productivity

Three ways to make writing your next newsletter easier + faster

June 25, 2012 by Michelle 13 Comments

Getting in the habit of sending regular emails and/or newsletters to your list is viewed as “must do” business activity. And for good reason – having a highly engaged list can make your business much more successful, even if it’s a list on the smaller side.

And yet, a lot of people put off getting in to this habit because they aren’t sure where to start, or they’re worried they won’t be able to find the time, or they’ve tried to do it in the past but kept coming up blank with nothing to write about. When you try it a few times and each time it takes you two or three hours to create it, you can definitely start to question the value for time you’re getting there. Howeva! I have three quick tips, all easy to implement, that can make your next go at writing a newsletter much easier & faster.

1. Have a dedicated day &/or time to create it.

This sounds overly simple, I know. But the fact is that every time we make ourselves repeatedly schedule a recurring task, we’re wasting brainpower, time, and thought. In my experience, we – as human beings – are actually disturbingly likely to not get around to doing something because we didn’t get around to actually deciding a day/time to do it!

Instead of trying to squeeze in time to do it every week, just make it a part of your routine. For example, I send out my newsletters Friday morning. So every Thursday is the day that I write and schedule my newsletter.

I don’t get to Thursday evening or Friday afternoon and think “Oh crap, I forgot the newsletter!” because it’s already on my calendar/task list at the start of the week, and when Thursday comes around, it’s on my list of things to do, so I do it. Simple. No muss, no fuss. (To check out project & task management tools that can help you schedule your days/weeks and my reviews of them, click here.)

2. Have a format.

It doesn’t have to be anything fancy – just have a pre-determined list of things that go in your newsletter. For example, mine usually has an introduction, something personal about the week (sometimes short, sometimes a little longer), the blog posts for the week, interesting resources (see #3, below), and then a closing note. If I have a special promotion going that week, like the Peak Productivity Pack, I put in something about it at the beginning & end of the email.

Again – keep it simple. The point here is not to overwhelm yourself, the point is to make it so that you have to think as little as possible about the repetitive parts of this. You want to make it as easy as possible for you to get this done, so that you actually do it.

3. Make it easy for you to take notes/bookmark things throughout the week.

A big part of the reason that doing a newsletter seems so effing intimidating is that we don’t plan anything out, we don’t even have an idea of what we’ll cover, and then we freeze when we open up a totally blank email. The solution is simple: make it really easy for you to take notes and bookmark things of note throughout the week, so that you can feature them later in your newsletter – and then get in the habit of doing so.

Shenee does this really well with her Brand Notes pinboard, where she pins things of note to her that later end up in her newsletter; I use my Pretty + Useful pinboard in the same way. That technique also has the bonus of sending people from Pinterest to your website/email list & vice versa!

The other tool I use for this is Evernote – I keep a note for each week’s newsletter and as I have thoughts or ideas, I put it in the note; I also bookmark things using their website clipper.

In between using Evernote & Pinterest for this, when it comes to the day for me to write my weekly newsletter, I just open them up and immediately have a well of inspiration to draw from, and I already have a format to put it in.

This way, writing & scheduling my email newsletter always takes less than an hour (and usually takes 15-20 minutes). Pretty impressive, no?

Do you send a newsletter? What tips & tricks do you have for making it easier and faster, without sacrificing quality?

This post is part of the June 2012 Word Carnival — a monthly group blogging event specifically for small biz owners. (It’s the most fun you’ll have all month!) Check out the rest of the fabulous carney work here.

PS: Today’s the last day to get your copy of the Peak Productivity Pack – the bundle goes away at midnight CST tonight! Get on that & save 30% off normal price!

Filed Under: Systems + Streamlining Tagged With: email, newsletter, productivity, writer's block, writing

Review: Nozbe

May 11, 2012 by Michelle 3 Comments

My wrists have been bothering me some this week, so instead of a written post today you get two video reviews this week (for the price of one!). Today it’s Nozbe – read on to see my notes or watch the video below.

