responsibilities - can be in one place.

Context labels make the to-do list more manageable. As community manager of Social Strata, Rosemary is in charge of social media and customer support/relations. This spectrum of duties is entered using the web app. “I kinda appreciate being nagged when it’s time for me to do a blog update,” she reveals.

As far as her workflow and completing to-dos are concerned, Rosemary sets deadlines using the SCHEDULE IT feature. Any unscheduled tasks are then addressed by priority. 

Rather than heavy processing of tasks (Covey method etc.), she finds this method simpler and easier to work with. In effect, Rosemary spends less time thinking about what it is she has to do and more time checking off the many items on her list. Producteev’s filters help do some of the task processing work for her, and the sort by feature has been a real lifesaver.

In addition, she and her husband, Ted, make the most of their Seattle commute by dropping tasks into the Producteev iphone app. “It’s mentally freeing for me to be able to pop tasks right in there.”  

Finally, to manage her hectic schedule as a busy mom, Rosemary reminds herself to do school-related tasks for her three young children on Producteev. “I can remember to bring cupcakes on Thursday,” for instance, “and I like that Producteev emails me the day before with a reminder!”

Learn more about views and sorting and see a similar use case . 

via 6.mshcdn.com

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Introduce laughter into the workplace

May 03

The greatest of all miracles is health. Every day, our bodies are attacked by millions of microbes, viruses and bacteria. The body is able to repulse these invaders and protect itself through the immune response. The body’s immune response is enhanced by laughter.

Laughter is internal jogging. It fills your mind space with positive emotions. Emotionally, it is relaxing, reducing harmful muscle tension. A good bout of laughter also reduces the levels of stress hormones epinephrine and cortisol. Laughter strengthens the immune system, keeping away infections, allergies and diseases. 

Our immune system plays a very important role in maintaining good health. It has been proven by immunologists that all negative emotions like anxiety, depression or anger weaken the immune system of the body, thereby reducing its capacity to fight infections. Laughter heals and rejuvenates without costly
prescription drugs.

Action Plan to Bring Laughter in your Office

• Organize screenings of comedy Films and shows.
• Encourage cheerful people to spread good Cheer.
• Create a humor committee.
• Smile. Do not smother laughter.
• Organize a family day.
• Exhibit humorous posters and Cartoons on a Humor Board in the work area.

If you work from home, take a break and watch something funny and laugh. Do not hold back.

Productive Napping  

via kolorkube.com

 

Jon in his Cherokee Six airplane.  

“The most important thing about using Producteev is that I know things are getting done on time. It allows me to spend more time flying and doing other things I enjoy” - Jon Labrum Colorado-based business owner, pilot.

fave features:

• separate workspaces
• recurring tasks
• filters

key benefits:

• meeting deadlines
• automation
• workload distribution

Producteev helps Jon Labrum manage a stream of back office support, including bookkeeping, time tracking, and payroll. “Producteev is simple and helpful,” he explains, “It’s the first task management app that works for a team, instead of just an individual.”

Jon’s team at Progressive Business Consulting has a bundle of workspaces, which they organize by client. Jobs are organized by label, the label “payroll” for instance. Their work resembles top-down processing, with Jon and one other co-manager creating all tasks. Items are then divided and assigned accordingly, often using Producteev’s bulk feature. “It’s not really ad hoc,” Jon clarifies, unlike a recent marketing team use case. 

However, this type of workflow goes hand in hand with recurring tasks, which make the team’s work a lot easier. Tasks become automated and are planned well into the future, with notification reminders easily being automated and planned, as well. Weeks get very busy, so it helps that tasks can be set into motion and repeat when necessary.

The left sidebar comes in handy and allows sorting by filter, label, or people on the team. Jon can click on any one person’s name to have an overview of all their [public] tasks. As the admin of the workspace, Jon uses the the people tab regularly and finds it a very convenient tool for organizing their to-do list.

The members of Jon’s team at Progressive Business Consulting have unique work styles and similar to a team of scientists, Producteev adapts to their needs. Jon adds that the team manages their to-dos across multiple platforms. He uses the web app about 80% of the time and spends the other 20% managing tasks via email and iPhone. “I have Producteev open on a separate tab all day,” he adds, “a pc app would be ideal.”

We’re adding that to the wishlist. Let us know what else we can do to make Producteev your productivity tool of choice!

A frog eating a goat by Chris

Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy is an excellent synthesis of much of the existing productivity literature to date, achieving about 80% of the total benefits from time management.  My summary here attempts to condense the book into a few pages of critical insights, organized into four primary sections: organization, efficiency, identifying your strengths, and optimizing yourself.  Implementing even a small number of these techniques will result in greatly increased effectiveness.

