August 19, 2008
11:07
Welcome to Day 2 of the Lifehack Great Big Summer Giveaway. Today, let’s talk about organizing your home.
Keeping your house, apartment, shack, or cardboard box organized and presentable is a constant struggle for most of us. There never seems to be enough space for all our stuff – and if we do find a place to put everything, we can never seem to find it again when we need it.
Maybe you’ll be lucky enough to win a year’s subscription to The Clutter Diet and you’ll have professional organizers on-call 24 hours a day. But what about the rest of us? What can we do, right now, to straighten out the mess our home is in?
Tell us your answer and we’ll send you out a Rubbermaid Collapsible Cargo Crate to move your stuff around in.
The Rubbermaid Collapsible Cargo Crate
Rubbermaid is a leader in developing high-quality, innovative storage and organization solutions for the home – helping make everyday life a little easier. Widely recognized and trusted, Rubbermaid designs and manufactures a full line of consumer products to store goods and keep homes, kitchens, closets, garages and outdoor living spaces clean and organized.
The Rubbermaid Collapsible Cargo Crate is a great example of that innovation at work. In use, it’s a 17 3/4” cube with wheels and an extendable aluminum handle, perfect for hauling books, groceries, files, tools, or any other load up to 40 lbs. When not in use, it collapses to just over 3” thick, allowing you to store it handily in a cupboard, on the wall, or in the truck of your car. And it’s built with Rubbermaid toughness, for years of use. (Retail Price: $30)
How do you win?
This one’s easy – just leave a comment on this post with your favorite or most unusual tip for keeping your home organized. I’ll start you off with one:
- Create a space by your door to be a “drop-off” point for keys, bags, and shoes. We use an entry table with bins for “pocket stuff”, a basket underneath for shoes, and a hook for purses.
Make sure you enter a valid email address where asked – it won’t be shared publicly and we never send spam.
Entry for this contest will close at 12 NOON, PST, on Tuesday, the 26th of August. Winners will be chosen by random drawing – entries will not be judged. I will collect the best tips for a future post on home organization, so by entering you give Lifehack permission to quote your comment. The prize will be shipped direct from Rubbermaid.
Stay Tuned!
There’s plenty more to come! We’ll be giving away prizes related to home life and relaxation all week, and next week we’ll have even more prizes for your working life.
Later this week, we’ll be giving away:
- An aromahand aromatherapy pillow, combining the power of human touch and aromatherapy.
- A $100 Amazon gift certificate from Meryl, the Content Maven.
- A copy of New Day Revolution, along with a coffee mug and a bag of Fair Trade coffee from the good folks at Cool People Care.
- Gorgeous wallets from our good friends at dbclay wallets.
- A SleepMate White Noise Machine from Vat19, so you can get a better and more restful night’s sleep.
- And because your bananas deserve the best protection available, we’ll be giving away a couple of Banana Bunkers from Vat19.
And don’t forget to enter yesterday’s contest to win a full year’s subscription to The Clutter Diet!
Check back every day this week and next for the daily contest in Lifehack’s Great Big Summer Giveaway!
Dustin M. Wax is a contributing editor and project manager at lifehack.org. He is also the creator of The Writer's Technology Companion, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he's not writing, he teaches anthropology and women's studies in Las Vegas, NV. His personal site can be found at dwax.org.
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Source: Lifehack
August 18, 2008
20:51
If you want a promotion, you have to convince your supervisor that you are the best employee on the team. If you want venture capital for your business, you have to convince investors that you are going to make money. If you want to go out with the girl or guy of your dreams, you have to convince that lucky individual that you are worth the time.
It’s up to you to convince them, and you’re going to have to go beyond just telling them how great you are. You’re going to have to market yourself.
Set Your Goals
Like most marketing projects, marketing yourself will be a lot more if you know where you’re headed. Your goal doesn’t need to be absolutely concrete — you don’t have to set out to make sure that everyone knows that you’re the best choice in a particular niche. That’s called ‘personal branding,’ and while it can be a useful tool for marketing yourself, it’s not the end-all-be-all.
I’m not dismissing definitive goals, but even something as general as making sure that working to get a promotion in the next couple of years can provide you with an idea of where to start. There is something to be said for goals as simple as making sure the cute cubicle-dweller in the next office over knows your name, of course.
Without even a vague goal, though, it can be hard to figure out what you really ought to be doing next. If a promotion is your priority, maybe offering to take on a little extra work is worth the effort — knowing your goals can make your next step a lot clearer.
Talk To People
Word-of-mouth marketing is incredibly powerful. Even if you don’t particularly have a reason to seek a particular person out, it’s worth talking to that individual about your plans, your goals and how the two of you can help each other. I’m not suggesting that you should add ‘Pompous Bore’ to your name tag at social events, but it is okay to talk about yourself as long as you don’t go overboard. After all, you never know who your fellow conversationalist is going to talk to next: “Oh, yes, I was just talking to Brad. He really wants a chance to shine, Mr. CEO.”
Think About Your Reputation
If you have no reason to follow through on something besides the fact that you said you would do it, you should still do it. Having a reputation for integrity and the willingness to follow through on your commitments can be better than a million bucks in the bank when you’re doing business.
When you look at the way a credit score is computed, this becomes completely clear: even if you owe a lot of money, you can have a great credit score. It’s a matter of whether you pay your bills when you say you will and you keep your financial promises.
Your reputation isn’t just a financial issue, though. It can affect your ability to look for love just as much. Once again, you never know who’s listening.
Don’t Stop at Bare Basics
You don’t have to go the extra mile every time. You don’t have to cook a surprise dinner for your significant other every night or perfectly package a client’s order every time. But it’s worth raising the stakes fairly regularly.
Just as a fancy dinner every night would get boring, doing only what you absolutely have to day-in and day-out makes you appear lackluster at best to whoever is watching. You’re only appear exceptional if you do something out of the ordinary.
But don’t let your efforts slip below the bare minimum while you’re putting together that exceptional effort. In my experience, slipping up on one minor project can have a much bigger impact on the way people view you than even pulling off a truly amazing effort.