Nice features:

Lots of opportunity to get really fine-grained here. I haven’t seen another project/task management system with “contexts” done quite the same way, but there’s some cool ways you can use it – especially since you can create your own contexts and customize them. For example, you could create an “in a hurry” context that you put short/quickie tasks in (no matter what project they were associated with) and then when you only had thirty minutes or an hour to work before a call, knock out 2-4 fifteen minute tasks quickly by viewing that context and just getting started.
It syncs with Evernote! (And also with Dropbox.) I have since tested out the Evernote syncing function and it works really well, with the one note that tags in Evernote correspond to project names in Nozbe, which is a bit odd (I’d have assumed that notebook names in Evernote corresponded with project names in Nozbe). I haven’t tested out the Dropbox compatibility out, though.
Large, easy to see at a glance icons and text. No squinting required!
It looks as though it’s geared towards solo users or smaller teams. This is pretty convenient since most things that have as many features as Nozbe do are intended for teams of at least five people, and require a bit of tweaking to work for solopreneurs. Not so for Nozbe – it can & will work beautifully for a team of one.
Lots of drag-and-drop functionality.
It’s surprisingly flexible. Since Nozbe is based on the Getting Things Done system (which I find kind of overwhelming and intimidating, at least the way I’ve seen it explained), I expected it to be one of those tools that kind of forces its users to comply with that specific system. Not so! If you want to, you could use it for a GTD-type system; if not, you can just use it however you wish.

Other things:

It’s not super visual. The large text and icons make it a lot easier to see things at a glance than some text-based tools, but it still doesn’t have a “see tasks laid out on a calendar” function, the ability to customize backgrounds/color schemes, or color coding.

This is good for you if:

You’re already a hardcore GTD user, or use a modified version of that, since Nozbe is set up specifically for that system.
You’re a solopreneur or work with just one other person.
You aren’t as picky about aesthetics as I am.

All in all, I like it a lot! I’m not sure if it’ll become my main productivity tool – I thought it would, and then when I actually started trying to use it, I ran into some speed bumps. I might give it a go again or try something else in the meantime. But if you fit the parameters above, definitely check Nozbe out. And let me know if you have any questions in the comments!

Filed Under: Reviews, Tools + Resources Tagged With: gtd, nozbe, productivity, project management tool, review

The new Springpad & what it means for you + me

April 19, 2012 by Michelle 7 Comments

You might have heard (or experienced for yourself!) that Springpad just released its next version last week. Curious to see how it stacks up? Watch the video below (or just keep reading).

How I use Springpad

Obviously, my opinion on the changes is going to be heavily colored by how I use Springpad (which has changed a bit since the last video I made), so here’s a quick overview of the main ways I use it:

References. Anything that I want to make sure I can come back to later, I bookmark and/or note in my “references” folder. This is for tattoo shops I want to check out later, notes from books I’ve read, or really absolutely anything that I want to make sure I can find later. (I have this horrible habit of finding something, skimming it, thinking “Hmm, that’s interesting!” and then forgetting about it until some later point, at which I don’t remember enough to effing find it again. This notebook prevents that – anything I find remotely interesting, I stick in here.)
Taking notes and cataloging bookmarks relevant to various projects. I have a notebook for each project I’m working on (and start a new notebook every time I start a new project). I use these kinds of like the creative boxes that Twyla Tharp talks about in the Creative Habit – I’ll bookmark any site that seems remotely relevant to the project, so that I can find it later, and probably leave a comment on the bookmark about why it inspired me or how it was relevant to the project. I also use the notebooks for brainstorming, keeping track of random ideas, and outlining ideas (for example, I have a running note with blog post ideas, and another note outlining a specific course idea in more detail). Occasionally I create a checklist of action items related to a specific project and put that in there, too, but I prefer to keep all of my action items in one place elsewhere.
Recipes/shopping lists. Arguably not productivity related but still a major use of it for me. We’re big foodies around here so the ability to easily search through all of the recipes I’ve bookmarked is a big bonus for me (and Springpad works better for this than Pinterest does). As far as shopping lists go, it’s nice to be able to easily create a shopping list on the go and add to it as ideas strike me, or if I’m at the computer, create a shopping list while referencing bookmarked recipes.
I also have a running stimulus queue notebook, which is an idea I got from the Accidental Creative. I bookmark videos, podcasts, or long articles so that I can come back and consume them later when I’m in the right headspace. I also have a running note of books to check out at the library. As I actually go through and consume the media, the original bookmark either gets deleted or moved to “References” if I found something in it particularly interesting.

