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6 Google Chrome Productivity Extensions That Help You Get Things Done

Chris Smith — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 11:06:27 +0000

It’s amazing out how much market share the Google Chrome browser has snagged given that it has only been on the market for a few years. With the addition of the Google Chrome Web Store, users have a new way to find tools and extensions to make Chrome more enjoyable and useful.

Here are 6 Google Chrome productivity extensions that will help you get things done.

Minimalist for Everything

There is a vocal set of geeks out there becoming more and more tired of Google’s endless encroachment of their Google experience with Google+. Luckily, there is a nice extension that can help rid the notifications, Google Bar, popups, and much more.

You can use Minimalist for Everything to control the look and feel of your Gmail page as well as Google Reader. The biggest thing for me was to completely hide the Google Bar. That gets rid of Google+ notifications which is really handy when you are dealing with your inbox and trying to get things done.

Send to Kindle

There are many times during the day that you are working on some mission critical task when all of the sudden, out of habit, you meander to your browser and start searching for, well, anything. Sometimes you find great things to read during this process. Rather than read them now you can use Send To Kindle to send these websites and articles to your Kindle account for later consumption.

After installing the extension, you simply go to your Kindle account, approve the email that Send To Kindle provides you, and then add your special Kindle email address to the Send To Kindle extension. Then just start sending away. Remember, if you are using the Kindle with 3G there could be costs associated with sending articles (WiFi users, you are free and clear!).

Scrollbar of Contents

If you decide to nix sending long articles to your Kindle with Send To Kindle, then you should at least be able to visually skim the headlines. To do that you can use Scrollbar of Contents.

This extension allows you to toggle all of the headings of the page that you are on and view them next to your scrollbar in proportion to where they are on the page. You can then click on which heading you want to jump to. This is a handy way to skim a page without having to scroll the entire way down; instead, you can just see all the headings at once as well as where they are on the page.

LastPass Password Manager

There isn’t a better way to put yourself at risk than to use the same email address and password combination for all of you sites. One of the main reasons that people don’t make unique and strong passwords is because they are a pain-in-the-neck to keep track of. That’s where LastPass’s Chrome extension comes in.

LastPass’s extension allows you to have access to all of your stored passwords so that when you are working on the web all you have to remember is one master password to get to them. LastPass is secure and makes handling all your passwords a breeze.

StayFocused

StayFocused is an extension that helps you block yourself from accessing sites to keep yourself focused on the task at hand. You can set the maximum time per day that you can visit the sites that you have set to be blocked, the active days and hours that you want the extension to work in, and blocked and allowed sites.

There is even a “nuclear option” to block the entire web for a set amount of time. Time to get things done.

Session Buddy

Session Buddy is a good way to store and launch different websites all at once. Basically you can save the current window that with all of your different tabs into a session, give it a name, and have the ability to launch it later. This is a great way to save time if you have different “modes” or “areas of focus” when it comes to browsing and working online.

For instance, I now have a session with Google Analytics, Asana, Lifehack’s backend, our project management site, Gmail, and Google Docs. This gives me a one click way to get all the tools ready that I need for our weekly editor meetings.

Conclusion

The combination of these 6 Google Chrome productivity extensions can save you a ton of time while you are working on the web. What other extensions for Chrome have helped you get things done?

Setup Restricted User Accounts to Focus and Get Things Done

Chris Smith — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:25:50 +0000

Do you have your email alerts on, Twitter apps pinging you every second, or IM up and running 24/7? Have you noticed that these constant distractions tend to, well, distract you? If so, rather than turning these things off you can design and create totally different user accounts on your Mac or PC to help you concentrate on the work at hand.

Figure out what you need

The first thing you must do is figure out what tools you need in what context and then create a separate user account that contains those tools. For example, if you are a writer you may want to have a “writing account” where all you have access to is a simple text tool (or whatever writing tool that you prefer) and everything else is locked down.

Some contexts that you work in require access to a bunch of tools, so you have to sit down and list out only the tools you actually need. This is the first step to create environments on your computer that don’t destroy your concentration and attention.

Figure out what you don’t want

Next, after you know the contexts of your life and also the tools that those contexts require, you have to list the things that you want to stay away from in those contexts. Maybe for your “writing account” you don’t want to have access to the Internet, or maybe you want to only access a certain site on the internet (your blog for instance). You may want to also limit the apps that you can use on this account to a few different text editors and utilities.

It’s important to be honest with yourself and not to fall into the trap of saying, “yeah, I probably will be fine if I enable IM on this account. I mean, how will people get ahold of me?” The real question should be, “what is the bare minimum I need to get things done while doing (insert the context of your life here)?”

Process and tools

Setting up these accounts is pretty easy on a Mac or PC.

On your Mac, probably the best way to do this is to go to Settings -> Parental Controls and create a new user. Give it the name of the context that you are trying to work under. From there you can setup application restrictions, site restrictions, etc.

On a PC (Windows 7) you can access Parental Controls by clicking the Start Menu, search for “parental controls” and clicking on the option that comes up. From there you can create new accounts as well as control their time usage and applications restrictions.

Of course, you can always get around these restrictions by using your administrator password, but it is another burier to cross. When you are about to enable IM on your account that you are trying to get things done on, you can stop for a moment and refocus.

There are also ways to block certain websites or only allow certain websites (which may be an easier thing to do in some cases). But, if you want to get very binary with this you could use a tool like Freedom or even turn off Internet access completely on certain accounts. Freedom is a great tool to turn off your Internet access for a set period time. It disables your network access at a physical level, so only a reboot of the computer will get it back. Yet another burier to keep you from wasting time.

Conclusion

Creating separate accounts for the different contexts in your life to enable and disable certain tools and software may seem like overkill. But, if you are struggling to pay attention while you are working on your computer, it may just be the exact thing you need. Give it a try to see if restricting yourself and controlling your computer accounts can help you get things done.

(Photo credit: Modern laptop with metal padlock on screen via Shutterstock)

Supercharge Your Mac with the StackSocial Mac Superbundle [Software Bundle]

Mike Vardy — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:55:28 +0000

StackSocial has been offering some pretty amazing deals, and their latest is no exception: The StackSocial Mac Superbundle. The amount of apps that they’re serving up that will aid you in getting work done faster and better is pretty astounding — there’s 10 amazing Mac apps worth $471 that they are offering for just $49. And while not all of them may seemingly fit into your work arsenal at first glance, you might find by diving in a little deeper that every app offered here certainly can improve your productivity in some form or another.

I’ve not had the chance to use every single one of these apps, but have put a few through the paces over my time as a Mac user. Here are some of the apps that I’ve used and how they’ve managed to level up my productivity on my Mac.

Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac

There have been times that I’ve needed to have a PC at my disposal when working at past employers, such as my stint using box office software for my city’s film festival. Our office was a Mac office, with only 2 Windows-based machines that were available to use for ticket selling. Luckily, I had Parallels Desktop for Mac installed on my MacBook Pro, and it proved to be a huge timesaver. I was able to run reports, check out statistics and ticket availability and get my work done without having to move to another machine or totally disrupt my workflow.

The best part about using this app was that I could flip back and forth between the work I had to do on the OS X side and the work I had to do that required Windows. The time saved on that alone paid for the software.

If you have to use a Windows machine for certain parts of your work — or perhaps even use a Windows environment for gaming so that you can take a break every once in a while, you can’t go wrong with Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac. This app normally sells for $80 on its own — so you’re already way ahead of the game by picking it up as part of the Mac Superbundle by StackSocial.

LittleSnapper

Realmac Software makes some really beautiful, essential and easy-to-use apps, and LittleSnapper is no exception. i’ve had to grab plenty of screenshots during my time as an online writer and editor, and LittleSnapper handles this job with effectiveness and ease.

