Accidents happen. The accidental things in life are sometimes the moments you should be paying the most attention to.

I can tell you without hesitation that I am a night person. I love the late-night clickity clack on the keyboard as my mind races towards the next project. I love sleeping in until 8 or 9 before heading into the office. I also love how the Universe kindly puts me in my place whenever it doesn’t agree with what I love.

This late-sleeper and my wife got a puppy four weeks ago. This puppy, for the first week at least, had no concept of time. Day, night – it made no difference to her. It whined to go outside every hour or two – all day and all night. I’m not going to pretend like this was worse than people who have babies. I’m sure it’s nothing in comparison - but this was a BIG deal to me. My schedule was completely thrown off, I was tired every minute of every day, and I hadn’t accomplished anything really worthwhile since she arrived.

By the way, the puppy is a female Shih Tzu and Terrier mix. Her name is Beta, she’s 15 weeks old, and weighs about 6 or 7 pounds. She probably won’t get over 12 pounds full-grown. She absolutely loves people and chasing anything that moves – even wind.

Four weeks without a full blog post or completing a project is like an eternity for me. I had to figure out a way to “fix” this.

Beta is at the point now where she can sleep at night for about 5 or 6 hours without having to go out. She’s so tiny that I don’t think this will ever get to be much longer – at lease by much. So, at least for now, I decided to analyze my current out-of-flux life:

I’m still up late, because that’s what I’m used to. However, after about 8pm, I’m completely worthless I’m so tired. I essentially spend the next 5-6 hours letting the dog out and wishing I was in bed. Many times, my wife gets up with the dog to let her out in the morning. However, I end up waking up, going back to sleep, waking back up for the next 3-4 hours until I would “normally” get up.

I’ve noticed, though, that when I get up to let the dog out in the morning at 4 or 5am, I have a hard time going back to sleep right away — once I’m up, I’m up.

I decided to use my body’s new schedule to change the way I do things.

I was up at 4am this morning to let the dog out. I put her back to sleep for a little while while I got ready. Took her back out at 5am and played with her a little bit, got her some food, put her back to bed and left for the office.

After a Starbucks stop, I was here by 6am with a much clearer mind than I thought I would have. After mail-check and news updates, I was writing by 6:30. I’m not sure yet how I’ll feel the rest of the day, but I know that it can’t be much worse than what’s been happening the last several weeks. I’ll at least have a few more hours of productivity than I normally would.

Should You Change Your Schedule?

Without being forced into this by some external source (ie, a dog or baby), I’m not sure how easy this would be to do – especially if you’re the type of person who loves to be up late or up early and have always been like that.

I would challenge you to look at your schedule for a day. When are you the most productive? When are you the least productive? Is there a certain time of the day you typically spend doing nothing except sitting around, watching TV? If you have goals that you want to reach in life, those goals and dreams should be enough to get you to at least evaluate your current schedule.

If it’s not working, change it. If I can get 4 extra hours per day just by waking up early and not continually going back to sleep, then that’s what I need to do. If you’re spending the late evening hours forcing your eyelids open to watch some primetime summer series or, heaven forbid, Daisy of Love – maybe it’s time you ask yourself what’s more important?

Maybe you’re one who gets up early, but doesn’t accomplish anything. Have you thought that maybe your body just wants to be productive at night? I’d say it’s worth trying. Forget the “early bird gets the worm” stuff, this is about your unique body and energy. Who knows, maybe you need the moonlight to feed your creativity. Creepy ;)

The bottom line here is that we need to stay aware of our productivity cycles. If we aren’t as productive as we’d like to be – there are likely times of the day that we COULD be productive, but are just doing other things at those times. Adjust accordingly and let’s watch our productivity sore!

Most of us spend too much unproductive time in front of social media during the day. Like Alec Baldwin’s alien character in the recent Hulu Super Bowl commercial says, “What are you going to do, turn off your TV and your computer? Ha!”

It’s sadly true. Television is one of the most unproductive habits you can engage yourself in. Though some people advocate getting rid of your TV altogether, I think I’d rather be slightly unproductive than miss Lost.  The internet and social media have together created another hole for us to get trapped in.  But, we have a choice: keep digging, or stay out.

