Schedule meetings in a flash with Doodle
meetings | web 2.0 | time savers
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Need to schedule a lunch meeting? How about a winter-camping weekend with your buddies? Doodle promises to tackle these and other scheduling challenges by creating simple polls: Everyone “votes” on…
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It’s simple. It works. It’s a neat use of technology. I like it.
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Posted by reinkefj
WIth the popularization of RSS, it has become apparent to me that the amount of content generated by the internet wildly exceeds one’s ability to keep up.
(Hey, I’m a quick learner. It only took a year of trying to keep up to grok that fact. It was slammed home when I missed reading my RSS feeds when “stuff” got crazy. it’s overwhelming.)
SO, it’s time to “adjust” the strategy:
(1) Ruthlessly prune what one attempts to keep up with.
(2) Look for sources of “distilled” DIKW.
(3) Compartmentalize. (For example, my alumni feeds have been moved to Google reader tied off the alumni Google throw away id.)
(4) Seek “editorial” blogs that have high value content (i.e., Opton’s Six Figure Learnings http://execunet.blogspot.com)
(5) Develop ruthless methodology to prune feeds with in a category. Like creating a category of feeds called “Productivity” with subcategories of Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Lead. Add Platinum at the top if you want five. Periodically promote or demote feeds.
(6) Focus on the meme discovery sites or the peer-voting sites.
Start asap. The tide is rising.
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Posted by reinkefj
FROM THE MYLINKEDINPOWERFORUM
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Re: Some Options Which Make It Easier To Read MLPF Messages
Posted by: “Bill Vick”
Thu Oct 5, 2006 11:06 am (PST)
Vincent – I’m a big fan of David Allen’s ‘Getting Things Done or
GTD’ and a tool that can help you using in Gmail is the free Firefox
plug-in GTD for Gmail. Very, very slick way to tag and control
tasks, priorities and such and keep on top of things.
You can find it at http://www.gtdgmail.com/.
Bill
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An interesting tool that I’m trying.
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Posted by reinkefj
I picked up a good productivity tip from the “younguns” at Free Talk Live. (The term “youngsters” seemed to torque their shorts a little when they read my email on their show.) In my daily commute, I listen to their FREE podcast. And, every so often, I mine a nugget. Here’s one.
Mark described his technique for deciding what to do do NEXT.
(That’s a problem I have with lots of urgent, important, trivial, nagging, projects, and processes that all compete for my time and attention. And, I have a job too.)
He described it as WIN – – – “What’s Important Now?”
Seems like a good approach to me. So now on each task switch, interrupt, or time out, I ask myself what is it?
Help’s me focus.
Capturing good stuff is important all the time. Hence this log entry. ;-) Excuse me, time to WIN!
1 Comment | Productivity | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
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Ferdinand Reinke thinks that you would like iPrioritize and wants to invite you to sign up for a free account at http://www.iprioritize.com. iPrioritize provides online to-do lists to help you organize your work, chores, shopping lists, or just about anything else that you make a list for. So sign up today, and be sure to thank Ferdinand for making your life a little more organized.
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Who writes this hokey stuff? Why would anyone look to me as the exemplar or organization? Wanna see my home office? Live wires and papers all about. I’m trying this tool to see if I can be more motivated if I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Choo choo!
1 Comment | Productivity | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
http://up-file.com/download/95eded165190/
paradoxofourtimes-pps-1.pps.html
It’s an interesting thought provoking piece.
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Posted by reinkefj
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006430117,00.html
Car found after seven months
By JOHN TROUP
September 16, 2006
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MOTORIST Eric King has been reunited with his car — seven months after FORGETTING where he parked it.
Absent-minded Eric, 57, left his black X-reg Ford Focus in a space in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, last February so he could walk into the town centre.
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When I go strange places and park my car, I always write down where. A friend of mine did this in college, (I know prestigious amounts of beer were consumed), and forgot where he parked in NYC. All he knew was that he got a free space. (Scary part was that his date — now wife — who doesn’t drink — didn’t remember either!) Luckily this was in the days before the aggressive tow away program. (Just as well he didn’t find it. Something bad could have happened — dui, accident, fatality) So, later the next day, when he was sober, he got his brother to cruise in a search pattern until he found it. (Hmm, maybe there is an invention here; a “car call home” feature like an errant teenager!). Any way since that incident, which was hysterical, I always write down where I park my car. I don’t want to have to eat crow since I berated him badly at the time, laughed at repeatedly over the years, and remind him of it often.