DO NOT WAIT, the time will never be right

Seven Step Method

1. Decide exactly what you want
2. Write it down - thinking on paper is critical
3. Set a deadline on your goal
4. List the steps necessary for achievement
5. Organize the list into a plan (priority and sequence, visual layout)
6. Take action on your plan immediately
7. Do something every day to move closer to that goal

Reasons for procrastination (and their solutions)

• vagueness/confusion around objectives and how and why to accomplish them (write down goals, list specific steps)
• feeling of inadequacy, lack of confidence, inability in key area of task (identify and learn key skills)
• attempting to begin task while fatigued (protect energy level with diet, exercise, regular breaks/vacations)
• important tasks seem large and formidable upon first approach (resolve to do single step or limited time period)

Organization

Always Work From a List

Four lists: master list (to capture all ideas), monthly, weekly, daily

• Make a list of every step needed to complete project, organize by priority and sequence
• Just go as far as you can see, and be confident will be able to see farther at that future point
• Make the next daily/weekly/monthly list at the end of the previous day/week/month
• Transfer items from Master -> Monthly -> Weekly -> Daily
• When a new task comes up, add to list before doing it
• Tick off items as you complete them

ABCDE Method

Place letter next to each item

• A: task you must complete, very important, major positive/negative consequences (rank many A items with A-1, etc.)
• B: task you should complete, mild consequences
• C: task is optional, would like to do but no consequences attached
• D: task can be delegated, do so ASAP
• E: task can be eliminated without any real difference

Never do a B task when an A task is left incomplete

Begin Immediately and Persist Until the Task is Complete

• Once you know the highest-value task, everything else is a relative waste of time
• Take action on the most important task first thing every morning
• Once you start, keep working to full completion (task switching costs are a major time sink)
• Notice if you are becoming distracted by conversation or low-value activity
• Most identifiable sign of high-performing people is action-orientation, they are in a hurry to complete key tasks
• Urgency will generate action instead of discussion: focusing on specific steps, concentrating on results

Tricks to Get Started

• It is easier to commit to doing a small piece of work, and momentum often keeps us working beyond the initial steps
• Divide large/complex projects into distinct smaller steps, and resolve to do one of them
• Resolve to work for a specific short time period, as little as 5-10 minutes (even shorter works too)

Create Deadlines

• Imagine you have to leave town tomorrow, what absolutely must be done before you go?
• Set deadlines (and sub-deadlines as appropriate) for every task and activity
• Determine how many minutes/hours each task will require, add a 20% buffer, then make it into a game to beat your own estimates

Create Blocks of Time

• Set aside 30/60/90 minute blocks for important tasks
• Getting up early and working for hours before going to work is a key productivity habit
• Time planner on day/hour/minute level enables you to see and consolidate blocks of time
• Plan your day in advance and schedule fixed time periods for particular activities (e.g. sales calls 10-11 AM)
• During these work times, turn off electronic communication, eliminate any distractions, work nonstop
• Use transition periods (“gifts of time”) to complete small steps in larger tasks
• If you fly often, plane rides are a great unbroken block of time, plan your work for the entire duration

Review your goals and performance at the end of every day/week/month

Efficiency

Three Questions for Maximum Productivity

• What are my highest value activities?  (Think to yourself, then ask others)
• What can I and only I do that if done well will make a real difference?
• What is the most valuable use of my time right now?

The more accurate your answers are to these questions, the easier it will be to set priorities and do the most valuable task (epistemic rationality!)

Apply 80/20 Rule to Everything

• Law of Forced Efficiency: There is never enough time to do everything, but there is enough time to do the most important things
• A handful of your tasks are likely much more valuable than any of the others
• You get your time and life under control only insofar as you discontinue low-value activities
• If you want to add something new, you must complete or discontinue something old
• Completing high-value tasks is more satisfying
• Continually review responsibilities to identify tasks which can be delegated/eliminated without loss

The most powerful word is “no”

• Say no to anything not a clear high-value use of time
• Say it clearly so that there are no miscommunications
• Say it regularly as part of your time-management strategy
• Say it early and often!

Question to Ask: “If I were not doing this already, knowing what I know now, would I start doing it again today?”

Improve Rate-Limiting Steps

• There is always a rate-limiting step in every task
• Identify that choke point, and make a single-minded effort to weaken that constraint
• 80% of the limiting factors exist internally within you or your organization
• Take an honest look at self and company, accept responsibility for your life and look to yourself for both the cause and cure of the problem
• Accurate identification of the limiting factor can bring about huge progress quickly, otherwise you solve the wrong problem (epistemic rationality!)
• The key constraint may be small and not entirely obvious, make a list of every step in a process
• Behind every rate-limiting step is another one, so target the next one and alleviate that as quickly as possible

Questions:

• What is holding you back?
• What sets the speed at which you achieve your goals?
• What determines how fast you move from here to there?
• What holds you back from doing the most important tasks?
• Why haven’t you already achieved your goal?

