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Chris Smith
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Homepage: http://www.lifehack.org
Posts by Chris Smith
How to Beat Writer’s Block the Hard Way
Feb 23rd
If you have written for an extended period of time, whether it be for your own personal blog, work, school, or all of the above, having writer’s block is inevitable. Breaking writer’s block isn’t an easy thing to do. So, instead of taking the easy way out, here are the hard ways to beat writer’s block, one day and one bad idea at a time.
Force yourself
I have a recurring daily task that simply says “force yourself to brainstorm article ideas for 25 minutes”. This reminder pings me every single day when I get home from work. The idea behind it is to not merely look at it and say to myself, “well, I don’t really have any ideas, so I will just check it off and try again tomorrow.” Oh, no.
The idea of “forcing myself” brings about a sort of rage and stubbornness inside. For the most part, people can’t stand being told what to do. So use this as a way to motivate yourself to action. Get mad and start writing.
Write, no matter what
Even if you think you don’t have enough time, are too tired, did too much work, have no ideas, whatever. It all doesn’t matter and it’s probably bullshit anyways. The only way to keep writing is to keep writing.
We have talked about the 750 words a day habit that everyone (even non-writers) should keep to invoke creativity and flow in our lives. Making yourself write 750 words a day is a good first step to beat writer’s block one day at a time. As you keep writing more and more the ideas like “I don’t have any ideas” and “I’ll just write tomorrow” go out the window. We have to make a habit of writing consistently, no matter what.
Embrace bad ideas
Are you not writing because your ideas suck? Yeah, well, join the club. Most ideas for writing (or anything for that matter) aren’t very good. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t embrace them and try to run with them.
Keep a list of all of your ideas and start writing about them even if you think they are completely horrible. It’s a challenging thing to do; writing about something that you think is a bad idea. But, what can happen while writing is that your bad idea takes a turn into a better one and then possibly into something you never thought it would get to.
It’s hard work to write through bad ideas, but the practice of it will surely break writer’s block and even help you produce some awesome content that is worth your time.
Write about uncomfortable things
Here at Lifehack and my site DevBurner I tend to write about productivity and technology. These topics can be sometimes personal, but nothing like hunkering down and writing about my personal life, my feelings, what I can’t stand about myself or about the people around me, etc.
Writing about the tough things in life can bring about ideas that you can use elsewhere. You also get to learn about yourself in the process and by doing that can sometimes see why you get writer’s block in the first place.
Publish something everyday
This combines all of the above ways to beat writer’s block into one. Get a personal blog, Tumblr, whatever and publish something every single day, no matter what. This is a tactic that I haven’t implemented yet, but what it does is get you in the habit of writing about anything and everything, embracing and trying out different/bad ideas, and to not take yourself so seriously.
Yes, you may be criticized, laughed at, scoffed at, whatever. You can make the site anonymous if you like. What you may find is that you produce something fabulous that people can look up to you for and that you can be proud of. You may be able to take this daily content and put together a book or spin it off into another site. It doesn’t really matter.
Publishing everyday is a great way to beat writer’s block the hard way.
Conclusion
Writer’s block is a pain in the ass. So, instead of being afraid of it and letting it control you, it’s time to fight back and be a pain in the ass to writer’s block.
These ways to beat writer’s block aren’t easy, but they work. They do take time and dedication but in my experience (and many other’s) it’s the only way to keep yourself writing for the long run.
(Photo credit: pen and notebook via Shutterstock)
11 Alternatives to OmniFocus You Can Use To Get Things Done
Feb 21st
Sick and tired of the lack of “cross-platform-goodness” of OmniFocus but too afraid to switch to something that isn’t as “powerful”? And what about that little change in the new iPhone icon? Wait, that may be just me.
Anyways, these 11 alternatives to OmniFocus give you the power to get things done no matter what platform or operating system you use.
Asana
Asana is the new kid on the block and we here at Lifehack have really grown fond of it (especially Mr. Vardy). You can use Asana as a personal productivity system just like you can OmniFocus, but you can also use it for team and group based projects.
Asana is fast, has keyboard shortcuts, an iPhone and mobile app (although lacking at the moment), and is easy use.
Toodledo
Toodledo has been one of my favorite todo/GTD/project/task apps for many years. Jake at Toodledo has done a great job of making TD flexible, powerful, and ubiquitous (mostly because of TD’s awesome iOS apps and great API).
Toodledo doesn’t necesarrily support “projects” right out of the box, but you can set up folders, tags, or even use the subtasks function that is offered in the Pro version. If you want a decent workflow, you can check out my forum post explaining my GTD setup.