The changes

The design is unarguably better – prettier, slicker, & you can set backgrounds for specific notebooks. Also, if there’s an image that it can automatically grab, it’ll show up in the home screen (although this doesn’t happen for me since the way I use it means there’s little to no images for it to find, and when it does happen it doesn’t look very good).
There’s now a quick add functionality, which means that you can, for example, type in “finish presentation by 2PM on Friday” and a task will be created with a deadline of 2 PM on Friday. You can also copy/paste in a product or web site URL, or just type the name of a new note to get it started quickly. (In theory. The product/task feature didn’t work in the video. Although after further inspection it seems maybe I was supposed to hit the “search the web” option for the product.)
There’s a lot of improved social functionality, making it easier to see and follow public notebooks and collaborate on a notebook with other people.

How this affects how I use it

As you can see if you watched the video, the change to the layout means that the color coding with notebooks is not near as useful as it used to be. The colors for the notebooks is now nothing but a thin strip across the top of the notebook icon, which means that it’s hard to see at a glance from the home screen, but shows up much more prominently when using the clipping tool or when assigning a note to a notebook after creating it (so if you do something nitpicky+designy like I did, it’ll come back to bite you later; but having an assortment of colors would look sloppy on the home screen).
I wish I still had the option to set a background for the home page. I know that’s a little bizarre of me, but still. (And it seems weird to me that they would actually remove that feature instead of just leaving it in.)
I like the quick add, but it’s not a huge improvement with how I use Springpad. It’s cool, but that’s it. The increased social functionality and product adding functionality doesn’t mean much to me since I don’t ever use it. And I was having a really hard time figuring out how to add checklists from the iPhone app, which I just figured out as I was working on this post. (Go to the “add” menu and hold down on the plus sign.)

Overall, I’m fairly neutral on the changes but I almost have to wonder if it’s a step backwards, as now something like Wunderkit is almost closer to what I need/want as far as organizing notes & ideas for specific projects & task/project management. Springpad can still do that, but Wunderkit is specifically tailored to do so and, after my cursory review, is probably superior for that purpose except for when it comes to bookmarking relevant websites for reference to a project.

With these updates, Springpad seems like it’s aiming for somewhere between Evernote and Pinterest, and that’s simply not what I use it for or need it for. I’m not sure if I’ll continue using it, switch over to Evernote (which I’m loathe to do), or find a different service altogether. I was previously quite the evangelist for Springpad and now I’m unsure if I should continue to recommend it to people, as it looks like they’re planning on moving to more of a sharing/collaborating platform and less of an organizing tool.

Have you tried it? What do you think? (And of course, these are only my impressions after an hour or two of playing around with the new Springpad, so if you have different impressions, I’d love to hear them!)

The updates to Springpad as covered elsewhere: Lifehacker, VentureBeat

Filed Under: Reviews, Tools + Resources Tagged With: organizing, productivity, springpad, tools

In Search of the Perfect Productivity Tool

April 13, 2012 by Michelle 10 Comments

(Quick side note: I know I’ve been a little AWOL lately, part of that was just…March – SXSW, moving, and travel, all back to back – and part of it has been a few other things that I talk about in this video. Check it out if you’re curious. Back to our regularly scheduled programming!)

Some people search for the Holy Grail or a giant whale. Me? I just want my perfect digital planner, dammit!

This has been something I’ve been lusting after for a while, I’m not quite sure what reignited it; probably a random bout of frustration the other day after once again attempting to find something like this.

Here’s the features I want & why:

The ability to sort tasks by project or by date assigned. Example: I can select “Let’s Radiate” from the projects menu & see all of the tasks there, or do the same for “Bombchelle” or “Three Wishes Industries”. Or I can choose a week view and see this week laid out M-F in vertical columns, with the tasks that are assigned to specific days in the column for that day.

Why I want this: I have a lot of projects going. At any given time, I need to be able to see where those individual projects are at, and assign tasks from those projects to a specific day for me to work on. But, if I don’t have a really clear (like, I can see it with a half second’s glance) way to gauge how many tasks I’ve already assigned to a specific day or week, and how those tasks fit in with my already-scheduled appointments, then it’s really easy for me to overload myself with tasks, leading to not getting them all done and feeling woefully unproductive. This is easily my most important feature and I’m surprised at how many tools/services just don’t have it available in any way.

Color coding & customizable appearance. Why I want this: Because aesthetics are important. I’m an incredibly visual person (part of why I want the specific layout I described above) and it gives me a thrill every time I use something that’s well designed. We all know there’s that learning curve associated with incorporating a new tool or system, and something being well designed & easy to use means that I’ll enjoy using it enough to get past the learning curve. I also like feeling as though my tools are tailored to fit me, and being able to color-code things or customize the appearance (even a little!) gives me that feeling, which, again, makes me more likely to stick with it past the learning curve.