Workspace

• Clear everything off your desk until only the task at hand is in front of you
• Have everything you need to complete task in hand before you begin
• Make your work area comfortable, attractive, and conducive to working long periods
• Once you complete preparations, begin working immediately
• Assume the body language of high-performance: sit up straight, sit forward away from back of chair

Electronic Communication

• DO NOT check voicemail/e-mail first thing in the morning
• Tech is your friend, there to increase speed/efficiency/accuracy of information transfer, but can be addictive
• Just because someone sends you an e-mail does not mean you have an obligation to respond (if the e-mail is important enough, the sender will resend)
• Delete 80% of e-mails unread immediately. Only 20% of those remaining are urgent, put the rest in a file to respond later
• Create zones of silence in your life where no one or nothing can reach you
• Maintain inner calm by pausing on a regular basis to listen to the silence

Identifying Your Strengths

What Are Your Unique Talents?

Do what you love to do, and do it well!

• What gets you the most compliments/praise?
• What affects the performance of other people the most?

Ask yourself these questions:

• What am I really good at?
• What do I enjoy the most about my work?
• What has been the most responsible for my success?
• If I could do any job at all, what would it be?
• If I won the lottery, what work would I choose to do?

Rule of Three

Three core tasks provide most of your value, focus on optimizing those

In thirty seconds, write down your three most important goals in life right now

• Giving people longer rarely results in different answers
• In most cases people have a financial/career goal, a personal relationship goal, and a health/fitness goal.

Expand to three most important goals in:

• Business/career
• Family/relationship
• Financial
• Health
• Personal/professional development
• Social/community
• Biggest problems or concerns in life

Key Result Areas

Your work can usually be broken down into 5-7 key result areas (KRA), where you are completely responsible

• Make a list of important output responsibilities, tasks which feed into others
• Determine key result areas and grade yourself on 1-10 scale
• Your performance is only as strong as your weakest KRA
• We tend to avoid jobs where we performed poorly in the past
• Refuse to rationalize/justify/defend weakness, instead identify clearly, and make a plan to improve

Big Seven in management: planning, organization, staffing, delegating, supervising, measuring, reporting

Big Seven in sales: prospecting, building rapport and trust, identifying needs, presenting persuasively, answering objections, closing the sale, getting resales and referrals

Question to Ask: “What one skill would have the greatest positive impact on my life?” (ask others as well)

Optimize Self

Skill Acquisition

• Identify the most important things you do, and make a plan to continually upgrade those skills
• You can learn any skills necessary to be more productive/effective

Three Steps to Mastery:

• Read in your field at least one hour/day
• Take every course/seminar available on key skills
• Listen to audio during downtime

3 D’s of New Habit Formation

1. Decision to learn new habit
2. Discipline to practice
3. Determination to persist until habit is encoded

Optimizing Mood

• To perform at your best, you need to be in a good mood!
• Level of self-esteem is critically important for motivation and persistence
• The way you interpret things determines how you feel
• Resolve to become an optimist

Four Behaviors of Optimists:

• Look for the good in every situation
• Seek the valuable lesson in setback/difficulty
• Look for the solution to every problem (vs. blame/complain)
• Think and talk continually about your goals

The biggest enemies are fear of failure/rejection and accompanying doubts

• The way to overcome fear is to do precisely that thing
• Act as if you already had the courage and behave accordingly

State maxims to yourself on a regular schedule, to internalize positive beliefs

Visualize

• Imagine being your future awesome self, self-image has a powerful effect on behavior
• Visualize how the world would look with your goals completed

Generate Intrinsic Motivation

• See yourself as role model for others
• Set higher standands for yourself than others set for you
• Make it into a game!

Energy Level is CRITICALLY IMPORTANT for Motivation

• Utilize the specific time of the day when you are at your best for top-priority tasks
• Sometimes your best use of time is indeed to quit early and get a lot of sleep
• Take one full day off every week: no work or electronic communication or anything taxing. Instead do activities which replenish you
• Take regular vacations every year, both weekends and 1-2 week breaks

Big three for energy level:

1. Sleep
2. Diet
3. Exercise

Questions:

• What am I doing physically that I should do more of?
• What am I doing that I should do less of?
• What am I not doing that I should start doing to maximize performance?
• What am I doing that affects my health should I stop doing entirely?

Work/life balance is not optional

• Time management is a means to an end: freeing up time to do the things you love
• The more in-person time you spend with loved ones, the happier you will be
• What matters is quality of time at work and quantity of time in rest of life
• When you work, work - wasted work time comes out of personal life

You are shaping yourself into a new, superior human being.  Be an ascending spiral of personal effectiveness.

via correctcontrarian.com

 

Welcome to Chez Producteev!

We outgrew our old office and now fit more comfortably here. Check out the video tour!

