Nothing demonstrates lack of respect to an employee like ignoring one when you’re with them, yet that’s exactly what many people do thanks to the “continuous partial attention” caused by being plugged in while in a meeting. If you’ve ever had someone lose track of the discussion because they were simultaneously chatting on their laptop, or felt like your meeting had gone off track as people checked their Crackberry or sms’d someone from an iPhone not so cleverly concealed beneath the table, then perhaps you could benefit from going “topless”, too.
The LA Times is reporting that several Silicon Valley companies have taken the extraordinary step of banning the very technology they created from meetings; making laptops, iPhones, Blackberry devices and the like off limis during meetings. If you find yourself paying only half a mind to what’s being said by your colleagues while the other half is checking eBay or if you’ve ever been on the receiving end of a “Facebook fade-out” then this trend may just be one you’re ready to adopt early.
Ryan McGeary has put together a really excellent and to the point screen cast on how he uses Remember the Milk for GTD. If you’re just getting into using Remember the Milk this could say you a tremendous amount of time in figuring out how to set up an application that is powerful because it is so flexible, yet for that same reason may be a challenge to set up initially. Ryan’s screen cast will save you a ton of time. Check it out!
So I’m back from the Friday seminar on Extreme Productivity held and lead by Ismael Ghalimi of Intalio. The seminar was great. I mean really truly excellent in the most useful and positive way. I think everyone that attended would tell you essentially the same thing. If Ismael holds one of these in your area I highly recommend you make it a point to attend.Later on this evening I will be posting a full report on the seminar, my takeaways and the really interesting stuff I learned. There were a few things that Ismael said that I felt were really significant and I can’t wait to share them with you. I’d share them now but I’m still organizing my thoughts and this is also a shameless tease to get you to check back later today for the good stuff.
What can I say? I’m a blogger, please don’t hold it against me
On another note, an additional benefit of attending the seminar was that I met a number of other people whom I think will make excellent and very interesting GTD Times contributors and I’m counting on them to send in articles fairly soon - so you’ll definitely want to check back and make sure you don’t miss those either.
Last thing before I go back to organizing my thoughts; I wanted to mention something that happened yesterday that for me was incredibly personally gratifying …
As many of you know, my closest friend, Marc Orchant, who was originally slated to occupy the position that I currently hold passed away from a heart attack late last year. As a result it came to me to try to execute upon his vision for the GTD Times. I have certainly been doing my best but Marc left some very big shoes to fill so it is with a great deal of pride and no small amount of relief that I draw your attention to a comment I received on my own blog last night that meant a great deal to me - and not just me, but for the whole GTD Times team.
Please understand that while I do a large portion of the editorial, none of this would be possible if it weren’t for the support and incredibly good execution by a number of key people. I am not sure that they wish to be publicly identified but I wanted to let them - and you - know that their hard work and support has been absolutely essential to getting this site off the ground so quickly and making it possible to hit the ground running and build momentum so rapidly - so thanks from me and know that this comment is for each and every one one of the folks that makes it possible to bring the GTD Times to you:
Rebecca Orchant
“Oliver, this is amazing. My dad would be so unbelievably proud of you. My geek factor is nowhere near that of my dad’s, my brother’s, or yours, but I seriously look forward to following your progress in this endeavor and future ones. I think you’ve totally hit the nail on the head as far as his vision for this project. I’m sure that somewhere, he’s enjoying your participation immensely, and chuckling to himself that GTD may force you to arrive somewhere on time.
Friend of David and GTD Times, Ismael Ghalimi is putting on what I’m anticipating will be a very intensive and highly educational seminar tomorrow at the Four Seasons Hotel in Palo Alto - The Extreme Productivity Seminar. There are apparently a couple of tickets still available so if you’re in the area and would like to stretch your productivity skills a little I highly recommend you head on over to Ismael’s site and get the details and reserve yourself a seat.
Ismael also puts on the very highly regarded Office2.0 Event that generally takes place in the autumn - and, as anyone who’s been to that mutli day extravaganza can attest, Ismael puts on a conference like noone else. If an O’Reilly conference is First Class, Ismael’s are “Sleeper” class - if you’ve ever been lucky enough to fly that way you know exactly what I mean.
I’ll be attending the event to cover it for GTD Times, so if you’re there, please introduce yourself to me - that goes double if you’re interested in contributing to GTD Times. See you all tomorrow!
Due to a job change I had to switch from OSX to Windows XP. On the internet you can find info for switchers from Windows to OSX . You can find info on that path here and here.
To be honest, after 6 years OSX it is ….. well, hard. I will not go into Windows bashing because I can get the work done. A system is a system and not the Holy Grail. David Allen has taught me the basic ingredients of a good system to stay productive. I now think switching to paper will keep me as productive as I was on my Powerbook. It isn’t the system that makes you productive but some key elements like getting everything out of your head and maintaining a good set of lists. This will help you use your head for new ventures and opens up creativity.
