7 Secrets of the Super Organized A few years ago, my life was a mess. So was my house, my desk, my mind. Then I learned, one by one, a few habits that got me completely organized. Am I perfect? So what’s the secret? Are these obvious principles? If your life is a mess, like mine was, I don’t recommend trying to get organized all in one shot. So here are the 7 habits: Reduce before organizing. If you take your closet full of 100 things and throw out all but the 10 things you love and use, now you don’t need a fancy closet organizer. How to reduce: take everything out of a closet or drawer or other container (including your schedule), clean it out, and only put back those items you truly love and really use on a regular basis. Write it down now, always.
How to use the caret (^) to manage file versions @Darcy: I agree that it is the "neat" way of doing it, but it is too much of a hindrance when you are just updating some documentation, and not doing actual file management: you have to leave your application, go to the appropriate folder, perform your Subversion or CVS command, then go back to your app, instead of a quick n'dirty "save as". This would be even slower if you have to revert something (you can't Diff a *.doc file on the fly). Now if there was a way to include SVN/CVS in a common Save dialog box, as an option (where save = commit file immediately), that would really be a killer feature. Not sure it can be done though... By the way, the caret thing is just one of many "valid" symbols in a file name. ireallyshouldbeworkingnow,1.txt ireallyshouldbeworkingnow,2.txt Or better yet: ireallyshouldbeworkingnow,0707161729.txt ireallyshouldbeworkingnow,0707161730.txt ireallyshouldbeworkingnow,0707161731.txt And so on...
Handbook for Life: 52 Tips for Happiness and Productivity | zen habits By Leo Babauta This is something I’ve been wanting to write for some time — a Handbook for Life. Now, is there any handbook that can be a guide to every single person? Of course not. It’ll also become apparent from the links in this handbook that I’ve written about this stuff before. How to use this handbook This handbook is not meant to be a step-by-step guide, nor should you adopt all the tips below. Pick and choose the tips that will be most useful to you. 52 Tips for Happiness and Productivity Try rising early. How to maintain a consistent workspace across multiple computers My flash-drive setup is a little different from most, I think. True, I use the USB drive to shuttle documents and applications between my laptop and desktop. However, I never actually work with the files on the USB. I have "PortableDocs" and "PortableApps" folders in the "My Documents" folder on each machine. These are mapped using subst to drive letters Q: and R:, respectively, on each machine. I also have an AutoHotKey script running on each machine (in the PortableApps folder, by the way), that checks for "PortaTodo" (the label of the USB drive) to be connected, and runs the SyncBack profile to synchronize the USB docs and apps folders with the local docs and apps folders. The advantages are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Number 6 is even less of an issue than you might think, since I also have FolderShare syncing the "PortableDocs" folders on each machine. The biggest disadvantage is that it can get damned confusing if you forget to sync once.