Remember The Milk
Remember The Milk (RTM) is a very powerful and “light” feeling task manager. Once again, RTM doesn’t support projects right out of the box, but you can do some pretty unique things with tags, saved searches, and locations to make it work in that light.
RTM is free, fast, and has dedicated iOS and Android apps. If you are looking for a dead simple task app to get into, RTM is the one to choose.
Todo
Appigo Todo has shown some real growth in the task management space with iOS, web, and Mac apps that all sync together using their over-the-air-sync. Todo supports projects and checklists, multiple task alerts, contexts, and much more.
You can use Todo’s OTA-sync service free for 14 days and then you have to pay $19.99 a year for continued access. The web interface is not as good as some of the other’s on our list, but for a simple GTD system it works well.
Custom spreadsheets
If you are afraid of keeping your data in the cloud and you want to customize your system anyway you want, then go for making a custom spreadsheet. You could use Excel, OpenOffice, or Numbers to whip one up. And if you are real macro-head and VBA junky, you can do some pretty neat stuff by programming your own methods and functions for grouping and handling projects, doing weekly reviews, and much more.
Orchestra
Orchestra is more about team and group task management, but you can use it for personal projects as well. You can tell that the creators of Orchestra like well designed things because the app is beautiful. It’s also intuitive and easy to use with its counterpart iOS app.
We at Lifehack tried it out for team based projects, but decided to stick with Asana instead. Not because Orchestra isn’t good; it’s just not as polished or fully-featured as other team based managers out there. Orchestra lets you create grouped lists, has tag support, due dates, and the ability to assign tasks to memebers of your team or group. It is actively developed, so new additions are being added as we speak.
Todo.txt
If you are a geek and like plain text files, then look no further than the system developed by the much loved “Lifehacker” herself, Gina Trapani. Todo.txt now runs on Android, iOS, and any operating system that can open a text file. On Linux and Unix boxes you can use the todo.sh script to interface with your todo.txt file with some command-line goodness.
Todo.txt supports priorities, contexts, and projects. The nicest part is that with the help of Dropbox, your todo.txt file can be seen by your main OS as well as your Android or your iOS devices to provide you your todos wherever you go.
Astrid
When I was an Android kind of guy one of my favorite apps for interfacing with Remember The Milk was Astrid. Since then, Astrid has grown to not only be an Android app, but is now supported on iOS and features an entire webapp experience that you can sync with.
Astrid supports multiple task lists, repeats, due dates, priority (importance), notes, and sharing with others. It’s a pretty little app too, not to mention it has a cute mascot.
Evernote
Evernote can be used for anything. Yes, even a GTD system. I never was one to believe that you could use Evernote that way, even after some of the “implementations” I found online over the years. That was until I came across The Secret Weapon tutorial series. This tutorial shows you how to setup a GTD system with Evernote. It’s very creative and looks like it could work for many people, especially the ones that use Evernote like crazy.
The implementation supports projects, priorities, contexts, and even agendas. What is really nice is how you can use Evernote’s email plugin with Outlook to move all of your emails over to Evernote and to act on them there, allowing you to empty your inbox.
Doit.im
I’ve been watching Doit.im for a couple of years now. It has gone through a bunch of design changes and I think its latest is by far the best. Doit.im is free and can be used on the web, Windows, Mac, iPad, iPhone, and Android. You can setup projects, next actions, tags, due dates, notes, etc. and it all syncs using doit.im servers.
Producteev
Producteev is another team based webapp for getting things done. It uses the idea of workspaces (sort of like Asana) and gives the user some great ways to view their data. One of my favorite parts of Producteev is that they now have Windows, Mac, iOS, and even Android clients.
Producteev supports labels, smart tagging, due dates, and has some of the best email and IM integration I have found for any todo application.
Conclusion
Although OmniFocus is one of the best GTD tools I have ever touched in my life, there are definitely some great alternatives out there for every platform. Are there any other alternatives to OmniFocus that you have been using? Let us know in the comments.
Lifehack Presents: The WriteMonkey Mini User Guide
Feb 18th
There is a lot of attention given to “distraction free” and Markdown writing environments now-a-days, but most of them being for the Mac. There seems to be a lack of these environments on the PC. In my quest to find a Markdown editor for Windows I came across WriteMonkey. WriteMonkey gives the user “an extremely stripped down user interface, leaving you alone with your thoughts and your words”.
I would say that’s about right.
Anyways, let’s dive into WriteMonkey for Windows and show you what you can do with it.
Installing WriteMonkey
Installing WriteMonkey is a little different than the normal “click, click, click” type of Windows installation. First download the WriteMonkey zip file from their site and then extract it to the Programs folder on your machine. Once that is done you will have a WriteMonkey executable there that you can run or create a shortcut for your desktop or quick launch.