Ability to create repeating tasks. Why I want this: So I can put “inbox zero” on every Monday, or “schedule tweets”, or whatever, instead of having to create new tasks for things I do on a weekly or monthly basis. As is, I end up never crossing off a task and just reassigning it to next week, which doesn’t give me the same sense of completion (and is an unnecessary PITA, to boot).

Ability to have it send reminders to my phone/email, and syncs with iPad/iPhone/Gcal. (Also, it preferably has an Android app too so I can recommend this to EVERYONE EVER.) Why I want this: This is fairly self explanatory, I should think! I like to be able to easily access my tasks wherever I’m at or if there’s an internet outage at home, enabling me to still get some work done. The whole reason I want to not be using a paper planner is so that I’m not dependent on any one thing, so having a productivity tool that is just an iPad or iPhone app also defeats the purpose.

Drag & drop interface. Why I want this: Because it’s easier that way. (No, this is not an absolute must-have, but I really like it!)

And…that’s actually pretty much it.

Though this seems like a fairly short list to me, I can’t find anything like it. But I have found some things that are close – the three closest contenders I’ve found so far are Wunderkit, Nozbe, and HiTask.

Wunderkit has customizable backgrounds (though not quite to the extent I wish they did, since they don’t have my default-wish of a damask or Baroque-wallpaper patterned background), and is obviously designed with aesthetics in mind, but I’m not sure if I can view tasks by day AND by project, or just by project. It was also created with a lot of social/team functionality in mind which is something that I’m not so much interested in, as someone who works largely on their own. I’ve dipped my toe into it, but haven’t fully tested it out yet.

Nozbe is a new discovery and I’m surprised I’ve never heard of it before. I’m not a fan of the mint-green default color scheme, but you can have your choice between three themes (green, blue, or gray), and blue is my favorite color (if you can believe it, given my hair ), so that’s better than nothing. It has a lot of features that I haven’t seen regularly before – the ability to assign tasks to a specific context (Home, Computer, Errands, Waiting for), time tracking on tasks, and turning a task into a project. It also can sync Evernote items associated with a specific project, which would be REALLY cool if I used Evernote.

HiTask, I actually used to use fairly regularly about a year ago, and for some reason left it by the wayside. Looking at it again, it has most of the functionality I’m looking for, including – gasp! – rainbow color coding and the ability to view by today/next 7 days/project. It’s not quite as visual/pretty as I would like but it’s obvious that they did give some consideration to how it looks, which is more than you can say for a lot of tools out there.

What about Springpad?

I still love Springpad to an intense, slightly obsessive degree, but after using it for a while, I’ve found that for me, it isn’t as useful for task management as it is for storing notes, ideas, bookmarks, and references. (Plus recipes & shopping lists.) They’ve recently done an upgrade (which I’ll be doing a video review of soon, including talking more about how I use it) and I think with some finangling, I could make Springpad work as my task/project management tool of choice, but I’d rather just use it for what I already use it for.

The plan:

This random urge to create my perfect digital system (no more depending on my paper planner!) is actually coming at a fairly ideal time since, with all of the unusual-ness of the last month (SXSW, moving, travel), I’m having to re-create most of my systems anyways. (Little secret, just between you & me? I’m not sure I could find my paper planner right now even if I was keen on using it, as we’re still not fully unpacked.)

What I’m going to do is, for the next little while, try out each of these tools (and maybe more, if I find them) for 1-2 weeks, to get a feel for them and see how close to ideal they are, and then do a video review (like I did for Springpad or Trello or is coming soon for Wunderlist) with how I’ve been using it, how it stacks up, & what uses I’d recommend it for.

Stay tuned for my thoughts, the review of Wunderlist next week, & a post on staying sane + productive while moving – and if you have any suggestions for more tools to review, leave ‘em below!

Filed Under: Avoiding Overwhelm Tagged With: organizing, planning, productivity, tools

A different kind of productivity for a different kind of person.

January 27, 2012 by Michelle 5 Comments

Have you ever heard of a polymath? Scanner? Renaissance soul?

These are all different descriptions (with slightly different connotations) that mean essentially the same thing: a person who has a voracious interest in multiple things at once. Unlike specialists, Renaissance souls/scanners/etc. find it difficult to be happy unless they have multiple irons in the fire – the idea of doing just one thing for the rest of their life sounds more like a punishment than a dream. I’m one (and have been as long as I remember). I know some of you are, too!