And while bragging may not be particularly attractive, you can definitely get away with a lot more of it if your work is continuously good that if you’ve had a few setbacks, no matter how minor.
Be A Real Person
There’s plenty of advice here, and you’ll find plenty of other personal marketing advice if you go looking for it. And if you take all of it to heart, you’ll feel like some sort of robot who has to say two perfect things to your significant other before breakfast, hand out a stack of business cards on the way to work and stalk the CEO so that you can ‘run into him’ at the gym.
That’s not how real people behave, and I think you already know that. The best thing that you can do with this advice is think about it for a while, rather than trying to implement major changes in your lifestyle. Sure, you might need to make an effort to be a little more outgoing or something along those lines, but if you boil most of this advice down to its essentials, marketing yourself is a pretty simple task.
First, be a good person and a good employee (or whatever role you have). Your reputation will follow naturally. Second, be open. Talk to people about what’s going on in their lives and tell them about yours — just like you naturally do anyhow. It really can be that simple. You don’t have to have a perfectly optimized website or the best resume on Earth.
Thursday Bram is a freelance journalist of over five years experience. She studied Communications at the University of Tulsa and is currently working on her MA in Communication Design. Her work has focused primarily on entrepreneurial topics. More information about Thursday is available at thursdaybram.com.
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Source: Lifehack
13:37
Most people know that the vast majority of the protein we eat comes from lean (and fatty) meats. They are absolutely the best, and most complete protein sources available…but it leaves you to wonder what the protein in a loaf of bread leaves you with when you’re counting your calories at the end of the day.
Well think of it like this, protein is like a 2-Stroke engine. It runs off gas, it uses oil, but doesn’t have tanks for both - so you mix them. Mix 1/4 bottle of oil and 3/4 tank of gas, viola! Your weed-whacker runs like a champ again — same thing with a meal! You’ll have proteins in every form of food you eat (herbivores [the dinosaurs that ate leaves] had muscle right? They need to get their protein somewhere!) but the trick is to make them effective.
Proteins are complex, otherwise I would get into it more, but it confuses even me. That’s the laymen’s terms, the best way I can think to describe proteins. It gets FAR more advanced, when dealing with BCAA’s and Esterfied proteins … anyone got a nutrient sciences degree around here?
Back to business, you must see it coming…yes! The 5 Best Sources of Protein!
5) Non-Lean Foods! This is breads, fruits, veggies, beans, muffins - anything that’s not meat and protein. Not complete sources of protein, and not the best for you (compared to the next 4), but are needed in any and every diet since - well, vitamins, carbs, and fill-me-up food fits into this category!
4) Supplements. I’m sure there’s a pound of whey somewhere in most of our gym bags…but what’s better than that even? Well, whey is broken down into a few different types dependent upon how it’s made, according to whether it’s cold filtration, isolation, or just a powdered concentrate. Supplements provide a protein your body can readily absorb when it needs it most (mornings, and after a workout). How this plays into my diet is usually a ~25g protein shake first thing in the morning before cardio and depending on your size and intensity of workout, between 30 and 60 grams post-workout.
3) Got Milk? No, Casein! A great source for protein, as Brett Favre and dozens of others have told you over the years, is milk. I’ve recommended it to kids as long as I’ve been in the gym. “I’m a skinny guy, and can’t put on weight … any supplements you recommend?” Well, yes…a good fork and a big appetite! Eat up, drink up! Milk is filled with vitamins, and loaded with protein. It’s especially great before bedtime, since casein is the slowest protein to break down and will last throughout the night. (That does NOT give you a reason to eat a bowl of ice cream!) Milk is also a great way to mix protein or weight-gainer shakes: more protein, vitamins, and a great tasting shake!
2) Huevos (Eggs). Ever wonder why Rocky downed them in a cup during his training? They might make the gas you pass smell like sulfur, but it’s a great source of protein and a great way to start the day. I usually buy egg beaters, pure egg whites, since the yolk is extra-high in fat and cost-wise…it’s about the same after separating a dozen eggs for breakfast one day. Dozen eggs, 6 pieces of toast, fruit, glass of milk, real PB on said toast… nothing better!
1) Lean meats! Argh, Argh, Argh. Remember Tim Taylor of Home Improvement? Guys, this is where it’s at! If you want protein, you gotta eat! We’re omnivores (the dinosaurs that eat everything), we can handle it! Beef, chicken, fish, octopus, whatever! If it lived and had blood, it’s a good source of protein. Now, as sadistic as that sounds - it’s true. But, not just anything cuts it.
Focus specifically on the leanest cuts you can; eye of the round, top round steak, top round roast, sirloin steak, top loin steak, tenderloin steak and check arm pot roast. These will be the highest amount of protein per ounce, with lowest amount of fat. Flank, is what I usually buy… since it’s cheap, and great with A1!
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Source: Lifehack
13:22
It’s here, folks: The Lifehack Great Big Summer Giveaway! We’ve got some great sponsors, great prizes, and some great contests coming up over the next couple of weeks.
“Home/Work” is the theme of the giveaway, and over the next two weeks we’ll be asking you, Lifehack’s readers, to tell us how you manage the tricky feat of keeping your home life and your work life organized, productive, and in balance — and sharing some ideas of our own.
For the next two weeks, we’ll run a giveaway every weekday, with tons of great prizes from our sponsors. Look for the first contest later today! In the meantime, why not pay a visit to some of our sponsors, who all deserve a Great Big Summer Thank You for their cooperation and eager participation. It’s been a pleasure getting to know the people behind the brands over the last month organizing this giveaway.
- ActiveWords allows you to trigger Windows actions with keystrokes and word commands – and entrants will have a chance to win it.
- aromahand volunteered their “aromahand” aromatherapy pillow, combining the power of human touch and aromatherapy.
- CareerBags is offering one of their best-selling JoJo laptop totes.
- Our own Lorie Marrero is offering a 1-year subscription to The Clutter Diet, a home organization program that’s like a diet for your home.
