We live in a world of interruptions and distractions. These interruptions can make it tough to finish the projects that matter most to us. And the answer to this problem is – a tomato. I’m talking about a time-management method called the Pomodoro Technique. First taught in the early 1990s, the technique was developed by…
Category Archives: technology
Worth Repeating – April posts from New Leaf News
Is April the cruelest month? The poet T. S. Eliot thought so. But the New Leaf archives from Aprils past kindly produced a fresh crop of relevant articles. I’ll share them in case you missed them the first time around. When you have a lot to do, you’ll want to hurry, right? Not necessarily. It’s…
Three ways to reduce your office paper this year
Keeping office paper within bounds is a challenge that hasn’t gone away. Here are three practices you can adopt this year to reduce the amount of paper you keep. Subscribe to online versions of newspapers, journals, and magazines. Many publications offer a full or expanded online publication, often for less than the cost for delivery…
Worth repeating – August posts from New Leaf News
I’m sharing a few posts from the New Leaf archives. Here’s what was on our mind in August during the past couple of years. Productivity depends on being able to work in comfort. Eliminate at least one pain in the neck with a wireless headset. Successfully planning for the future requires acknowledging past wins. Are…
In-Box Zero
Remember merit badges, those embroidered circles used to mark achievement for Boy Scouts and Girls Scouts? Now there is a company that makes merits badges for grown-ups, and there’s one I desperately want to earn: In-Box Zero. My goal of an empty email in-box is more elusive than live tech support. I crossed into the…
Join the National Day of Unplugging March 19 & 20
One complaint that I hear popping up more and more frequently, a habit crying out for change, is the negative intrusion of technology into our lives. I’m not talking about the miracle of GPS, which guides me directly to my destination in a strange city after dark. Or online chats that allow me to hold…
Are you going it alone?
To cover long distances, ducks, geese, and pelicans (among other birds) fly in formation. By forming a V, they help one another out — a lot. One study determined that 25 birds flying in formation can travel up to 70 percent further than a solo bird. Take a lesson from the birds: make sure you’re…
Need a Net Nanny? Rescue Time Provides the Loving Discipline.
How do you waste time at your computer? Are you an obsessive email-checker? Do you while away hours playing solitaire or backgammon? Are your achievements in Farmville and Mafia Wars huge compared to your achievements in the real world? Are you a connoisseur of funny pet videos on YouTube? With temptation never more than one…
Wireless electricity – the ultimate cable control!
Why do they call my printer “a wireless device”? Though it communicates with my computer via bluetooth technology, it still must be plugged into the wall. Now on the horizon: the promise of a truly cable-free future. Eric Giler, CEO of WiTricity, presented the future of wireless electricity at the TED Global 2009 conference. (See…
Five productive jobs for Evernote
Evernote‘s logo is the elephant, the creature with a reputation for never forgetting, and it’s true that Evernote allows me to capture tasks and to-dos whenever I think of them and funnel them into my task management system. The logo could just as well be a lasso, though, since what Evernote does best is to…