I love Facebook.  It allows me (much more-so than MySpace did) to keep in touch with current friends, family, and even friends I haven’t seen face-to-face for 10+ years.  However, if you let yourself get overwhelmed with invitations, wall-posts, and applications – it’s easy for just this one site alone to consume you.  Here’s a few tips to make your Facebook time less interfering and more productive.

- Write down what you want your Facebook experience to be.  For me, it’s simply to stay in touch with people.
- Turn off email alerts.  This will prevent you from clicking through every time someone adds you to something and distracting you from what you were focused on.
- Block invitations from people or applications.  I appreciate you want to give me a bumper sticker, but it doesn’t do anything for my life (or yours).
- Set aside time for Facebook.  If you know you’ll only spend 15 minutes each day checking friends, leaving messages, etc – you’ll now have the rest of the day freed up to build your empire.

These tips can be translated to almost any site that is sucking your productivity away.  I’ll put together a Twitter post another time, but for now – do whatever it takes to make your online life less of a distraction.

How do you prevent social sites from eating up your productivity?

I love paper.  There’s something about the silky-smooth pages of a Moleskine notebook and a high-quality pen that give me a warm and fuzzy feeling.  The Moleskine Volant mini is a relatively new (re)addition to the popular family of notebooks, and well-worth a look.

If you find yourself out and about and needing to make a quick note – maybe you should try turning the pages of a notebook instead of typing something into your phone.  The Moleskine Volant mini is 2.5″ by 4″ and has 56 pages – the last 16 which are perforatted for easy removal.  It’s a perfect pocket-companion for any of the Fisher bullet space pens.

Personally, there are many advantages to having paper available at a moment’s notice.  Whether it’s jotting a quick note-to-self, leaving a note to someone, or making an impromtu list — paper just works however you need it to.  With so many digital companions available (I use my iPhone for almost everything mobile), using paper regularly is a much needed break from the out-of-touch internet world.

Yes, it’s nice to use Evernote to keep all my notes in one location.  Yes, it’s great I can access my Toodledo lists from anywhere.  However, it’s a small notebook and pocket-pen that are the quickest to get an idea out of my head.  It’s a hand-written note to someone that they might remember you by.

I typically export all of my handwritten items to their correct digital place each day.  If I was digital-only, I would pass-up on writing down a lot of list items and ideas – I never have that problem with paper.

I think there’s a place for a physical notebook in everyone’s workflow, and with the Moleskine Volant mini – you really don’t have an excuse!

Do you use paper in your life?  Let me know how you manage it in the comments!

Are you following me on Twitter?

You might ask yourself how a guy who eats and sleeps everything web-related could say “stop reading Mashable” in the title of an article.  Mashable is actually one of my favorite sites and I think after you’re done with this post, you’ll simply read Mashable differently – not stop altogether.

I must have been one of the first readers of Mashable (at least I like to think so).  I remember commenting on an early post, when Pete was still writing everything on the site himself.  I got an email back from him personally thanking me and asking if I wanted him to review my (early-stage then never-launched) start-up, to just let him know.

It was engaging – and I attribute much of Mashable’s success to Pete’s early commitment to his readers.  Mashable immediately became a daily read for me.  A constant stream of start-ups being reviewed: tools, mash-ups, social networks – it would’ve been fine if I would’ve just read the articles and had drawn knowledge and lessons out of each story – but instead, I had become a “beta addict.”

Almost every web app that came along which got mentioned on Mashable, I was one of the first to register for.  Keeping track of account names and passwords was obviously difficult – but it even got to the point where I was getting dozens of emails from sites that I had forgotten what their purpose was.

So began the circle of beta sign-ups, confirmation clicks, account registrations, friend-finding, app-learning, and finally… app-quitting.

Know What You Need to Be Productive

I get upset at my mother when she constantly finds stuff at discount stores and swap meets that she “needs.”  Her house is full of things that she couldn’t pass up because of the price – even though she’ll never use it and it’ll just add to the clutter.