- Cool People Care volunteered a copy of Sam Davidson and Stephen Moseley’s New Day Revolution (which I reviewed on Lifehack a few months back), along with a coffee mug and a bag of their Fair Trade coffee.
- Our good friends at dbclay wallets are offering items from their newly released line of beautiful wallets.
- Meryl, the Content Maven, wants to give a lucky winner their choice of books with a $100 Amazon gift certificate.
- PhraseExpress donated copies of its text snippets program PhraseExpress v.5.
- Popular Productivity is offering their software package “Files, Folders, and Tags” which brings tagging to your desktop files.
- powerMonster will give one winner two years of hosting under their monsterSlayer plan: 10 GB disk space and 150GB of traffic with an included domain name.
- Rubbermaid is offering their cool Collapsible Cargo Crate, just the thing for back-to-school moving and storage — or just about any other storage need.
- Sports Accessories generously provides one of their Ultimate Guy’s Computer Bags, made of Rawlings baseball glove leather.
- Ubernote is offering a $100 Amazon gift credit.
- Vat19 offers a selection of goodies from its warehouse, including the gorgeous Sterling Silver Wallet Pen.
Stay tuned later today for the first of our contests in the Lifehack Great Big Summer Giveaway!
Dustin M. Wax is a contributing editor and project manager at lifehack.org. He is also the creator of The Writer's Technology Companion, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he's not writing, he teaches anthropology and women's studies in Las Vegas, NV. His personal site can be found at dwax.org.
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Source: Lifehack
13:22
Let’s open the Lifehack Great Big Summer Giveaway with a big question — and a big prize! How about a 1-year subscription to The Clutter Diet?
The Clutter Diet puts a team of Professional Organizers – including our own Lorie Marrero, creator of The Clutter Diet – at your disposal to help you whip your house into shape. For a full year, the winner will receive access to the entire Clutter Diet program, including:
- Unlimited access to the Clutter Diet team via their message boards
- A weekly plan of action to keep your house and life organized in about 2 hours per week. Each week there is a Main Dish (the main project for the week), 2 Side Dishes (your two smaller projects), a Sensible Snack (a quick task or tip) and a Dessert (the fun reward!).
- A personalized reminder system to remind yourself of birthdays, regular home maintenance, or other recurring tasks or events.
- Over 2 hours of easy multimedia tutorials to help you learn organizing concepts and methods at your own pace.
- Personal tracking of your progress.
- 10% member discount in the Clutter Diet online store, along with member specials, surprises, and advanced notice of new offerings.
A year’s subscription to The Clutter Diet normally costs $119.40 prepaid ($14.95 a month otherwise) which is a great deal considering the access you get to top-notch Professional Organizers – people who would normally charge hundreds of dollars an hour for individual, one-on-one service. But one lucky Lifehack reader will win the whole shebang, one year of home organizing bliss, absolutely FREE!
How to Enter
A prize this big demands a big contest to match. So here’s what we’re going to ask you to do: write a blog post describing how you balance your work life and your home life and post the link in the comments section on this post. Your post should be at least 200 words, and should mention this contest – a link isn’t essential, though we’d appreciate it!
Don’t have a blog? Well, if you’ve always thought about blogging but haven’t taken the plunge yet, now’s the time. Have a look at my Newbie’s Guide to Blogging for inspiration and to help you get started. Or post your thoughts to your MySpace page, or your profile for some other service. Still not excited about blogging? Ok, then write your ideas up on Google Docs or Adobe’s Buzzword and make the document publicly viewable.
Whatever you do, be sure to come back to this page and leave a link in the comments — it’s the only way we’ll have an email address to contact the winner!
The winner will be chosen by random drawing from everyone who has left a link in the comments on this post by 12:00 Noon PST on Monday, August 25th. The drawing will be done by random number generator within a few days of the close of the drawing. All links will be verified.
Stay Tuned!
There’s plenty more to come! We’ll be giving away prizes related to home life and relaxation all week, and next week we’ll have even more prizes for your working life.
Later this week, we’ll be giving away:
- An aromahand aromatherapy pillow, combining the power of human touch and aromatherapy.
- A $100 Amazon gift certificate from Meryl, the Content Maven.
- A copy of New Day Revolution, along with a coffee mug and a bag of Fair Trade coffee from the good folks at Cool People Care.
- Gorgeous wallets from our good friends at dbclay wallets.
- A Collapsible Cargo Crate from Rubbermaid, the ultimate storage solution for this year’s Freshman – or anyone with stuff to move.
- A SleepMate White Noise Machine from Vat19, so you can get a better and more restful night’s sleep.
- And because your bananas deserve the best protection available, we’ll be giving away a couple of Banana Bunkers from Vat19.
Check back every day this week and next for the daily contest in Lifehack’s Great Big Summer Giveaway!
Dustin M. Wax is a contributing editor and project manager at lifehack.org. He is also the creator of The Writer's Technology Companion, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he's not writing, he teaches anthropology and women's studies in Las Vegas, NV. His personal site can be found at dwax.org.
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Source: Lifehack
07:24
I’ve just had an opportunity to declutter my workspace, having spent half of the day swapping my home office and my son’s room around. The swap wasn’t an excuse to declutter (rather, to make better use of the utter lack of telephone outlets in our house) but I take every chance I get; we all know how clutter can creep up and before you know it you can’t turn around in your chair without knocking something over.
I’m a musician and it has always been hard to keep my office space uncluttered; at a minimum I need a decent set of speakers, monitoring headphones, a keyboard, a mixer and digital audio input and an array of instruments in my working space to compose and create. That’s in addition to all the tools I need for the other half of my work life, which is writing. Each time I declutter I have to try and strike a balance between accessibility and lack of clutter, and each time I optimize enough to find a setup that works a little better.
I spend most days of the week in this room, usually way more than the recommended eight hours of work a day. So having a good workspace is important; ergonomic equipment is only one half of the equation - the physical half. The other half is mental, and for me, the best way to keep a positive attitude throughout the day is to have a clean, decluttered working area and a fair bit of natural light coming into the room.
