If you happen to be a road weary traveler who works in or even with any significant amount of technology, I am certain you would agree that accessing your data on the road is one of the banes of your existence.  Between lugging your “desktop replacement” aka your carry-on boat anchor (so that you have all your critical data with you - just don’t forget your Chiropractor’s phone number) and attempting to remember which files you’re going to need and then synchronizing them to your small and light “travel computer” aka your anemic, expensive, carpal tunnel causing DVD player.

On the one hand you end up dragging around this behemoth computer that does everything you need (so long as you are within cord’s reach of a power outlet) while on the other, you have ample run time however your productivity is limited by how well you planned ahead as to which data you needed to synchronize as well as how quickly you succumb to the hand numbing discomfort courtesy of attempting to work on a cramped keyboard.

Personally, I have found a third solution that allows me to use any computer while on the road and so long as the computer I’m at has a reasonable Internet connection it is pretty much just like I’m sitting at my own desk, working on my own computer.  LogMeIn isn’t really one program - rather it’s a company that provides an entire array of services that for the most part revolve around providing remote access and administration for one or more computers.

Their basic program, LogMeIn Free is free just like the name says.  Unlike most free products, however, this is not a frustratingly crippled version of some functional program that is purely intended to force you to upgrade if you really want the promised utility.  This is not the “walled garden demo-version”.  In fact, LogMeIn Free is not only the version that I, myself, am currently using, it is so robust and provides so many sophisticated capabilities that there are literally certain things that this program allows you to do to a machine remotely that are all but impossible to do while physically sitting in front of the machine that you are accessing via the LogMeIn Free interface.

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Who wouldn’t want a new high resolution display with thirty inches or more of real-estate upon which to spread your work?  Imagine the joy of having your entire spreadsheet visible at a glance and not having to futz around with freezing part of the pane.  Think of the pleasure of having two full pages displayed side by side, at a reasonable resolution no less, while editing your latest feature article.  Personally I find myself salivating at the idea of looking at the HD imagery from the Apollo missions and from the current ESA and NASA craft orbiting distant worlds.

Not that my intended use will help sell anyone’s boss, but if you’d like to turn the wistful daydream above into a practical reality for yourself, a recent report by Pfeiffer Consulting may actually have the ammunition you need to get that Apple Cinema Display you’ve been craving.

While most people would probably agree that one of those sexy big displays exudes uber-geek success and is the province of Avid and Final Cut Pro maestros everywhere, what is less well known is that these larger displays can boost general productivity using many more mundane applications.

Pfeiffer Consulting’s report called “The 30-ince Apple Cinema Display Productivity Benchmark” was intended to measure the real world productivity impact of using a larger size display.   The key underlying question they asked was:

Does this added comfort translate into higher productivity? To provide clear, activity-based data to answer this question was the aim of  his research project. 

In essence they wanted to do a clear comparison using more typical applications and see if the use of larger monitors yielded sufficient improvements in productivity that over time these increases generated a significant return on the investment (ROI).

The specifics can be found in the report which is in PDF form and can be downloaded for your reading pleasure.  For those of you that have better things to do that read a half a dozen pages of highly specific benchmarking detail, I suggest you print the report out for your boss and incorporate these quick summary findings into the email that briefs him on the wisdom behind your request for the glorious new display:

From the Report:

•  High-resplution displays such as the 30-inchApple Cinema HD Display can result in measurable productivity and efficiency gains.
• Productivity gains were present in not only professional design and publishing, digital imaging, and digital video, but also in general productivity and office applications  such as word processors and spreadsheets.
• Cumulative productivity gains linked to a large, high -resolution display can lead to a return on  investment (ROI) of several thousand dollars per year.

I swear I did not make a word of this up.  Scout’s Honor.

Should you find success with this approach and become the proud and oh-so-productive new owner of a sexy HD display,  don’t forget who shared this little tidbit of useful information with you and come and leave us a comment.  Better yet, when your friends come and jealously eye your new desk accessory, tell them how you got it and where you got the info…

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Editors Note:  Erratum.  This article had a number of errors that have been corrected from the original version.

Applebriefs‘ Jeff Kabbe has done a spectacular job authoring a very detailed review of the GTD task management application Omnifocus. Mac owners have probably seen other applications developed by Omni Group, particuarly OmniOutliner  which comes preinstalled on many machines from Apple.  The company has also developed  OmniGraffle,  OmniPlan and roughly half a dozen other useful applications.    His review is so comprehensive that it makes no sense for me to do anything except refer you to his blog where you can read it for yourself.

Meanwhile, the guys folks at Omni Group  have made a splash of their own by giving folks a preview of their soon to be released iPhone application. In addition to supporting live sync - supposedly even capable of background syncing tasks to Apple’s new MobileMe service and being FREE to registered users of the desktop version of Omnifocus, the iPhone version is also location aware and thus can automatically identify various contexts and provide you with task details that are contextually appropriate.

As you might imagine there’s quite a lot of excitement about this forthcoming application.  Omni Group says that it will be released about the same time as the new 3G iPhone goes on sale.  You can learn about more about the soon-to-be-released application in the comments on the Omni Group blog

Lastly, there’s a small bit of news for GTDtimes..   Evan Carmichael maintains a list of the 50 top Productivity Blogs.  When the updated list was released recently I was dismayed to see that GTDtimes was not listed.  I suspected that this might be due to the fact that we only launched in March of this year and that with so many good productivity resources Evan might not have even come across GTDtimes yet.

I figured that I had nothing to lose by writing him a note to introduce ourselves and Evan surprised me by adding GTDtimes to his list as a special mention just below the top eight sites listed in the GTD Category.  I thought it was incredibly cool of Evan to take the time to do this - most folks running popular sites probably wouldn’t have been so readily accommodating.

Incidentally, Evan’s Top 50 list is a rich productivity resource and his site is packed with useful content for entrepreneurs, GTD’ers, and really anyone that wants to be more productive, more successful and more balanced in their approach to work and life.  I highly reccomend you check it out  (and mention that GTDtimes sent you).

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Today, I’ll share the next part of my e-mail that answers the question: “How to ramp up quickly with GTD and Lotus Notes?“  We’ve touched on the productivity equation and we’ve looked at how methodology is the first component of the equation. We also explored the technology or tools that can be used to implement GTD in Lotus Notes.  Last week, I discussed Mobility: how to get things done on the run. Now, as I begin to wrap up this series, I want to discuss the value I’ve found in getting coaching in how to make all of this work together.

There’s a lot to be learned from reading books and attending seminars. I routinely do both. But when I really want to improve my skills or performance in a given area I turn to a coach, a mentor, or an expert that can help me accomplish my objectives. I think it’s important to understand that hiring a productivity coach is not a magic bullet for getting things done. YOU have to do the work, but a good coach can help you see what may not be readily apparent to you and encourage you to build sustainable habits. (I’ll talk more about sustainable habits at the end of this post.)

Here’s what I wrote to the person who asked me about getting things done on the run…

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Michael Sliwinski from Nozbe has another one of his quick, two-minute productivity videos up for us to enjoy.  Michael has kindly notified us first so GTDTimes is once again the first site to be airing this video.  Are you ready to learn about In-boxes?

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