In the web-world, the price is our time and our mind is our house – but the definition of our needs is still very important.  Because I never had a definite outline of HOW I wanted to be productive, I had no idea what I NEEDED to be productive.  The effect of this is that I signed up to use everything that came my way.

1.) Write down exactly how you want your work flow to happen.  This will change depending on who you are and what you do.  The key here is to be exact – know how and when thoughts enter your head, what the easiest way to record that thought would be, do you need a main system of recording and tracking information, etc.

When will you review all these bits of information? How often? Maybe you’ll need project management software and maybe you’ll find you can do everything you need by using Google Calendar.  Either way, breaking down exactly what you need will help you determine what  you need to fulfill your productivity.

2.) Sign up for only what you’re missing.  Let’s say you’ve broken down your information process and you’ve determined that you’re going to immediately input any thought or action into a pocket Moleskine.  At a later time each day, you’re going to enter the day’s notes into a web notebook, like Evernote, so you have access to it anywhere.  You’ll add dates and reminders to Google Calendar, and to-dos to…. oops, you don’t have anywhere to put to-dos.

You can make due for now, but now you know that all you need to make your process complete is an online to-do manager.  You can limit yourself from signing up with just any service to try it out – and focus only on testing new to-do apps. (I’ve chosen Remember the Milk.)

Wash and Repeat

No matter what process you’re overloading yourself with – whether it’s social networking, blogging, finance or design – you can become more productive by repeating this process again and again.

I. Write down the exact needs for your process.

II. List what you currently use that you love and can be used in that process.

III. Define what needs you have left to fill and only try new applications that fill that need.

The web is allowing us to be more productive than ever, but the flood of new applications on a daily basis can actually destroy our productivity instead of making it more sound.

Start today!  If you can define your process and the tools you need, the next article on Mashable about a social network for your cat can simply be entertaining instead of distracting you from what’s important!

I tend to keep lists in my head – I have to force myself to get them on paper, which is why I’ve fallen in love with all things Moleskine. When these lists start to build up, they cause a cloud in my head that not only is unproductive, but kills all hope of the good things and ideas on the list of ever being realized.

Quite a while ago I found a few things that can affect you so much, but are so basic, you may be missing them without even knowing it. I’ll mention a few here and will expand on them in later posts.

1.) HYDRATION

This might seem ridiculous, but did you know that 75% of the population is severely dehydrated at any given time? Chances are, this includes you. I know for a fact that it included me everyday – and still does include me sometimes.

First lets address why this is important. L. Lee Coyne, Ph.D., a well known nutritional consultant said, “nearly all the bio-chemical reactions that occur in body cells depend on water…[water is] vital to maintaining life but also affects physical and mental performance.” So, we can safely say that how your brain would process information could be affected by dehydration.

Have you ever been really hydrated? If you have, you’ve probably experienced the odd sensation of every thought being extremely clear and deliberate. Oddly enough, not many people experience this even though it’s the way we’re supposed to be!

There is a wide range of suggestions out there about how much water you should drink, and what types of drinks count towards hydrating your body. I’m going to give you what works for me and you can adjust as needed.

First of all – I’m not going to tell you to stop drinking coffee. Coffee powers my mornings, it tastes good, it makes me comfortable, etc. Sure, caffeine could be better for you, but I’d be more concerned if it was the only chemical entering my body on a daily basis.

Ok, back to my drinking habits. Based on information I received many years ago from a very successful entrepreneur, as soon as I can after waking up, I suck down 8 ounces of water. I tend to start the day after that with a large coffee – this definitely does not count towards hydration. I keep a 32 ounce cup at my desk that I fill once before lunch, and once after. My goal is 2 glasses (64oz) before dinner, then another 16 ounces at night. This brings my daily water goal to 88 ounces per day.

I’m a 6′, 180lb guy – average build, 30 years old (next week). If anyone wants to bicker about how much I should actually be drinking, go ahead. Of course, I tend to drink a little more on days I workout – more posts about my kettlebell in the future.

Alright, enough about water. It’s possibly the most important part of mental clarity and productivity that almost all of us are missing.