Here’s what I did. Bear in mind you don’t have to go to this extreme end of the spectrum, but I was clearing out the room anyway so there was no harm in doing it properly!
1. Remove everything from the room
If you’re decluttering the same way I have, this means removing everything, including the assorted junk hidden in your cupboard (built-in wardrobe if your home office was really meant to be a bedroom!). Yes, I know it’s in there. You can’t fool everyone.
Now that the room is empty, I suggest taking the opportunity to vacuum, clean the walls, and do anything else you need to do to get the room in its best condition. You don’t empty the whole room often and this may be your last chance for a few more months, or even years if you don’t move regularly. The cleaning stage is all a part of decluttering, really, and fortunately you’ve got unhindered access to every cranny of the room.
2. View all items as equals
The first thing you do when you examine the contents of a room for decluttering is discount your ability to declutter certain things. You look at the furniture of the room, for instance, and don’t even consider whether you need it in there or not; your mind automatically bypasses those things and looks at the assorted pile of junk.
It is quite possible that the bookshelf or a part of your desk is actually clutter you don’t need. I have one of those corner desks similar to this (though way less ugly!). By viewing all my items as potential targets of the decluttering machine, I realized I could gain significant space in the room as well as provide less surface area for clutter creep by removing the rounded pane in the middle that connects the two main desk surfaces.
3. Choose necessities
The next temptation is to fill the room with things you think you might need to have on hand, but in reality only use once a week or once a month. The key to a successful decluttering is to choose the absolute necessities for your workspace, and only bring those items back into the office. At this point the only things I have on my desk are my computer, keyboard, mouse, speakers and a notebook (as in the kind with paper inside) and pen.
I’m trialling a system with my music equipment that will require me to bring them out of storage only when I need to use them. The main difficulty with this system in the past has been the time it costs to plug everything in and set it up, but I’ve found a solution that’ll only cost about a minute in set up time; I think I can live with that!
4. Place items consciously
Once you have made a conscious decision about what gets to come back in before you bring everything back in, you can go about finding a place for each item. Think carefully about where you’re going to put it in order to maximize the amount of room you have, in terms of both floor space and desk space. As I mentioned, removing one component of my desk allowed me to increase my floor space drastically which reduces the sense of clutter and claustrophobia. It has already made the office a much more productive and positive place to work.
Don’t just chuck everything you’re left with back in the way it came out. Decluttering is pointless unless you put some thought into every step and really optimize all aspects of your workspace. In short, decluttering isn’t just about throwing things away.
5. Make a commitment to regular decluttering
Many people would tell you that you should now make a general and obtuse commitment to keep your workspace decluttered, but we all know how clutter works. It creeps up slowly and you have to set aside a specific time at a regular interval to fight it off and keep it at bay. Whether you find five minutes at the end of each day or an hour once a week works best for you, don’t make the mistake of telling yourself you’ll just magically keep the workspace uncluttered with your newfound clean-freak attitude. You won’t. Just make a commitment to declutter again in the future at regular intervals.
Offering a unique perspective and insight on productivity based on his experience as a writer, musician, family man and manager, Joel Falconer has been published online and off, and brings to Lifehack's readers practical advice you can use to be more efficient and effective.
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Source: Lifehack
August 17, 2008
21:17
Got a new gadget? Maybe it’s a beautiful new iPod, Blackberry, or camera. We’ve seen a lot of debris from these gadgets in our organizing work… empty boxes, drawers and bins full of old cords and cables, and files full of obsolete manuals. Here’s my 7-step checklist for making sure your gadget has the best possible life!
1. Look at the return policy. Right when you get home with your new toy, make sure you notice on the receipt what the return policy is for that store. Some stores are only 14 days, and some are 30 or even more.
2. Write the last date of return on the box. Take a permanent marker and write on the side of the box the last possible return date. Alternatively, you could write the purchase date, but unless you remember the return policy, that date might not be as meaningful. What happens is that later you’ll see this box on a shelf and wonder if it’s okay to throw it away… the answer is YES! Boxes like this are just boxes full of air. They are taking up lots of valuable storage space. (The exception is if you are really meticulous about re-selling your gadgets later on eBay. If you really like selling them in the original box later, go ahead, as long as you have space.)
3. Label the cords and cables. If you could only see the graveyards of bins, boxes, and drawers we’ve seen, full of old “black box” adapters, USB cables, and other accessories… typically the owner has absolutely no idea from which devices these extras have originated, and that makes it really difficult to discard them. If you grab a label maker and quickly type out a few labels that say, for example, “Olympus FE-280 Camera” and stick them on the power adapter, the PC cable, and the battery charger, you’ll always know. Bonus tip: Sometimes it’s good to use the “FEED” button to feed out an extra length of label tape before cutting, so you’ll have extra tape to wrap around a cord and still be able to read the label clearly.
4. Take care of rebates immediately. That great deal you got “with rebate” does you no good if you don’t mail in the rebate information. In fact, the manufacturer is counting on that! Make sure you follow their instructions to the letter, in a timely manner, with copies of the UPC code, the receipt, and everything else they ask you to provide. And don’t forget to spin around three times and say the magic word before mailing.
5. Read the Quick Setup Guide. Yes, the good gadgets should be intuitive. You don’t need no stinkin’ instructions. But there are so many times that one important step makes all the difference, such as whether to plug in the USB cable to your device before or after installing the drivers. Sometimes it’s a very big deal! Those Quick Setup Guides are designed for people like you who want the bottom line. Take just 2 minutes and look it over before making a mess of everything.
6. Protect your device from loss or theft. Take a moment to put your name and contact information in the “Owner Information” section, such as seen in a Blackberry or Palm device. Offering a reward for return is a great strategy. You can also put an address label on the device if it’s large enough, and you can use Stuffbak labels or other asset ID tags for further protection and easy return. If your device has a calendar feature with alarm, you can set a weekly alarm at the same time (I like Monday at 10:00 am when most people are at their desks) to ring and pop up with your owner information. This strategy is great for that honest person who found your device but doesn’t know how to look up the owner information on it. Yes, you’ll hear it once a week, but you can just shut it off and keep going.