And i’ve barely scratched the surface with this app over the years. Using it mainly for high-quality “screengrabs”, I’ve yet to take advantage of the other tools baked right into LittleSnapper, such as callouts and highlights. I’ve blurred out personal info for app reviews when testing apps, I’ve cropped screens to fit as imagery for various websites and I’ve kept them all organized into collections.

Well…that’s not entirely true. LittleSnapper automatically organized them all for me. That’s a tremendous timesaver unto itself — because there’s nothing quite like having something like that being automated for you.

LittleSnapper usually retails for $40, which is only $9 less than the entire StackSocial Mac Superbundle.

Chronicle 4

I’ve tried my share of money management apps, and only in the past few years has the Mac come into its own as a platform where you can really have some useful software to do so. Of all of the native apps I’ve tried, Chronicle isn’t only the easiest to use — I actually enjoy managing my money with it.

With iCal integration built right in, Chronicle does everything it can to keep you on top of your finances. The app offers debt reduction tracking, bill viewing and will allow many to make online payments right from within the app. And because I enjoy using Chronicle so much more than any of the past native Mac finance apps, I’m really keeping on top things when it comes to my money — often without even thinking about it.

Chronicle is $15 — a great price point for an app that is supposed to help you keep a handle on your finances — and it rounds out what is a very robust bundle offering by StackSocial.

What’s in the StackSocial Mac Superbundle

There’s a lot more to the StackSocial Mac Superbundle than the three apps I just mentioned. Here are all of the apps in the bundle, along with what you’d pay for them separately:

Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac – $80
LittleSnapper – $40
iStat Menus 3 – $16
Flux 3 – $120
iStopmotion Home 2 – $50
Fantashow – $50
Video Converter 2 – $46
SyncMate Expert 3 – $40
CuteClips 3 – $15
Chronicle 4 – $15

Check out the video below to get an overview of all 10 apps offered in the latest StackSocial bundle that will supercharge your Mac — and your productivity.

If you’re looking to level up your productivity on your Mac, go out and get the StackSocial Mac Superbundle today. You’ve got a ton to save ($49 for $471 worth of apps) and nothing to lose — other than time.

StackSocial Mac Superbundle – [StackSocial]

(Photo credit: Power Button from a Mac via Shutterstock)

Mike Vardy is a writer, speaker, and "productivityist". Read more of his writing and learn more about him at MikeVardy.com, and you can also follow him on Twitter.

The Best of Lifehack: January 2012

Mike Vardy — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 11:00:23 +0000

At the end of the first week of every month, we’re going present the best of what Lifehack had to offer in the previous month. We know our readers are busy — not just with other aspects of their lives, but also reading articles elsewhere — so if you’ve missed out on some of what we brought to you last month, now’s your chance to catch up.

So, without further adieu, here is The Best of Lifehack from January 2012.

Searching for the Perfect Productivity Tool

One of the newest contributors to Lifehack, Jan Makulec, discusses why it’s not necessarily wrong (or right) to have found your perfect productivity tool…and searching for it isn’t necessarily the time suck that many say that it can be.

How I Use GoodReader

GoodReader is an incredibly versatile app, and Lifehack editor Chris Smith dives right in and suggests how you can get the most out of what for most is a very under-used app on their iPad or iPhone.

How to Become Clutter-Free for Greater Happiness and Productivity

Ciara Conlon is timely with this post on how to get rid of clutter so that you can improve your productivity and be happier as a result. January isn’t just a month for resolutions; it’s a month of “clearing the decks” too.

5 Management Practices That Kill Employee Productivity

Yet another new addition to the Lifehack contributor ranks, Marissa Brassfield writes about a few management practices that will do more harm than good to your team’s productivity.

How to Develop Mental Toughness

Mike Martel serves up a great piece that has a greater impact on your productivity (and confidence) than we’d all like to admit: mental toughness. He explains how mental toughness can be developed — and why it’s important to do so.

Productivity Made Simple: The Series

Karol Krol puts together a stellar series — especially appropriate for the beginning of the year — on how you can get into the GTD system with a simpler approach. The series is broken down into several parts:

If you’re still looking to become more productive this year, you can’t go wrong with this series — or with any of the articles in The Best of Lifehack: January 2012 edition.

(Photo credit: Golden leader of business team via Shutterstock)

Mike Vardy is a writer, speaker, and "productivityist". Read more of his writing and learn more about him at MikeVardy.com, and you can also follow him on Twitter.

Lifehack Presents: The Path Mini User Guide

Chris Smith — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 02:25:30 +0000

Sick of the massiveness and lack of intimacy on the larger social networks (ie Facebook, Google+, and Twitter)? Looking for a way to share with who you want and not have your entire life story in the lime-light?

This is where the “newish” social network Path comes in.

The premise

Path is a “smart journal that helps you share life with the ones you love”. It’s based on the concept of Professor Robin Dunbar’s research regarding the number of trusted relationships that one can maintain which is believed to be 150. That means you can only have 150 friends on Path making it feel way more intimate and “exclusive” than other networks. Something else that adds to this feeling is that Path is only available for iPhone and Android.

Sign up and interface

Signing up for Path is as easy as any other service. Download the iPhone or Android app and then create an account with your email and password.

The Path’s “Home” presents you with a timeline of your friends, a small avatar of yourself that will take you to your own timeline, a “Customize” block behind your avatar where you can choose your own photo, the “Chooser” that you can use to post your photos, videos, location, etc., and buttons to get to your left and right menus (you can also swipe left or right to get to your settings or friend menus).

Adding friends

To add new friends swipe left and tap the “Add Friends” option. Once there, you can add friends by inviting from your contact list, searching Facebook, inviting them via email, or even choose some of the “Suggestions”. Suggestions are friends of friends.

You can also search Path for people via the search box at the top of the “Add Friends” screen.

Settings

To get to Path’s settings, swipe right from “Home” and choose “Settings”.

You can choose whether you want the “Neighborhood” setting on which updates your Path automatically when you change location. You can set all of your identification as well as you bio picture and home “Cover”. Also, you can control your notifications of Path events by tapping and highlighting either the phone or email symbol to control where you see your notifications.

Sharing

Sharing on Path is easy and probably one of the biggest reasons people love it. You share by tapping the “Chooser” button on the bottom left and then choosing one of the pop-out options below.

Pictures and videos

In the picture sharing screen you can choose what type of photo “lens” you want to use by tapping “Lens” and then scrolling through the different effects. Also, you can tap the blur button to the bottom left to create a circular or line blur in your picture. With the blur option on, you can drag the center of it around as well as re-size it with pinching and zooming.

There are other standard camera controls like auto or manual flash, flipping the camera from front to rear, touch focus, a select video or photo button at the bottom left, and the video and camera toggle at the bottom right.

People

Choosing the people option gives you a list of your friends and contacts. You can then choose one or more and hit the next button at the top right. At the “Post” screen, you can fill in a note and even your location (location details are below).

You will also notice at the bottom right you have some social network toggles for Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Foursquare. To sign into these services simply click on the service you want to post to and then connect your account. For sharing on Foursquare you will need to pick a location first.

You will also notice at the bottom of the “Post” screen a small padlock. This allows you to make your post private meaning that only you will have access to it.

Places

Tapping on places will give you a map with all the nearby places (at least the ones that have been shared or are register with Google Maps). You then simply pick a place and you will be forwarded to the Post screen.

A nice touch to the “Places” option is that if you are somewhere that isn’t listed automatically you can use the search box and then click the “Not Found?” option to create it. If you don’t see the options just scroll all the way to the bottom of the list to find it.

Music

One of my favorites. Choose “Music” and then search for whatever you are listening to. You can even tap the small play button on the album cover of the search results to hear the song. After choosing the song you are directed to the Post screen to finish up.

Thought

Type in whatever you are thinking or want to say. After that you can do the usual Post screen behavior and then post by tapping “Save”.