First run
Remember how I said that WriteMonkey is a distraction free writing environment? Well, on the first run of the program, WriteMonkey will remind you of that by making itself full screen. Your start menu goes away, title bars, everything. You could just start writing this way, but if you want to get out of this mode simply hit the escape button to get back to a windowed screen.
You will notice that your title bar of your window says “SCRATCH”. This is the default name for a new window, kind of like a scratchpad. You will also notice that there is no menu bar. To get to all of WM’s options simply right-click the screen.
Options galore
I sort of lied when I told you that WM was a distraction-free writing environment. At first glance it looks that way, but after you dig in, especially to the preferences, you will be distracted. But, the nice thing here is that there is some handy things that you can do in the settings of WM. Let’s walk through them now. First, to get to your preferences menu. You can right-click and choose “Preferences”, or simply hit F10.
Adjust your colors, font, and display
Adjust colors and fonts
The “Screen Elements” tab will allow you to change your font and the colors of your screen. You can change the font to any font you have installed in Windows. My personal favorite is to have a Consolas font with a darkish gray background and off-white text. But that’s just me.
There is also a nice feature called “Save to permanent slot”. After you have made your color changes, by clicking this you can save your color and font scheme to easily switch back and forth.
Adjust your screen elements
In screen elements you can enable the Info bar that shows at the bottom of your screen. You can see the name of your file, how many words you have committed, the current time, and even the status of your file.
You will notice a check box called “Show visual progress bar”. This option will enable a bar along the bottom of your window that shows how far you are in the word count that you can limit to yourself under the “Progress” option (F12).
To get a menu bar back in windowed mode, click “More” and choose “Show standard menu bar in windowed mode”.
Open & Save
The Open & Save tab give you options of what you’d like to see on startup, how you want the program to launch and shut down, and even gives you an option to make incremental backups to a certain directory. Also, if you want to keep WM running even when you “x-out” the program, you can enable a “soft-exit” that will minimize it to the system tray rather than closing it completely.
Setup replacement text
Replacements
The replacements tab lets you setup special text “snippets” that expand to whatever you want them to. For instance, you can use the snippet “/sig” to insert your name, or “aaddr” to insert your address. Snippets are a very handy way to save some time while writing.
Jumps
Use Jumps to navigate
Jumps allow you to include regular expressions to identify special headings and markdown syntax so you can use the Jumps menu to navigate your document. If you are using Markdown (which you should be, by the way), you can open the Jumps dialog by right clicking and selecting “Jumps” or simply using ALT+J. With Jumps you can simply click on the headings, bookmarks, and paragraphs that you want to go to. It makes navigating your document a breeze, especially if it is long-winded.
Also, to bookmark something in your text (so the Jumps menu will see it), right-click and choose “Bookmark” or press ALT+M. There will be two ‘@’ symbols that are entered. After them, type the name of your bookmark without spaces. Then you will see it in your bookmarks menu.
Lookup things from your document
Lookups
Lookups are pretty darn amazing. Basically, you can select some text out of your document, hit a key combination, and your browser will open to whatever search engine you would like and search for the highlighted text. Need a Brittany Spears picture for you 500 word masterpiece? No problem. Select “Brittany Spears” and press ALT+4. This will search for her in a Google Image search.
You can also setup other search engines and use the [lookup] string to append the text to the search query. For instance, if you wanted to use DuckDuckGo as a search engine, you could create a new lookup and give it this URL:
http://duckduckgo.com/?q=[lookup]
Profiles
If you have gone crazy tweaking and customizing the look, feel, and options for WM, you can go ahead and create a profile to save them. Press F10, click on the “Profile” button on the bottom left, type in the name you want to save the profile as in the “Profile name” box and press “Save”.
You can create a number of different profiles and switch back and forth with the profile’s screen. Nice.
Markdown support
The reason that I found WM was because I was looking for a Markdown editor for Windows. There are so many of them for Mac that it’s sort of hard making the decision. But for Windows, the choices are much more limited. WM does a decent job of handling Markdown and also exporting it as HTML to be used for web writing.
We won’t go into how to write in Markdown (because we already have), but there are some niceties that WM affords a Markdown user like being able to highlight and bold something by pressing the standard Windows Ctrl+B, or italicizing by Ctrl+I.
Export
Here is where WM excels. If you know how to use Markdown and are anywhere close to being decent with CSS, then you can create some exporting options that can help you produce finished documents for web or even for PDF and printing.
