“It takes more than just a good looking body, you’ve got to have the heart and soul that goes with it.” - Epictetus

Good-looking people have all the luck. They perform better in sales, are more likely to be approved for a loan and pay lower rates than their average-looking counterparts. They find jobs faster, move up the ladder quicker and earn an average of 3-4% more than the rest of us. That’s $140,000 in a lifetime, not counting the low rates and free stuff. Jealous much?

Does it mean us normals are doomed to work the least interesting jobs for the least amount of money? Hardly. As Supermodel Cameron Russell put in in a recent Ted Talk, “Image is powerful, but it’s also superficial.”

Beauty is a construction. With the right formula, it’s surprisingly easy to replicate on the job. The world’s sexiest CEOs have something in common above and beyond sex appeal: practiced self-confidence. In an interview or on the job, this is the real key to moving up the ladder and getting the recognition we all deserve.

Self-confidence denotes a kind of take charge attitude that appeals to potential employers. It’s tough to fake. You need to build it over time. Good looks, on the other hand, are remarkably easy to replicate. You can’t transform yourself into Tyra Banks overnight, but you can certainly borrow some tips from her bag of tricks.

HOW TO FAKE GOOD LOOKS

1. Dress with an ounce of pizzazz. Ever seen a CEO in sweatpants? Me neither. If only on the day of your interview, wear the best clothes you have. If you are not normally complimented on your attire, get a second opinion before selecting that all-important interview costume. Ask friends. Do a little research.  Be more than just another suit. A well-placed handkerchief or silk cravat could be the thing that takes you from average to unforgettable.

2. Practice impeccable posture. Good posture is the mark of a confident person. In one study, participants were asked to write down why they were qualified for a particular job, and it turns out those who maintained good posture while writing were more likely to believe the thoughts they wrote down. Not only do you appear more credible to the interviewer, but you become more credible to yourself, which is the most important thing of all.

3. Exercise. It takes less than an hour of exercise per day to improve your mood and boost your self-confidence. A quick jog or a half hour of yoga will not only add a healthy glow to your cheeks but will also help your body to produce happiness hormones like serotonin and dopamine.

4. Invest in professional grooming. Estheticians are remarkably affordable, and the modern man need not shy away from such services. A day or two before your interview, get those hands professionally manicured, wax your eyebrows, get a fresh haircut. Those may seem like small details to you, but before you write it off, look at some pictures on Business Insider’s list of the Sexiest CEOs. That’s grooming you can take to the bank.

5. Get a tan. Sounds silly, right? But if you’re in a profession where you never see the sun, it’s the middle of February and you’re white a sheet, eight minutes in a tanning bed will bring just a little colour back in your face, giving you the appearance of being fresh and full of life.

6. Be irresistibly charming.  If we were all as charming as Julia Roberts, there’d be no such things as unemployment. Anyone can be charming with just a little bit of practice.  Express genuine interest in the person you are dealing with. Take extra care to remember the name of everyone you mean while in the company of a potential employer. Smile often. Be generous when you give compliments and gracious when you receive them. Listen. Speak well of your former employers.  Look the interviewer in the eye.

Cultivating beauty and self-confidence may start with these simple tricks but eventually it will start to penetrate and become real. Starting each day by dressing nicely and greeting your colleagues with a smile and a laugh will produce long-term effects; eventually people will start seeing you the way you want to be seen whether you wear your cravat or not.

Remember, if beauty were all it took there would be a whole lot more CEOs who look like supermodels. Check out Business Insider’s latest list of CEOs of startups to watch: a nice collection of average looking people doing off-the-wall, amazing things. Success, it seems, is not only the domain of the beautiful people. It’s available to all of us.

Your life is a direct reflection of the standards you hold—both for yourself and for others.: How to Get What You Want by Raising Your Standards

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LessMeeting is a productivity app that delivers an important measure of command and control over one of the real time wasters on the business front, meetings. Setting agendas, timing meetings, taking notes, action items, to dos, and communicating meeting summaries is all supported within LessMeeting in an interactive shared environment.

www.lessmeeting.com

In reality, team meetings actually cost more than you think such as wasted time.: Waste Time at Meetings? Try These 8 Meeting Management Tips

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When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable.

Do you have a dream deep in your heart that you want to pursue? If you do, have you taken the first step necessary to achieve it? Taking the first step is perhaps the most difficult thing to do in achieving a dream. There are a lot of mental obstacles that make it difficult to take that first step.
Here are some dont’s to help you solve the mental obstacles:

Achieving Your Dream: How to Take the First Step

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You sit down at your computer, ready to get started on your work for the day when you decide to check your Facebook, then you really want to see what’s happening on Reddit. Next thing you know, the day is half gone and you haven’t even started working yet. Admit it, this happens more than you’d like to admit. If only you could force yourself to stay focused.

Well, now you can, thanks to StayFocused, a Chrome extension that restricts the amount of time you can spend on time-wasting websites so you have to stay focused. The extension is totally flexible, allowing you to set the amount of time you can waste each day, determine which websites are time wasters and decide if you’d like to block certain sites altogether.

Here are 6 Google Chrome productivity extensions that will help you get things done.: 6 Google Chrome Productivity Extensions That Help You Get Things Done

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One of the best ways to master something is to just jump in and do it. However, for some, this can be seen as a waste of time blindly doing something you aren’t sure you’ll succeed in. So, why not dedicate a weekend to it? This is known as a “Weekend Project” and today, we will talk about how a weekend project can help you improve your skills, knowledge, interests, and in return, your life. We will also talk about how you can get involved with your own weekend project.

What Exactly is a Weekend Project?

Originally, weekend projects were geared more toward home improvement. During the week, you can’t work on a high-traffic area of your home, and the responsibilities of one’s occupation plus the high energy of the work week just deemed it too time consuming. So, individuals would wait until the weekend to do repairs. However, in modern times, weekend projects don’t have to involve a hammer—they can encompass everything from cleaning out your home office to building a computer. These are the type of weekend projects we will focus on.

The Productivity Factor

The average workweek has changed for most individuals; it’s the weekend that has changed. One thing to make clear is that your “weekend” project doesn’t have to occur between the days of Friday and Sunday; any period of time during the week that you would otherwise spend in idle mode can be a time for your project.

Weekend projects can even make you more marketable in your job and keep your skills sharp. For example, no matter which industry you work in, having skills in database management could be marketable in your current job or the industry you attain to be in. Spending a weekend learning the basics of the database language SQL can allow you to learn an easy-to-understand language.

Creating Your Own Project

Not everyone views productivity in the same way, which presents a question of how you can apply the productive benefits of weekend projects to your own life? One thing to ask yourself is how you wish to benefit from it. The benefit doesn’t have to be extravagant, like saving the world, but the project should be a personal one.

A weekend pursuit that helps you, and improves your life directly or indirectly, will allow you to feel more accountable to get it complete. Weekends are the time when you are allowed to be a bit selfish; you have worked so hard during the week, and on your day of rest, you should pamper yourself and your mind in some way.

