I make a big deal about spending effort now to save a lot more time later but usually I’m thinking about work and specifically writing work. Here’s someone who saves a lot of money by making freezer meals in big batches. I read this and I don’t think about the money so much as I immediately leap to the point that this saves hours. Quite possibly days.
Sold!
Via Lifehacket
Gurdun Remsey tekes oon zee Svedeesh Cheff in thees prumu fur zee noo Mooppet mufeee-a. Lest teeme-a, zee treeelers und prumus vere-a better thun zee feelm. I’m joost seyeeng.
(English to Swedish Chef translation by http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/jbc/bork/bork.cgi)
No.
The keyboard beats all. But the computer mouse comes close and it was invented 45 years ago. Take a look at the story and learn about what I’ve just discovered is called. “the mother of all demonstrations”:
http://www.tuaw.com/2013/12/09/45-years-ago-today-the-computer-mouse-was-unveiled-to-the-world/
Okay, so things got in the way and you didn’t start the project over the summer like you planned. There’s Christmas: you can start it as soon as you get off work for Christmas. Easy. Come 1 January, it’ll all be done, you’ll see.
Well, okay, Christmas was a bit rough. But when you get through the year-end reports, you can start then. It’ll be easy.
Start now instead. Start here.
On your way to work, as you stand in the kitchen cooking, as you finally go to bed tonight, start here. Just start with one thing, possibly the smallest thing you can think of but definitely the first thing you can find. If you’re going to write a book about your family history, write down who the best relative to talk to is. Just their name.
If you want to produce an event, do a Googly search for any similar ones coming up this year and write down their dates so you know which ones to avoid.
Then carry on in to work, finish making the meals, turn out the light and sleep.
You can very easily keep putting projects off but they never get done. You can’t very easily get a project done – but you can get them started.
Just start now. Start here.
This is heavily skewed toward America – not a criticism, just a nod that not all of it will apply here in the UK – but it’s an interesting read. As a freelancer, I see December as a bad time for getting new work but this argues the opposite for people in full time employment and has points I’d not considered:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/time/topstories/~3/o81VsOdo1EM/
From Time magazine
I don’t like web apps. It always feels to me as if you couldn’t make a real one and have compromised. Plus, in trying to make one that fits all yet possible screens out there, you end up with one that doesn’t fit any of them.
Lloyds Bank in the UK fairly crowed about its great iPhone app, for instance, but it’s really just a webapp in a wrapper. If they’d said that instead of pretending it was a full app, I’d have understood. I wouldn’t have used it, but I’d have understood. Instead, you open it up like a real app and then it just has the same problems as reading their website on a mobile device. It’s not that there is any great fault, it’s just that the display is ugly and you have to scroll left and right to do things. And the reason for this is that it was cheaper for them to do it this way. That’s a great reason when you’re the one paying, it’s less compelling if you’re the user. And telling me it’s one thing while it’s really the cheaper one, that’s bad. I used their app once.
But there is an advantage to web apps that I hadn’t considered. An advantage to users. If you’re working in a group where you are all on different platforms like PC and Mac or iOS and Android, a web app can get anywhere and work with you app.
That’s what this is: AllThings is a web-based task manager or To Do app for groups. Check out Lifehacker’s feature for more details:
If I needed a bike for my commute between my kitchen and my home office, I would doubtlessly weigh it down with essential gear. And would therefore doubtlessly need this SnapClip device:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CreatedInBirmingham/~3/QV-Dck9UA2U/
I can’t tell you that I am obsessed with OmniFocus and then go away. Equally, I can’t ram a thousand enthusiasms down your throat. So let me compromise by giving you one reason, just one, that OmniFocus works for me.
Emailing tasks.
There’s a feature called Maildrop and it is extremely simple yet transformative. Do I mean the word ‘yet’? Maybe it’s so useful, maybe it became so instantly part of my work specifically because it is simple.
Here’s the thing. I’m a writer so I spend a huge amount of time at the keyboard and easily the majority of things I have to deal with come via email. So I’ll read the email and if I can deal with it right then, I’ll deal with it right then. Otherwise, I forward it.
To my secret OmniFocus email address.
I’ll tap or click the forward button, Mail will auto-complete the address as soon as I type the first couple of letters, and then wallop, sent.
And then the next time I look in my OmniFocus To Do list, there it is. The task is the subject heading of the email – so I might well change that to something more specific either when I’m forwarding it or now as I poke about in OmniFocus – and the body of the email is a note within the task.
Many, many times I will get one email that has several tasks in it. Highlight one of them, tap forward and Mail creates a new message that has only that text in it. Then whack it off to OmniFocus. Go back to the original email, highlight the next bit, whack and wallop.
You could also set rules to do this automatically: any email from your biggest client gets routed straight into OmniFocus for you. I have never once tried this. But you could.
What I have done very often is email in to OmniFocus from wherever I am. OmniFocus only runs on Apple gear but if you’re at a PC or you’re on someone’s Android phone and need to note down a task, email it to your secret address.
Last, if I’ve got an email where my reply is about the task, I’ll BCC it all to my secret OmniFocus address: in one go, my recipient gets his or her reply and I have that task in my ToDo list.
Once I forgot to BCC it and the secret address showed up in the email I sent someone. Next time I went in to OmniFocus, there was a task waiting: “Pay Jason the £1 million you owe him”.
Harrumph.
I can’t remember a time when Maildrop wasn’t a feature in OmniFocus or when I wasn’t using it. I don’t just mean that as a way of saying cor, it’s great, it’s indispensable. I do think that, although I wish it could do more, but I also mean it literally: I’ve not a clue when I started using it. Which is a huge shame because if you can be bothered to poke about a bit, OmniFocus will tell you how much you use the feature.
I just went to check for you and it says: “Used 982 times, most recently 2 hours ago”.
And the very big surprise for me is that it’s a whole two hours since I last used it.
Learn more about OmniFocus Maildrop here and have a look at the Mac, iPhone and iPad versions here.
A fella I’d never heard of writes about working on software I’ve never seen and it is rather compellingly frank. Brad McCarty puts his hand up and accepts mistakes he’s made before talking about how that acceptance led to things getting better:
http://uptake.co/no-room-for-excuses
I found this via The Loop website.
A particularly good update for the password-management software is now out on both the makers’ own website and the Mac App Store. This is specifically an update to the Mac version: doubtlessly the Windows one will come soon and the iOS ones have already been updated with these features or the equivalent.
The best of these features being how 1Password handles the times you change your password on a site. I’ve often hit the issue where I’m not sure if I’ve updated the 1Password entry or I’ve created a whole new one. So for my ISP account, for example, I currently have five entries: same username, same website, different password. Every time it’s been that I’ve had the most enormous rush on and couldn’t stop to figure this out, so I’ve ended up saying yes to saving the new password as a new site and given it names like “ISP login FROM JULY 2013”.
Now when you are on a site and you change the password, 1Password says oi, do you want to make a new one or is this an update? One tap, done.
There are also lots of little nice twiddles in the mini 1Password that lives in your Mac menu bar. I use that more than anything: wherever I am, two key presses and mini 1Password either whacks the username and password in for me on a site or it pops up with a choice of sites or options, whichever I want.
This is release 4.1 of 1Password and it’s free to existing users. We’re special. If you’re not an existing user and you don’t already have anything like 1Password, you need 1Password because there is nothing like it.
Cost: free to existing users, £34.99 or $49.99 (but check for volume discounts, family packs and special bundles)
More details and download links: http://blog.agilebits.com/2013/12/06/1password-4-1-for-mac-the-little-big-update/