7 replies to this topic

[projectphp]

You know, we don't have a productivity forum, which is a shame, cause this post I think would fit really well:
http://www.ibiblio.org/fred/freedom/

Freedom is an application that disables wireless and ethernet networking on an Apple computer for up to three hours at a time. Freedom will free you from the distractions of the internet, allowing you time to code, write, or create. At the end of your selected offline period, Freedom re-enables your network, restoring everything as normal.

I think i could really use that on occassion!

[A.N.Onym]

A couple of days ago, Internet turned off for a couple of hours. Were the most productive hours of that day

[DCrx]

Programs like iNet protector let you do something similar in XP and Vista http://www.filedudes...load-14332.html

You've discovered IT's dirty little productivity secret. I once had a couple of meetings and presentations with one of the largest chains of computer training. The guy showing me around confessed the president regularly threatened to rip out the network.

Pity that useful little tidbit never got into their training materials.

Ideally this would be tied into your scheduling app.

Edited by DCrx, 21 April 2008 - 04:44 AM.

[projectphp]

Matt Cutts,idea for email delays. "don't send before". I love that idea. I would LOVE to set emails to send at either 5pm or 9am, and I'd particularly like to be able to answer an email quickly, deal with it immediately in other words, but have it sent a few hours later. I hate those to and fros over nothing, when a 5 minute issue turns into a few hours.

[eKstreme]

I find that closing the email client and using a different stripped-down browser are the best for productivity.

The email idea is obvious so I won't elaborate.

The dual-browser strategy is this: I have a "fun" browser (flock) and a "work" browser (FF3b5). My fun browser has a custom startup page that has links to everything I want easy-access to, sort of like a bookmarks page. The browser keeps about 30-60 tabs open at any one point until I deal with them. I deal by either reading, bookmarking, blogging about, or posting about on forums, etc. It has all my "necessary" extensions. This also functions as my RAM black hole where bits and bytes go to die.

Firefox though has no extra extensions installed. It's home page is a search engine (currently Live.com - trying it out). It must never have any more than 2 tabs open - the home page plus one (otherwise that means I have unfinished work). It's very light on its feet.

All in all, it works. The biggest gain I saw was from closing the email client. The two-browser strategy is more about discipline and the productivity is similar.

Pierre

[bwelford]

I use Outlook extensively to remind me of actions I want to take. I will often put URLs in the body part of an action. This means that when the alert comes up about the action, I can just click on the hyperlink to check whatever it is I want to check. This can even be the hyperlink for a particular Google keyword search. If I'm looking for a particular web page or blog post to come up in a SERP, then that search is the action item. If it hasn't appeared today, then I reschedule the action for say two days ahead. This way I can forget about this, until the next time I should be doing that check. I find this a great productivity help.

[Ruud]

This also functions as my RAM black hole where bits and bytes go to die.

[Autocrat]

Maybe we can get a productivity forum... as the our industries/fields tend to 'wander' alot more than most (due to the Internet in general and it's ease of use... not to mention all the little interesting things... and the links.... and the gizmos etc.).

Could be interesting to see what others do in general to ensure 'work gets done'.

The idea of turning of the net is a good one... but for some of us - it's not really a viable option (kind of makes my job difficult, not being able to access websites and all that). So other ideas would have to be looked at instead.