2.) SLEEP SCHEDULE

I’ll tell you right off the top – this is VERY hard for me. I tend to do my writing at odd hours – whenever something hits me. My day-job is flexible enough that I can go in anywhere between 8-10:30 and leave… pretty much whenever. This doesn’t reinforce a good atmosphere for a sleep schedule.

However… it’s something we should all strive for. So how do we do it? I’ve read dozens of suggestions and tried most of them, but the one that seemed to really work (until thrown off by a random event) is the following:

The goal is to pick a time to get up in the morning, every morning… yes, even the weekend. This time (to start with) should be reasonable based on what time you already get up. If you’re getting up at 10am every day, don’t try getting up at 6am on a regular basis – but I bet 9:30 would be doable for you.

Ok, so you’ve picked your time. Now, contrary to most peoples beliefs, the way to do this is NOT to also set a time for bed. The truth is, your body does not need the same amount of sleep every night. However, once it learns that it’s going to be getting up at 6:30 (or whatever) every day, you’ll find yourself getting tired at exactly the right time.

Now the key here is to listen to your body at night. This will take some practice, because most of us aren’t really used to going to bed when our bodies tell us to. But in order for this to work, you have to do it. After the first week or so, it gets must easier.
In my case, I set my wake time for 6:30 and I’m automatically tired around 10:30 every night. Sometimes as early as 9, and sometimes as late as 11 – but when I stick with this program – I have a hard time believing how good I feel.

3.) SOME TYPE OF WORK OUT

Alright, we all know we need to work out – but here’s the deal. I’m not talking about working out to stay in shape – for that you should check out a diet site – I’m talking about a work out to get your blood pumping, which wakes up your brain.

This is directly tied into #1 (hydration), but it’s a fact that if you can just get out for a brisk walk, you’re going to kick-in your mind and be much more productive throughout the day.

Weeks where I don’t workout, I can tell by journaling that I was MUCH less productive that week than I typically am on weeks where I’ve worked out.

So Hydration, a Sleep Schedule, and doing some type of Work Out are the 3 basic things I believe that we all need in order to even BEGIN to become productive in any meaningful way. If you think you’re reasonably productive now but are missing one of these 3 things, give yourself a kick in the butt and see what you might really be capable of!

Keep an eye out for later posts when I’ll expand on these topics and we’ll dive into how to become productive even further.

Retirement is something that most people look forward to. The chance to take a break, to have all the time for yourself, to enjoy life after many years of hard work is indeed a very inviting prospect. However, financial instability makes the future of retirement a little bleak.

The Bleak Reality of Retirement

For many retirees, having an investment and savings can make a big difference when retirement arrives. In fact, recent surveys show that retirees today are only counting on their personal savings for support. Although the government gives Social Security, not all companies or employers provide traditional pensions for their employees. According to the Boston College Center for Retirement Research, in 2003 there were only 19% of workers who have traditional pensions to support them. This percentage continues to decline as more and more employers cut back pension plans for their employees.

Faced with this reality, it is clearly important to make the necessary preparations early in life to have reliable personal savings in the future. Investing in insurance, dividend-paying stocks, government bonds, corporate bonds, real estate, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), immediate fixed annuities and retirement plans are great options on saving funds. This way, a retiree can have assurance that he will have the financial support he can rely on with or without a traditional pension.

Simple Living

Another thing that retirees need to carefully consider is the fact that they need to watch out their spending. Without a regular source of income and only their savings to support them, it would be very difficult if this support system will fall short. Thus, tempting as it may be to splurge or buy expensive things, this habit should be avoided. Simple living is the key. A retiree has to realize that having the necessities for daily living should be enough and there’s no need to live extravagantly even when he seems to have the resources.

Does this mean that retirees cannot earn a living anymore? Certainly not. Being an employee isn’t the only way to earn a living. There are other things that retirees can do, even in the comfort of their homes to give them additional budget. For example, freelance writing is a popular profession these days. With all their experiences in life, they can share so much through their writing and get paid at the same time. Other options can be vegetable gardening, making art works or crafts, or turning any hobby that they enjoy doing into a small business. Aside from getting extra income, doing activities that they enjoy can give them the sense of fulfillment and satisfaction.