Easter: Best of Parent Hacks

Overcome Resistance and Get Out of Your Own Way

Engagement Condition - How to Engage Employees in the Workplace (graphic)

5 Awesome Tips to Writing Emails That Won’t Be Ignored

How To Do a Productivity Reboot

How a Simple Timer Can Magically Improve Your Productivity

Simplifying Your Computer

8 Ways to Use Meditation to Improve Your Business

5 Benefits of Meditation I Didn’t Expect

7 Ways to Increase Productivity in Your Gym Workouts

Happy Earth Day-Easter-Passover-Spring! Stay Producteev :)

Photo credit: Kent K. Barnes 

Team Spotlight: Julien Rousseau — UI designer, front-end developer, pixel surgeon

fave features: 

• separate workspaces
• starring system
• hot! tasks

key benefits:

• effortless collaboration between Design & Development
• keeping track of little details
• rapid push

Producteev is my sidekick in our quest to build a sleek graphic interface. Design has sort of evolved to create user interfaces packed with little details. Beyond the inherent creativity, the design process now includes organization and structure, as implementation is being considered during product development. A task management application is essential for these purposes and in our case, Producteev improves the flow involved with design. 

A place for everything
We created workspaces for the developer team to integrate the user interface. At the moment, I’m working on the official Producteev Mac Desktop application. I share the workspace “Producteev/Mac” with a developer and our product manager. Tom, the developer, notifies me of missing elements. In turn, I ask him to tweak UI elements that need improvement. We do constant iteration on all of the UI elements, and the end result is a polished, sleeker interface. 

Anytime we notice something that needs to be redesigned, we add the task in our Producteev workspace. This goes both ways, and no modifications are lost in translation. As an added safety, the product manager makes sure all tasks are completed and smashes every bug in sight. 

I prefer to focus on the tasks at hand and spend time designing (versus managing tasks), so I force myself to use only a handful of labels. I usually have between 5-8 in a workspace, and I try to make task titles get straight to the point. This way, I can do more in shorter time. 

Everything in its place
The starring system is the secret weapon of our slick interface and tells us what to do next. Tom adds 5-stars to all features currently in development. My job at that point is to design the feature and make sure Tom has all the elements in place so he can start work. Producteev keeps us totally in sync, and we don’t lose any time waiting on our partners to catch up. 

I have a few ongoing projects with the rest of the developer team as well. I stay on top of them by watching my hot! tasks and completing to-dos by priority. For me, this works much better than setting deadlines!

The really awesome thing about our current project — the mac desktop app — is that the task list is getting shorter and shorter. It will soon be available for your viewing pleasure! ;)

via blog.socialcast.com

Productivity experts are a dime a dozen. It seems like every other person who starts to follow me on Twitter is a self-proclaimed productivity expert of one kind or another. It’s definitely one of those industries where it can be very hard to separate the wheat from the chaff, to find a productivity expert that isn’t just “self-proclaimed”, but actually is a bona fide expert who can help people and companies alike to increase their productivity.

So, what makes a great productivity expert, anyway? It’s a combination of results, writing/professional credentials, and a unique take on the world when viewed through the lens of increasing and dissecting productivity.

The list below is by no means comprehensive, so don’t take it to heart if your favorite productivity expert didn’t make the list below. If you were going to make a list of every single great and renowned productivity expert, the list would be too long to read.

Without further ado, here are a few of the best productivity experts, along with information about their credentials.

1. Jason Jennings

Author of: “LESS IS MORE: How Great Companies Use Productivity as a Competitive Tool in Business”, “Hit the Ground Running”, “Think Big, Act Small”, “It’s Not The Big That Eat The Small – It’s The Fast That Eat The Slow”

Credentials: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Business Week Magazine Top 10 Bestseller

Personal History: Early in his career, he founded he consulting firm Jennings-McGlothlin & Company, which eventually became the largest media consultancy in the world.

Today, he does as many as 80 keynote speeches in a year. In “Less is More”, Jennings profiled companies from a bunch of different sectors, and was able to determine how they were able to function consistently at peak productivity, allowing them to be incredibly successful.

Quote: “The 10 most productive companies in the world…believe that you make incredible amounts of money as a byproduct of the incredible things you do.” In other words, the purpose of business isn’t to make money, it is to make money by making great products.

2. Jim Collins

Author of: “How the Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In”, “Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies” (on the Business Week best-seller list for more than six years), and “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make The Leap…And Others Don’t” (sold 2.5 million copies has been translated into 32 languages.)

Credentials: Degree from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, Published in USA Today, Former senior executive at CNN International.

Personal History: After graduating from Stanford, Collins founded a management laboratory in Boulder, Colorado in 1995. He has worked with Johns Hopkins and the United States Marine Corps. He is perhaps best known for being a proponent of “fixed-schedule productivity”, and maintaining your work-life balance by dividing your work time into percentages based on long-term career and life goals.

Quote: “A great piece of art is composed not just of what is in the final piece, but equally important, what is not. It is the discipline to discard what does not fit — to cut out what might have already cost days or even years of effort — that distinguishes the truly exceptional artist and marks the ideal piece of work, be it a symphony, a novel, a painting, a company or, most important of all, a life.”

3. David Allen

Author of: “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity”, “Making It All Work”, and “Ready for Everything”

Credentials: Featured blogger at the Huffington Post, one of the “Top 100 thought leaders” by Leadership Magazine, one of the top five executive coaches working in the United States according to Forbes magazine.