Markup export
To export your writing right-click and choose “Markup export” or press Ctrl+Shift+E. From here you have some options. You can export to Print preview, export to your default web browser, or even export to Microsoft Word. When you are exporting you can choose a stylesheet that will format you text in a certain way, edit the stylesheet and use it, or even get some additional templates from the WM site (that is, when they become available).
Usually my process is to export to my default web browser, right-click in the web browser window, select view source, and then copy my HTML output from there and use it. I do wish that there was an option to export to HTML so it got rid of the middle steps, but for now this is acceptable, especially because of all the other awesome stuff that WM can do.
You can also choose to export the file that you are creating to a folder so you can use it or save it for later by clicking the “Export to folder” box.
Conclusion
If you are looking for a writing application / Markdown editor for Windows, the WriteMonkey is the choice. There may be a few others out there, but none that come close to what WM can do. With its fullscreen mode, Replacements feature, and markup export options, WM is hands-down the best Markdown editor for Windows.
There is a lot to the program and this mini guide just touched the surface to the cool things that you can do with WM. Happy writing!
It’s Never Too Late or Too Early to Start Your Taxes
Feb 15th
We are now 15 days into what we all know here in the US as “Tax Season”. And no matter how well prepared you are or think you are for this time of year, fear and overwhelm can definitely set in.
If you are sitting back thinking to yourself, “I have until April 17th. That’s like, what? Two months, right?” you are the prime case of someone that should start your taxes today. Here is a simple run down to help you get your taxes done before the tax man comes and beats down your door.
Preparation
Mind you, I am no “tax guru”. Ask my wife. I also don’t have very complicated taxes to prepare, although that has changed a bit since I have taken on some consulting and writing work in the last year. That being said, here are some simple preparations to do your taxes yourself:
- Collect – Yep, sort of like GTD. Make sure that you have all of your W2 forms as well as any type of forms sent to you from school, or supplemental income forms (invoices, receipts, etc.). Just gather everything up in a folder and make sure you have it all in once place. You could even scan it in and keep it digitally. If you have any information from your spouse that is needed, grab that too.
- Double check – Sit down with all of your paperwork and make sure that it is all there. Make a note of anything missing or anything that is incorrect about the paperwork and start calling around to get your questions answered. If you have paperwork that doesn’t match up to paperwork sent from your employer, take care of it immediately.
- If your taxes are relatively simple (a handful of W2s and maybe some supplemental income) then block out at least 3 hours to complete them as well as 1 more hour a day or two later to review them before submitting them. It’s good to give yourself a little time after filling them out to make sure everything is correct and accurate.
Execution
There are some great apps nowadays that can help you take care of your taxes. The most popular being TurboTax, yet there have been new apps that have sprung-up the last few years that work just as well.
One such piece of software was presented to me from a friend called FreeTaxUSA. It’s all done online, which can always be a little scary, but I and many others haven’t had any issue. The nice thing about FreeTaxUSA is that Federal Income Tax e-filing is free and State filing is only $9.99. FreeTaxUSA also keeps your information for the next year so you don’t have to do as much work, allows you to print out and save your filed taxes, and gives you all the information that you would need if you were audited (even audit assistance for a small fee). Not too shabby.
Working through FreeTaxUSA is pretty easy, especially for people that don’t have complicated taxes. However, I did have a little trouble this year taking care of my “business income” from all of my side work. I don’t think that it was the software’s fault; more of an “I’m sort of new to this and I don’t really know what I’m doing” type of problem.
If you are struggling using the self-service tax apps, then maybe someone that you know who is knowledgeable can help you out. Or, there is always just biting the bullet and taking them to a professional.
Re-preparation
If you had a rough time preparing your taxes this year, start keeping track of and organizing your information today for next year’s dreaded tax season. We have talked about going paperless this year, so a good thing to do would be invest in a decent scanner and start digitizing all of your important documents. This will keep your stress level down to a minimum during tax season 2013.
Another good thing to do if you make some money on the side, would be to use a tool like FreshBooks to keep track of all of your invoicing. It’s a great to make the difficult act of invoicing not that difficult. It also gives you full functionality for three clients for free. FreshBooks is quite the helpful tool at tax time for anyone that has their own business or side work.
Just remember to try and keep track of everything that will be used for next year’s taxes. Add a reminder to your weekly review to “tie up tax’s loose ends”. This will keep you sane next year.
Conclusion
Yes, tax season does suck. And not just because you have to give the Government all of your money, but because it can be stressful and fear-inducing, especially when you don’t know what you are doing. But remember; it’s only scary and overwhelming if you let it be. Instead, prepare for your taxes, execute, and re-prepare every year to reduce the “tax season overwhelm”.