You should think about how long you’d like to devote to this project. Projects can cover multiple weekends if warranted, like learning a computer language or purging your home of clutter. Lastly, you should consider how much of an investment you’ll like to make in this project—you can have weekend projects as inexpensive as learning new yoga poses, or as costly as reviving your vintage car. It is truly up to you, but something to consider.

5 Suggestions for Weekend Projects

Below, we have give suggestions for projects you can take up for this weekend. Also, to get you started, we have each project linked with a great page that can point you in the right direction:

• Learn a New Computer Language – Easily marketable, applicable, and rewarding.
• Try Out a New Recipe – While lounging around the house during a weekend, why not cook something up that you wouldn’t have normally tried during the high stressed work week?
• Revolutionize the Way You Work – Start the new week by spicing up the way you work.
• Improve Time Management – Spend your idle time planning how to use your time during the week wisely.
• Create a Home Office – Bringing your work home is usually frowned upon, but having a dedicated location for work at home makes you more productive.

As you can see, these small endeavors are more productive than you think. Some of the best creations, in technology especially, have been created out of side projects. While you don’t have to have a weekend project with those high expectations, you may be surprised what does come out of your small activity. Let us know in the comments what projects you’ll do this weekend.

How often do we have a weekend where we are free to do what we want – and not what we need to do?: How to Hack Your Weekend

The post The Weekend Project: Finding Yours appeared first on Lifehack.

Don’t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.

There is an epidemic spreading across the world. And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we’re all carriers of the disease. It’s called Offend-initis, a skin condition whereby the thickness of our skin melts away to the point where everything offends us. Symptoms may include: hurt feelings, indignation, irritability, disappointment, grumpiness and an all-around allergic reaction to anyone who says or does something we don’t like.

Fortunately, there is a cure.

Stop Being Offended Today: 3 Cures for Everything That Irritates You

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The world does not reward perfectionists. It rewards those who get things done.

As a rule, thinking is a good thing and while some people don’t do it enough, some over-think everything. Both genders can fall into either category – today we’re going to chat about the one who does too much.

How to Stop Being an Over-Thinker

The post 30sec Tip: The World Does not Reward Perfectionists appeared first on Lifehack.

If you’re anything like me, you hate doing chores, whether it means vacuuming or washing clothes. Fortunately, there are tons of ways to cut down on the time you spend doing chores and this great BuzzFeed article features 31 fantastic ways to make laundry easier.

If you find sorting laundry to be tedious, then just install multiple hampers on a wall in your laundry room or garage and sort your laundry as you toss it in the hamper, or buy a hamper with dividers built in. Always have stains on your clothes, then post a stain-removal cheat sheet right beside your washing machine.Tired of losing socks, then put your socks in a mesh bag before you wash them and they’ll stay together.

Remember, if you try to make laundry easier, you’ll have way more time to do the things you actually enjoy doing.

Original Source – Buzzfeed

The post 31 Ways to Make Laundry Easier appeared first on Lifehack.

When I graduated from college in 2009 with a BA in French, I spent six weeks looking for a job.

Any job.

I needed to save money for my impending move to Paris, where I would spend a year working as a teaching assistant in an elementary school, frolicking in the City of Lights, and I needed to save money quick—$3,000 in the span of a couple months—in order to afford all of those baguettes and bottles of vin.

I don’t know if you recall, but the summer of 2009 wasn’t exactly the best time to find a job/graduate from college because of the…ahem…recession that had just hit the U.S.. Merci, economy! When June arrived and I still hadn’t found work, I started to panic. In my desperation, I posted an ad on Craigslist entitled “French Tutor: $15/hr”.

Two days later, I got an email and scheduled my first student: a Russian-American eighth grader with a deep love for David Bowie.

That, my dear reader, is how I got my first taste of how to earn money on the side. No, it wasn’t a ton of money (I eventually found a full-time job to save the money I needed for France), but I realized an important lesson: it’s just not that hard to get people to pay you to do things.

In the four years since I graduated, I’ve become more and more obsessed with the idea that I can earn money without getting a real job. In fact, while living in Paris, I continued to grow my tutoring business and offered up my services as a nanny. I made bank. I even moved back to France in 2011 and spent eight months living off of my side hustle, earning money “under the table” or “in the black”, as the French say, by tutoring ESL, babysitting, and even continuing to tutor American students via Skype.

Now, I even teach new entrepreneurs how to land their first three clients and start earning money on the side. (My “side hustle” has become my main income).

How did I do it? More importantly: How can you start earning extra money (at least $500) on the side, too?

Lemon squeezy.

You just need to try a few of the following things (as many as you can, really). It’s fun. Just think of it like a game!

#1 – Teach someone something

You, my friend, are talented. You have knowledge and wisdom that others just don’t have. You have knowledge that they need. Stop hogging it all!

Maybe you have an academic skill, like tutoring French or Math or Biology. Maybe you’re an amateur auto mechanic. Maybe you have a knack for cooking tapas or sneaky vegan recipes that even meat lovers will love. Contact the local high school, library, etc to see if they’d refer you.

Whatever it is, there’s someone out there who is willing to pay you to teach them how to do what you do best. You have to get over the unwillingness to earn money for doing what comes easy to you, because, well… it doesn’t come easy to them. (I, for example, would love to hire someone to teach me how to sew or do my taxes).

Make a list of 50 things that you know how to do. You don’t have to be an expert. You just have to know how to do it better than the person who hires you. (I am not the best French speaker in the world, but I know way more than my students and have diverse teaching experience, and they get an incredible value from my lessons).

Charge what you’re worth. Don’t do what I did and charge a measly $15. (My lessons are now triple that cost). If you do this right, this is the best and easiest way to make money on the side.

#2—Sell something (not your body, duh)

Don’t even try to tell me that you don’t own anything that you can sell. I’m a minimalist, for crying out loud, and I still have things lying around that I can sell.

Do you have:

• Nice clothes that you rarely wear?
• Shoes?
• Furniture?
• An instrument?
• An old computer, phone, or other electronics?
• A designer purse?
• Books?

Walk around your house with a pen and paper. Make a list of items that you see that you might be able to sell. (Note: the best places to sell things are eBay, Craigslist, and at garage sales).

I sold my piccolo from high school for $300. A few friends told me I was crazy—that I should keep the piccolo just in case. Just in case what?! The damn thing had been rotting on a shelf in my basement for eight years. Now that I’ve sold it, it’s actually going to get the love and attention that it deserves… and I made 300 bucks.

#3—Get a J-O-B.

Last spring, after my house was hit by a tornado (yeah, that happened). It was cra-zy. In the midst of the madness, I craved normality. I decided to get a part-time job at the local coffee shop (I’m actually writing this post from that coffee shop right now, sippin’ on my chai tea).

Getting a part-time job is great because (a) it’s easy (b) you get to meet new people (c) you spend your time doing something that’s earning you more money rather than spending it.

Most people complain that they don’t have enough time to get a part-time job, even for just a few hours on a Saturday morning. Or—they think that having a part-time job would suck just as much as it did in high school.