Personal History: Founder and CEO of the David Allen Company, he has been called “One of the world’s most influential thinkers” by Fast Company. His works have been published in 28 languages, and he has worked in a wide variety of fields prior to starting his company, including jobs as a karate teacher, travel agent, and moped salesman.

Quote: “You don’t actually do a project; you can only do action steps related to it. When enough of the right action steps have been taken, some situation will have been created that matches your initial picture of the outcome closely enough that you can call it “done.”

Wrapping Up

We could go on and on. We haven’t even scratched the surface of other big names like Roger Martin or Peggy Duncan. It takes serious cred to become a noted productivity expert, and there are plenty of smart people out there who definitely deserve that designation.

Which productivity experts do you respect the most? Tell us who you think really puts the “pro” in productivity in the comments below!

via lifehack.org

We can’t let David Allen have all the fun! Below are some great tips from students who’ve mastered time management, one of whom has really gotten the hang of the popular Pomodoro technique. It’s centered on a daily routine with intervals of 25 minutes of uninterrupted work — a “pomodoro” — and 5 minutes on break. A kitchen timer, like the one pictured here, is a must have. Download a 30-page guide for free. 

Jason Shore of William Jewell College:

• I keep all my important tasks on Producteev, and star them with the appropriate level. When using the pomodoro technique, I’ll begin with taking on my tasks that have the highest importance and then work my way down. I’ll normally have tabs open for my pomodoro timer and my Producteev tasks. 
• After about a month, it will feel more natural. Make sure to stick with it, as you do more “pomodoros” (25 minutes of uninterrupted work), you’ll get better at it. You’ll become so focused that your mind doesn’t wander until you hear your timer ding. I use tomato timer while using the pomodoro technique on the web, and Pomodroido while using it on my phone. 
• Project out your tasks, so your unplanned/urgent list is rather small. Normally, I’ll have about 2-3 times as many scheduled to-do’s as unplanned or urgent tasks. A lot of the time, I try to knock out any urgent task ASAP, and they never make it to my to-do list. 
• Keep distractions to a minimum. In today’s world with numerous distractions (my weakness is Twitter), it’s hard to stay focused on the task at hand. 
• Also, if the default times (25 minutes of work, 5 minutes of break) seem too long or short for the task at hand, adjust them to better fit. Depending on my deadline, I’ll adjust the time. Normally, I’ll just increase it, or skip a break.

Jessica Danger Hansen of Oregon State:

• Take a 5-7 minute break after 30 minutes of diligent work, actively imagine yourself on vacation or simply spending time doing something you love and the leisurely/fun activities you would be doing, and then resume working for another solid half an hour, repeat! Mini mental vacations like that reset your brain and allow you to concentrate better and be more productive when you are working.
• Set an alarm on your cell phone/pda/computer to go off at the time you decide to resume working, that way you can totally zone out without having to worry about knowing when to get back to work.
• Pulling long days with studying [or working] 7/8 hours at a time definitely requires little breaks like this to let your mind reset and be able to continue to function at maximum potential.

Whether using as a crutch when it’s hard to focus or going all out in a Pomodoro frenzy, it’s worth a look. Try the Pomodoro Technique with your daily digest and let us know what you think!

Photo Credit: Alex Hung

Color theory and the idea that certain colors elicit psychological response was popularized by the research of Dr. Max Luscher. 

Color choice — both in your surroundings and on your person — can greatly assist with improving your mood.

What colors are you drawn to and how do you use them? You can give your home and office a splash of the right color(s) to heighten productivity. Here are a few suggestions:

Paint a power wall
use loud colors effectively with limited, strategic placement 

Decorate your desk with preferred colors
feeling settled and comfortable, particularly in a color-sense, can keep you motivated through out the workday

Put colors to work
organize your files by color to save time, use highlighter tones for designated purposes

Hang something in your color by your door
rejuvenate each time you enter and exit the room

Center yourself with color
pick a yoga mat in a preferred color, or select an area rug that gives you that extra sense of balance

How do you make color work the way you do? We’d love to hear!

Photo credit: AuraVisions

“As an undergraduate student at Penn State, using Producteev on my android phone (Astrid sync) along with the webapp and google calendar sync really keeps me productive. Also, using labels and the new smartsearch feature allows me to categorize my tasks, which kept me on track as I successfully applied and was accepted to medical school” - Chris Spearman, Penn State. 

“I use Producteev to manage all of my course assignments, whether as whole project due dates or as individual tasks - whichever I might happen to need. I don’t know what I would do without the multicolored labels, and I love that I can make them match the tabs and folders I use for hard copies of work. I also use it to keep track of the courses I TA for, so I can better remember to get grades back to students and review their online content at a consistent rate. Being able to post notes to items is perfect - otherwise I end up with scribbles on scrap paper that I lose or toss. As much as I’d love to go fully digital, it’s not always an option, and Producteev is adaptive enough to meet my needs as each semester brings new requirements and challenges” - Meghan Dornbrock, Syracuse University.