This fellow tops my griend and apparently no dringking involved. At least my freind, who will remain nameless, but you know who you are, had an excuse.
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Posted by reinkefj
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Posted by reinkefj
http://www.mises.org/story/2289
The Economics of Groundhog Day
By DW MacKenzie
Posted on 8/30/2006
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In Groundhog Day Bill Murray plays Phil Connors, a man who relives a particular day — Groundhog Day — many times. In the first instance Phil Connors lives through this day quite imperfectly.
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The lessons we learn each day are at best only partially valid for the next day. Consequently we can at best hope for only a gradual improvement in our lives as we keep pace with but never overtake changes in our surroundings. Our reality is to live our lives as Phil Connors did the first time he lived through Groundhog Day, not the last time. We are all speculators and our every action is innovative.
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This fellow helped me understand why I like this dumb movie so much. It works in so many dimensions.
(1) We don’t get to do life over. First time thru is our only time thru.
(2) How many times do we get to know what someone really thinks is important? In one the iterations, he discovers what the girl likes to drink. Next integration, he passes that hurdle only to fail on French Literature. It reminds me of the JoHari window. A ton of information is in the two quadrants we can’t see.
(3) Perfect information is NEVER available. So, now we have to recognize that not only are there no silver bullets (i.e., easy solutions), but we probably can’t even see the targets, nor recognize the bullets.
(4) We can deduce a good method from the film. The power of iteration gets you where you want to go. If we can “run the hand twice”, like the poker pros do on tv, then we can get a Phil Colling “do over” . It certainly makes objective setting, followed by small rapid iterations of quick improvements to approach our goal in measurable steps. It ignores the “Hail Mary” pass of breakthrough discoveries method.
(5) It certain argues persuasively that we need to focus on values and process which maximize our ability to make good decisions.
And, it made me laugh.
1 Comment | Productivity | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj
It should be easy to put email handling rules in place. Outlook, or as I love to call it, LOOKOUT doesn’t make this easy. I guess it all comes down to what you want out of email. For certain people, represented by one or more email addresses, I want to collect their mail in one foolder and get alerted. You have to do this one by one by one. Arghhh!
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Posted by reinkefj
August 14, 2006
PowerPoint printouts used for communicating battle plans?
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Ricks quotes an Army Lt. General who was frustrated over getting vague PowerPoint slides sent to him instead of clear orders or plans. Said Ricks:
“That reliance on slides rather than formal written orders seemed to some military professionals to capture the essence of Rumsfeld’s amateurish approach to war planning.” — Thomas Ricks, author of Fiasco
Reliance on slides rather than formal written documents — sound familiar? It should. Remember the findings of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board in 2003?
“The Board views the endemic use of PowerPoint briefing slides instead of technical papers as an illustration of the problematic technical communication at NASA.” — Columbia Accident Investigation Board
Déjà vu.
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Powerpoint is a tool. It allows the speaker givign a presentation to hit the highpoints. There’s nothing deadlier that to be “read” a presentation. Powerpoint is the index card of the presenter. To ensure that major points are not missed.
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Posted by reinkefj
Ahh, in life understanding comes late.
When I record dates in my paper notebook I write 03AUG06. When I poke that keyboard I tap out 2006-08-03. For a while, I was doing yymmmdd. Then I tried two letter months. JY for July and JN for June. But that didn’t sort or set well.
Then I was doing 2006-7JY-04.
That sorted well. Survived the international test. (You do recognize that 2006-07-04 CAN be misinterpreted by a Brit. I used to work for one! I became a beleiver in GMT for everybody but that’s another story.) Bottom line I think the dashes are a waste of keystrokes.
So maybe the answer is just 20068AU03. Sorts well, looks ugly, and is olny 9 characters aot the 11 I first thought of using.
Sigh, darn those calendar makers. Maybe I should just use 2006.215?
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Posted by reinkefj
http://www.impactlab.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8076
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So why can't people just buckle down and get the job done?
1.) False beliefs
2.) Fear of failure
3.) Perfectionism
4.) Self-control
5.) Punitive parenting
6.) Thrill-seeking
7.) Task-related anxieties
8.) Unclear expectations
9.) Depression
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Hmmm.
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Posted by reinkefj
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FJohn Reinke
Consultant at Technology Legacies LLC
Advisor, Computer Governance Committee at Manhattan College
Editor / Publisher at Jasper Jottings
Greater New York City Area
JJ Positraction JJ Endnotes Downsize DC
Philosophy of Liberty
I have NOT received any gagged governmental information requests
Reinke Faces Life 