I don’t agree with either of these claims. I’m sure that you could wake up a couple of hours earlier on a Saturday or trade some of that time that you spend surfing Facebook to get out into the world. You need to think about the benefits the job gives you: more money, more freedom (eventually), and a more interesting life!

So, what’s it gonna be?

You can absolutely earn $500 a month this way, but you have to make a decision. The mailman is not going to drop the money off at your door, though. You must get up and take action to get started.

In the comments, please do share… (I read + respond to all comments).

(1)   Do you have any other ideas for ways to earn money on the side?

(2)   What are you going to do this week to start earning some extra cash?

If you’d like some more ideas of ways to earn extra money, check out these articles:

Most people want a few more dollars in their wallets. Here's an article for you: 50 Businesses You Can Start In Your Spare Time

The post 3 Ways to Earn an Extra $500 on the Side appeared first on Lifehack.

It’s a commonly-held belief that everyone should have at least one spectacular recipe down pat so they can demonstrate their culinary prowess at a moment’s notice. Though it’s actually best to have at least ten of these memorized, having the know-how to create one gorgeous dish is absolutely imperative, and might actually be the magic key to getting you out of trouble one day.

Do take note that when I mention the creation of a dish, I’m not talking about warming up something frozen that you’ve bought at the grocery store—that’s not cooking, it’s a travesty waiting to happen. This is a meal that you create from scratch, so if you don’t yet know the difference between chopping and mincing, and think that deglazing is something you only do to windows, it’s best to do a bit of research on the basics first. Don’t worry, it’s not as scary as it sounds: chopping = cutting something fairly small; mincing = really tiny. That’s it. Oh, and use the sharp end of your knife to do all of this.

Risotto

That really is a gorgeous word, isn’t it? Roll it off your tongue a couple of times and you’ll see what I mean. It’s an Italian dish made with Arborio rice, which gets fabulously starchy as it cooks so the dish ends up rich and creamy. There are countless variations on flavour profiles that you can create, but this is a basic recipe you can use and build upon as you see fit.

What you’ll need:

6-8 cups chicken or vegetable broth (I like to use onion)
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter or margarine
1 large onion, finely chopped
1/4 cup celery, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, pressed or minced
1.5 cups Arborio rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
sea salt black pepper
2 tbsp minced chives
1 extra tsp of butter or margarine 1/2 cup grated cheese, such as Parmigiano Reggiano 

Step 1: Heat the Stock

In a medium-sized pot heat up the stock so that it comes to a light boil, and then turn the heat down to low to keep it hot, but not bubbling.

In a separate pot (or large, deep skillet—even a wok will do), heat the olive oil and butter on medium-high heat. When it starts to sizzle, add in the onions, garlic, and celery, and then turn the heat down to medium. You should be able to sautee them at this temperature for a good 10 minutes without them going brown.

One the vegetables have softened and the onions are translucent, it’s time to add the rice.

Step 2: Rice 

Once you’ve added the rice, turn the heat back up to high and stir it around immediately so that it gets a nice, even coating of fat all over it. Keep stirring it constantly, and after a minute or so you’ll notice that it starts to look a bit translucent. This is when you get to deglaze the pan so you lift all the delectable bits that the cooking vegetables have released, and the rice will get to suck the wine up into every single grain.

*Note: make sure that you never cook with a wine that you wouldn’t serve at your table. The quality of the dish will be far better with a good wine, and you’ll get to sample it liberally as you cook.

Step 3: Add the Stock

When the rice has absorbed the wine, add a ladle of hot stock to the pan along with a pinch of sea salt, and turn the heat down to medium: you want the rice to simmer, but not burn. After that ladle-ful has been absorbed, add another one, constantly stirring that rice with your wooden spoon so you coax the starch out of the grains as they cook. This will take approximately 20 minutes or so, at which point you should taste the rice to see if it’s cooked. The grains should be mostly soft, but very slightly al dente, meaning that they’ll be tender, but still offer a bit of resistance when bitten into.

This is your opportunity to season the dish: does it need more salt? How about some cracked pepper? Stir these in as needed, and then remove the pan from the stove.

Step 4: Final Adjustments

It’s in this final step that you get to make the risotto your own. If you want to keep things simple, then just add in that extra dollop of butter or margarine, stir it around, and then let it sit for a couple of minutes so it gets creamy beyond measure. You can add in grated Parmigiano Reggiano, Asiago, or Romano cheese at this stage as well, and then garnish it with chives before serving.

If you’re feeling a bit more adventurous, you could do a bit of prep work before starting the risotto so you can add extras to it, such as sauteed mushrooms or other vegetables. Some great ideas/combinations to try are:

- Mixed fried mushrooms – Broccoli and lemon (you’d add a tbsp of lemon juice during the final step)
- Asparagus tips - Spinach and feta (omit the parmesan)
- Sundried tomato and basil

Mushrooms, broccoli, and asparagus need to be cooked before being added, while spinach and basil can just be chopped or shredded and added in raw in the final step: the heat from the rice will cook them lightly for you. Be sure to serve this with a glass of that wine you cooked with, and consider accompanying the dish with a light salad to cut the richness of it—a light salad of arugula/mixed greens with a lemon vinaigrette would do nicely.

There you have it! Risotto might be a bit labour-intensive, but it really is worth the effort: once you and your companion take that first bite, you’ll see what I mean.

RELATED: A Cheating Way of Cooking Risotto

The post The Perfect Risotto Recipe for Anniversaries and Apologies appeared first on Lifehack.

Plenty of people will tell you that if you want to take control of your money you should set a budget and stick to it. While that works for some people, the fact is that not everyone can stick to a budget and often, they will get discouraged to the point where they end up spending even more money.

Sometimes we put these small changes off because we forget just how much money we could save if we do them: How to Save Money Around Your Home

For those who have a hard time budgeting, but still want to take better control of their money, finance expert Suze Orman suggests cutting back a little bit at a time so you won’t feel deprived by what you’re missing. She compares the process to dieting, noting that strict diets usually fail, but if you focus on cutting calories here and there, you’ll soon start to see results and feel better about making bigger steps.

The post How to Take Control of Your Money appeared first on Lifehack.

Can you count the hours you spent on emails this month? How about this week, or even today? I’m pretty sure you can’t.

In the maelstrom of our office and personal life, email has become a cornerstone of our daily activity for good and bad. Spending countless hours checking email has become a habit ingrained in our subconscious. Checking and managing email has the potential to become a sinkhole for just about anyone.

In 2013, the typical corporate email user sends and receives an estimate of 115 emails; that’s roughly 2.5 hours every day spent only on writing them. That doesn’t leave the “typical corporate email user” much time to do anything else and is why we must learn how to process email better.

“Our biggest job is to define what our work is.” Peter Drucker

Keep in mind that email is just a tool for doing your job; it’s not meant to replace your job specs and objectives.

Measuring and monitoring your email habits will bring much needed structure, and since we’re dealing with a considerable chunk of your day, it will also raise your productivity.

We might start with the best of intentions, but unless we deal with some “hidden” forces, the battle won’t be won. There are a few things that you need to know about your email habits — things that aren’t entirely within your control…

Force number #1: Our lizard brain

There’s a part of our brain that always strives for perfection. It drives meticulous behaviors and ultimately, makes us waste disproportionate amounts of time on tasks that are sometimes trivial in nature — our lizard brain.

