Tag Archives: work

Use Two Computers to Keep Your Work and Home Life Totally Separate [Productivity]

It's hard for a lot of us to separate our work and home lives under the best of circumstances. When you work from home it's even more difficult, but blogger Pat Flynn found a method that works for him. More
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Keep Your Daily Momentum Going With a 10/15 Split [Work]

One of the toughest aspects of staying productive is overcoming the ups and downs of motivation. Spending 10 minutes getting organized in the morning, then 15 minutes again in the evening, can help even out your daily go-get-'em energy. More
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Lifehacker’s Looking for a New Writer [Announcements]

Think you've got what it takes to join Team Lifehacker? That's good, because we're on the hunt for a new writer to join the crew. You could be a great fit if: You love and understand a lot about technology, and have a knack for tinkering with software and bending gear to your will. (Bonus points for command line/programming junkies in general.) You know how to slap together nouns, verbs, and the occasional em dash and enjoy a good href . You can deliver clean, crisp, and informed takes on everything from software and web sites to food and personal finance. You're creative, and you've got all kinds of ideas that would make for great Lifehacker features . (We particularly love a good how-to feature .) You're ambitious, looking to make a name for yourself, and are prepared to work hard . I'm emphasising the work hard part because Lifehacker is a job that does require some serious hours and dedication. But it's also a great place to work. If you think you may be a good fit, send an email to tips at lifehacker.com with "Lifehacker Job Application" in the subject. Don't include any attachments. Do include your Lifehacker commenter ID if you have one, along with anything else you've written, Lifehacker-y ideas you have that you think would make you a good fit, or anything else you think might wow us. The position we're looking to fill is part-to-full time and pays accordingly. We're expecting a lot of submissions, so we won't be able to respond to each email individually; rest assured that your interest is much appreciated.
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Lifehacker’s Looking for a New Writer [Announcements]

Think you've got what it takes to join Team Lifehacker? That's good, because we're on the hunt for a new writer to join the crew. You could be a great fit if: You love and understand a lot about technology, and have a knack for tinkering with software and bending gear to your will. (Bonus points for command line/programming junkies in general.) You know how to slap together nouns, verbs, and the occasional em dash and enjoy a good href . You can deliver clean, crisp, and informed takes on everything from software and web sites to food and personal finance. You're creative, and you've got all kinds of ideas that would make for great Lifehacker features . (We particularly love a good how-to feature .) You're ambitious, looking to make a name for yourself, and are prepared to work hard . I'm emphasising the work hard part because Lifehacker is a job that does require some serious hours and dedication. But it's also a great place to work. If you think you may be a good fit, send an email to tips at lifehacker.com with "Lifehacker Job Application" in the subject. Don't include any attachments. Do include your Lifehacker commenter ID if you have one, along with anything else you've written, Lifehacker-y ideas you have that you think would make you a good fit, or anything else you think might wow us. The position we're looking to fill is part-to-full time and pays accordingly. We're expecting a lot of submissions, so we won't be able to respond to each email individually; rest assured that your interest is much appreciated.
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Lifehacker’s Looking for a New Writer [Announcements]

Think you've got what it takes to join Team Lifehacker? That's good, because we're on the hunt for a new writer to join the crew. You could be a great fit if: You love and understand a lot about technology, and have a knack for tinkering with software and bending gear to your will. (Bonus points for command line/programming junkies in general.) You know how to slap together nouns, verbs, and the occasional em dash and enjoy a good href . You can deliver clean, crisp, and informed takes on everything from software and web sites to food and personal finance. You're creative, and you've got all kinds of ideas that would make for great Lifehacker features . (We particularly love a good how-to feature .) You're ambitious, looking to make a name for yourself, and are prepared to work hard . I'm emphasising the work hard part because Lifehacker is a job that does require some serious hours and dedication. But it's also a great place to work. If you think you may be a good fit, send an email to tips at lifehacker.com with "Lifehacker Job Application" in the subject. Don't include any attachments. Do include your Lifehacker commenter ID if you have one, along with anything else you've written, Lifehacker-y ideas you have that you think would make you a good fit, or anything else you think might wow us. The position we're looking to fill is part-to-full time and pays accordingly. We're expecting a lot of submissions, so we won't be able to respond to each email individually; rest assured that your interest is much appreciated.
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Improve Meeting Efficiency with a 22-Minute Limit [Meetings]

Meetings don't have to be the bane of the workday existence. Try scheduling them in 22-minute blocks to get more out of them and spend less time hating them. Photo by brianpobuda . Blogger Scott Berkun recommends latching onto Nicole Steinbok 's 22-minute meeting idea as a good metric for sticking to agendas and keeping meetings from becoming a time-sink. Of course, even abbreviated meetings won't work if you don't make good use of the time. Do not, for example, show up at a meeting with a batch of handouts for everyone to dig into. Send required readings 3 days beforehand – The burden is on the organizer to make this small enough that people actually do it. Never ever allow a meeting to be "lets all read the documents together and penalize anyone diligent enough to do their homework". (note: I think 24 hours is plenty). Of course, there may be times when 22 minutes is just not enough time to get things done. The vast majority of meetings, though, could probably be blasted through in even less time. How do you keep your meetings from spiraling into three-hour marathons? Share your hard-earned tactics in the comments. The 22 minute meeting [ScottBerkun.com]
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Make an Appointment with Yourself for Distraction-Free Time Blocks [Distractions]