Like Chris and Meghan, you can plan for student success with Producteev by:

keeping a calendar

• Record all major assignments and their due dates
• Add tests, quizzes & projects 
• Label to-dos by class, example: ECON101 or Economics
• Sync with gcal, reminders available on your mobile device
• Set notifications and never miss a deadline

outlining tasks

• Create smaller tasks for big projects 
• Use the starring system to prioritize your list
• Keep track of tasks that repeat regularly

storing important documents

• Email yourself class syllabi and other important documents
• Scan and store graded assignments
• Preview attachments in a single click 
• Download or print if needed 

managing files

• Back up everything (or most everything)
• Save drafts & final versions
• Search for and locate exactly what you need

organizing at the push of a button

• Stay connected and in sync with one of our many smartphone applications (iPhone, Android, BlackBerry)
• Be organized 24/7

keeping up with contacts

• Maintain an address book with emails and phone numbers - whether classmates or instructors

collaborating

• Share Producteev with fellow students and learn more about educational discounts
• Invite classmates to your workspace and get things done as a group

How do you use Producteev to be awesome in school?

Related post from Pierre-Simon Ntiruhungwa, ESCP Europe

Photo credit: Lawrence

Click to Enlarge By Policy Expert

“I add all the things people ask me to do during the day to a Producteev workspace. Then I keep 2 hours at the end of the day (or the next day) to do it” - Aric Lasry, CTO.

How do you effectively deal with procrastination? At first, our CTO’s answer sounded like the very essence of procrastination. I had to dig deep to understand it, and I’m glad I found an interesting method (image at bottom of post) to help make sense of his feedback.

There is a difference between tasks that are hard to finish and hard to get to. Hard to finish implies that a task is intense and feels like it’s draining your brain cells. Hard to get to, on the other hand, is often mis-categorized in the realm of procrastination. 

There is yet another difference, perhaps so slight that it is hard to detect, between procrastination and time management. The latter can be misunderstood as the former. This is how I misunderstood what Aric said. His process for completing tasks actually resembles the Zone Quadrant, one of the four quadrants you should read about.

The concept of moving responsibilities from one quadrant to another can be tricky. So to get tasks in the desired, or “good quadrants” — those being high demand/management and The Zone/focus, the following environmental and behavior modifications can go a long way. 

Though some, including author of said method, recommend things like saying “no” and delegating more to cope with an overwhelming to-do list, we recommend:

• relaxation techniques
  • breathing
  • stretching
  • closing your eyes
  • aromatherapy
• careful music selection
  • depending on urgency
• disconnecting from devices

But don’t take it from us, check out these amazing responses from our community!

You’ll want to check out the full article The Four Quandrants to Help You Prepare to learn more.

Photo credit: College Grad Life

Betcha didn’t know that Producteev — for task management — can double for document management? Yup. Not only can you tame your workflow, but your paper (or file) flow as well. I didn’t really believe my boss when he said this. Skeptical at first, I decided to put the idea to the test.

Prepare
Before I could successfully transfer files, I had to clean them. I created new folders that actually made sense for organizing my Documents… I backed up one folder on our Time Machine, emptied out my Downloads and deleted 1100+ items from the Trash. Sounds like a pain and a lot of work, but it’s really Step 1 for transitioning onto the cloud. 

Transfer
I began by adding a new workspace called “Docs.” In total I copied 34 files, which I labeled accordingly. For simplicity, you may want to use the same labels as folders on your computer. Though, I am using Producteev as a backup. If you plan to use Producteev document management for saving space on your local storage, you can use any classification system. Monthly storage quotas are sufficient for most use cases.

Usually, I made task titles the name of a document. Except in the case of giving a document a crappy name which made it difficult to gauge its contents. In this case, I made sure the Producteev task title had a better and more intuitive name after uploading. Our partnership with Scribd allows for virtually any file type to be attached. Once attached, files can be previewed or downloaded in an instant. 

Arrange documents in alphabetical order using the Sort by - Title feature. 

Conquer
The majority of these documents are finished drafts of website copy, newsletter promotions and other materials. For any drafts that are unfinished, I added the word “draft” in the title and starred them (hoping that a star, or priority, would push me to getting them done). Deadlines should really be set on those drafts. ;)

Perhaps the greatest advantage of moving the files is advanced search. Producteev now scans task titles and attachments, so finding whatever I need will be a cinch!

Check the box to search notes (attachments).

What I’m really excited about, however, is being able to do things like access these files from any device. This will be so handy when I get a new ipad2! I can easily refer to prior newsletters, for instance, and brainstorm for upcoming editions while commuting. How geeeky and wonderful!

If you use our task manager to store and organize your documents, we’d love to know more! Feel free to give feedback and add comments about your inventive use of Producteev.

Photo credit: ymajik

We’re packing our bags and moving the help desk this week. The new help desk will make it easier to:

• report an issue
• ask a question
• submit a feature request

All in one convenient location! 