“The lizard brain is on high alert to make sure that everything is okay. The lizard brain can’t rest until it knows that everyone likes us, that no one is offended, that all graphs are ticking up and to the right, and the future is assured. But of course, the future (and the present) isn’t perfect. It can’t be.” Seth Godin

By the way, that’s why we mark emails as unread. We want the conditions to be perfect when we open our email, and “the here and now” is never perfect, so maybe later. Try to understand, the conditions will never be perfect, so you’ll have to make things work for you. That’s why you should never open an email, and mark it “unread;” make sure you only touch it once and process it (coming to you from the GTD Master – David Allen).

Force Number #2: FOMO – Fear of missing out

Fear of missing out, or FOMO, is a behavior we’ve cultivated through years of evolution. Evolution, through natural selection, preferred the “FOMO gene” and pushed it up the ladder because a hunter-gatherer with FOMO is a better hunter-gatherer. Curiosity and a need to reap as many rewards as possible brought us to this point in time but, alas, nowadays, FOMO doesn’t serve us as well.

FOMO is one of the major reasons we open emails the second we receive them. Our Smartphones (or perhaps I should call them something else…) even help distract us with sounds and flashing lights each time a new email or text message arrives. Yes…text messages are just another form of email — the name doesn’t trick me.

Sure, you’re probably telling yourself that it’s just your way of managing your tasks better. But you fail to realize that you are managing nothing! Your emails and texts are managing you! This may be a key driver in missing deadlines, failing to set priorities, and not completing tasks, which ultimately may prevent you from sleeping well at night, i.e. the Zeigarnik effect.

That’s why you need to schedule opening emails during a designated time frame and no more than two to three times per day.

Force number #3: Depression

Yes, I said it…Depression. A study published on 2011 by Sriram Chellappan from the Missouri University of Science and Technology suggests that people suffering from depression engage in a very high level of email usage.

“Study participants with depressive symptoms tended to engage in very high e-mail usage. This perhaps was to be expected: research by the psychologists Janet Morahan-Martin and Phyllis Schumacher has shown that frequent checking of e-mail may relate to high levels of anxiety, which itself correlates with depressive symptoms.” Sriram Chellappan NYTimes 06/12.

This doesn’t mean that if you spend hours upon hours on emails, you’re suffering from depression; it means that people who are suffering from depression tend to spend more time on emails. Why? Because you may be looking for ways to lift your spirit, and your brain remembers how to occupy you in pursuit of online happiness.

To make things worse, we also find ourselves nowadays surrounded by environmental forces influencing our ability to process emails, like increased email consumption via mobile, which prolongs the amount of time we spend on emails.

Add to the mix an unsatisfied lizard brain, a FOMO tendency, and the above mentioned Zeigarnik effect and you get one depressive concoction that makes things worse for people who already suffer from depression, so be aware.

Historical statistics show that the amount of emails we process on a daily basis is only going to increase as technology progresses, challenging us both physically and mentally. Preparing ourselves and learning about ways to process emails more efficiently and in a more organized way is a must if we want to be more productive!

For many the issue of inbox overwhelm isn’t simply about being in an email heavy job, it’s very much about the deluge of incoming information.: 6 Strategies to Organize Overwhelming Email: Stem the Flood of Information

The post Email is Not the Problem – You Are appeared first on Lifehack.

It’s easy to want to do something, but a lot harder to actually get things done -especially when you’re relying in whole or in part on someone else to do their work. Sometimes, the only thing standing in your way is trying to find motivation, which, admittedly, can be hard to find when it is already lacking.

Whether you’re looking to find motivation for your employees or co-workers, you very well may find this infographic useful.

One of the key things to keep in mind is that positive motivation is always far more effective than negative motivation. So ask those you need to find motivation for what rewards they would find to be motivating and don’t forget to give lots of praise to those who have worked the hardest to get their projects done on time.

Original source - fizzler

The post How to Find Motivation appeared first on Lifehack.

For the full original unedited article, visit Celestine’s blog, Personal Excellence.

Are you a productive person? Have you ever wondered what makes one more productive than another?

Unlike what most might think, being productive is not about one’s intellect or capability. Being productive is about practicing certain habits over others, such that you can get the most out of your days. As someone very passionate about personal productivity, I have found eight habits to be superior in boosting one’s productivity. Practice them and prepare to skyrocket your productivity!

Habit 1: Ruthlessly cut away the unimportant (and Focus on the important)

The first habit of productive people is to slice and dice everything that’s unimportant.

For everything you’re doing now, ask yourself how important this is. Does this bring you dramatically closer to your dreams? Does this create any real impact in your life in the long term? Is it the absolute best way to spend your time or can you be doing more high value tasks?

If the answer is ‘yes’ to all the questions, keep this task. If not, perhaps it’s time to ditch it. No point doing something unimportant! Say you’re handling a project that makes no difference to your business after it’s completed. It wouldn’t matter whether you take an hour, three hours, or one week to do it—it’d still make no difference at the end of the day!

Many people tend to wrongly classify regular tasks as high value tasks. A good tool to set them apart is the Time Management Matrix that classifies our daily activities into 4 different quadrants. Your most important tasks fall under Quadrant 2, which should be your quadrant of focus.

Habit 2: Allocate breaks strategically

The second habit is to allocate breaks strategically.

I don’t think being productive requires you to work non-stop like a robot. On the contrary, it’s by doing that that you become less productive. While the number of hours spent on work increases and the amount of work accomplished seems marginally higher, the work done per unit time is lower than your average. Not only that, your work done per extra unit time actually decreases. In Economics, this is known as the Law of Diminishing Returns.

Rest is important. No matter how much you want to work, there are areas of your life that work can’t fulfill, such as love, family, health. That’s why our life wheel is made up of different segments, vs. just 1 big segment. Each segment is distinct and irreplaceable by others. By “rest”, I’m referring to taking time for any segment of your life that is outside of Business/Career/Studies. Taking time off charges your batteries so you can sprint forward when you return to work.

Watch this video tutorial on the life wheel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfDUK6c9gwk

If you’re self-employed or on a flexible work schedule, you can put this into practice easily. Even if you’re in a 9-5 job, you can still do it all the time. Whenever you feel unproductive, throw in a quick break. Walk away from the desk, get a drink from the pantry, go for a toilet break, talk to a colleague about work. You’ll be more perked up when you return.

Habit 3: Remove productivity pitstops (i.e. distractions)

The third habit is to remove productivity pitstops.

Productivity pitstops are things that limit your productivity. They can be the music you listen to when you work, your slow computer, unwanted phone calls, alerts from your inbox on incoming mail, the internet, You Tube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. These things trap you and prevent you from getting things done.

Go about your daily routine and observe when your output slows down. What’s distracting you? How can you remove it? Experiment and try working in different places. Adjust your environment. Make tweaks here and there. The more productivity pitstops you find and remove, the more productive you’ll be.