Emilie Wapnick has her own word for us: multipotentialites.

When I started writing content here at Let’s Radiate, I didn’t intend to create advice that works for multipotentialites – but it kind of naturally happened anyways, which makes sense since I am one. And the sad fact is, there isn’t a whole lot of advice that works for us.

Productivity for specialists tends to look like this:

Focus on that one project – and nothing else – until it’s done.
Keep your projects separate.
Don’t work on too many things at once.
Keep your eye on the prize – if it doesn’t get shipped, all your efforts are wasted.

Productivity for multipotentialites, however, looks very, very different. A multipod who attempts to use the above tips will find themselves bored, frustrated, and not getting anything done (shockingly enough? boredom and frustration aren’t a recipe for productivity!).

Healthy productivity for multipotentialites tends to look more like this:

Budgeting time so that you can work on your projects.
Working on at least 2-3 projects at once – the energy from one feeds into the others, and keeps you going.
Having a way to keep track of your many, many ideas so that you can come back to them later.
Sometimes stopping in the middle of a project, even if it doesn’t actually get “shipped” – you’ve got what you came for, after all.

But then, that leaves us with more questions…

How do you find time to work on all of these different projects?! (Definitely the most common question. )
How do you keep from getting distracted in the middle of one project with a shiny new idea?
How do you tell the differences from the projects that aren’t mean to be “finished” (in the conventional sense) – and the projects that are, but you’re succumbing to Resistance?
How do you prioritize your projects, and keep track of both the long-term and short-term ones?

Unfortunately, productivity advice that actually answers these questions from a multipod-friendly POV is pretty thin on the ground. Which is probably why these problems are still so widespread!

Emilie and I got to talking – she knew that several of the people in her tribe were struggling these issues. And together, we came up with an idea: a course on productivity, designed specifically for multipotentialites.

All of the above questions will be answered…and then some! Sign up to the dispatch so that you can get first access & a VIP discount.)

Filed Under: Avoiding Overwhelm Tagged With: multipotentialites, productivity

Multi-tasking vs. multi-focusing & finding joy in the hard work: an interview with Emilie Wapnick

November 7, 2011 by Michelle 8 Comments

Hello there! How’s your November going so far? I gotta tell ya, I’m getting whipped into shape and I am loving it. If you’re going to jump on one last class/course this year, make it the Morning Whip – you’ll thank me later!

Today I’m bringing you an interview with Emilie Wapnick, multipotentialite blogger & professional multi-tasker extraordinaire. She’s pretty much amazing!

(Interview is 15 minutes, 33 seconds.)

Interview with Emilie Wapnick of Puttylike

Takeaways:

She uses a nice moleskine to keep track of her ideas – a backburner list.

She also schedules in “scanning time” during a day – when she doesn’t need to focus on priorities or a specific project & she can dabble, explore, and play with ideas. This keeps her from getting distracted during the rest of the day.

When she reaches the end of a moleskine, she goes back and looks through her ideas to see if there’s anything she wants to carry forward to the next notebook.

She distinguishes between scanning mode & focused mode – for her, there’s a huge distinction between multi-tasking and multi-focusing. Multi-focusing is when you’re focused on one thing, even for a very short period of time, and then you switch your focus later – this is how she makes progress on all of her projects.

The joy comes from doing the work – not so much the results. If you can find joy in the hard work, the trenches, the hustling, that’s where you’ll get the pleasure and that helps prevent overwhelm. Don’t think about the big things while you’re trying to work – if you can have a specific time to think about the big vision to stay + keep inspired, it’ll keep you going without getting overwhelmed.

Don’t take on too much! Be aware of your limits & don’t overbook yourself.

When writing down to-do lists, focus on the big items or group items together so that you don’t have a huge-looking list that causes stress + overwhelm.

The sooner you can go from an inspiring ritual to working, the better off you’ll be!

You can see more of Emilie at Puttylike, and be sure to check out her book Renaissance Business! (affiliate link, because I’ve read & loved it.)

Filed Under: Creativity Tagged With: audio, interview, productivity, scanner

Your to-do list is not evil: here’s why

September 29, 2011 by Michelle 13 Comments

Minimalist productivity advice is all the rage. Kill your goals, for example. While you’re at it, kill your to do list; it’s holding you back, not moving you forward. It’s too hard to manage. It’s destroying your focus. Blah blah blah. You’ve heard it, I’m sure.