It’s been a long road since mission accomplished and the Support Center you see now was launched. The good thing is, the upcoming help desk will be streamlined, simplified, and easily searched. All important information in the current ZenDesk knowledge base will be transferred to our UserVoice knowledge base. Basically, we’re gathering all that we learned from our first FAQ site and applying it to the next one. You can think of it as Help Desk Two! ;)

Stay tuned for the new URL next week, and please bear with us as we take on this great feat.    

Photo credit: Andrew Cafourek

By now you’ve probably heard that one of the best ways to become more productive is by prioritizing the items on your to do list. It’s no longer about finding clever hacks so that you can cross off every item on your list.  The new productivity paradigm states that you need to decide what’s most important, and make sure that you tackle those tasks first.  Lower priority tasks can be crossed off your list.

But how do you prioritize your to do list? How do you decide which tasks should get done first, and which ones you can draw a line across without feeling any guilt?  By using the CARVER Method.

The CARVER Method is a matrix developed by the United States military to help them with target selection. I learned about this tool in the book “Unleash the Warrior Within”

by Richard “Mack” Machowicz. The military uses this tool to calculate which is the most attractive target for an attack. The main objective of the matrix is to make sure that resources are used as efficiently as possible.

CARVER is an acronym that stands for the following:

• C- Criticality
• A- Accessibility
• R- Recuperability
• V – Vulnerability
• E – Effect
• R – Recognizability

Each of these elements is described below.  In addition, we’ll use the goal or objective of increasing blog subscribers as an example so that you can see the matrix in action.  Please note that the method has been modified so that it’s applicable to a non-military setting.

The CARVER Method – Criticality

The first element of the CARVER Method–criticality–addresses the following question: How critical or significant is this target?

Once you’ve set the goal of increasing your blog subscribers, you need to generate a list of different ways in which you can accomplish this goal (your potential to do list items).  For example, you could come up with the following eight ways to increase blog subscribers:

• Write 5 guest posts for large blogs.
• Create a Facebook Fan Page.
• Get a professional design for your blog.
• Create a free eBook to offer subscribers as a freebie for subscribing.
• Hold a contest or giveaway.
• Go through old posts and optimize them so that they’re found by the search engines, thus bringing you more traffic.
• Find a great plugin that makes it easy for others to share your content on social media sites.
• Find new Twitter followers so that they tweet your blog posts.

Each of the eight methods described above has the potential to help you achieve your goal of increasing your blog subscribers, but some are more critical–or necessary to help you achieve your goal–than the others.

As an illustration, spending lots of time trying to get new Twitter followers is low on the criticality scale since you don’t need a lot of Twitter followers in order to increase your blog subscribers.  On a scale from 1 to 5, this item would probably get a 1. In fact, you can have a large blog with lots of subscribers without even having a Twitter account.

However, if your blog has a poor design, and you have a high bounce rate, getting a professional design would probably be very critical in helping you to get new blog subscribers.  After all, a person forms an impression about your site in about 3 seconds.  If your design gives them a bad first impression, they probably won’t even give your content a chance.  On a scale from 1 to 5, this item would probably get a 5.

You then go down the list of all the potential to do list items and score them on criticality on a scale from 1 to 5. Then you move on to the next CARVER element and do the same thing.

The CARVER Method – Accessibility

The second element of the CARVER Method–accessibility–answers these questions:

• Do you have what you need–or can you easily get what you need–in order to knock down this target?
• Do you have the skills that are necessary in order to tackle this item?

Maybe you don’t know how to create a Facebook Fan Page, but creating a fan page is free, and there’s a lot of information on the Internet that can teach you how to create one.  Therefore, this would probably get a 3 on a scale from 1 to 5 for accessibility.

On the other hand, getting a professional blog design can be expensive, and if you don’t have the money to pay for it right now, this would probably get a 1 on the accessibility element. It’s not accessible to you at the moment since you can’t afford it.

The CARVER Method – Recuperability

The third element of the CARVER Method–recuperability–is about the return that you’re going to get on your investment, and how fast you’re going to see results.  For example, if you send guest posts to five different large blogs, you’ll probably have to wait from 6 to 8 weeks before they publish them, because of the large numbers of guest posts which large blogs receive.  This task would probably get a 2 or a 3 in recuperability.

Writing an eBook which you can give away as a gift to entice people to subscribe to your blog is something you could do in about three weeks.  Therefore, writing an eBook to give away to new subscribers would probably get a 4 on the recuperability scale.

The CARVER Method – Vulnerability

The fourth element of the CARVER Method–vulnerability–asks the following question: How easy is it to knock down this target?

Suppose that you want to optimize one of your old blog posts so that it ranks well for a particular keyword.  If you’ve chosen a very popular keyword, then it’s probably going to be very difficult for you to appear on the first page of Google for that keyword.  That is, that target is not vulnerable; it would probably get a 1 on the vulnerability scale.

If you’ve noticed that there’s a gap in your niche which you can easily fill by writing a short eBook to give away to new subscribers, then giving away a free eBook would get a 5 on the vulnerability scale.  There’s a need which you can easily fill, so that target is easy for you to knock down; it’s vulnerable.