Keeping A Positive Spirit

Financial matters are not the only important things in life. Of course, there’s nothing more important than our health and well-being. Retirees are prone to an inactive lifestyle and depression. That is why adequate exercise and a healthy diet are crucial. It is a proven fact that people who eat well and who have enough physical activity are more resistant against sickness and depression.

Keeping a positive spirit is also a tremendous help not only for the mind but for the body as well. Cultivate your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being will keep you happy as you enjoy the fruit of your labor on your retirement.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/motivational-articles/the-keys-to-a-happy-retirement-183907.html

About the Author:
Liz Roberts is a loan consultant with NewHorizon Finance and has been providing consumers and business owners with home loans financing since 1989. For years she has helped people with home loan problems especially pertaining to home mortgage loans and bad credit home loans.
Copyright 2007
http://www.loanhunt.com

We all procrastinate sometimes. The danger is letting it become a habit because all that stuff piles up and has to get done sometime. It causes stress and unmet deadlines. People will consider you to be unreliable and your achievements will be few. It doesn’t feel good to be stressed out and it certainly does not look impressive to slack on your obligations. Try these tips to avoid procrastination.

Understand why you procrastinate. Self doubt and fear are the biggest reasons. You worry the results might not be good enough or your work may be rejected. Big deal. You get even less points for incompletion. Fear of imperfection is not noble; it is a cop out, so just get to work!

Attitude plays a big role in how your approach a project. If you say you hate it or dread it, you are going to be stuck in that negative place where no ideas will come to you and you will continue to hate it and dread it. Attach something positive to the start of a tough project so that you will actually look forward to it rather than dreading it. Before you go to bed the night before, psych yourself up by thinking about the venti mocha cappuccino you are going to splurge on before work and enjoy while working on your project. Give yourself something to look forward to and offset the dread.

A good organized place to work is easy to come by and has a huge positive effect on your productivity and attitude. When you’re focused and feeling good it will be easier to attack those pesky tasks that you might otherwise set aside.

Don’t waste time. It is important to check email and research the internet for our projects, but those things can easily side track you and rob you of hours of work time before you know it. Schedule these tasks throughout the day and stick with the routine to ensure the maximum potential for your precious time.

Massive jobs can cause anxiety and procrastination. Smaller jobs are easy to get ahold of and finish quickly which leaves us with a feeling of accomplishment. So break those bigger jobs down into a smaller series that are more easily manageable and can keep you excited as they are completed.

Get a buddy. So often we are on our own on projects, whether it is cleaning out the pantry or meeting a deadline for work. Find someone with similar goals to encourage one another and even help out when you are stuck. It helps you from getting into a rut and keeps you excited to move forward.

Even if you follow these suggestions to the letter you will not overcome procrastination in one day. Do not be discouraged. It takes practice and determination but soon your habit will be to get straight to work when a task comes along. No longer will you waste time avoiding anything and whether you are at home or at work, you will see your productivity soar.

Being part of the world as we know it sometimes forces one into certain habits.  Our grandfathers would be ashamed, our great-grandfathers would wonder, “wtf is email?”  And yet, many of us – including myself – allow ourselves to be sucked into the trap of email UNproductivity.

I’d like to cover 5 methods I’m using successfully to stop wasting so much valuable time dealing with emails.  There’s bound to be at least one that will help you become more productive.

1.) Unsubscribing from Newsletters and Lists
This could be a topic all it’s own – on top of that, I could go off on a rant about how I seem to always get an email stating how I’ve successfully been unsubscribed, when I swear I just clicked a box saying stop sending me emails.  Ugh.

Most of us who are interested in a wide variety of topics across the web typically end up on dozens of email lists at some point.  Some of these are from newsletters we initially wanted information from, some of them are from purchases we’ve made, or social networking sites we joined — but in my case, almost 90% of what comes in from these email lists is total junk to me.