(Photo credit: Dollar concept with silver dollar via Shutterstock)
Love Hack: How to Show Your Gadgets Some Valentine’s Day Love
Feb 14th
You know, just because our laptops, desktops, tablets, and phones are inanimate objects, doesn’t mean we can’t show them some love this Valentine’s Day. Rather than do too much for your human beloved, spend some quality time with the gadgets that you hold dear.
Maintenance
Devices now-a-days are pretty darn robust. Even ones that use Windows (holds for laughter). Regardless, you can show your devices and OS’s some love by doing some maintenance to them.
For desktops/laptops check to see if the items that are running at startup are needed as too many of them could potentially slow you down.
- For Windows click Start > type msconfig and hit enter > click on the Startup tab > uncheck stuff you don’t want and restart.
- For Mac click on System Preferences > click Users and Groups > under your user profile click Login Items > adjust them there.
You can also defragment your hard drive with tools like Defraggler (the same company that makes the awesome cleanup app CCleaner) for Windows and iDefrag for Mac. You don’t really need to defragment a Mac as Apple has created routines in the background of OS X to take care of this, but every so often won’t hurt.
Phones and tablets don’t require as much maintenance, but it can’t hurt to offload some pictures and videos, remove unneeded and unwanted apps, restart your OS every few days, and even give a good cleaning to those nasty touch screens.
Treat yourself – I mean, your gadgets – to some new apps
After you have deleted some of those apps from you device, how about get some more that you really like? I mean, you love your device enough don’t you? We talk a lot about tools around here and there are some great ones for Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and others. Here are some of the best that work on almost all platforms:
- Evernote – I think we have told you enough. Just go get it.
- Toodledo – Great web, iOS, and mobile app for getting things done.
- Remember The Milk – Another favorite that has a great iOS and Android counterpart to the web app.
- AwayFind- This could easily help keep you out of your inbox, essentially giving your devices a much needed email break.
- Dropbox syncing text editing app – There are some good ones including, Elements (iOS), Notesey (iOS), Epistle (Android), Notational Velocity (Mac), WriteMonkey (Windows), MyNotes (Android).
- Mindmapping – MindManager (Mac, Windows), iThoughts (iOS), MindNode (Mac), Mindjet (Android, iPhone, iPad).
Organize and tidy up
There is nothing worse than a device that is lacking organization of files and programs. Of course, there are a host of new ways to not have to worry about organizing your devices files because of smarter and faster search utilities (like LaunchBar for Mac or SkyLight for Windows), but it’s always good to have some method to your madness.
One good role of thumb is to have a folder in your ‘Documents’ folder for each Area of Focus in your life. One for personal, professional, side projects and businesses, your blog, etc. Inside of these folders you can take the focus even deeper, like finances, receipts (for bills and such), articles, TPS reports, etc.
Also, try to treat your desktop like a real desktop. Keep things that you are actively working on or need reminded of on your desktop and use efficient folder hierarchies and search for everything else.
When it comes to your tablet and phone types of devices you are somewhat limited to the organization of files and placement of things on the desktop (that is of course if you are not on Android). Try to organize your apps in a natural way that you use them, like all of the important ones “docked” to the bottom of the screen (Android and iOS both support this). Then you could even organize your apps in folders like Entertainment, Games, Productivity, Photography, etc. Just remember to try to give everything its own place.
Accessorize
I’m a bit of a “all natural” kind of guy, not having too much excess added to my devices like cases and contraptions. But, there are some great additions that can be added to your beloved like new bluetooth keyboards, a pair of quality headphones (I can’t recommend Sennheiser HD 280 Pros or Klipsch Image S4 enough), or even a nice new bag for your laptop and gear.
A cheap way to show your devices some love is to purchase chargers for home, the car, and, your bag, and the office so you don’t get close to running out of juice throughout the day.
Conclusion
It isn’t hard to show your lovely gadgets true love this Valentine’s Day. But, keep in mind; you should follow our other Love Hacks before treating your gadget better than your significant others.
(Photo credit: Smartphone and love hearts via Shutterstock)
6 Google Chrome Productivity Extensions That Help You Get Things Done
Feb 13th
It’s amazing out how much market share the Google Chrome browser has snagged given that it has only been on the market for a few years. With the addition of the Google Chrome Web Store, users have a new way to find tools and extensions to make Chrome more enjoyable and useful.
Here are 6 Google Chrome productivity extensions that will help you get things done.
Minimalist for Everything
There is a vocal set of geeks out there becoming more and more tired of Google’s endless encroachment of their Google experience with Google+. Luckily, there is a nice extension that can help rid the notifications, Google Bar, popups, and much more.