7. After the return period expires, file the software, receipt, and documentation (if needed). If the device came with a CD with drivers on it, you may want to file that with your other software. I like using CD wallets for this purpose, to store them in the least amount of space. Do consider whether the documentation is really necessary, since most of the time manuals are obsolete from the moment they are printed. Check online to see if the documentation exists in PDF form, and if so, save that to your hard drive and toss the manual. If you want to keep the receipt for warranty purposes, file that in your warranty files or your accounting paperwork.
Enjoy your new device now that you’ve made sure it’s identified and protected properly!
Lorie Marrero, CPO®, is the creator of The Clutter Diet®, an affordable organizing program that helps members lose "Clutter-Pounds" from their homes by providing online access to her team of Professional Organizers. Lorie writes something insanely practical every few days or so in the Clutter Diet Blog.
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Source: Lifehack
21:12
I recently had the opportunity to talk with social media expert Muhammad Saleem about social networking. For those of you new to the site, I interviewed Muhammad back in February on Lifehack Live.
Muhammad is the one to watch in the social media sphere. He’s a top-ranked user on Digg, Propellr, Reddit, and other social news sites, he has almost 2000 followers on Twitter, and he blogs or contributes guest posts just about everywhere. He is jsut the person I wanted to talk to about making the most of social networking services like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.
Although I wasn’t interviewing him for Lifehack, in the course of the conversation Muhammad gave a good number of tips on how best to approach and use social media sites. We talked for over an hour, but I’ve boiled his advice down to the following nine points.
1. Permission
Almost all social media sites, from Digg to Twitter, have some way for users to control who can and cannot reach them. These are minimal standards, though — all they do is open a channel. Don’t abuse people by trying to fake them out or overwhelming them with updates — they’ll just close the door entirely.
2. Relevance
Don’t add relationships willy-nilly. Limit your “friends” or “connections” or whatever they’re called on your favorite social media site to people who share at least some of the same interests as you. And be selective when sending out “shouts” or “DMs” or whatever you send — send updates to people for whom they are meaningful, not everyone you just happen to have some connection with.
3. Relationships
It should go without saying that to make the best use of a social network, you have to network, but a lot of people seem to want to do an end-run around that. Building relationships starts with a friend request or invite — it doesn’t end there. Get to know the people you are connected with. Answer their questions, send them a link or piece of information now and again, and read their profiles.
4. Integrity
Don’t be phony! Be yourself — it’s what your social network friends added you for. There are, of course, many ways to “game” just about every social media system, to get more diggs, to appear to have more followers, to get your posts Stumbled, and so on. But in the end, it’s an empty gain — people who follow you because you appear to be something you’re not will quickly un-follow you, people who end up at your site because you managed to get more votes on a post than you deserve will leave without reading, and all you’ll have is an empty number to show off.
5. Focus
Signing up for social networking sites and social news sites is easy, but unless you’re willing to put in some work, you won’t get much out of it. You need to keep your profile reasonably up-to-date, maintain at least a marginally active presence, and talk to other people now and again to make it work. If you have a hundred different profiles on a hundred different sites, you’ll soon get overwhelmed and none of them will get the attention they need to thrive. Pick a handful of services and sites to put a lot of energy into — or however many you have time to really commit to — and stay off the rest.
6. Diversify
That said, don’t participate in too few sites, either. First of all, if you slip up and damage your reputation at one, you’ll have to start from scratch somewhere else. But more importantly, different sites have different strengths. LinkedIn is best for professional advance, MySpace for broadcasting your interests and creative work; Digg is traditionally better suited to news, especially technology and weird stuff, StumbleUpon to smaller niches.
7. Personality
Social networking is about connections between people, not profiles. Make use of the means for self-expression offered by each service — whether that’s the way you summarize stories for social news sites, or a blogging platform, or feeds integrated from your non-social network sites. Worry less about finding the perfect background or your 5 favorite songs and more about creating something people want to pay attention to.
8. Giving
You have to put into social networks in order to get out from them. This is basic human nature — anthropologists call it “reciprocity”. If you want recommendations on LinkedIn, start writing some — people will usually return the favor. If you want followers on Twitter, start following people — again, people will usually return the favor. Once you do something for someone, they will generally want to do something for you in return. But you have to take the lead.
9. Add Value
This is the single most important thing to remember on any social networking site. Do whatever it takes to make your posts, your profile, your story submissions, or whatever the “currency” of the site it, as valuable as possible. You add value when you submit a link; you add more value when you include a really good description of the article; you add more value still when you explain why I would want to read it; and you add yet more value when you tell me what the author left out or how the information might be used.
Social media sites can be great ways to promote a brand, promote your business, find clients, get jobs, find new employees, and build personal relationships, but they don’t “just work”. They’re tools, not machines — you have to use them, not put in some inputs and wait for them to do their magic. Keep the 9 principles above in mind, and you’ll find that people start responding pretty quick — after all, they’re there for the same reason you are, to find people whose interests mesh with their own.
Dustin M. Wax is a contributing editor and project manager at lifehack.org. He is also the creator of The Writer's Technology Companion, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he's not writing, he teaches anthropology and women's studies in Las Vegas, NV. His personal site can be found at dwax.org.
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August 15, 2008
01:12
One of the things that is so hard to grasp about “next actions” or “tasks” is that they are single actions – buy something, call someone, go somewhere, look something up. In and of themselves, they have no end goal other than their own immediate completion.
People don’t think like that way, for the most part, and it is the challenge of productivity experts like David Allen or Stephen Covey to lead their students to do so. The first thing a newly-arrived student of productivity wants to put on his or her list is “write novel” or “write grant proposal” or “acquire Acme Co.” or “sue Google” or “save marriage” – big, huge undertakings that can’t just be “done”. You need a plan, you need resources that you probably don’t have immediate access to, you need coordination with other people, and you need time.