My tip:  Take a week or two to simply open up all these emails as soon as you see them, click unsubscribe, and be done with it.  Most emails are simple to unsubscribe from, and if they’re not, they’re probably illegal emails.  I think you’ll be surprised at how much your inbox clears up from just this one step.

2.) Using Filters and Folders
I’m a hardcore GMail user, and have dozens of filters setup to make things easy and organized.  Sure, it takes a few minutes to set one up – but the long-term time saving from doing this can be priceless.  Filters and labels in GMail is similar to setting up folders and rules in programs like Outlook – I have filters setup for receipts (from sites with certain subject lines I buy from frequently, like Amazon) – so I never have to sort these emails when they come in.  If I ever want to review them, I just click on that label.

Another powerful way to use filters is to use auto-replies.  GMail, for instance, has a “Canned Response” feature (make sure it’s enabled under Settings->Labs) where you can compose emails to automatically send to people based on certain criteria.  This would be helpful if you’re responding to the same types of emails all day long.  You could create canned responses based on keywords that would appear in the emails, and let the users know if this didn’t answer their question, that you’ll get back to them soon.  You still need to go through these emails, but you’ll know if they’ve been responded to – and if the response should’ve satisfied the person, then you can simply archive it instead of having to respond.

3.) Scheduled Email Checks
This one has always sounded easier than it’s been in practice.  I’d love to have 30 minutes a day I just do email and be done with it, but there are many people, including myself, who simply can’t get by with not checking email on a regular basis.

I’ve come to realize that my best case scenario is spending about 5 minutes per hour or so.  Setting this up can be difficult for someone who lives in their inbox, but by using some of the other methods in this article, you should be able to get to the point where it’s comfortable.  Of course, you could always setup a rule or filter to notify you of important emails.  I do this by setting up a filter based on several criteria that forwards email directly to my cell phone.

If you can pull off checking email only once per day – by all means, do it!

4.) Use Only One Email System
Again, for some people this won’t be possible, but if you have several email addresses (I have 10 or so that I need to receive at along with 3 or 4 primary ones), you should have them all coming into a single program.  GMail is perfect for this, or you can use many other programs like Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, or Mozilla Thunderbird.

I prefer a web-based mail application because I can access it wherever I am, as well as on my phone.  I’m not downloading mail every time I open my desktop or laptop or work computer – it’s all right there, online, and ready to go.

You can setup POP3 accounts, forward your other mail accounts to your new primary email account, and setup different email addresses you can reply from in case you have private email addresses as well as business email addresses.  I have one GMail account with 3 personal accounts and 12 business email accounts forwarding to it.  I’ve setup all of these email addresses as possible replying addresses so I can send email using any of the email addresses.

5.)  Skip Email Alltogether.
Twitter started a craze.  People are communicating quicker than ever by using text messaging, Twitter, and instant messaging systems to communicate faster than ever.  I’m not going to touch on IM services here, because I don’t think they’re a healthy alternative to email – they’re actually even MORE distracting, however there is one tool that I have noticed considerably cut down on the number of emails I receive.

Yammer.
Yammer is a Twitter-like tool that’s made for businesses and groups.  I use Yammer to communicate directly to the marketing department I work with.  These messages are posted to a private board that only other marketing department members can read.  We can reply and chat about the topics in a way that’s just not as convienient with email.  In fact, it actually makes us much more productive because now the entire team is automatically privy to all the important subjects being discussed.

Think of it like a big, limitless notebook that everyone can look at simuataneously all day long.  It’s an amazing tool for businesses and small groups to communicate more effectiently.  Using a tool like this for groups who regularly need to communicate can cut down on dozens or hundereds of emails.  Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Are there any other tools or advice you have to save time on email?  I’d love to hear about your experiences!

Productivity Workflow

First, state your goals of your productivity system and workflow.  For me, I wanted a quick easy way to get ideas out of my head, a way to organize those ideas, and a way to turn those ideas into actionable goals and items.  Seems simple, but when you try using a million different tools to get it done, it turns into a sloppy mess of a nightmare.