You can use Minimalist for Everything to control the look and feel of your Gmail page as well as Google Reader. The biggest thing for me was to completely hide the Google Bar. That gets rid of Google+ notifications which is really handy when you are dealing with your inbox and trying to get things done.
Send to Kindle
There are many times during the day that you are working on some mission critical task when all of the sudden, out of habit, you meander to your browser and start searching for, well, anything. Sometimes you find great things to read during this process. Rather than read them now you can use Send To Kindle to send these websites and articles to your Kindle account for later consumption.
After installing the extension, you simply go to your Kindle account, approve the email that Send To Kindle provides you, and then add your special Kindle email address to the Send To Kindle extension. Then just start sending away. Remember, if you are using the Kindle with 3G there could be costs associated with sending articles (WiFi users, you are free and clear!).
Scrollbar of Contents
If you decide to nix sending long articles to your Kindle with Send To Kindle, then you should at least be able to visually skim the headlines. To do that you can use Scrollbar of Contents.
This extension allows you to toggle all of the headings of the page that you are on and view them next to your scrollbar in proportion to where they are on the page. You can then click on which heading you want to jump to. This is a handy way to skim a page without having to scroll the entire way down; instead, you can just see all the headings at once as well as where they are on the page.
LastPass Password Manager
There isn’t a better way to put yourself at risk than to use the same email address and password combination for all of you sites. One of the main reasons that people don’t make unique and strong passwords is because they are a pain-in-the-neck to keep track of. That’s where LastPass’s Chrome extension comes in.
LastPass’s extension allows you to have access to all of your stored passwords so that when you are working on the web all you have to remember is one master password to get to them. LastPass is secure and makes handling all your passwords a breeze.
StayFocused
StayFocused is an extension that helps you block yourself from accessing sites to keep yourself focused on the task at hand. You can set the maximum time per day that you can visit the sites that you have set to be blocked, the active days and hours that you want the extension to work in, and blocked and allowed sites.
There is even a “nuclear option” to block the entire web for a set amount of time. Time to get things done.
Session Buddy
Session Buddy is a good way to store and launch different websites all at once. Basically you can save the current window that with all of your different tabs into a session, give it a name, and have the ability to launch it later. This is a great way to save time if you have different “modes” or “areas of focus” when it comes to browsing and working online.
For instance, I now have a session with Google Analytics, Asana, Lifehack’s backend, our project management site, Gmail, and Google Docs. This gives me a one click way to get all the tools ready that I need for our weekly editor meetings.
Conclusion
The combination of these 6 Google Chrome productivity extensions can save you a ton of time while you are working on the web. What other extensions for Chrome have helped you get things done?
The Lifehack Letter: A New Addition to the Stepcase Lifehack Family
Feb 11th
We here at Lifehack love to bring you fresh and helpful content on productivity, lifestyle, and technology everyday of the week. But there are sometimes that we want to bring our diehard readers content, ebooks, and offers that they can’t find anywhere else. This is where The Lifehack Letter comes in; Stepcase Lifehack’s new reader newsletter.
We don’t know if you missed it on Monday morning, but we are partnering up with SaveUp.com, an awesome site that encourages you to save and pay down debt by hooking you up with prizes, to give any new Lifehack Letter subscriber a special chance to win $500! That means only readers that sign up for our reader newsletter will have access to a special signup link for SaveUp that gives them access to the $500 giveaway.
And we are just getting started.
After becoming a subscriber to The Lifehack Letter we will inform you of special offers on productivity software and tools, give you access to special giveaways, bring you exclusive content from hand-picked contributors, and more. You will receive emails from us no more than twice monthly. By the way, we will never sell or spam your email address. We like you too much for that.
If this sounds like something you want to be apart of, head on over to the signup form where, after verifying your email, you will gain access to our first giveaway with SaveUp!
Setup Restricted User Accounts to Focus and Get Things Done
Feb 10th
Do you have your email alerts on, Twitter apps pinging you every second, or IM up and running 24/7? Have you noticed that these constant distractions tend to, well, distract you? If so, rather than turning these things off you can design and create totally different user accounts on your Mac or PC to help you concentrate on the work at hand.
Figure out what you need
The first thing you must do is figure out what tools you need in what context and then create a separate user account that contains those tools. For example, if you are a writer you may want to have a “writing account” where all you have access to is a simple text tool (or whatever writing tool that you prefer) and everything else is locked down.
Some contexts that you work in require access to a bunch of tools, so you have to sit down and list out only the tools you actually need. This is the first step to create environments on your computer that don’t destroy your concentration and attention.