Sleep/Wake

Another nice touch. Tapping the small moon button gives you two choices; “Go to Sleep” and “I’m Awake”. Tap on the sleep button and you are given a nice moon screen that displays how long you slept for. Tapping on the I’m Awake button posts to your Path how long you slept for and a sometimes squirrelly little message.

Commenting

After you start creating some moments on Path and see other moment from your friends, you will want to comment. Commenting is easy. Tap the small smiley face next to the moment you want to comment on. You can then pick a smiley and leave a comment by tapping the Comment box. You’ll notice that if many people saw this moment that you can scroll through their avatars to see them all.

Locals

When someone posts their location you can tap on it. You will then be taken to the “Locals” screen which will tell you the number of people on Path that are in your general vicinity as well as show you the list of your friends that are there too. This is a cool way to see who in your “trusted Path network” is around you.

Conclusion

The beauty of Path is that it is easy and intuitive to use as well as beautiful. Also, because of features like making certain posts private you can use Path for more than just sharing things with your close friends and loved ones; you can keep things that only you want to have access to. Hopefully this short guide can get you started with one of the newest and freshest social networks around.

7 Launch Center Hacks to Save Time on Your iPhone

Chris Smith — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:30:06 +0000

Launch Center is a $0.99 app for iOS that allows you to create shortcuts that are kept in one handy list. You can do things like make an email, call, or SMS shortcut to someone that you contact a lot, a Tweet shortcut that uses the official Twitter, or even a flashlight shortcut to turn on your iPhone’s LED. It’s pretty darn handy.

But, what’s awesome is that you can schedule these shortcuts to show up in iOS 5’s Notification Center as well as create custom Website/App shortcuts. Here are 7 Launch Center hacks that save your time while using your iPhone.

1. Add tasks to your inbox

I’m an OmniFocus user but this could work with any task app on iOS, as long as they have an iOS url scheme to follow. Simply add a new “Launch Website/App” shortcut with the URL of:

omnifocus:///add?

That will open up a blank task for your OF inbox.

For other services that support task addition by sending an email to a special address you could create a new LC shortcut for email, add the special address, and then go about it that way.

2. Launching apps

If you are a heavy app user on you iOS device your Springboard probably isn’t cutting it for you anymore. I have even resorted to using Spotlight Search for an app if I don’t want to look for it.

With LC you can setup a shortcut to launch an app. Most apps have a URL that is associated with them (like omnifocus:// above). You can check out AppCubby’s site for some of the URLs for different apps.

3. Reminders and process

So, you can launch apps with LC, huh? Pretty cool. But, what about launching an app at a certain time to remind you to use it?

Every day I want to make sure that I go through my RSS queue. So, with LC I can create a custom app launcher for my RSS app, Reeder (reeder://) and then tell LC to schedule it everyday at 7pm. If I want it to go multiple times I could create multiple instances of the same launcher set for different times during the day.

So, you could set these types of reminders for all sorts of things like calling your parents, sending SMS’s to people, searching Google for something that you do everyday (like your own name, you narcissist), or anything else you are too smart to remember.

4. Custom searches

If there is something that you search for on a regular basis on your iPhone, then setting up a custom search within LC is the way to go. Just create a new “Launch Website/App” shortcut, name it, and add your search URL. Here are a couple of things to get your started:

Weather in a certain place: http://bing.com/search?q=weather+in+pittsburgh+pa
Twitter searches: http://twitter.com/#!/search/lifehack
Any other type of Google (or even Bing) searches: http://google.com/search?q=

You have to make sure that instead of using spaces in your query you use “+” symbols. Also, if you are searching for crazy characters that aren’t supported in URLs, then you have to encode them.

5. Launch iOS settings

One thing that I truly miss from Android is being able to make almost anything a widget or shortcut on your home screen. We have seen some of the ways that you can setup shortcuts to get to options in iOS settings, but they require that you have some sort of internet connection and are sort of clunky to setup.

With LC you can create a “Launch Website/App” shortcut that uses the iOS “prefs” shortcut to open up settings. Here are just a few:

Brightness: prefs:root=Brightness
Bluetooth: prefs:root=General&path=Bluetooth
iCloud Storage and Backup: prefs:root=CASTLE&path=STORAGE_AND_BACKUP

If you want a full list of the ones that you can use, check out this Stack Overflow page for more. There are a ton of them.

6. Launch custom actions inside of apps

If an app has a published URL scheme, you can save those URLs as shortcuts in LC. For instance, my favorite Twitter app, Tweetbot, has a pretty nice URL scheme for iOS. I setup two shortcuts:

Twitter timeline: tweetbot:///timeline
Tweet with Tweetbot: tweetbot:///Post

For this example you need to have three forward slashes as you can put an optional screenname after the second one (for people that use multiple Twitter accounts).

If you have a favorite app and you would like to see what things you can do with their URL scheme, just Google something like “iOS URL scheme” to see what your options are.

7. Find businesses close to you with Google Maps

Wherever you are there usually is a Starbucks nearby. And rather than opening Maps and typing out Starbucks, you can use this shortcut to find one. Create a new LC “Launch Website/App” shortcut with the URL set to this:

http://maps.google.com/map?CURRENTLOCATION&q=starbucks

This will open up the mobile version of Google maps, but will at least give you any of the Starbucks that are around your location. You can also change the query to whatever you want like “mexican+food” or “bars+and+clubs”.

Conclusion

Launch Center is pretty awesome and is getting close to making its way to my iPhone dock. There are a couple of things that would make LC even better, like having a better repeat function, grouping of similar shortcuts and tasks, and keeping some of the shortcuts in iOS Notification Center so they can be used at any time (this may be a limitation of Notification Center, not LC).

But, as you can see, this one little app can save you a ton of time doing things that you repeatedly do on your iOS device.

9 Healthy Habits to Help You Manage Email Overload

Ciara Conlon — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:48:44 +0000

Today, having an email address has become as normal as having a surname. My seven year old son and my seventy six year old mother have email addresses. We can safely say that the email overload phenomenon is nothing new. Since 1971 we have been sending emails, but since 1971 a large percentage of us have not learned how to most effectively use email and how to avoid it becoming a cross we have to bear.

Here are 9 healthy habits you can adopt to prevent you from suffering from the Email Overload phenomenon

Write better emails

Some people treat email as an opportunity to have a chat but that is not the purpose of email. If you are arranging a meeting get to the point rather than send an email that will open up a 10 part communication consider sending an email that is concise.

“Hi, are you free Friday at 11 to discuss the Project A? We could meet at Starbucks on the corner of Merrion Street.”

When, where and why are all available, now all the person has to say is yes if it suits them or suggest alternative arrangements if it doesn’t.

Pick up the Phone

A more efficient way to deal with arranging a meeting would be a telephone call. People often avoid making phone calls because they think it will take up too much time. Not true, arranging a time and place is much more efficient when you are speaking to someone in person, this way you can debate time and place more efficiently both parties being able to check calendars at the same time. Also if you send fewer emails you will logically receive fewer emails.

Remove yourself

Remove yourself from all newsletter lists, group emails etc. If you want to subscribe to email newsletters best have a dedicated email address so not to clutter up your work inbox and also to avoid them disturbing your focus and concentration.

Chunk it up

Check emails in chunks; don’t get tempted to check emails consistently. Smart phones and tablet devices are really awesome but they are not so cool when people start to use them to check emails at all hours of the day, I’ve even know people who check them in bed (gasp!). What you can also do is advise people that you only check your emails twice a day and if they need a reply to something urgently they should rather call you.

Turn it off

Switch off all notifications of emails, on your PC and any other device that you receive email on. Never allow a ding or a bell disturb your focus from what you are working on. It may be an email telling you that you have landed a 1 million dollar deal but it could also be spam or an email from your aunt in Australia to tell you her dog is sick.

Keep it brief

Email is not a medium for spilling your heart out. Keep your messages brief and to the point. The less you write the more likely your question or query will be answered. Even though you want to send and receive less email it is still a better idea to send an email per topic, you are more likely to get an answer to all your questions and it also leaves a better trail if you need to find an email at a later date.