The CARVER Method – Effect

The fifth element of the CARVER Method–effect–asks this question: How much will this item move you closer toward achieving your stated goal?

Submitting guest posts to large blogs is very likely to get you new subscribers, so it would have a strong positive effect on your goal of getting new subscribers.  This item would get a 5 for effect. Finding a great plugin so that others can easily share your blog posts on social media sites probably won’t help you get lots of new subscribers, so this item would get a 1 for effect.

The CARVER Method – Recognizability

The last element of the CARVER Method is recognizability.  This element asks these questions:

• Is this project easy to understand?
• Are the steps to completion clear?

Even if you create a Facebook Fan Page, do you understand the steps that you need to take in order to use that fan page as a way to attract new subscribers?  If not, then this element would get a 1 for recognizability.

If you’ve submitted guest posts to large blogs in the past, then you know exactly which are the steps that you need to take in order to get a guest post accepted.  At the same time, once your post is published, this task is completed. Therefore, this item gets a 5 for recognizability.

The Matrix

The CARVER Matrix looks like this:

As you can see, the tasks which you’re trying to prioritize go on the column to the left (under the heading “target”).

Then, you insert the score on a scale from 1 to 5 that you assigned for each of the CARVER elements regarding that task. The next step is to add up all the numbers horizontally and that gives you a total. The task with the highest total is the one that you should tackle first. The one with the second highest score is the one that you should tackle second, and so on. You can cross out the items that receive the lowest scores.

Conclusion

If you would like see another example of the CARVER Method applied to a non-military setting, the blog Gaijinass has an interesting example on how to apply the CARVER Method in a management setting.

Stop trying to guess which item on your to do list you should get to first.  Prioritize your to do list based on which items are most likely to help you achieve your intended goal with the least amount of resources.

(The Pentagon is courtesy of mindfrieze).

via abundance-blog.marelisa-online.com

The search capabilities you need have arrived. Two important improvements to the workspace search feature are being released. The first extends your reach — now you can search beyond the title of a task. We call this improvements to Basic Search. In addition, you can search using specified criteria. Known as Keyword Search, the latter is more advanced, and we have included a set of instructions below.

Basic Search
Tasks, Labels, Notes, Attachments (File Name), Creator, Assigned By, Assigned To

Use quotes in the search field to narrow your results.

Keyword Search

• title:’TASK TITLE’
• status:’done’ ‘active’
• deadline:’today, next week, 10/2/2011…’
• star:’0 - 5’
• starby:’NAME’
• label:’KEYWORD IN LABEL’
• note:’KEYWORD IN NOTE’
• creator:’NAME’
• assignedby:’NAME’
• assignedto:’NAME’

To search mutliple keywords at a time leave a space, example:

status:’active’ star:’3’

Combined keyword search is comparable to a Smart Filter. 

This more powerful functionality was requested two short months ago with the release of our new UI. A small group of advanced search beta testers have already given feedback on improving usability. As always, thanks for letting us know what we can do to make Producteev better!

Photo credit: mafleen

“Producteev is an effective way to document our work and helps us make decisions on what should be done next. We use it for team transparency and accountability” - Dan Johnson, business manager, outdoorsman.

fave features:

• shared workspace
• Android app
• labels/tags

key benefits:

• centralized location for projects 
• mobility
• peace of mind

Dan Johnson and teammates at ReallyCheapHealthInsurance.com rely on Producteev to manage web-related tasks, from design to SEO to business strategy. ReallyCheapHealthInsurance provides its clients with instant health insurance quotes from many different insurance companies so people can compare health insurance prices, products, and policies side by side and choose what works best for them. The close-knit team is based in three states and two different time zones. Producteev helps make online collaboration across several states less of a hassle for them.

The team’s entire front end development is managed using the to-do application. Programming tasks, with varying degrees of difficulty, are assigned to appropriate member(s) of the team. They are then easily starred and ranked, in order of priority.

In addition to product development, business goals are measured in Producteev. Leads for agency partnerships, for instance, are tracked with the task manager. From the qualifying stage to the follow up stage, potential partners are notated in the system. Specific actions to be taken are entered and scheduled, as needed. This action-oriented approach ensures that multiple opportunities are leveraged.

Often on the go, or in the field, Dan adjusts by managing his to-do list on Astrid, a 3rd party application for Android. The add-on syncs with Producteev, allowing ideas that come to mind while running errands, to be easily tracked and administered as tasks at a later date.

Finally, Dan also uses Producteev for personal to-dos. He assigns labels to help organize and process to-dos, and like many Producteev users is a fan of Getting Things Done (GTD). “What I really like about Producteev,” he shares, “is the ability to forget about tasks when out camping, fishing, or biking, and knowing that they will be right where I can find them when it’s time to get things done!”

For Dan Johnson, Producteev offers the best of both worlds and makes managing both work and play a breeze.