Next, we’ll take a quick inventory of tools or resources we currently use, would like to use, or need to find.  My list included three different todo applications!!  How am I supposed to be productive when I’m using so many different programs that all do that same thing? I narrowed down my list to the following items – below each item is a notation about what role it plays in my personal productivity workflow:

Things for iPhone and Mac

Things is an application for Mac and iPhone.  You may not use either of these, but here is what it gives me, personally: the ability to quickly enter items that come accross my mind, wirelessly sync those items to the desktop version, then organize into projects and life-areas.  Granted, I can also do some organizing on the phone, but the phone app is much better at grabbing information, doing a little editing, and viewing your ongoing lists and projects.

Another thing that is invaluable to me, and why I use Things over several other applications I’ve tried, is the ability to easily pick which items to do today!  This may seem like a no-brainer, but there are a lot of list applications that just… well… list stuff.  Sure you can put them into projects and prioritize, but I want to get up and the morning, go through my actions/lists and determine what needs to be done right now.

Evernote for iPhone and Desktop

Evernote has come a long, long way since it first started out.  I remember using it a long time ago and just kind of thinking, “this is alright.”  Now, I don’t know if I could make it a day without using it.  It’s that good!

Basically, Evernote is a digital note-taking application.  You can use it’s Firefox browser plugin to grab snippets or entire websites, you can use it’s iPhone, Mac, or PC application to take notes – long or short – photos, audio?  Sure.  And it handles it all with ease.  It allows me to take a project or todo item and really expand on it.  Can you use paper for this?  Sure you can, but what if I want to take a note at the office PC, then need it at home on the Mac? Or need it across town at a business lunch?  I forgot my notebook!!  Not with Evernote you didn’t.

Google Calendar

Not much to say here, but I use and swear-by Google Calendar.  Simple and accessible from anywhere (it syncs to my iPhone calendar using Neuvasync).

Moleskine Notebooks

You probably thought I was anti-paper or something.  But I’m really not.  I LOVE notebooks – nice ones, that is.  Aside from Google Calendar for scheduling, I also have a Moleskine Calendar sitting on my desk all day.  I use it to take quick phone notes, and jot notes about the appointments in it.

You’ll also find me with a new Moleskine Volant notebook – a credit-card sized Moleskine with perforated pages for quick notes on the go.

I also use a standard ruled Moleskine for journalling.

What does all this mean?  I can quickly get things out of my head, a daily review to turn all those things into actionable items, and a weekly review to make sure I’m on track.  Things is the main part of my productivity plan right now, but I encourage you you find your own.  Your personal, and business life will thank you!

Deal With Conflict

Here are some quick tips to deal with conflict when it occurs in you life:

1. Avoidance:
If conflict can be avoided in anyway, go for it. Unfortunately sometimes it is the only way to improve a situation with someone who is hurting you or doing you wrong.

2. Accommodation:
Are you the reason for the conflict? Are you being bull-headed or asinine? Try to be more accommodating to the other person’s needs and wants. Why stand in the way of progress? It’s great to fight for what you believe in, just be reasonable.

3. Compromise:
When you compromise, both parties win. You may not get all that you were fighting for, but it sure beats the hell out of being party to a grievous situation.

4. Problem solving:
Problem solving will always be an important part of solving conflict. Try to be objective about the situation and see it from both angles. Having a cool head and knowing when to bend will help the conflict come to a positive resolution.

5. Confrontation:
Sometimes conflict happens over the phone or over the net. If you confront the person in a none-hostile way, face to face, the conflict can be brought to a faster resolution. Small people often use the net and phones as a way to act like a jerk with little to no consequences.

6. Don’t go looking for trouble:
Don’t start a conflict for no reason. Make sure the reasons for the conflict are well thought out and have solid reasoning behind them. If you truly believe that what you are fighting over is worth the grief, then just try to be reasonable about what you want out of the conflict.

7. Involve another party.
This only works if the third party is objective. Sometimes it takes another point of view to realize that you are conflicting over nothing.

Conflict can also be resolved by taking a deep breath, relaxing and taking a moment to think things through. Ask yourself: ‘is it really worth this aggravation just to get what I want?’

Just be reasonable, rational and open minded and a mutually acceptable solution will be found.