Figure out what you don’t want
Next, after you know the contexts of your life and also the tools that those contexts require, you have to list the things that you want to stay away from in those contexts. Maybe for your “writing account” you don’t want to have access to the Internet, or maybe you want to only access a certain site on the internet (your blog for instance). You may want to also limit the apps that you can use on this account to a few different text editors and utilities.
It’s important to be honest with yourself and not to fall into the trap of saying, “yeah, I probably will be fine if I enable IM on this account. I mean, how will people get ahold of me?” The real question should be, “what is the bare minimum I need to get things done while doing (insert the context of your life here)?”
Process and tools
Setting up these accounts is pretty easy on a Mac or PC.
On your Mac, probably the best way to do this is to go to Settings -> Parental Controls and create a new user. Give it the name of the context that you are trying to work under. From there you can setup application restrictions, site restrictions, etc.
On a PC (Windows 7) you can access Parental Controls by clicking the Start Menu, search for “parental controls” and clicking on the option that comes up. From there you can create new accounts as well as control their time usage and applications restrictions.
Of course, you can always get around these restrictions by using your administrator password, but it is another burier to cross. When you are about to enable IM on your account that you are trying to get things done on, you can stop for a moment and refocus.
There are also ways to block certain websites or only allow certain websites (which may be an easier thing to do in some cases). But, if you want to get very binary with this you could use a tool like Freedom or even turn off Internet access completely on certain accounts. Freedom is a great tool to turn off your Internet access for a set period time. It disables your network access at a physical level, so only a reboot of the computer will get it back. Yet another burier to keep you from wasting time.
Conclusion
Creating separate accounts for the different contexts in your life to enable and disable certain tools and software may seem like overkill. But, if you are struggling to pay attention while you are working on your computer, it may just be the exact thing you need. Give it a try to see if restricting yourself and controlling your computer accounts can help you get things done.
(Photo credit: Modern laptop with metal padlock on screen via Shutterstock)
How to Consume Your Digital Information More Efficiently
Feb 9th
As the amount of information that is potentially important to us continues to grow, it’s now more vital than ever to be able to process and consume it more efficiently. Here are some tactics to help you become more efficient with your time and information processing.
RSS and keeping up with headlines
If you aren’t an RSS user, you should be. It’s an excellent way to become efficient with your time and a good way to get through a bunch of information to find the important stuff quickly. Only subscribe to sites that inform you directly or entertain you.
According to Clay Johnson in his book “The Information Diet”, we should be consuming information that is as close to the source as possible, then researching if it is something that we need to know.
This is a good way to approach the RSS feeds that you follow. For instance, the tech/gadget sites I follow are The Verge, Engadget, and CNET’s main feed. This gives me a nice pool of headlines to scan during the day. I spend about 15 minutes every 2 – 3 hours scanning the new headlines. If I see something I want to follow up on I star it. If it is something that is a longer piece that I want to read, I send it to Instapaper to read later.
When following up with a starred headline, I will do a search for the topic and see what some pundits and other outlets are saying about it. Then if I see something that is worth reading, I will throw it in Instapaper for later. Also, if I come across some sort of reference article that I will want to consult later, I send it to Evernote and archive it.
Later in the evening I spend no more than 30 minutes consuming my Instapaper queue. This whole process takes up about 1.25 – 1.5 hours per day.
Clearing out your inbox
Some people think that clearing out your inbox is all about doing everything that is in your inbox. This isn’t the case at all. You clear out your inbox to find the work that needs to be done and then put it in a place that you can do later, throughout your day.
My process is what David Allen suggests:
- Read the first email in your inbox and ask yourself, “is this actionable?”
- If it is and it will take 2 minutes or less (replying to a simple question, setting up a quick meeting, etc.) then do it. If there is followup to the email, put the sent email in an “@waiting” folder.
- If it is actionable and will take more than 2 minutes, put it in an “@action” folder and track the task in your task application.
- If it is reference, archive it away.
This process keeps you up on what you need to do and helps you identify any action you need to take that has come through in the form of email. I get a lot of email between work, Lifehack, and personal stuff (about 100 emails a day). Even with that load it still only takes me about 15 – 30 minutes a day to keep up with it.
Social networks, forums, and groups
Keeping up with all of your hundreds of “friends” can be daunting and even annoying. This is one of the reasons that I still don’t have a Facebook account and am still apprehensive of using things like Google+ to their full extent. I feel that social networking can sometimes be a bit of a time-suck. But, you can still be efficient with it.
Only friend and follow people that matter to you. While using Twitter, one can get pretty carried away with their number of followers. It’s important to keep them down to a minimum. Only follow people that bring you important information and that keep you entertained. Oh, and of course follow your friends.
Try to treat social networks and groups the same way you would email and RSS:
- Go through the information quickly.