Process your email twice a day

When we say I have to check my email, it usually means you scan your email to see if there is anything urgent or interesting that you want to read or deal with. Checking email is the action to blame which can ultimately lead us to chaos, clutter and stress. It may seem like an exaggeration but if we let it go untended it can end up with thousands of emails sitting in you inbox without knowledge of whether they are actionable or dealt with. We need to substitute check for process. Processing is when we make a decision. We can Do, Delegate, Delete or Defer or we can use the Barabara Hemphill’s FAT method, File, Act or Trash.

Organize your email

The emails you need to keep for reference should be filed in a logical system and the emails that require action should be either moved to your calendar or your task system. All those that don’t fall into these categories should be trashed.

Get a Life

Remember that your email doesn’t own you. You are the adult around here and you need to take control. Follow these actions advised and before long you will be hanging out in your empty Inbox wondering why you feel so calm and peaceful.

(Photo credit: An image of some flying envelopes via Shutterstock)

Ciara Conlon is a Personal Productivity Coach and author. Her mission is to help people achieve their best through working efficiently and being positive and present. “With Productivity and Positivity there is little you can’t achieve” Find out more about Ciara and sign up for her tips, articles and links at Productivity & Positivity

Tech Tools and Software: What Motivates Change

Mark Grilli — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:00:21 +0000

Technology has clearly changed how we work. Mobile devices, for example, have allowed for a more flexible work environment, making it easier to work from anywhere on almost any device.

Whatever changes we adopt, the bottom line remains the same; we want to get our jobs done and done well. And when the technology we’re accustomed to using works, we don’t want to take the time to learn something new. Email is the perfect example. The tech community continues to argue whether email is a dying form of online communication. While tools such as IM have helped us communicate faster, we still use email as our core content management system because we have not yet found another platform that’s better.

My previous post asked whether our digital work habits were helping or hindering productivity. Today, the question is what if something could make doing our jobs significantly better than the status quo? Would we change?

What merits technological change?

I may be going out on a limb, but I think a new solution needs to be at least 10 times better than the current solution if a company or individual is going to make the switch. But what makes something at least 10 times better? Think of it this way. How much time have I spent on learning? How much does it change my work habits? Are there are tangible benefits? Going back to the email example and how IM has replaced email in places; IM is simple to use, easy to understand, and it provides an immediate response where email could take days for a reply. This is what makes IM at least 10 times better than email in certain instances.

The experience vs. features phenomenon

One of the best examples of this phenomenon I’ve seen is one software company’s testing of the next version of its flagship software. The company invested heavily in a simplified user experience, designed to enable users to more easily discover the features they needed as well as expose them to other tools that might be helpful. The company’s development teams took the existing features from the previous product and put them into this new user interface. They then got a wide variety of users – from new to very experienced – to use the new product. The most remarkable comments came from experienced users, who could not believe how much had been added to the new version, even though the only difference was a new user experience.

Tipping point?

Every company or individual can tell you exactly when they decided to switch their processes to something better. For an individual, it might be the realization of how much time is being wasted in a particular effort. For companies, it tends to be something that impacts the bottom line. These decisions often have additional, unforeseen benefits as well.

One of my favorite examples comes from a major accounting firm. Their “tipping point” was in their financials. They realized they were spending 25 percent more in software costs than needed. A change was in order, and for them it was standardizing their tools.

The results? They not only were able to reduce costs, but they also reduced software management time by 98 percent, improved productivity and collaboration among their employees, and kept ahead of the competition.

Today’s expectations

With new tools and software, it used to be that “powerful” meant complicated. If you were prepared to take a class, read a book and invest significant time in learning, then that software or tool was more credible and capable of getting the job done. However, in the past few years, the web, mobile apps and the consumerization of software have all contributed to creating a new paradigm; the easier and more intuitive the tool, the better and more likely it is adopted.

Yet we all suffer from some level of risk aversion and fall to “the old way of working.” I am guilty of this sometimes, and I suspect most people are as well. We know what it takes to get things done today, however old-fashioned. If we sit back and critically evaluate from a technological perspective how we work as individuals, teams and as a company, the red flags will emerge and change will follow.

Conclusion

Has your company experienced a technological “tipping point” recently? Or have you personally switched to something you consider at least 10 times better? Please share in the comments.

(Photo credit: hand holding the world and email via Shutterstock)

30 Days With: OmniOutliner Professional

Chris Smith — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 17:02:52 +0000

Editor’s note: This is a featured post in our ongoing series “30 Days With” which outlines the use of a productivity tool, service, or product that we have used for the past 30 days. We want to provide our readers with an in depth view of tools and products that they are interested in and provide them our thoughts as well as ways to use these products faster and better. Enjoy.

I love outlines and I think in them. I love to be able to quickly make a list, add children to certain topics or ideas and then easily sort that list. For many years I have used the Outline mode in Microsoft Word and then in Microsoft OneNote to make my outlines, take notes, create plans, and plan projects. This was several years ago before I switched to Mac and ever since then my use of the Microsoft Office suite (at least for personal use) has slowly been diminishing with the availability of excellent replacement apps on Mac as well as Google Docs.

The outlining tool for the Mac is OmniOutliner Professional, plain and simple. In doing a quick search of the Mac App Store there are a few other outlining applications, but OmniOutliner is the one that wins with its feature set, ease of use, excellent interface, and design decisions.

I have been using OmniOutliner 3 a little over 30 days now. Below is my accounting of that experience.

What OmniOutliner got right

Let’s first take a look at what OmniOutliner does the best.

Ease of use

The first Omni Group product that I had the pleasure to use was OmniFocus. OmniFocus is awesome because of how easy it is to use and organize things, that is once you get over the small learning curve. What OmniOutliner gets right is that it uses the same type of list creation interface that OF uses that makes creating a parented list of items dead simple and super fast to do. You can easily drag and drop items, reorder them, indent and outdent them, sort them, etc. This is probably the main reason that OmniOutliner is so good.

Oh, the export options

Something else of note is that OmniOutliner accepts the growing in popularity outline format OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language) making it pretty darn versatile. I have taken mindmaps from iPad or Mac, exported them to OMPL, and then opened them in OmniOutliner. I could then easily organize my outline once in OmniOutliner. This is much easier than organizing in a traditional mindmapping application because organizing tends to be a more linear process than actual brainstorming. Also, with OMPL I can open up my outline in Scrivener and then sync different sections of text with Dropbox and have access to it with any text editing app I use.

Exporting options in OmniOutliner are superb. You can even share with your Microsoft Word using friends or create a quick HTML page that you can open and view with any web browser.

Two dimensions

OmniOutliner gives you the option of adding multiple columns. This opens up a whole new dimension to your outlines allowing for almost any type of data to be stored like a check register, task list, budget, contact list, time log, or any other type of small “database” data.

Two dimensional outlines coupled with the next point make OmniOutliner very powerful.

Datatypes

I love that OmniOutliner supports several different datatypes. You can set a column to any data type that you want including dates and duration, amounts, checkboxes, pop up lists, etc. Another nicety is that you can then sort your rows by the columns’ data types allowing for ease of sorting your outline data.

Something else great is that OmniOutliner has a nice short hand for durations. So, you can type something like, “12w148h” and OmniOutliner will convert it to “15w 3d 4h”.

What OmniOutliner got wrong (for me)

There isn’t too much that is “wrong” per se with OmniOutliner, but there is one glaring issue that I encountered for the first couple of weeks of use of the app: it’s complexity and my own tendency to want to fiddle and tweak it.

Complexity

There is a good quote on the Omni Group’s site for OmniOutliner,

“If you can think it, it is possible with OmniOutliner 3 Pro.”