Habit 4: Tap into your inspiration

The fourth habit is to tap into inspiration.

How do you do that? Simple – think about what inspires you in life. Is it helping others grow? Connecting with people? Being recognized for your work? Working with the poverty? Helping the unfortunate? Being #1 in your field? How can you achieve them? Find out your motivators, then use them to drive you.

My biggest inspiration is to see others achieving their highest potential and living their best lives. I love seeing everyone living to their highest being, and if there are ever anything blocking them I’ll feel all ready to rip it away, so I use this to drive me in everything I create. When I’m writing a blog entry, I’ll start by thinking what is an area people are facing blockages in, then I channel into that energy.

Habit 5: Create barriers to entry

The fifth habit of is to create barriers to entry.

A great thing about our world today is that it’s easier than ever to reach out to someone. Everyone is just a text message/phone call/email/Facebook message away. At the same time it has become a highly distracting place to live in. Every few minutes, there’s a distraction coming in, whether by way of a phone call, a text message, an e-mail, or a Facebook mass event invite.

To get real work done, I recommend you put up barriers, so it’s hard(er) to reach you. Unplug your phone, switch off your phone, close off your inbox, set a personal rule where you only reply to emails after X days. I’m not saying disappear from the face of the earth, but do that during your work hours at least, especially when you’re working on an intense project. After a while, people will get used to it and adhere to the rule in order to reach you.

Habit 6: Optimize time pockets

The sixth habit is to optimize time pockets.

Time pockets refer to pockets of time you have in between events. You usually get time pockets when waiting for people, commuting, walking from one place to another, etc.

Look at your schedule. What are the time pockets that can be better utilized? How can you maximize them? Have some ready activities to do during these pockets, such as listening to podcasts, reading books, planning, etc. You will be amazed at how much can be done in just a short amount of time!

Habit 7: Set timelines

The seventh habit is to set timelines.

This is a fundamental productivity habit. By Parkinson’s Law, work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. This means if you don’t set a timeline, you can take forever to complete what you’re doing. If you set a timeline of two weeks, you’ll take two weeks. If you set one week, you’ll take one  week. And interestingly enough, if you set one hour, you actually can complete it by one hour too, if you truly want to.

So, set timelines. When you set timelines, you set the intention to complete the work by this time, hence paving the way for the reality to manifest.

Habit 8: Automate everything possible

The eighth and last habit is to automate everything possible.

Technology today has made automation possible for a lot of things we do. Even when it’s impossible to fully automate the task, we can still use the systems to get a lot of the work done for us.

Keep a record of the things you do today, and see how you can automate them. Some of the not-so-productive tasks that we do on a regular basis are:

1. Delete, archive, sort our mail
2. Delete spam mail
3. Paying our bills
4. Appointment scheduling
5. Planning our days/weeks/months (unproductive because it’s still planning vs. acting)

Here is a partial list of things I automate:

• Mail: I have set up e-mail filters where all site requests and reader mail automatically go into my ‘Reply later’ folder.  I also have filters where newsletters and subscriptions go into different folders depending on what they are about. That way, my only job is to read e-mails and respond where needed, not to sort.
• Scheduling: My schedules are somewhat automated. I set recurring items for things I’ve to do daily, weekly or monthly like paying the bills, exercising (daily), training workshops, etc so I don’t have to worry about them later. It’s not exactly automatic in that I have to first create the entry, but once it’s set I don’t need to do anything about it anymore.
• Tweeting/Facebook: I automate the tweeting and posting of my new posts. Every time a new post goes live, my twitter will have an announcement, which automatically feeds into my Facebook as well
• Payments: My product payments are automatic. Whenever someone makes a purchase for one of my books, e-junkie (my payment vendor) will automatically generate an invoice, a download link and a confirmation email and send them to the buyer. The payment is automatically sent to Paypal.

I’m continuously looking for ways to automate my process, so I can spend more time on creating value for others rather than being stuck in busy work. By automating your to-do list as much as possible, you reserve your time for the absolute important things. If you get a deja vu feeling when doing something on your task list, that’s a cue to automate that item.

This article is also available in manifesto, web lecture and audio podcast formats.

People walking in subway: 10 Great Notebooks Productive People Love

The post The 8 Habits of Highly Productive People appeared first on Lifehack.

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.

Have you ever wondered what it is that makes some people successful and others not?

What do they do differently to guarantee them long-term success?

I’ve studied a whole host of successful people and I’ve discovered a few things that they have in common. And today I’m going to share with you one key secret to long-term success.

Out of all the habits that successful people share, this is definitely one of the most crucial ingredients for success ,yet it’s something that most of us are not implementing.

Here’s the news flash:

What Do Successful People Do Differently to Guarantee them Long-term Success?

The post Daily Quote: Do Things Differently appeared first on Lifehack.

Want to reach your goals more quickly? Set your mindset for success with these 25 tricks.

We all want a successful happy life. You are probably like me and have many goals you want to achieve. Whether these goals are for business, home, family, or self-improvement, setting your mindset for success is key.

Without a proper mindset you may find yourself distracted by daily life or experiencing shiny object syndrome. Shiny object syndrome is when you are always distracted by the latest and greatest idea, so you rarely follow one path through to the end.

You may have decided you have all the time in the world to reach these goals. Will you feel the same way in 5 years if you haven’t reached them yet?  If you look back 5 years, what did you plan to achieve at that time? Have you achieved those goals? Why or why not?

If you set your mindset for success, you will reach your goals more quickly and will then find yourself with the opportunity to create new, and possibly even bigger, goals.

Tricks to Set Your Mindset for Success:

Develop Success Habits

1. Create systems to keep yourself on track.
2. Make a small step toward each of your goals each day.
3. Capture all of the information that could help you.
   1. Take a quick note on your phone while you are out for a walk so you don’t forget.
   2. Clip all articles and inspiring ideas for later reference.
4. Create the to-do list for the next day the night before.
5. Prioritize your to do list.
6. Tackle the most dreaded task first, as everything else will feel like a piece of cake after.

Once you’ve implemented one or more of the above success habits for over 21 days, it will become much easier and a part of your routine. At that time, you can add in another mindset for success. Feel free to try implementing them all at once, but for most people, that much change to their routine is overwhelming and they are dooming themselves to failure.

Make Better Decisions

1. Start making executive decisions — you are the CEO of your own life, so begin taking charge and making decisions as if you were being paid for those decisions.
2. Apply mental filters.
3. Run decisions through an “if this, then that” scenario in your mind.
4. Consider the worst case scenario.
5. Keep your end goal in mind. Does the choice fit with your goal or take you in a different direction?
6. Distance your emotions if they are really strong. A gut reaction is great, but take a step back if one of the choices really engages an emotional response in you. Come back to make the decision when you can be a bit more objective.
7. Learn from your failures by asking yourself what you learned from the experience.
8. Stop the negative talk in your mind.
9. Know your strengths and weaknesses.
10. Ask for feedback from colleagues.
11. Be able to process both positive and negative feedback in a constructive manner.
12. Learn how to “correct yourself” when you find yourself going too far or not keeping in line with your goal.
13. Develop core competencies that will help you reach your goal.
14. Be results-focused.
15. When you experience a setback, don’t dwell on it. After doing an assessment, move on to the next thing.
16. Don’t be afraid to make a course correction when necessary
17. Stick with your decisions in most cases; constant course correction makes the road 10 times as long.