Most of the crimes that this simple tool is charged with have nothing to do with the tool itself, but everything to do with how you use it. Now, if throwing your to-do list to the wind works for you, then fabulous. Keep doing it, darlin’. However, if your current to do list habits are not-so-hot, but you know the idea of shredding it entirely would be a terrible one – keep reading.

Why your to-do list isn’t killing your productivity:

Let’s face it, the whole “if it’s important, you’ll remember it” idea is…nice in theory but not so much in practice. At least for most of us, myself included. If I don’t have a list of my appointments and tasks for the day in front of my face while I’m working (literally, it hangs over my desk), I find myself wandering aimlessly throughout my workday with nothing to guide me and way too much to distract me. Unless you’re working in an environment with absolutely no means of distracting yourself, it’s far too easy to get off track and waste hours at a time.
Size matters. If you start each day looking at an exhaustive 20 item task list, then your to do list isn’t killing your productivity, the size of it is. A list like that will leave you overwhelmed with no idea which item to start on next after you finish one, and even if you finish ten tasks (quite a lot of work!) you’re only halfway through your list. This in turn leads to a distinct lack of feeling accomplished, which then affects your motivation and momentum.

Here’s my proposition: to do lists aren’t inherently a bad idea. However, like many things, the way they’re traditionally approached leads to suckage. The solution: revamp the way you approach, create, and use your lists.

The foundations for a fabulous list:

Have one list. One. That’s it. You do not need a separate list for every aspect of your life. You lead one life, so have one list.
Keep it short. If it can’t fit on a post-it note (written in normal writing, not minuscule etching), then it’s too long. A good way to force yourself into the habit of short daily task lists is using a planner with only a small amount of space for each day. Planners with a full 5″x7″ page for each day? Woah nelly – that’s a disaster waiting to happen for most folks. Ruthlessly edit your tasks and learn to say no, leaving time only for the most important + effective activities. Also, if you have to move a task more than once, get rid of it. You obviously don’t want to do it anyways.
Separate tasks from reminders from appointments. There’s a lot of different definitions for a “task”, but here’s how I define it: anything that requires substantial mental and/or physical energy and a time period longer than 15 minutes. Take out the kitty litter? That’s a reminder, not a task. Write a blog post? That’s a task. You need to separate your reminders from your tasks from your appointments (which are essentially time-specific tasks). I don’t care if you color-code them, underline them, or use glitter, but they’re not the same thing and should be treated accordingly. Your tasks need to be done during your peak hours, and depending on the nature of your appointments, they do too. (Client call? Yes, definitely. Doctor’s appointment? Notsomuch.) The reminder items, however, can be done whenever you have the time/energy.
Set your bigger goals first. You can even start with your yearly or monthly goals, but for the purposes of this post, let’s stick with weekly. At the beginning of the week, pick 2-4 goals – the main things you want to get done this week. The best way to think of these is that they might not be the only things you’re planning on doing this week, but if they were all you got done, you’d be okay with that. Break each of those goals down into the smaller tasks that need to get done to make the goal happen. This creates your master task list for the week. Then you can parcel the tasks out among your days, depending on factors like what days you run errands, or the days when you have lots of appointments (days like that are a good time for smaller or less intense tasks, not so much for deep diving creative work & brainstorming).

And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen! The ingredients to creating a benign and – dare I say it? – utterly useful to do list. Now, go forth and get shit done.

(Feel like you need more assistance creating your to do list? Check out the Plan Your Week Toolkit!)

Filed Under: Going From Idea to Action Tagged With: goals, productivity, to do list

What’s your workspace telling you?

August 16, 2011 by Michelle 15 Comments

A couple of notes:

First off, apologies for the cat meowing + phone ringing interruption in the video. I was going to re-record, but to be honest, this was like my tenth take already (lots of camera issues!) so I figured I’d best not tempt fate.

Books mentioned: A Whole New Mind by Dan Pink & How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci by Michael Gelb

What I mean by taking a daily/monthly goals template & turning it into a mini dry erase board:

Taking something like this (except I’m creating my own), printing it out, and framing it a la this – so that the goals template is covered by glass and magically becomes dry-erase-able. Voila! One each for daily and monthly goals/priorities. (I’m still planning on using my paper planner – which is also always on my desk – for laying out my weeks.)