- IT-Enquirer

This is both a blessing and a curse. OmniOutliner is one of the best apps I know for creating a simple, nested list, but also templates for creating budgets, keeping an inventory of things, planning projects, etc. But there are almost endless options for font styles, line heights, tab spaces, etc. Its versatility and complicated nature make it an app that has to be learned with an overcoming of a steep learning curve, that is, if you want to use the more advanced features of the applications.

If you are simply wanting to create simple lists and outlines, change their appearance a bit, and use them for keeping track of things, that is pretty straight forward. But, the notion of “if you can think it, it is possible,” leads to the potential for thinking that you need to tweak the application and your document to be perfect in some way.

What can you do with this thing?

Like I said above there really is not too much of a limit to what you can do with OmniOutliner as you are only limited by your imagination and time. I have used OmniOutliner as an intermediary step to project planning by following the process that I mentioned above by first planning a project with a mindmapping application an then importing the OPML. This is even more powerful when you find that you can easily drag-and-drop your outline into OmniFocus where it will ask you what columns in your outline match up with the inherent columns in your OmniFocus setup (name, project, context, due date, etc.)

I found that creating quick budgets and some basic things that I would use spreadsheets for can easily be done in OmniOutliner because of its sorting and summation capabilities.

Another thing OmniOutliner is good for, and something that I am working on now, is using it as a way to store information, like research that I may be doing for an article, keeping track of product warranty information, a list of hardware for the company I work for, and other things that would “traditionally” be stored in a database of some kind. OmniOutliner is a great way to create a personal database of sorts, but only if you and possibly a small team are going to access and manage it. Anything larger than this, especially with need of custom reports and views, there are much better options.

Does it replace anything?

I can’t say that OmniOutliner has replaced anything completely in my workflow as of today, but has definitely added value to it. I could see OmniOutliner replacing Evernote for the way that I keep data (mostly research and links) while using my MacBook or Mac, but can’t do anything like Evernote can do while I’m mobile with my iPhone.

If you just do basic calculations and sorting in Excel or Numbers, then OmniOutliner may be able to replace that. But really, OmniOutliner feels like a product of its own and if you are in need of a good outlining application, this is the app to get for Mac.

Conclusion

My 30 days with OmniOutliner has gone a little longer because of my growing love for the app. I love taking notes with it, organizing ideas, keeping track of small datasets, and summing up values. But, the thing that makes OmniOutliner so darn compelling is Omni’s excellent outlining engine that is also included in OmniFocus. It make organizing and moving things so easy and once you use it and try something else for outlining, you will see just how awesome it really is.

The long and the short of it; OmniOutliner is the best way to create outlines on the Mac or any platform for that matter and if you want that, the $39.99 for OmniOutliner 3 or $69.99 for OmniOutliner Professional is totally worth it.

How I Use GoodReader

Chris Smith — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 01:00:46 +0000

iPad has changed the way I do everything digitally. The way that I interact with devices, read, write, organize, and get things done. It is engrained into my life and I wouldn’t want to go back to the way I was before without it.

One of the apps that have slowly creeped their way into my life is GoodReader for iPad. GoodReader is an app that allows you to read, manage, organize, access, and annotate just about any file that you would want to. It was released as primarily a PDF reader / “annotater” at first, but now hos taken on a life of its own with ways to download files, sync with Dropbox, create, edit, and manage annotations on PDFs, and much more.

Here are a few ways that I use GoodReader to get things done.

Syncing documents with Dropbox

This is what I use GoodReader for the most and without it, my PDF reading / annotating on iPad wouldn’t exist. This feature allows you to sync an entire directory of documents from your Dropbox folder and with a decent WiFi or 3G connection you can keep documents and PDFs in sync with all of your other Dropbox enabled devices.

I have an extensive collection of technical PDFs that I use for reference as well as to learn new languages and technologies that I keep synced between a Dropbox folders and GoodReader on my iPad. I can then make annotations, create new bookmarks, and search these documents on iPad. Any changes I make can be easily synced back to Dropbox.

Where this workflow gets very interesting (and possibly dangerous) is if you have a shared folder in your Dropbox that many people are using a well as synced to GoodReader with your annotations and changes. In my very limited experience with this, having multiple accessors of a single document or folder and those documents syncing with GoodReader seems to work but I have a feeling that it wouldn’t if there were multiple editors of the same document.

Better (paperless) meetings and discussions

One of my issues to resolve this year is to make my life more paperless. GoodReader helps with this.

Instead of printing out email and agendas for meetings I can create a PDF copy, upload it to Dropbox, email it to myself, or even sync it manually through iTunes. I can then open all documents that I need for the meeting or discussion and use GoodReader’s tabbed interface to view each document when I need it. And, of course, I can make a new annotated copy or annotate the document directly and sync it back Dropbox.

I can see this process is going to save paper (and headaches from missing notes) this year.

Signatures

One of the quickest ways that I have found to sign a digital document is with GoodReader. Yes, I do use PDFpenPro on my Mac, but if I have access to a PDF on iPad that needs signed, I open it in GoodReader, use the freehand drawing tool with my handy stylus (oh, the horror!), zoom in, sign it, save it, and load it up to Dropbox or email it to whomever I need.

Showing things off

The first rule of doing any type of freelance work is too assume that everything will go wrong. I remember about a year ago I was going to show off an interface design to someone and how it would work. I asked them beforehand if they WiFi there I could use. “Of course they did.”

As I got there, took out my laptop, and then quickly realized that there was no WiFi connection, I was out of luck and couldn’t show anything. Of course, no one that knows the freelancing game would do this; they would always have a backup.

When I am showing off a design or interface to someone I am working with, I take images of them on my Mac or PC, create PDFs, load them to Dropbox, and bring them down to GoodReader. I even go as far as including hyperlinks on interface buttons in the PDFs that will link to the next screen of the interface to show off the flow of the system.

Accessing Documents from (almost) anywhere

One of the greatest things that I enjoy and use with GoodReader is its excellent file access options. You can always sync a folder or document with Dropbox like I pointed out above, but you can also access documents from a ton of different places including mail servers and providers, your Google Docs account, box.net, a WebDAV server, and much more.

One of the things I love to do with GoodReader is access my Gmail account and see the entire list of attachements that have an @Action or Read/Review label. I can then quickly go through my list of attachements that need attention on my comfortable chair, leaned back, like Steve Jobs. Perfect.

I also offload most of my photos to box.net, mostly because of my huge, free 50GB account. I can then access these photos from GoodReader and through email or Apple’s Document Interchange, do just about anything with them.

Conclusion

As you can see, GoodReader for iPad is in my “top iPad app list” and made its way to my list of best productivity apps for iPad. With its outrageously small price tag of $4.99, you may be slightly insane for not using it for all of your document reading and handling needs on iPad.

How I Started My Paperless New Year

Chris Smith — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 01:00:05 +0000

The terms “paperless” and “paperless office” have been floating around for many years; many, as in since the 70′s and 80′s. Everyone thought that the new, shiny computers that were making their way into our lives would solve all problems, including curbing the use of the paper medium. Sitting in the year 2012 we can clearly see that isn’t the case at all.

I remember in a college economics class, about 3 months before the “Great Recession” in the United States that my professor asked the students which business they’d rather be in; a paper company or an automobile company. Most students chose the car company with their logic being that we are going paperless within the next few years. Once again, we still haven’t seen this “paperless” lifestyle.

Here’s the thing. Businesses use paper. Individuals use paper. A lot of it. Even with systems being put into place to reduce paper consumption (like paperless billing, e-signatures, digital document storage, etc.) consumers and workers are still going to use paper for the foreseeable future.

Why haven’t we reached paperless?

I think the answer is simple, especially if you look at your own usages. Paper is flexible, portable, malleable. It has an almost limitless resolution (unlike screens and software without zooming in) and can be passed around and used by anyone with ease. It may be the fastest way to write down an idea or pass information to someone in person. Paper is finite.