Decision-making is a huge key to success. We make many decisions each day, and they either take us closer or farther away from our goals. Do you know what effects your decisions are having on your goals? Spend a few minutes thinking about the last few decisions you’ve made and decide whether they are in line with your goals or taking you farther away from them.

Which mindset for success tricks can you put in practice today? Share your best success habits with us in the comments below.

Why have we become so lazy?: 5 Bad Mindsets You Should Change

The post 25 Tricks To Set Your Mindset For Success appeared first on Lifehack.

Ask The Entrepreneurs is a regular series where members of those involved in the Young Entrepreneur Council are asked a single question that aims to help Lifehack readers level up their own lives, whether in a area of management, communication, business, or life in general.

Here’s the question posed in this edition of Ask The Entrepreneurs:

What’s your favorite online-only banking service, for personal and/or business use?

1. Ally

My favorite online-only banking service is Ally (www.ally.com), mostly because of its stellar customer service. Nothing upsets me more than having a difficult time contacting an online-only banking provider when I have a question, but Ally poses no problem. A CSR always answers the phone promptly and quickly takes care of my needs.

- Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance

2. Dwolla

Dwolla (www.dwolla.com) is a new tool we’ve been using at Poshly for online banking. It’s the best peer-to-peer money transfer system I’ve seen so far. It’s incredibly simple to set up, and their customer service is incredible. We have our team using it for reimbursements and monthly paychecks.

- Doreen Bloch, Poshly Inc.

3. Bill.com

While Bill.com (www.bill.com) isn’t exactly an “online-only banking service,” it is a fantastic online bill pay service, offering a great way to streamline your payables while eliminating paper. You can easily enter bills, pay them (or submit for approval), record payments, create invoices, send invoices, and send invoice reminders. Clients can even sign in to a secured portal to pay invoices.

- David Ehrenberg, Early Growth Financial Services

4. Chase

Chase (www.chase.com) has been pretty tech-savvy with their online banking, and, so far, we’ve had great pleasure working with them. I’d say their strength is allowing read-only access for your advisers to pull data from, and their weakness is some of the transaction descriptions they provide. Overall, I’d give them an eight out of ten for ease of use, as well as price point.

- W. Michael Hsu, DeepSky

5. Charles Schwab

I love Charles Schwab (www.schwab.com/) because their interface is straightforward; They have an amazing mobile app, and they make banking with them really easy. You can use any ATM and they reimburse you the fees, and you can also take a picture of incoming checks with your smartphone to be deposited electronically. I’m a very happy customer.

- Nathalie Lussier, The Website Checkup Tool

6. Simple

For online-only banking, you have to strongly look at Simple (www.simple.com). It’s a real bank without all the fees and BS associated with the old-school mentality of the current brick-and-mortars. Other than a very nice UI, there are category features like Mint and some very useful graphing functions, too.

- Chuck Reynolds, Vuurr

7. Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo (www.wellsfargo.com) has, by far, the best online banking experience I’ve ever seen. That’s not to say it couldn’t be improved, but that is to say that everything else is absolutely horrid. On a scale from one to ten, Wells Fargo’s online banking experience is a solid seven, whereas everyone else is at a three or lower. Overall, I think the online banking space is chomping at the bit for reinvention.

- Chad Halvorson, When I Work

8. PerkStreet Financial

A local Boston startup, PerkStreet Financial (www.perkstreet.com), aims to provide convenience by acting as an online bank with access to ATMs, surcharge-free. Account owners earn “perks” as cash back for what they spend, hence the name. The online account is tracked via a simple interface for history and mobile alerts. Customers will appreciate 24/7 customer service, as TD Bank, Ally and other institutions have adopted.

- Lane Sutton, Social Media from a Teen

Small savings can add up and big savings can feel like winning the lottery, just without all of the taxes: 33 Painless Ways to Save Money Now

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How often do you find yourself procrastinating? Do you wish you could procrastinate less? We all know how debilitating procrastination can make us feel, and it seems to be a challenge we all share. Procrastination is one of the biggest hindrances to moving forward and doing the things that we want to in life.

There are many reasons why you might be procrastinating, and sometimes, it is really difficult to pinpoint why. You might be procrastinating because of something related to the past, present, or future (they are all intertwined), or it could be as simple as biological factors. Whatever the reason, most of us follow a cycle when we procrastinate, from the moment we decide to do something to actually getting it done, or in this case, not getting it done.

For some reason, it helps to understand that we all go through the same thing, even though we often feel like the only person in the world who struggles with this. Do you resonate with the cycle below?

1. Feeling eager and energized: This is when you commit to taking a new action or getting something done. You are feeling confident and optimistic that, this time round, you will do it!

2. Apprehension starts to come up: The beginning stages of optimism are starting to fade. There is still time, but you haven’t done anything yet, and you start to feel uneasy. You realize that you actually have to do something to get it done, and that good intentions are not enough.

3. Still no action: More time has passed. You still haven’t taken any action and probably have a lot of excuses why. You start to panic a little and wish you had started sooner. Your panic starts to turn into frustration and perhaps even irritability.

4. Flicker of hope left: You can still make it; there is a little time left and you ponder how you are going to get it done. The rush you get from leaving your task until the last minute gives you a flicker of hope. There is still time; you can do this!

5. Fading quickly: Your hope starts to quickly fade as you try desperately to understand why you just can’t do this. You may feel desperate and have thoughts like, “What is wrong with me?” and “Why do I ALWAYS do this?” You feel discouraged, or perhaps angry and resentful at yourself.

6. Vow to yourself: Once the feeling of anger or disappointment disappears, you most likely swear to yourself that this will never happen again; that this was the last time and next time will be different.

Does this sound like you? Is the next time different? I understand the devastating effect that procrastination has on many lives, and for some, it is a really serious problem. You also have, on the other hand, those who procrastinate but it doesn’t affect them in any way. You know whether it is affecting you or not and whether it undermines your results.

Unless you break the cycle, you will keep reinforcing it! To break the cycle, you need to change the sequence of events. Here is my suggestion on how you can effectively break the vicious cycle you are in!

1. Feeling eager and energized: this is when you commit to taking a new action or getting something done. You are feeling confident and optimistic that, this time round, you will do it! The first stage is always the same.

BREAK THE CYCLE

2. Plan: Thinking alone will not help; you need to plan your actions. I always put my deadlines one or two days in advance because you know Murphy’s Law! Take into consideration everything that you need to do, how long it will take you, and what you will need to get it done, then plan the individual steps.

3. Resistance: Just because you planned doesn’t mean that this time is guaranteed to be different. You will most likely still feel the resistance so expect this. This stage is key to identifying why you are procrastinating, so when you feel the resistance, try to identify it immediately. What is causing you to hesitate in this moment? What do you feel?  Write them down if it helps.