These big undertakings are projects — “bundles” of actions devoted towards the achievement of some goal. In the lingo of GTD, a project is anything that takes more than one action to accomplish. I’m not a big fan of that definition, because it gives no sense of where to divide the stream of motion and time into discrete “actions”. At a small enough scale, everything requires more than one action to accomplish – to brush my teeth, I have to wet my toothbrush, apply toothpaste to the brush, open my mouth, brush my the back of my furthest-back molar, then brush the back of the one in front of it, and on and on through the bicuspids and incisors and the tops and fronts and gums and…
But brushing my teeth is not a project. Nor is sharpening a pencil, or driving to work, or calling the power company with a question about my bill. Common sense tells me that.
What, then, is the defining feature of a project? For me, a project is not about the number of actions but about the outcome of those actions. A project is a set of actions that are intended to bring about a transformation in my life. Brushing my teeth is a change (dirty to clean) but it’s not a life transformation.
Writing a book is a life transformation – you become an author. Saving your marriage is a life transformation. Building a company is a life transformation.
But the transformation doesn’t have to be that drastic. A project can be part of the bigger transformation of your life – writing that grant proposal so you can launch that social program so that you can build up your organization’s community profile so that you can build up your own career – those are all little transformations directed at the big transformation of becoming a philanthropist (or maybe becoming the President of your company).
Even those little transformations change us, though – they move us in meaningful ways towards life goals, and nobody except the shallowest of people reach life goals without changing along the way.
Heavy stuff for a project, yes? But I think that this internal view is important, because from it flows the motivation to continue plugging away at something over days, weeks, months, or years. Looked at this way, projects become less a way to organize our tasks — which the productivity gurus frown on, anyway — and more a way of structuring our lives.
On a practical note
Of course, projects are a way to organize our files as well. Unlike a todo list or contextual task lists, which are meant to be referred to constantly, project files only need to be referred to when you’re actively working on that project. Your task list cuts across your projects, telling you what to do and when, while project files tell you what you need to know to work on your project.
Because of this, project files can “live” safely out of the way most of the time, being taken out only as needed. Active projects should be within reach, but not in your main working area. A desktop file box or desk filing drawer is ideal for active projects, unless your projects consist of things like “Invade Syria” or “Build skyscraper complex” — in which case, you’re going to need at least a file cabinet just for active files.
Into your active file goes everything meaningful associated with that project. Evaluate everything before filing it — is the information on it something you’re likely to need to complete the project. If not, leave it out of your project file.
One thing you probably are going to want to make sure goes into your project file is a plan. You can buy planning paper at your local office supply store, download templates from DIY Planner, or make your own — the important thing is that you have a few essential pieces of information:
- Objective: What do you hope to gain by completing this project?
- Requirements: What resources do you need — materials, but also personal contacts and skills you might need to develop — in order to complete the project?
- Milestones: What “chunks” of the project do you have to do, and by when do you want or need to do them?
- Actions: What are the actual tasks you need to do in order to finish the project?
Including a list of actions or tasks in your project plan is, I should say, very un-GTD — the whole point of which is to focus your attention on the very next thing you have to do to move the project forward. If you’ve developed that “mind like water” flow state, more power to you; I, and most other people, like a little more to go on than that.
When a project is finished, the folder moves from your readily available active files to long-term storage — a filing cabinet or file storage boxes. Not everything in the file needs to be kept, though — make sure you weed out everything but the essentials. In many cases, you won’t have anything in your file worth keeping, and that’s fine — empty the folder, slap on a new label, and use it for your next project.
Projects are important because they are the basic building blocks of a meaningful life. Actions can advance our projects, but they can also move us away from our goals. Having a set of well-defined projects, then, can help make sure our actions and goals stay in line.
Dustin M. Wax is a contributing editor and project manager at lifehack.org. He is also the creator of The Writer's Technology Companion, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he's not writing, he teaches anthropology and women's studies in Las Vegas, NV. His personal site can be found at dwax.org.
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August 13, 2008
21:06
Earlier this week, Gmail went down. The fact that it happened only a day after my task manager of choice spent 15 minutes refusing to load. Between the two, I probably spent a full hour wondering, ‘what if?’ What if I lost my to-do list? What if I lost the emails that are pretty much my only hope of recreating my to-do list? I really didn’t like the idea.
It’s nerve-wracking to think about, but any of us could lose our system. A Moleskine could go through the wash, a text file could be written over, a web application could shut down. Unfortunately, task systems don’t lend themselves to the easiest of archiving. It seems almost guaranteed that one of these days we’ll lose at least some part of our to-do lists. Depending on just what happened, you may have some hope of recovering your data or finding your list. But once you’ve exhausted your options for retrieving your information, you may feel like you’re up a certain creek.
But it’s not the end of the world to lose your task list. Think of it along the lines of email bankruptcy: it must be refreshing to have absolutely nothing you need to check off your list. The odds are pretty good that, eventually, somebody will ask you about the important items on your list. If no one asks, maybe a task wasn’t so important. The real worry, at least in my mind, is missing a deadline — especially the kind that involves money.
How do you recreate your task list?
If my to-do list disappeared today, I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t be able to get back a good chunk of it. I add ideas for blog posts, thoughts for long-term projects and even errands I need to run to my list. I’m equally sure, though, that I would at least be able to get back the stuff that I’ve committed to — the stuff I really need to do.
- Write down everything, immediately. My first step would be to write down literally every task I could think of that was on my list — even the ones that seem unimportant. I don’t think you can put off this sort of thing; every day that goes by makes it harder to remember. It may seem like something that will take up a lot of time, but once you sit down and start making notes you’ll be surprised how fast it goes. Need a starting point? Try to remember everything you had planned for tomorrow.
- Go to email and other documents. Have a shared project calendar? Old emails you can go back to? Timelines? Any documentation you have from the planning stages of your project can help you determine not only what is on your to-do list, but the priority. In my opinion, one of the worst things about a missing task list isn’t necessarily figuring out what you were planning to do in the next couple of days. It’s trying to remember what you had to do immediately, and what could wait.