Also, there is something about a trusty notebook by your side when going to meetings or classroom. Using paper to write helps you retain knowledge and helps you to more easily be in an conversation in a meeting or with a group, unlike tapping away on your fancy iPad or laptop.

It’s a start

One of the things that I have resolved to do this year (since I resolve in January, not February) is get closer to paperless. There is no way that I can get to 100% paperless as I love taking notes with my Livescribe pen, love the look and feel of Moleskine Cahier, and think that making paper ninja stars is needed. But, I can do some things to get started:

1. Switch all billing to paperless billing and/or automatic billing. I haven’t completed this step yet but I am in the process. Basically, see if the company that you are billed by has paperless billing (or e-billing). This way you don’t get anything in the mail hence saving the paper that would be used to produce your bill and also the paper that is used for the envelope.

Some companies will even offer you a slight discount in your bill by going paperless because in the long run you are directly saving them money.

2. Stop printing, signing, and faxing/mailing things. That is, if you are receiving these forms digitally. If you are receiving PDFs, then use a tool like PDFpenPro for the Mac or even try the new Adobe EchoSign with the free account for one individual and up to 5 transaction per month. There are of course other options for digital signing like Adobe Acrobat Pro, but the above two tools will work out for most needs.

After you have signed something electronically you can then send it back via email or electronic fax. I have used eFax’s free service in the past, but I have found that having to send in documents by fax, especially for personal things, is not that normal; emailing an attachement of the PDF seems to be more and more accepted. Signing electronically won’t get rid of a lot of paper, but it is part of the bigger picture.

3. Get a good scanner, shredder, and digital tool for filing. I chose the Fujitsu ScanSnap s1300, the AmazonBasics shredder, and a subscription to Evernote Premium. If you have to scan a ton of stuff and saving money isn’t important, then I recommend going with the grand-daddy of personal, duplex scanners; the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500. Everyone is using them; you should too.

Evernote Premium is great for storing your personal documents because of its excellent OCR service, tagging, and separate notebook creation. You can organize your documents in different ways and being able to use Evernote’s search capabilities, you don’t even need to know exactly where you put them.

4. Digital notetaking tools. We have written about some of the best digital notetaking tools in the past as well as the most effective ways to use them and our opinions haven’t strayed too much. One thing to add is that if you followed step 3 above and got yourself an Evernote Premium subscription, then you can take most of your digital notes there with your iPhone, Android, iPad, Mac, or PC.

One way that I have “cheated” is by using my Livescribe pen. I still have to buy the paper to take notes with, but I get the added bonus of storing the audio and PDF copy of the notes on my Mac and PC. After importing the notes, I can shred the paper if I so choose to.

Conclusion

As you can see the paperless lifestyle is getting closer and closer to reality, but there are still uses for paper that trump any digital implementation. Regardless, you can start with your paperless journey this year and get a little closer to that utopian view of a world without paper that we have been trying to reach for decades.

(Photo credit: Stress by bureaucracy and paper filing via Shutterstock)

Happy New Year from Stepcase Lifehack

Mike Vardy — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 18:00:04 +0000

As 2011 draws to a close, we reflect on the year gone by and look forward to the year ahead. So to help you make 2012 the best year yet, check out our recently-wrapped New Tools for the New Year series to get you started:

New Tools for the New Year: Communication
New Tools for the New Year: Lifestyle
New Tools for the New Year: Management
New Tools for the New Year: Money
New Tools for the New Year: Technology

On behalf of the editors and contributors at Lifehack — and its parent company Stepcase — I’d like to wish a safe, happy, prosperous and productive new year to all of our readers.

(Photo credit: Happy New Year via Shutterstock)

Mike Vardy is a writer, speaker, and "productivityist". Read more of his writing and learn more about him at MikeVardy.com, and you can also follow him on Twitter.

New Tools for the New Year: Technology

Chris Smith — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 11:00:08 +0000

There’s nothing like getting ready to start a new year and making sure that all of your ducks are in a row, especially when it comes to the technology tools that you are going to use. We are strong believers here at Lifehack of trying not to follow the “shiny new thing” and stick with tools that we can learn and trust over the long term. Most of the tools that I am recommending for the new year have been around for a while, but it just shows that they are tried and true, and if you haven’t made the switch or started using them in some fashion, then maybe the beginning of the new year is time to do it.

Productivity apps you need

There are several productivity apps that you should have ready to go for the coming year. We highly recommend picking a set of tools and sticking to them, but at the bare minimum you will need a way to track projects and create and edit documents (presentations and spreadsheets too), and keep track of notes and information.

For project and action managers, we can’t recommend Toodledo, Remember The Milk, OmniFocus, or Asana enough. OmniFocus is the only one that is Mac only (but probably the best on the Mac) while the other are web based and have access via your mobile device (iPhone and Android apps).

For editing documents, spreadsheets, and presentations you don’t have to go much further than using Google Docs. Google’s awesome set of online tools coupled with about 8GB of free storage is definitely enough to get a lot of your work done, not to mention collaborate with others. If you are in the camp of wanting to create documents locally, then you may want to hunker down and buy a license for Microsoft Office (either for Windows or Mac or both). Yet, if you aren’t willing to pay the hefty fee for Office, then try out OpenOffice.org (for all platforms).

For taking notes we recommend Evernote. Seriously, if you aren’t using this cross-platform tool for taking notes and storing snippets of information with its suite of apps, then you need to stop reading, get an account now, and start making your life easier by using it. If you are a plain-text-lover (like me and Mike), you can augment Evernote with the use of a ton of plain text apps like:

ByWord (Mac)
WriteMonkey (Windows)
Notepad++ (Windows)
Notesy (iOS)
Nebulous Notes (iOS)
Simplenote (all platforms)
Epistle (Android)
Notational Velocity or nvALT (Mac)

Oh, and start using Markdown.

Paperless tools

I told a co-worker who has been working in the insurance field for 20+ years that I was going paperless this year. He reluctantly reminded me that he has heard that one since the 80s. But, I am going to make a concerted effort to get as close as possible to paperless, but not without the proper tools.

A good paper scanner is important to keep all of your paper out of cabinets and into a digital system. I have to recommend either the ScanSnap S1500 or on the less feature-rich and price side the portable ScanSnap S1300. Both are sheet-fed and duplex scanners that definitely are reliable and get the job done. You could also give a try to the newer Doxie or Doxie Go that offers non-duplex scanning but in a tiny, portable package. The prices for the Doxie is definitely nice starting at $149.99.

After you get a good scanner you will need a way to store all of your documents. Our preference is using an Evernote account (possibly updating to Evernote Premium) and using Evernote’s great OCR search, tagging, and sorting capabilities to keep everything organized. Also, if you aren’t comfortable with storing everything in the cloud you could role your own system or use tools such as Microsoft OneNote or DEVONthink for Mac.

Store and backup

Dropbox is another app that is so important and useful that if you don’t have it in your arsenal of tools then you need to drop everything and go get an account (kind of like Evernote above). Dropbox has been moved from “just an awesome app that I love to use” to an app that is essential for my work. I keep all my important files in Dropbox, share documents with co-workers, upload/offload pictures and video, share TextExpander snippets, use it for storage for apps like 1Password and others. It’s my portable, digital file system.

Also, if you aren’t backing up your computer regularly then you are somewhat insane. It’s part of a knowledge worker’s responsibility to keep her data intact and there is no better way I have found this year than doing so with services like Carbonite, Mozy, or even something like SuperDuper! for Mac that makes a clone of your bootable drive so you don’t lose anything important.

Conclusion

Using iron clad technology tools for the new year is the only way to ensure that you are ready to be and stay productive. While there may be new tools and technologies that come and go, we feel that the apps, services, and products recommended above are here for the long term. Learning to utilize a strong set of tools that are reliable will not only help you into 2012, but may last many years down the road.