4. Confront those feelings: Once you have identified what could possibly be holding you back, for example, fear of failure, lack of motivation, etc., you need to work on lessening the resistance. Ask yourself, “What do I need to do to move forward? What would make it easier?” If you find that you fear something, overcoming that fear is not something that will happen overnight — keep this in mind.

5. Put results before comfort: You need to keep moving forward and put results before comfort. Take action, even if it is only for 10 minutes. The key is to break the cycle and not reinforce it. You have more control that you think.

6. Repeat: Repeat steps 3-5 until you achieve what you first set out to do.

Change doesn’t happen overnight, and if you have some deeper underlying reasons why you procrastinate, it may take longer to finally break the cycle. If procrastination is holding you back in life, it is better to deal with it now than to deal with the negative consequences later on. It is not a question of comfort anymore; it is a question of results. What is more important to you?

Below are some of the symptoms of a Procrastinator and the remedies to try: 7 Symptoms of Procrastination and How to Fight Them

The post How To Break The Procrastination Cycle appeared first on Lifehack.

Don’t wish it was easier wish you were better. Don’t wish for less problems, wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenges, wish for more wisdom.

Knowledge, Wisdom, and Insight may sound like synonyms, but they are not. Though they all refer to the mind and an accumulation of thoughts and experiences, they have some very real differences in the essence of their meanings and their applications in our life.

Knowledge, Wisdom, and Insight. Are they Really Synonyms?

The post 30sec Tip: Don’t Wish it was Easier, Wish You Were Better. appeared first on Lifehack.

Composting your trash to reduce your household waste is a great idea and an earth-friendly way to create fantastic soil for your garden. But if you’ve never tried composting before, the process can seem a bit daunting -after all, if you just start throwing all your trash in a pile, you won’t have a compost pile, but a health hazard. Luckily, this useful infographic is a great tool in better understanding composting.

Something old…with something new to teach us: 12 Permaculture Principles to Help You Be More Productive

The easiest rule to remember when it comes to understanding composting is that if it comes from plant matter, it’s probably OK to compost -and that includes newspapers and cardboard. A few other things you can include that aren’t plant-based are pet hair, egg shells, dryer lint, fireplace ash and the waste from animals who eat plant-based diets.

Plastic, dog and cat waste, charcoal, meat scraps, dairy products, and oils are all big no-nos when it comes to composting. Items treated with pesticides also must be left out, not for the sake of keeping compost organic, but because pesticides will kill the insects that help compost breakdown.

Original Source -Organic Mommy Today

The post Better Understanding Composting appeared first on Lifehack.

Supermarkets haven’t destroyed farmers, although they have made their lives a lot harder. It’s not rare to see a weekend outdoor farmer’s market in the US, but in Italia, where I come from, they work every day.  Italy’s outdoor market, the popular mercati is what makes it great. That’s Italy.

Imagine stalls and booths with Italian men and women behind them, selling basically everything—from five different varieties of tomatoes to prosciutto and other various types of deli meat, fresh baked bread with olives, butchered lamb meat, fish and wine: wines from the local region, homemade, tasty, rich in flavor.

Italians don’t go to the local outdoor food market just to fill out their fridge; they go to fill out their senses with sound and smell. You pass by a stall that sells fresh smoked cheese with basil, you can hear the wine being poured, you can smell the fresh bread and it will stimulate your appetite. Passing by the flowers you remember the games you used to play when you were a kid in your garden, just before your mother called out for you to come inside because it’s dinner time.  “Come”, the old vendor says with its strong baritone voice, “try this prosciutto, you’ll love it”. And you do.

You can find everything there, from healthy food to clothing, shoes, souvenirs, flowers and cookware.  They are opened every day of the week, except for some Sundays.

But, even if you live in Italy, not every product is of best quality, and that can be applied to the market places everywhere. There’s a great tip: follow the old lady. In Italia we call them nonne which basically means grandmother, but it can be applied to any old skillful lady. Italians are traditional and the roles in family are pretty much known in advance. Nonne have been cooking for their families for decades and they know which tomato is best for spaghetti, what meat goes in it and where to find it. They are, how should we say it, the best source of information as they have probably been patrons of the local mercati for those same decades.  That wisdom has been transferred through generations and when you spot one, and it’s easy to so because they carry a canvas bag designed to pile in as much excellent products as possible to carry home and cook for their loved ones, follow them and take notes. They will take you to the right guy.

If there isn’t one in sight, you can spot a quality vendor just by pure observation.  He is the guy behind a stall where people are waiting to be served.  This is how you spot a true fair one.  If there are up to five people waiting to be served, the product offered is a good one, and if there are more than five people in front of the booth, get in the line. Nonne know why.

If you are wondering why I wrote this article, it is because I am an advocate of healthy, homemade food, and I want to create a desire in you for the food that exudes the perfect smell of flavor and taste. I have learned a lot from my nonna. Just add raw vegetables and fruit to your meal and you will achieve that. Italians cook pasta as basics and they just add in sauce, cheese, meat: the things they have in the fridge, and a lot of salad.

This is not a big diet change. It is just a way to healthier and tastier food.

Movies, specifically documentaries, can help keep the reason why you want to eat healthier in the forefront of your mind: Want to Eat Healthier? Check Out These 7 Movies About Food and Make it Happen

The post Don’t Know How to Pick Fruits and Vegetables? Follow the Italian Lady appeared first on Lifehack.

Just about every email user is plagued with the same problems, and the busier you are, the bigger the problems become. While spam filters tend to do a pretty decent job keeping total junk out of our inboxes, commercial emails and newsletters are another matter -especially since you might actually want to read some of these. Fortunately, Swizzle is here to help you clean up your inbox.

Learn what other common work habits can sabotage your productivity: 6 Common Work Habits that Sabotage Your Productivity

When you sign up with Swizzle, it will fist scan your emails collecting all the commercial emails, newsletters, deals, coupons, etc. already in your inbox. The site will then allow you to chose which you want to keep receiving and which can be trashed. Finally, Swizzle will create a daily digest of the emails you still want to receive so you can clean up your inbox while still getting the bulk emails you care about.

Official Site – Swizzle

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There comes a time when we may be searching online and don’t want the browser to remember our footsteps. The reasons don’t always have to be what we obviously think of as the main reason; for example, sometimes, you may not want Safari to remember your passwords or prompt you to enter your password when surfing the web.

Whatever the reason, we may think that we are totally in the clear with Private Browsing on Safari and the other browsers on a Mac. However, a quick Terminal command can bring up every website you’ve visited. How do you do this? Also, how do you clear your tracks for good? We will provide both answers and more today.

What Does Private Browsing Do?

When activated, Private Browsing on Safari prevents your browsing history from being kept in the history tab of the application. Along with this, it doesn’t autofill information that you have saved in the browser. In this mode, you essentially become incognito and any references of previous use is essentially hidden when you are in private mode.

For example: if you are on Facebook or filling out a form and some information or your login is already filled in in the spaces provided, this is called autofill. It’s activated by simply clicking Safari next to the Apple symbol in the menubar and selecting Private Browsing, then clicking “OK” to the prompt.