- List the major stakeholders in your projects. Whether we’re talking about household chores or big assignments from your employer, there’s usually other people involved in any project you work on. Make a list of those people and start contacting them: they’ll be able to provide you an idea of what’s next. You don’t need to admit that your task management system has gone on vacation, either. A simple email — Bob, I wanted to double check the due date for the widget. — is probably enough to help you get back on track.
How do you prevent another disaster?
Once you’ve gotten some semblance of your task list back, you’re probably going to be thinking about how to prevent such crises in the future. And while I said that task lists aren’t the easiest things to back up, there are some options, as long as you’re using a computerized system. If you’re prefer the pen and paper method, though, I’m afraid I don’t have too many bright ideas.
- Back up your new task list — the easy version. If you handle your task list through some sort of file you have easy access to — a text file, a wiki, etc. — making a periodic copy is all it takes. I’ve had a lot of success using Dropbox to sync / back up files across multiple systems, personally.
- Back up your new task list — the hard version. If you use Remember the Milk or another web application, you still have some back up options. With RTM, at least, there is now a relatively simple way to back up your tasks: use Google Gears to create an offline version and you automatically have a back up. But if you use something other than RTM (or you don’t want to use Google Gears), you’ll have to get a bit more technical. Using the scripting language of your choice, write a query requesting your data. For RTM, you can use the RESTful interface, for example, and just save all of your data to a text file. It isn’t the most elegant solution, but it will get the job done.
What suggestions do you have for someone trying to recall the important items off his or her task list? Any ideas that don’t involve going through the last year’s worth of e-mail? Or perhaps a suggestion for backing up your task list?
Thursday Bram is a freelance journalist of over five years experience. She studied Communications at the University of Tulsa and is currently working on her MA in Communication Design. Her work has focused primarily on entrepreneurial topics. More information about Thursday is available at thursdaybram.com.
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08:39
Yesterday, I upgraded from a Mac mini to a shiny new iMac. It’s a big step, not just because my new machine can run all those things my mini never could, and everything else it could run is running ten times faster, because it means I now have to rebuild my system from the ground up.
Sure, I could simply create a disk image of my old machine’s hard drive and restore it to my new machine, or migrate everything over with Migration Assistant (well, if I owned a FireWire cable, anyway), but I don’t like lugging the mess along with me. I think a fresh start is an opportunity to rebuild a snappier, more reliable, and more productive system, so a system full of old junk is not the best way to start!
I’m not going to talk about how to remove your new Mac from the box and plug the power in. That’s all covered in the manual. But once you’ve turned it on for the first time, what do you do?
1. Run Software Update
I can almost guarantee that your new Mac will not run the latest revision of Leopard. Mine came with 10.5.2 and we’re up to 10.5.4, so for maximum security and reliability it’s a good idea to run Software Update before you do anything else. You’ll likely find a bunch of other software updates waiting for you for other apps. Once you’ve completed the first update, run it again - sometimes you’ll find more that couldn’t be installed without first installing the first batch of updates.
2. Get basic data transferred
I use a folder structure that makes it easy for me to transfer 95% of my data from one computer to another without any more effort than dragging and dropping a folder onto an external hard drive, and then dragging it from the hard drive to the new system. This is just one of many reasons that using a clear and organized file and folder system is so important from the outset.
The rest of the data is the stuff that gets hidden away in Library folders. This means mail, contacts, calendar, and things like that. For some applications you can export this data to a file and then re-import it, but I just use MobileMe to sync it. I haven’t had any problems with MobileMe so far, but since so many people are you might prefer a local sync like Mark/Space’s SyncTogether which can handle a wide variety of data types, but has a fairly hefty price tag at US$50.
The one thing I’ve had to dig out manually in the past is mail boxes. Since the last time I did this I’ve changed much about the way I use email, though, and I mainly use the Gmail web interface and use Mail.app as a local back-up. So instead of transferring files I can just rely on my system sync to set up my IMAP accounts on the new machine
3. Set up security features
I recommend that one of the first things you take care of, especially with all your data now on the machine, is security. Head into the Security pane under System Preferences and turn off automatic log-in, and require a password to wake from sleep or a screen saver. I find that since most Macs aren’t turned off very frequently, it’s almost pointless to turn off automatic log-in without also requiring a password to wake from sleep.
You may want to turn on FileVault to encrypt everything in your home directory, but you better make sure you remember the passwords you use or you won’t be getting your data back anytime soon!
Under the Sharing preference pane, turn on your firewall and set it up to suit the way you work. If you’re paranoid like me you’ll want to also head into Safari’s preferences and turn off the Open “safe” files after downloading. This may never be a security problem but as I said, I’m paranoid and I like to be the one opening files; it’s one less thing the computer can do without asking me (and without going ridiculously overboard with the questions like Vista).
4. Install your applications
You’re now ready to go through the long and tedious task of installing all of your applications. This might seem fairly straightforward, but I’ve noticed that many people try to rush through this step. It’s important to take your time and go one by one if you want a machine that’s configured perfectly for your needs.
If you’re not a Safari fan, the first thing you’d want to grab is your browser of choice - Firefox and Flock for me, but I started with Firefox this time. I suggest this because much of the software you’ll be installing is probably not on CDs, but on the Internet, and you’ll need something you’re comfortable using to suck it all down the pipes.
But once you’ve downloaded Firefox, don’t head straight for the downloads. Follow the same process with each one. Download (or insert the disc, or open the disk image) and install each app. Try not to let them install anywhere but the Applications folder (some of the older installers insist on using the root of your hard drive).
Now, stop! Don’t move on to the next app straight away. Open the one you just installed and configure it. Go into the preferences and set everything up the way you like it, and make any interface changes you prefer.
The temptation is to configure applications as you go. But if you take your time to configure everything from the start, you’ll enjoy your system much more in the long run and you’ll actually save time, essentially thanks to the principles of batch processing.