Workplace distractions are nothing new, but if you can't seem to find time to do some serious distraction-free work for any significant chunk of time, consider time blocking an appointment with yourself. Over at business site Fast Company, our own Gina Trapani continues her Work Smart video series with a great piece on Time Blocking (embedded above). Recounting the days when she worked as a low-on-the-totem-poll programmer in a distraction-heavy office, Gina remembers: It got so bad that when I was on deadline, I'd book hour-long meetings in a conference room where I was the only attendee. I'd put the meeting in my calendar a day or two ahead of time so that I showed up as "busy" in Outlook. When the time came, I'd steal off to the conference room with my laptop to work uninterrupted. When I confessed to another programmer that I was holding fake meetings with myself just to get work done, he asked if he could join me—under the condition that we would not distract one another. I got the most work done in the shortest amount of time during those blocks. Ever try something similar, or have your own methods for carving out distraction-free blocks of work time? Let's hear your tips in the comments. Work Smart: Avoid Office Distractions With Time Blocking [Fast Company via Smarterware ]
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Schedule Reply Windows to Minimize Interruptions [Distractions]

If you find your productive periods of work ever shrinking because of email, phone, and other interruptions, it's time to adopt a policy of scheduled replies. Photo by Mike "Dakinewavamon" Kline . Over at the organizational blog Everyday Simplicity they found their productivity was taking a hit because of excessive interruptions and perpetually responding to emails and phone calls as they came in. Their solution was to set aside scheduled windows of time to deal with incoming email, voicemail, and other inputs: I only return messages left for me at 10 am, 2pm, and 4 pm. My phone's ringer is turned off, and my cell phone sits in my purse. I call it my "Dr Pepper Rule," because of the old 10-2-4 logo on the Dr. Pepper bottles. You can adapt the schedule to whatever fits your work flow best. The spirit of the system, however, is to break away from the habit of answering email and phone requests the second they happen. Make sure you're scheduling large enough blocks of time for your primary work. If you already batch your email and voicemail checks to cut down on interruptions, we want to hear your tips and tricks in the comments. Have another tip for getting things done without all the distraction? We want to hear about that too. Time Management Tip: Returning Calls, Emails, and Text Messages on Your Schedule, Not Theirs [Everyday Simplicity via SimpleProductivityBlog ]
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Thinking Space Maps Your Mind on Android [Downloads]

Android: Your best thoughts can come to you when you're nowhere near your work space. If you're carrying an Android phone, Thinking Space is an elegant and convenient way to map out where your mind goes on the go. Thinking Space does most of what you'd want a desktop mind mapping package to do, and a little more, in some cases. You'll figure out the methods for adding and branching thoughts pretty quickly, and if you're already using Freemind , it can read those files, too. Your mind maps are stored on your phone's SD card, but can also be converted to images and sent by email, or uploaded to a cloud-based space Thinking Space has set up. I've only just started tinkering with Thinking Space, but the How-To Geek has repeatedly advised me that it's a worthy tool for organizing thoughts. If you, like me, are a neophyte in this realm, read up on Brad Isaac's beginner's guide to mind mapping meetings for a primer on getting the most from your maps. Thinking Space is a free download for Android phones, available in the Market and as a QR code scan at its home site. Thinking Space for Android
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Steam Comes to Mac, Offers Cross-Platform Gaming Free of Charge [Steam]

It's official, Valve's digital distribution service Steam is coming to Mac, and bringing Left 4 Dead 2 , Team Fortress 2 , Counter-Strike , Portal , and the Half-Life series (along with Source) with it this April. But there's more. Apparently, through Steam Play, gamers will be able to play supported titles (anything built on Source, it seems) on a PC (say, at work) then continue the game from the same point on their Mac (say, at home). Both versions of these games come bundled in one price—which is completely, totally, unbelievably forward-thinking and awesome. [Image by Kotaku ] VALVE TO DELIVER STEAM & SOURCE ON MAC Leading Gaming Service Expands to Mac Platform March 8, 2010 - Valve announced today it will bring Steam, Valve's gaming service, and Source, Valve's gaming engine, to the Mac. Steam and Valve's library of games including Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal, and the Half-Life series will be available in April. "As we transition from entertainment as a product to entertainment as a service, customers and developers need open, high-quality Internet clients," said Gabe Newell, President of Valve. "The Mac is a great platform for entertainment services." "Our Steam partners, who are delivering over a thousand games to 25 million Steam clients, are very excited about adding support for the Mac," said Jason Holtman, Director of Business Development at Valve. "Steamworks for the Mac supports all of the Steamworks APIs, and we have added a new feature, called Steam Play, which allows customers who purchase the product for the Mac or Windows to play on the other platform free of charge. For example, Steam Play, in combination with the Steam Cloud, allows a gamer playing on their work PC to go home and pick up playing the same game at the same point on their home Mac. We expect most developers and publishers to take advantage of Steam Play." "We looked at a variety of methods to get our games onto the Mac and in the end decided to go with native versions rather than emulation," said John Cook, Director of Steam Development. "The inclusion of WebKit into Steam, and of OpenGL into Source gives us a lot of flexibility in how we move these technologies forward. We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360. Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates. Furthermore, Mac and Windows players will be part of the same multiplayer universe, sharing servers, lobbies, and so forth. We fully support a heterogeneous mix of servers and clients. The first Mac Steam client will be the new generation currently in beta testing on Windows." Portal 2 will be Valve's first simultaneous release for Mac and Windows. "Checking in code produces a PC build and Mac build at the same time, automatically, so the two platforms are perfectly in lock-step," said Josh Weier, Portal 2 Project Lead. "We're always playing a native version on the Mac right alongside the PC. This makes it very easy for us and for anyone using Source to do game development for the Mac.
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