The reasons behind private mode differ for each individual. While we won’t go into all of those reasons, one thing that is  important to remember is that private browsing doesn’t forget the websites you visit. As we will see later on, Macs keep a second copy of the websites you visit in either mode. If you are in frantic mode looking for a solution to this, look no further.

The Terminal Archive

While Safari does a good job of keeping your search history out of prying eyes in the history tab, there is a less-than-obvious way to view a full list of visited websites on Mac. This is done in Terminal; the command-line emulator that allows you to make changes to your Mac.

Terminal is located in the Utilities folder on your Mac. Once activated, simply add the command:

dscacheutil -cachedump -entries Host

Once you hit “enter”, a list of the visited sites appear. Showing only the domains, the sites appear in a format of:

Key: h_name :(website domain)ipv4 :1

However, there’s no need to fear—there is a way you can clear this information from Terminal with a command that’s just as simple.

Clearing Your Tracks

Just as simply as you were able to enter the command to view the websites, you can clear the cache that Terminal showed you with the comamnd:

dscacheutil -flushcache

As the command denotes, this literally “flushes” the domains from Terminal. This does not prevent the record from continuing to be recorded for future sites, however, so if that’s an issue for you, repeat this process regularly.

Other Browsers and Private Browsing

Other browsers have this form of privacy mode for their service. They promise many of the same things as Safari, but they do not have the same Terminal issue due to how this command only presents websites visited on Safari (the browser Macs come shipped with).

If you use Firefox, you’ll notice that its private mode is also known as Private Browsing. Chrome calls private mode Incognito, while Internet Explorer refers to it as InPrivate Browsing. Opera is the newest to the scene, denoting it as Private Tab. Safari is the oldest well-known browser with this feature.

As you can see, despite Private Browsing not being 100% private, Terminal allows for your browser to be. In what ways has Terminal helped your life or allowed you to become more productive? Let us know in the comments below.

Choosing which applications to download may be daunting so this list should help you narrow down your choices: 20 Killer Productivity Apps for Mac You Should Have in 2013

The post How to Make Private Browsing on Safari Truly Private appeared first on Lifehack.

They say you should work smarter, not harder and part of being smart is doing research. So if you don’t know how to work smarter, then you can certainly benefit from this infographic that features seven things that can help you work better.

Here’s a collection of 50 hacks, tips, tricks, and mnemonic devices we’ve collected that can help you work better: 50 Tricks to Get Things Done Faster, Better, and More Easily

While many of these suggestions have been featured before at Lifehack (don’t multitask, organize your workspace, etc.) many of the tips aren’t things you’d think about when you’re focusing on work. For example, exercising and de-stressing are great ways to increase your productivity.

You might notice that at the bottom of this infographic, Lifehack is credited as a source. Well, that’s because the inspiration for the graphic is this post by Ciara Conlon, so if you need more details on precisely how to work better, don’t miss the original post.

Source -Fizzler

The post 7 Things that Can Help You Work Better appeared first on Lifehack.

Today’s entrepreneurs have it both better and worse than any generation of their peers has in the past. The sheer volume of technologies and tools at our fingertips is overwhelming to the point of suffocation, but when used properly, those tools can be incredibly powerful.

Every day I am bombarded with ads for new tools, services, and apps that will supposedly make me more efficient and help me get more out of my business, but in truth only 1 in 100 of those things will ever actually help me personally. What does help, I’ve found, is to start documenting what you do and how you do it early and often. To help you do the same for your business, here are seven simple tips for documentation of how your business works, which tools you use, and what you’ve tried (whether successfully or not).

Use Software

Notebooks, sticky notes, and emails are not good tools to keep track of how your business operates. You can certainly spend a boat load of money and buy expensive software like Omnifocus for organizing tasks and to do lists, or you can keep it simple.

For all of my documentation needs, I use Evernote. I’ve broken my business down into five main components—sales, marketing, production, management, and financial—and created separate notebooks in which I keep notes about specific tasks I perform on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. From receipts and tax documents to the emails we send to cold leads, I have everything in about twenty-five carefully organized journals, and it’s all free.

Go Mobile

Whatever tool you decide to use, make sure it has a mobile component. Evernote fits the bill here, which is one of the reasons I started using it, and another app I like for its mobile integration is Day One, a journaling app. With desktop and iOS mobile editions, Day One is a great way to jot down notes about what I did and any concerns I had on any given day.

Collaborate with Colleagues and Clients

Even if you work 100% on your own, don’t be afraid to ask other people in your industry (or even your clients) what they think about a certain process.

We actively engage our clients and ask what they think about our sales processes, our marketing techniques, and the service they received. What good would it do to document a complex process if you find out two years later that your clients hate it?

Use GTD to Prioritize

David Allen’s Getting Things Done is one of the most important books ever written about productivity, and there is an entire category of software built around the concepts in that book.

The basic idea is fairly simple: when a task comes in, you act on it immediately. The task either goes on your to-do list with a date and time for completion, into a bin for later consideration, or to a staff member or contractor who can handle it for you. All tasks must be actionable. The last thing you want to see in three weeks is a task on your list that says “get new clients”. Thank you self, that’s very specific.

The GTD method of task management helps in documentation because it forces you to think in terms of priority and actionable tasks. When you do that, it’s a lot easier to create a list of what tasks were involved.

Review Notes Once a Month

When you’re taking so many notes, it’s easy to sit down daily and read through them and try to create a pattern, but to maximize the return on your time investment, it’s important that you only review your notes once a month.

When you do, three things happen:

1. You start to see clear patterns
2. You can organize those patterns into processes
3. You can make plans based on your processes for the next month

Better yet, you’re not distracted daily by the urge to compulsively reorganize your schedule. It’s only done once a month.

Share Notes with Customers

Don’t just ask clients and customers for feedback; show them exactly what you record. We use internal notes as marketing materials, actually sending prospective clients a full outline of what we do and how we do it so they can see who they are hiring.

Not only does it create trust because of the transparency; it allows us to clear up any issues before a project starts that would otherwise create problems.

Hold Nothing Sacred

Your business is special to you, and there are certain things you’ve been doing for years that work well, but things change. Whether you are growing rapidly, or being forced to make key changes with advances in technology, you need to be ready and willing to revise old processes when they don’t work as well anymore. When you’re constantly taking note of what you do and how you do it, you’ll see these patterns more quickly and be able to adjust to them in real time, not weeks or months down the road. That kind of agility is extremely important when trying to stay ahead of the ever evolving curve of online business.

One of the most valuable assets your business has is in your head; it’s the steps you take every day to get things done. When you write these down, you make it possible to automate, outsource, and streamline just about every aspect of what you do. That doesn’t mean you have to hire someone to replace you, but you’ll be that much closer to the point at which you could.

Full documentation takes time, but if you start now you will begin to see positive results almost immediately, and with time you will hopefully create a habit that makes it possible to blaze through just about every task on your to-do list.

The launch of Microsoft Office 2013 (and OneNote 2013 in particular) promise some solid productivity enhancements: 3 Productivity Benefits in the Microsoft OneNote 2013 Preview

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