Pondering on what makes it so hard brought me to this conclusion: the main thing that bothers me is the complexity of Windows. Windows has just too many options, toolbars, buttons, menu items and possibilities. The sad thing is that I don’t use most of them. And frankly I guess not a single person has never used all of them.
So here is a golden tip for all you Windows users: strip as much functionality as you can. I did it: eliminate toolbars, uncheck extra features and look for ways to make using Windows just simpler. And learn as much shortcut keys as you can. I just invested an afternoon to get this sorted. And it really pays off.
I would like to point to two utilities that really helped me the last weeks: fingertips, a time saver like Quicksilver for the Mac and Virtual Desktop Manager, a Microsoft Windows XP PowerToy.
If you have any tips on using Windows more effectively, let me know in the comments!
Our recent column on supplements for sharper thinking seemed to really resonate with GTD Times readers so I thought I’d continue with another compound; Co enzyme Q10. Thanks to Oliver Nielsen for reminding me of this important natural health aid.
Co enzyme Q10, also called CoQ10 as well as ubiquinone is one of the most powerful and important natural products known. It has broad efficacy across a huge spectrum of different physiological elements in the body. Research has found that in addition to its ability to fight free radical damage, CoQ10 is crucial for cellular energy production, plays a role in modulating immune function with respect to allergies, has been seen in preliminary studies to be anti-mutagenic (mutagenesis is part of the development of malignant cells or cancers), helps to support the body’s ability to control blood sugar, can improve athletic performance, and is critical for normal cardiac function. It has also been shown to be protective of the liver when using certain medications, and can dramatically improve energy levels that can be compromised when being treated with cholesterol lowering medications like lovstatin that work, in part, by inhibiting a compound that is needed for the cellular energy cycle but which also supports the production of cholesterol.
That’s quite a long list! Unlike many natural substances, CoQ10 has been the subject of extensive study due to its role in bioenergetics or the basic process by which the cells in our bodies convert a chemical called ATP into energy. Many scientists and nutrition authorities are big believers in CoQ10 and as a result there’s a substantial body of research including numerous human trials that show that CoQ10 supplementation works in both healthy humans and in those with various pathologies.
One area that’s sure to be of interest to anyone focused on improving personal productivity is how CoQ10 relates to cognitive function. While not a nootropic (intelligence increasing compound like vinpocitine), scientists have found that there is an age related decline in the CoQ10 concentration in many parts of the body and in particular within the brain. While it has not been definitively determined that age-related mental decline and even diseases such as Alzheimer’s are tied directly to CoQ10 levels, there is strong evidence that reduced CoQ10 plays a role in the ontology of these diseases.
Interestingly, some researchers now believe that Alzheimer’s is actually a form of diabetes that some are calling type III diabetes. Since CoQ10 has a role in helping reduce certain aspects of Type I and Type II diabetes, it can be reasonably inferred that it would also be of use in helping to stave off or even correct a third type of diabetes - however this is only hypothesis at this point and remains to be clearly elucidated in peer reviewed research studies.
Clearly, while we know quite a lot about the benefits of CoQ10, there’s still vastly more we need to discover. While the jury may be out on the treatment of specific diseases with CoQ10, what isn’t in question is that adding CoQ10 to your daily dietary supplement regimen can be of real value no matter what your condition and regardless of your age.
Editor’s note: Several years ago I authored a very detailed paper on CoQ10 for a client. I am happy to make this document available to readers of GTD Times with my complements: coq10-ensorb-revised.pdf
Nutshell Mail has a great piece on taking control of that burgeoning inbox. If you’ve ever arrived at your office and been faced with over a hundred new messages, this post is a must read… Two GTD Times contributors, Scott Allen and Timothy Ferriss offer some best-practices, techniques and simple processes that will put you back in the drivers seat and keep that email beast under control.
Scott McDaniel and Derek Scruggs from SurveyGizmo discuss the Core Conversation - GTD for Startups: Getting Things Done in the Real World they led at the recent South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas. They discuss how they use GTD in the fast paced environment of a startup. Scruggs has a handy tip he uses for his weekly review.
No, the headline is not a typo. It is possible to read a thousand or more different web sites each day. If you know the secret,you know I’m telling the truth; if you don’t I’m sure you find this hard to believe or even impossible to imagine. Well, for those of you that know what I’m about to divulge, move along, nothing to see here - for everyone else, please suspend your disbelief for the next five minutes and you will be generously rewarded for your mental flexibility.
The Secret to Reading 10,000 Blogs
What I’m about to share with you is a technology so incredible that once you take advantage of it, your entire online experience will be transformed and made more powerful, more productive and more efficient by an order of magnitude or more. In fact, it is possible to become so efficient at scanning the web for the information you crave that you could become as efficient as one individual I know who routinely scans more than 10,000 different sites a couple of times a week. I swear I am not making this up.