5. Inspect each System Preferences pane thoroughly
We’ve used some of the System Preferences panes throughout this process so far, but there are many more that we haven’t. Just as with your applications, the temptation to set things up as you go is strong but you should just do it. One of the first things I do with any new Mac is set up screen corners (under Dashboard & Expose).
Make sure you’ve inspected each and every one of the System Preferences panes because there will be settings you’ll want to change in the majority of them. Getting all done in one session is usually the only way some of those settings will end up getting configured!
6. Use your new computer!
At this point, your new computer should be set up and ready to use - enjoy it! Over time you’ll likely make little tweaks and improve your system, but you’ve done everything you need to do to hit the ground running.
Offering a unique perspective and insight on productivity based on his experience as a writer, musician, family man and manager, Joel Falconer has been published online and off, and brings to Lifehack's readers practical advice you can use to be more efficient and effective.
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August 12, 2008
23:20
Whammo! You didn’t see that coming, did you?
Why is it that, despite all our planning, we sometimes get caught by surprise, totally unprepared, with our pants down as it were? I mean, we’re smart folks, right? How come sometimes we just don’t see stuff coming?
The answer is, much of the time, that we don’t see everything clearly because we don’t see a lot of things at all. We process the raw stuff of experience through a variety of filters – and we act on the “processed” information, not the world as it is.
Those filters are engrained in us, often from birth, and most of the time they help us to effectively function in our social and physical environments. For example, one very simple filter we have is how to isolate something interesting or important from a cluttered background – think finding your keys among the mess at the bottom of your purse. Or identifying something good to eat – a ripe fruit, perhaps – among the unripe fruits, leaves, and branches of a tree.
That’s a pretty basic filtering ability (though the physiological mechanisms involved are quite complex) that humans everywhere rely on every day to survive, so it’s a good thing. But there are many much more complex filters that we pick up as part of our thinking repertoire, and as helpful as they might sometimes be, they can also get us into a lot of trouble.
Here are some examples:
Language
Language is a powerful force in shaping our behavior. Just ask a sanitation engineer! Employers have long recognized the way that job titles can affect employee performance – which is why there are so few clerks and so many associates at your local retail mega-outlet.
But language can lead us astray, as well. Consider this example drawn from the annals of linguistics: a tanning factory discharges wastes, mostly animal matter, into a pond. The decomposing waste creates flammable gasses. A “pond”, though, is not flammable, right? I mean, right?! A man is working near the pond. Not taking any special precautions – why would you, next to a “pond”? – he ignites a blow-torch. A sheet of flame engulfs the pond and spreads to the nearby factory, destroying it.
The language we use to describe people can strongly influence our behavior towards them. Feminists recognized this when they started insisting on terms like “police officer” rather than “policeman”. Or consider this: numerous studies have shown that people with “ethnic-sounding” names are less likely to get job interviews as similarly-qualified people with “white-sounding” names.
Gender
Gender is a powerful filter in every culture – although the behaviors it shapes can be very different from culture to culture. What is considered men’s work in one society – carrying heavy loads of bricks, for example – might be considered women’s work in another.
Gender leads us astray when it leads us to look at a person’s gender as an index of their abilities. For instance, in the US, it is common to hear people say things like “men are stronger than women”. This is not true. Some men are stronger than most women, a handful of men are stronger than all women, and most men are stronger than some women. But knowing someone’s gender does not tell you anything about how strong they are!
Assumptions about gender extend far beyond physical attributes. With few exceptions, women still are not promoted to top-level corporate positions, despite the number of qualified women in the business world. Men are assumed to have “leadership qualities” that women lack – and women’s leadership qualities tend to be dismissed as signs of “manliness” or “bitchiness”.
Race and Ethnicity
What is true of gender is also true of race and ethnicity. Knowing someone’s race or ethnicity tells us little about that particular person – yet we act as if it told us a lot. Here’s an example: a black student of mine was accused of plagiarism in another class when she handed in an excellent essay. This is a student that added immensely to every classroom discussion she took part in, and who wrote insightfully in every assignment she gave me (including “personal reflection” papers that cannot be plagiarized). The other professor did not have any examples of work that the student had allegedly copied from; it was simply “too good”. Race may not have been the only factor, but it was clearly a factor; I’ve never had a white student of similar quality face a similar accusation.
Here’s another example: Black and other minority athletes, performers, even military leaders and politicians are often described as “articulate”, an adjective rarely applied to their white counterparts. People do not expect articulate speech from non-white persons, and are surprised when they hear intelligent dialogue from black speakers.
Personal Experience
An old joke claims, “All Indians walk single file. At least, the one I saw did.”
Personal experience is a powerful learning tool, but it can lead us astray when we make false assumptions based on generalizations from limited experience. Childhood experience can make for especially powerful filters, as they tend to be imbued with strong emotional resonance, but any experience can lead us to wrong conclusions.
Examining Your Filters
What is insidious about all of these factors is that most of the time they function without us even noticing them. We don’t promote Chad over Wilma because Chad’s a man, but because he seems more “leaderly”, because he has that “certain something”. And maybe he does – or maybe our invisible assumptions about gender make weak signs of “certain somethingness” seem strong, while Wilma’s powerful “certain somethingness” is filtered out.
It’s unlikely that you will catch your filters at work in your day-to-day life, but you can reflect on the way you have interacted with other people and how you’ve handled various situations (perhaps in a weekly review?). You may well be surprised to find that, in many cases, you can’t seem to put your finger on exactly why you acted the way you did – a sure sign of a filter at work. Paying attention to those moments will bring you a long way towards replacing the stock of experience and received wisdom with filters that allow you to more accurately and effectively act.
I’ve listed only a handful of obvious filters here. What are your filters? How could you deal with them?
Dustin M. Wax is a contributing editor and project manager at lifehack.org. He is also the creator of The Writer's Technology Companion, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he's not writing, he teaches anthropology and women's studies in Las Vegas, NV. His personal site can be found at dwax.org.