(Photo credit: Hand pushing a button via Shutterstock)

The 100 Best Lifehacks of 2011: The Year in Review

Mike Vardy — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 20:33:49 +0000

Another year is coming to a close this weekend, and it’s been a banner one here at Lifehack.

As you’ll see below, one of our most popular posts of 2011 was our 100 Best Lifehacks of 2010 article, which flows nicely into this post which will outline the 100 Best Lifehack of 2011. Unlike last year’s list, there’s a few changes we put into place before delivering this list to our readers.

First off, the overall top 10 posts are determined by overall traffic during the past year, as well as engagement on social networks. The articles come from a wide variety of our website’s categories, whereas the remaining 90 articles are divided up into the primary categories that we write about at Lifehack: Communication, Lifestyle, Management, Money, Productivity and Technology.

Those 90 posts were decided on based on visits to each article, social media interaction, comments and then were finally curated by the Lifehack editorial team. Each category has 15 articles that made the cut for this year’s list as well.

You’ve got a lot of reading to do here, os let’s get started…

Communication

Lifestyle

Management

Money

Productivity

Technology

Thanks to all of the Lifehack contributors, without whom this list would not have been possible. And thanks to you, our Lifehack readers. We hope that the articles that we offered up in 2011 — both those that made this list and those that did not — have helped you make waves in 2011. We’ve got more in store for you in the coming year, and we hope you’ll stick with us for the ride.

(Photo credit: 2011 on the beach of sunrise via Shutterstock)

Mike Vardy is a writer, speaker, and "productivityist". Read more of his writing and learn more about him at MikeVardy.com, and you can also follow him on Twitter.

New Year’s Resolution: Stop Paying for Antivirus Protection

Ray Pevley — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 18:00:47 +0000

It’s not hard to understand Windows users, myself included, still run paid subscription antivirus (AV) software (i.e. Norton, McAfee, Trend Micro, etc.) that can cost from $40 to upwards of $80 per year for a security suite. Until recently, when it came to computer protection I, like many of you, took on the old adage “you get what you pay for“. Two years ago I’d still stand by that; although two years of steady progression has proven that phrase doesn’t apply here anymore.

Microsoft to the rescue?

So what new open source security suite has freed us from McAfee’s bondage? Actually, this time it isn’t open source. Believe it or not it’s actually Microsoft who’s stepped up on this one; with their free antivirus program, Windows Security Essentials. Security Essentials has been available for a couple of years, but in the beginning it was terribly buggy and unreliable. Yet, since that time, Security Essentials has seemingly hit its stride.

If it’s been steadily progressing, why is the first time I have posted anything about it? To tell the truth, it has taken me nearly 2 years to warm up to it. My initial opinion of SE back in 2009 was,

“Microsoft’s offering, what they’re claiming is, a legit security suite? Umm…yeah…right…and it’s free?! You must be huffing paint! Microsoft isn’t capable of producing both a free and a legit product, so this has to be complete crap. If they didn’t offer that retarded iPod they called a Zune for free, the thought of a free – and legit – AV solution from Microsoft is just plain nutty!”

Let’s face it, quality AVs, and/or any other security suite that’s offered for free by Microsoft was a pretty far-fetched concept. Until they showed me proof, I wasn’t biting. Now, as we head into 2012, Microsoft has proven itself to be a legit AV contender (not to mention a nightmare to McAfee and its bloated cousin Norton). Unlike the bloated paid subscription AVs, Windows Security Essentials is extremely lightweight, easy to install, and even easier to use.

It takes about a minute from the time you launch the install file until you’re literally scanning your system. It runs silently in the background, giving you the ability to continue working on your PC while Security Essentials is scanning. That is something I would always try and avoid when I ran McAfee, because everything became very sluggish if I tried to work on my PC while McAfee was scanning. I wouldn’t even attempt working on a PC while Norton was lumbering along with its, bovine like agility, scanning for the viruses it, most likely, put on the system to begin with!

Still not without flaws

If Security Essentials’s greatest strength, besides being free and very light, is its ability to run quietly in the background without disrupting what’s going on in the foreground, then its weakness would be its lengthy full system scan time. Security Essentials’s full system scans take a bit longer to complete than some of the AVs I’ve seen. Although, when you hardly even know its running and can continue working, it’s not that big of a deal. Plus, I have heard tales that this “weakness” will be remedied in the newly released beta version of Security Essentials. I am hearing a 20% speed increase in scan time.

The appearance of the beta version and the current version are virtually the same, although the site lists several functionality improvements; such as, automatic malware remediation, new protection engine, and many performance tweaks. Besides it’s the functionality that protects your PC from an infection, not its stunning good looks. I’m not nearly as concerned with Security Essentials’s appearance as I am its functionality. This isn’t exactly a beauty contest; computer infections are nasty and sometimes require getting some dirt on you.

So, what is your AV setup and are you planning to download and install Security Essentials? Tell us your thoughts about Security Essentials or any other anti-virus software in the comments section.

(Photo Credit: Stylized computer virus via Shutterstock)

7 iPhone Apps for a Delightful Christmas

Chris Smith — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 01:00:41 +0000

With the ubiquity of your iPhone and how just about everyone you know now-a-days has one, it would be a shame if you didn’t use it to make your Christmas more enjoyable. Here are 7 apps that you can get right now that can help you make your Christmas delightful.

1. NORAD Tracks Santa (Free)

Who could ever be in the spirit of Christmas without knowing exactly where The Big Man is at as he showers gifts all over the world. Maybe you are a Grinch, and don’t really care where Mr. Claus is at (that’s me), but, I can guarantee that the young ones at your Christmas Eve parties will.

Not to mention that the official NORAD apps comes with a handy Elf Toss game that you can use to bide your time until you can start tracking Santa.

2. Camera+ ($.99)

Camera+ may be one of the best Camera apps that are available for the iPhone. It allows the user to quickly take many pictures and then gives them access to the Lightbox where the user can view, resize, crop, and edit the effects of the photo. There are some other great features of Camera+ like a very simple to use white balance mode and also you can enable the power up button on your iPhone to take photos.

Pictures are super important during Christmas festivities, so it’s a good idea to go into them with a great Camera application.

3. Christmas (Free)

A nice free app to get you in the holiday spirit. Christmas for iPhone is a kind of “app pack” that gives you access to Christmas ringtones, streaming music, Christmas emoji, and even some nice HD wallpapers to spice up your iPhone for the holidays.

I usually think that this type of thing is corny, but with the inclusion of the Grinch ringtone, I had to recommend this one.

4. Evernote (Free)

It’s easy to recommend Evernote for everything because, well, it does pretty much everything. Have to get a last minute gift tonight with the maddening crowd at Target? Snap a picture of where you parked so you don’t forget. Want to make sure you have gift receipts? Scan them in or snap a photo with Evernote and tag them.

Or, my favorite, create a tag ‘xmas-2011-return’ and take photos of all the things that may not be exactly what you wanted for Christmas. After the holidy hubbub you search for you tag and have a nice list of the things you want to take back, or worse, have a list of people that you have to call for gift receipts.

5. Pandora (Free)

This is a good one especially if you are going to be a party entertainer this year. You can start creating a Christmas station tonight and hone it so you will have it ready for your party tomorrow. You can do this a couple of ways, either by Christmas songs you really like, or even choose an artist that you like singing a Christmas song. Pandora is pretty smart about selections, and if you work on it for a couple of hours you can get a great station for Christmas Eve and Day.

6. Capture ($.99)

Mr. Mike Vardy opened me up to this app for the iPhone and at a mere $.99 you can’t go wrong. Ever miss a moment of your child or drunk uncle Chester doing something at Christmas that you wished you would have caught on video? Well, with Capture you don’t have to worry about it.

It’s pretty easy to use. Pull out your iPhone, tap the Capture icon on your homescreen, and you are instantly recording. Press the home button when you want to stop and save. Pretty easy and definitely a Christmas moment saver.