Three Little Letters: R-S-S
The technology that makes this feat possible and which will turn you into the speed browser you never dreamed you could be is known as RSS. This is an acronym for “Really Simple Syndication” and it is a protocol that enables publishers to quickly and efficiently post content in chronological order and to notify something called a pingserver every time they’ve updated their sites.
For the other side of the equation, the reader (that would be you) accesses this content using something called a “feed reader”. There are dozens of different feed readers available - the differences between them are subtle and personal preference more than functional attributes will ultimately determine which one you use - incidentally, nearly all of them are free so you can try a bunch until you find one you like.
The most popular readers include “Google Reader“, “Bloglines“, “MyYahoo” and “NetNewsWire” which is a down-loadable, Mac-specific product from a company called “Newsgator ” that itself also offers an online reader. As you might have surmised, there are web-based and installable readers and there are even add-ins for other software making it possible to add feed-reading capability to familair software like Outlook.
Everybody, Syndicates!
In each case, what these readers do is allow you to “subscribe” to the content that is being published or syndicated by the content producers. These producers may be bloggers, photojournalists, podcasters, vloggers, or even news sites like the BBC or Reuters - all of them - I should really say all of “Us” since the GTD Times is also a feed use the same basic set up tools to publish our material and to keep it organized and accessible after publication.
Okay, so now I’m sure you are scratching your head and wondering what the big deal is and you’re maybe even thinking that I suffered too much oxygen deprivation during my cycling career and all the neurons aren’t firing at full potential. Bear with me, you’re about to get the payoff…
When you’re browsing the web there are two things that take up an incredible amount of time - even if you have a super fast connection; going from one site to the next waiting for each to load, and visiting a site only to see that the information hasn’t been updated making the visit and the time it took to make it a waste. The problem of course is that you have to “go” to each site - at least metaphorically within your browser. You also have to do this in real time. The site loads after you click a link to go there and it isn’t until you’ve taken these steps that you learn that the second installment to that juicy gossip still hasn’t been posted. Grrr….
And Now, the Web Comes to You!
Here’s why feed readers will rock your world. Instead of you having to go “visit” the sites you find interesting, by using a feed reader those sites actually come to you. What’s more, once you’ve “subscribed” to a site you can tell at a glance if there’s new content up there or not and - get this - that information will have populated your reader before you even seek the information and in fact, within mere moments of the time when the publisher put it up live on his site.
Your reader can aggregate the RSS feed from as many sites as you want to keep track of; you’ll be able to see in an instant which sites have something new to check out, what the headlines of that new material is, a couple of sentences of each post can be displayed either at the same time or by clicking a link that will expand the text or open up the full post - again, all within your feed reader meaning it will open instantly, and backtracking is just as quick.
(clicking the image brings will bring up a full sized version so you can see the elements clearly.)
As you can see, there is a ton of information contained in a fairly condensed space. This is the Google reader. Note that the sites that have new content are bold so they stand out clearly. In many ways, this is organized like email with the message in one area and a preview pane in another, however, unlike email, you aren’t risking getting a virus using a feed reader to view these sites. That isn’t to say that all sites you could come across using a reader are benign, but compared to reading your mail using the preview pane in Outlook, for instance you are far, far safer.
Subscribe to the Whole Internet if you Want to
Adding feeds to your reader is a simple affair. I’m, sure you’ve seen the little badges like the MyYahoo or Google Reader or any one of the several dozen you can see displayed at the top of this post. All you have to do is click the badge that corresponds to the reader that you’re subscribed to and the software will do the rest. Then, all you have to do is navigate to your reader if it’s web based, or instantiate the program if its installed on your computer.
I’m sure you’ll see by the end of your first session that a whole new world awaits you now that the web is coming to you - having been largely tamed, courtesy of RSS feeds and your trust reader. All that’s left for you to do now is grab another cup of coffee, turn off the phone and get cozy with the several thousand sites you’ve always wanted to check out but never had the time. Now you do - all the time in the world.
That is, until you decide this feed stuff seems pretty simple and maybe instead of reading them all the time you’ll start writing one too…
For those of you that are visually inclined, this delightful YouTube Video by Commoncraft gives you the lowdown on RSS too:
Nothing demonstrates lack of respect to an employee like ignoring one when you’re with them, yet that’s exactly what many people do thanks to the “continuous partial attention” caused by being plugged in while in a meeting. If you’ve ever had someone lose track of the discussion because they were simultaneously chatting on their laptop, or felt like your meeting had gone off track as people checked their Crackberry or sms’d someone from an iPhone not so cleverly concealed beneath the table, then perhaps you could benefit from going “topless”, too.