- Anything that you can quickly share or comment on, do it while you are scanning your feeds.
- Anything that will take some time to comment on or create, track it in your task list and set discrete time during the day to take care of it.
You don’t have to be like a robot with social networks though. There is nothing at all wrong with trolling forums, Twitter, and Facebook every so often. Just don’t make a habit of it. You’ve got more important things to do, right?
Conclusion
Information “overload” is here to stay. There is no stopping it. So, rather than be a luddite and unplug completely, use these tips to keep up with what is important to you and the things that you need to get done in a more efficient way. If you follow a routine of combing the information that has made its way to your life’s inbox, you can keep up with it and handle it effectively.
(Photo credit: A technology man has images around his head via Shutterstock)
A First Look at SaveUp.com: Get Rewarded for Being Smart With Money [Giveaway!]
Feb 6th
Talking about money and the economy can sure be depressing for most, especially since we haven’t seemed to shake the “Great Recession” and many areas of the world are under financial pressure. But, as some think we are starting to “come out of” the worst of it, we all can afford to look forward and try to reach our financial goals. And, since we are doing that, it may be cool to be rewarded for it.
In a nutshell
SaveUp is a new service that rewards you for saving money, paying down your debt, and learning about finances. By adding your bank accounts, loan providers, and credit card accounts to your profile, you collect “credits” that you can use to play against certain giveaways. These giveaways aren’t like little dinky $10 Amazon cards or anything; we’re talking Home Gaming Set Up’s worth $5,000, or Round-Trip Tickets worth $400. As of today there is even a SaveUp Super Jackpot worth $2 million.
Talk about motivation for learning about money and saving.
The process
Prizes at SaveUp are pretty crazy.
After signing up for a SaveUp you are directed to your Home area where you can view some of the prizes as well as start to put some of your credits towards them.
When I first signed up I started with 30 credits and 3 plays. When playing a prize it will tell you how many credits you are going to use. After you have played you are down one of your “plays” for the day.
Watch videos about money to get credits.
You can get new credits in all kinds of ways. You can add new checking and savings accounts, add debt or loan accounts, watch videos related to learning about money and finance, accepting and completing challenges, and the big one, by paying down your debt and saving money. At first, it’s pretty easy to rack up some tickets, but you have to remember that you can only play 3 times per day.
Thoughts
There is a lot that SaveUp has going for it. The idea that you can win incredible prizes for adding accounts, learning about money, and saving and paying down your debt is extremely compelling.
If you are worried about the security of your accounts, that isn’t a bad thing. The good news is that SaveUp uses the same type of encryption that Mint and other financial instituions use (256-bit SSL), making it just as secure. Of course, you should always be careful with your online accounts, but if you practice the same safe password practices that you do with your other accounts, you shouldn’t have any issues.
Winning more credits.
Another awesome touch that SaveUp offers is that even if you obtain a ton of credits, you can only use 3 plays per day, making people that pay more in debt and save more not have an unfair advantage. That means us Joe Shmoes have the same chances as Mr. Money Baggs on the hill. Not bad.
The prizes that you can win are serious. Like I said earlier these prizes are in the thousands and even millions. That’s pretty crazy if you think about it.
Pools are a new feature that SaveUp added that allow you to add friends and family to your profile and then use them to play different prizes. This helps increase your chances of winning as well as encourage all of your groups to save and pay down debt with you.
On another note, the design and interface of SaveUp is appealing and intuitive. You aren’t bogged down by too many settings or confusing options making the user experience really good.
Conclusion
I think that SaveUp is great. If you can get around the idea of using your saving and debt paying as a way to play games and potentially win prizes then SaveUp is probably one of the best ways that I have seen to motivate you to do what is right with your money.
Oh, and by the way, because we at Lifehack like you so much and the people at SaveUp are so darn cool, we are partnering up with them to offer Lifehack readers (US only) a chance to win $500! You can use the $500 any way you want, but we suggest using it to pay down debt, to start a savings account or 401K, or maybe even use it to by some of those shiny productivity tools you have been eying up.
All you need to do is signup for The Lifehack Letter, Lifehack’s new, monthly newsletter that will bring you exclusive content and special offers. After signing up and verifying your email address, you will be sent a special link that you can use to create a new SaveUp account and have access to the $500 giveaway!
The Fine Print
Employees of SaveUp.com and of Stepcase (including current independent contractors of both) are not eligible for this contest. The winner of the $500 will be announced by SaveUp on 3/6/2012 via email. This prize will only be accessible to readers that use the special link that is sent in The Lifehack Letter welcome email. Any questions about rules and terms visit SaveUp’s rules and terms pages.
Good luck!