And that’s about it! Any questions? Any thoughts on how you’re going to improve your workspace?

If you loved this post or found it super useful, please share it with your friends. After all, that’s how good ideas spread, right?

Filed Under: Creativity Tagged With: intentional, productivity, video, work, workspace

The Power of Pretty

March 9, 2011 by Michelle 9 Comments

Wanting something to look good often gets a bad rap. Should you buy the plain thing or splurge for the pretty? If you splurge on the pretty, are you going to feel like the extra money was a waste later?

In Making Ideas Happen, the authors talk about aesthetics & the idea that attraction breeds loyalty. The book relates a tale of Bob Greenberg and his “admittedly obsessive” morning routine of prioritizing and creating action steps. A certain kind of paper must be used, a certain brand of fountain pen (only Pelikan brand, a larger one with blue ink and a thinner one with brown ink), and so on and so forth. It seems totally absurd to an outsider, but the little details of his approach keep him engaged with his system and feeling loyal to it. The design of tools, especially something you’re using on a regular basis, can affect how eager you are to use them.

The authors hit on something that I find a key thing to consider when talking about the aesthetic of tools – aesthetics doesn’t just cover visuals, it’s a whole experience of engagement in all your senses. Aesthetics draw you in; they make something an experience & not just a use. Of course you’ll use something that’s more engaging! & why should you feel shallow about it?

The section on aesthetics in Making Ideas Happen closes with an assertion from Donald Norman – someone that I’ve never heard of, but who is apparently a “usability guru” – that “attractive things work better”. Donald related a tale to a journalist about testing out color monitors when they first became available commercially, because he wanted to see if the price increase was justified. Quoth the book, emphasis mine:

“I got myself a color display and took it home for a week,” Norman recalled. “When the week was over, I had two findings. The first finding was that I was right, there was absolutely no advantage to color. The second was that I was not going to give it up.” In her analysis of Normon’s findings, Postrel explains, “The difference lay not in ‘information processing’ but in ‘affect’, in how full color monitors made people feel about their work.”

In other words, the aesthetics of the tools you use to make ideas happen matter.

And here’s an example from my own life:

You’ve probably heard of Evernote – without going into intense detail, it’s sort of a cross-platform note-storage system, where you can store pictures, text notes, PDFs, etc. under certain categories, and have it sync from your computer to the online account to your iPhone or Android.

Since I’d got a new phone that could actually do something like that, I decided to give Evernote a go again, as I hadn’t found it very useful with just a computer. It worked. That’s really all you can say. It did what it was supposed to do, it did it all right (although, I had trouble with the Android app, actually), it didn’t do anything more.

And then while browsing around yet another “cool apps” list (I spent at least 5 hours doing that the first week I had my phone, eesh), I found a mention of Springpad. It looked like a similar service, with a few differences in tools. Very cool differences, I might add, but this isn’t the post to go into detail – just check out their website.

But the key difference? Springpad seemed to have actually hired designers. You can set a specific background for your home screen that appears across all platforms, pick specific colors for specific notebooks, and organize visually. Everything looks fabuous.

This is all aesthetics. All “shallow” features. But the thing is, the experience & engagement of it took using Springpad from being a task to being fun. And that, in turn, made me more organized. The aesthetic engagement turned me from a user into a raving evangelist. I’m ready to go sing the praises of Springpad on a street corner. (Maybe during SXSW.)

The moral of the story?

Next time you’re waffling, not knowing to go with plain-and-functional or costs-more-but-pretty? Buy the pretty one. Merge form with function. Refuse to feel bad about it.

Filed Under: Avoiding Overwhelm, Creativity Tagged With: aesthetics, organization, productivity

Video Post: Excellence, not perfection

March 7, 2011 by Michelle 6 Comments

In which you can tell I’m really excited, because a. my hair is still wet (and my face still red, apparently) from the shower I got out of 20 minutes before, and b. I’m waving my hands around like some kind of terrible cheerleader. I also mention time travel and Aretha Franklin. Check it out, and ignore my cats in the background:

Mentioned:

Sandi and her customer love hours – during the month of February, she gave away 28 hours of coaching in honor of the Customer Love challenge. Pretty amazing, right?! Go check her out, for serious.

(Also, I realized when I looked it up after recording this that “deva” is in fact pronounced “day-va” and not “diva”. Oh well. Transcript under the cut.)

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Filed Under: Life Tagged With: excellence, perfection, perfectionism, productivity, video