29 Semi-Productive Things I Do Online When I’m Trying to Avoid R You don’t always have to work hard to be productive. Productivity can simply be the side effect of doing the right things. So here’s a list of 29 semi-productive things I do online when my mind is set on avoiding ‘real work.’ Check delicious popular tags like ‘useful,’ ‘tutorials,’ ‘tips,’ ‘howto,’ ‘advice,’ ‘entrepreneurship,’ etc. for interesting, educational articles to read.Watch one of the thousands of educational videos streaming at TED.com, Academic Earth and Teacher Tube.Read an online book list and find a new book to grab next time I’m at the library. Oh, and ever since I bought my new (super sexy) Apple iPad , I’ve been enjoying all of these sites on the go and catching looks from almost everyone who passes me while I browse. So what kind of semi-productive things do you do online in your off-time? Photo by: Colorblind Picaso Party Casino Related 30 Life-Enhancing Things You Can Do in 30 Minutes or Less April 19, 2012 In "Happiness" 30 Ways to Save 30 Minutes a Day October 4, 2010
Do you have a good job? Take the test Today’s job market favors employees. The attitude of most workers is that they should have a job that makes them happy. So it’s no surprise that at any given time 70 percent of the workforce is job hunting, according to the Wall St. Journal. Everyone is looking for the right position. Here is something it’s probably not: Prestigious. You might think you’re different – that you have a legitimate shot at fame. A good rule of thumb when choosing a job to make you happy is to pick one that is based on the following list of attributes. To test a job to see if it’s good, give the job points for each attribute it has: 1. 2. 3. It is worth noting that the primary cause of workplace burnout is not the amount of time spent working, but whether the work you did can make a difference. 4. So finding a job you like or turning a bad job in to a good job might actually be totally under your control; you can decide you are going to be likable and make friends, or not. Test results:
Reusing Household Items 1. Old Buttons Repurpose spare buttons by using them to keep pairs of earrings together: Most buttons have at least two holes in them, so simply place an earring in each opening to neatly store when not wearing. Photo: Jupiter Images 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. How to take notes that work Note-taking is one of those skills that rarely gets taught. Teachers and professors assume either that taking good notes comes naturally or that someone else must have already taught students how to take notes. Then we sit around and complain that our students don’t know how to take notes. I figure it’s about time to do something about that. What Do Notes Do? One of the reasons people have trouble taking effective notes is that they’re not really sure what notes are for. The purpose of note-taking is simple: to help you study better and more quickly. What to Write Down Your focus while taking notes should be two-fold. Second, what’s relevant? Dates of events: Dates allow you to a) create a chronology, putting things in order according to when they happened, and b) understand the context of an event. Note-Taking Techniques You don’t have to be super-fancy in your note-taking to be effective, but there are a few techniques that seem to work best for most people.
Most Influential Bloggers It’s no secret that here at Most Wanted we’re big fans of fashion blogs. They come in all shapes and sizes, formats and styles, but all of them are bursting with inspiration! As the humble fashion blog becomes bigger in influence and reach we were inspired to create a list that identifies and collates the cream of the crop. The Definitive List Our goal was simple, to cut through the hype and hubris to prepare a comprehensive survey of the essential Fashion blogs publishing today.Over last few months, our editors have painstakingly scoured the Internet to find leaders in each category, with a view to identifying those bloggers defining the future of fashion publishing online within their respective category: The 10 Categories The VoucherCodes.co.uk Fashion 100 2010/11 is different to other fashion blog lists out there as we've put out own unique spin on things. The Influencer Score charts the reach of each blog, mapping a series of key factors to define their influence online. The Results
How to find your information oasis The Internet Age allows you to get whatever information you want, as much as you want it. This, however, may do you more harm than good. The reason is simple: there is usually far too much noise in the information we consume. It becomes increasingly difficult to get the gems out of it, and it takes a lot of time and energy to deal with. Besides, increasing noise means decreasing clarity, and that means decreasing effectiveness. An information oasis – where you can get only the gems of the information without the noise – is the dream land of Information Age. But how do you get there? News is probably the most noisy kind of information you could get. 2. Rather than reading news, I believe it’s a good idea to read another kind of information which has much less noise: history. Why is it important? 3. To find your information oasis, it’s important to reduce your information intake. 4. I love quotes because they are the kind of information that has the highest density of wisdom. 5. 6. 7. 8.
I Still Love you Instant Boss Instant Boss will time your work/break cycles, reminding you when to work and when to take a break. The defaults are 10 minutes of work, 2 minutes of break, and this is repeated 5 times for a total of 1 hour. These values can be changed to suit your needs. Instant Boss will remember the values you used during your last session. Start by entering in the values you desire: The first box is for how long you want to work.The second box is for how long you want your breaks.The third box is for how many times you want to repeat this cycle. In the statusbar you can see where in your work cycle you are, followed by how long you have worked this session, followed by how long you have worked since you started using Instant Boss. Instant Boss will tell you when it is time to take a break. If you decide to take a break now, it will begin your break period.If you decide to work a little longer, it will count up and add this to your total work time.