7. Instacast ($1.99)

If you are like many Americans then you are going to be doing some traveling over the next week or so. There is absolutely no better way to spend your time than listening to some enlightening podcasts with what I will call simply the best podcast streamer/manager for iOS. Instacast allows you to search and subscribe to your favorite podcasts, download them over WiFi, or even stream them on the go. The quality of this app is excellent (it actually feels like an Apple app).

Need some podcast recommendations? Here you go:

With the inclusion of these 7 apps on your iPhone, you are setting yourself up for one of the best Christmas’s yet. Any other apps that you couldn’t live without over the next few days? Leave them below.

The 12 Days of Giveaways: Day 8 – AgileBits

Chris Smith — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 18:00:50 +0000

Well, we have reached the last week of our 12 Days of Giveaways. It’s been an exciting 7 days of some of the best productivity apps, services, and products that help you get things done, and today we are going to offer you one of the the best apps to keep your passwords and information secure from AgileBits.

But, before we do that we want to announce the winners of the David Allen Company’s three GTD Notetaker Wallets. Here are the three winning comments. The first is from Carl T. Holscher:

“The iPhone can be great for many things but I’ve never liked it for quick note taking. I love the feel of paper and the smooth ink as it glides across the page.

My wallet is 10 years old and falling apart and this will fill both voids, proper note-taking on the go and a lovely wallet I can be proud to own (and my wife will stop making fun of!)”

The next is quick and to the point from our friend Ammon:

“The addition of a ubiquitous capture tool would mean that 2012 will finally be the year I stop procrastinating and start “Getting Things Done”!”

And then this comment from our Facebook fan, Tim Stueve:

“I’ve been using my smartphone to capture things, but it would be more convenient to use the wallet/notepad, which I’ve been eying for some time. Goodbye battery failure/uncertainty, hello old reliable pen/paper!”

Hopefully your new notetaker wallets will help all of you capture things anywhere you are in 2012. Congratulations!

Today’s giveaway

Try to guess that password!

AgileBits, the creator of the much loved password manager, 1Password and Knox, a leading solution for securing data, is today’s partner for the 12 Days of Giveaways. I have been using 1Password ever since I got my first Mac and like many of the other tools that we have given away, 1Password is an app that I can’t live without.

Most web users have more than one online account, whether it be for email, banking, social networks, forums, etc. But, the reality is that most people keep the same password for all their logons. This is a bad idea (hopefully as a savvy Lifehack.org reader we don’t need to tell you why!), but keeping a bunch of unique, secure passwords can be sort of a pain, especially when you have many online accounts.

Enter 1Password. 1Password is a secure password manager that allows you to create and store unique passwords that are protected by one master password. 1Password also integrates with your browser to allow for one click sign-on to any website that requires authentication. Another cool feature is that you can store credit card and bank account information securely. Also, if you have 1Password for your iOS device you can securely sync your password file with Dropbox.

Today, AgileBits is offering 100% off a single order up to $50 from their online store for one lucky Lifehack.org reader. That means you can pick yourself up a copy of 1Password (for Mac or Windows), or you can even pick up Knox if you are so inclined.

How to Enter

In order to enter to the giveaway, you need to leave a comment below or on our Facebook fan page that answers the following:

“What are the first 3 online accounts you would secure with 1Password and why?”

Leaving a comment on both our Facebook fan page and here at Lifehack.org will get you 2 entries, so but you need to give us two items that you like the most – no copying and pasting!

The Fine Print

Employees of AgileBits and of Stepcase (including current independent contractors of both) are not eligible for this contest. The winning entry will be judged by the Stepcase Lifehack editing team and the winner will be notified on the platform in which their winning entry was placed (either on the Lifehack.org Facebook wall or by email through our commenting system here on the website). For those entering the contest with a comment on our site, in order to be considered eligible, you MUST leave a contact email when leaving a comment (it’s the only way we’ll know how to contact you). Entries must be submitted by 10 am Eastern the following weekday and winners will be chosen by 12 pm Eastern time on the same day. The winners will be announced the same day on Lifehack.org, and will be notified beforehand.

Good luck!

The 12 Days of Giveaways: Day 2 – Toodledo for iOS

Chris Smith — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 19:00:53 +0000

Today is the second day of The 12 Days of Giveaways at Lifehack.org where we are giving our readers some of the best productivity swag around. Mostly because we like you, but also because we love the products that we are giving away. And today is no different with one of the most ubiquitous and best to-do list apps around: Toodledo for iOS.

But first, yesterday’s Knock Knock “Hack Your Way to a Fresh 2012” winner is…

Lifehack commenter amyrosebrown with this excellent comment,

“A guy once hit on me at a bar using the High Five Nifty Notes, so I personally like those.”

Nice. And maybe now she can return the favor in 2012. Congrats amyrosebrown!

Toodledo for iPhone

Anywho, Toodledo has been around for a while now and has proven to be one of the best web apps for keeping track of your tasks and projects with its insane amount of features and ways to use it. If you haven’t seen Toodledo or used it yet and you are reading Lifehack, then you may be reading from under a rock, as we have featured it on many top GTD and productivity app lists.

Another thing to mention, especially for those out there that haven’t tried Toodledo since the middle of this year (2011), is that Toodledo has had a complete design overhaul. Now, not only is Toodledo a functional and awesome to use application, it is even better to look at on the web.

For today’s giveaway, Toodledo has given us 10 promo codes to provide 10 lucky Lifehack.org readers with Toodledo for iOS. The app is Universal and will work on both iPad and iPhone/iPod touch.

I’ve personally used Toodledo on-and-off for almost 3 years now and I still think that it is one of the best apps for getting things done. Here are just some of Toodledo’s features:

Use tags, folders, contexts, status, priority, due date, start date, etc. to organize and prioritize your tasks.
You can use Toodledo pretty much anywhere be it web, iPhone, iPad, mobile web, and even some 3rd party apps for Mac and Windows support Toodledo sync. You can check out their 3rd-party list here.
Toodledo also offers collaboration with shared projects
Import and export functions. This is important for those “data liberation type of zealot types” (like me).
Ability to have subtasks (pro-account only)
Excellent iOS app that gives you all the filtering and list “shucking-and-jiving” you could ever want. And hey, you have a chance to win this one!

But really, the best way to check out what Toodledo has to offer is to check them out for yourself.

How to Enter

In order to enter to win this Toodledo for iOS, leave a comment below or on our Facebook fan page telling us the following:

“How will you use Toodledo for iOS in the coming year to be more productive?”

Leaving a comment on both our Facebook fan page and here at Lifehack.org will get you 2 entries. Try not to copy and paste though, the better the comment, the better your chances of winning a Toodle for iOS promo code!

The Fine Print

Employees of Toodledo and of Stepcase (including current independent contractors of both) are not eligible for this contest. These promo codes can only be used on iOS (so keep that in mind when entering). The winning 10 entries will be judged by the Stepcase Lifehack editing team and winners will be notified on the platform in which their winning entry was placed (either on the Lifehack.org Facebook wall or by email through our commenting system here at Lifehack.org). Please note that by submitting an entry, Toodledo and/or Stepcase may use your comments for promotional purposes, although neither entity will use your name without permission. Entries must be submitted by 10 am Eastern the following day and winners will be chosen by 12 pm Eastern time on the same day. The winner will be announced on Monday at Lifehack.org, and will be notified beforehand.

Good luck!

Get Over Your Smartphone Addiction

Alexandra Levit — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 11:00:23 +0000

At dinner with a friend last weekend, we lamented our husband’s incessant use of smartphones while “spending time” with our children. It turns out we are not alone. Smartphones are not just for work. They are for everything, all the time.

A Documented Phenomenon

According to a recent study by the UK-based Ofcoms, smartphone addiction is reaching epidemic proportions. When asked about the use of their smartphone devices, 37 percent of adult participants admitted they were highly addicted to their devices.

Over half of adult respondents claimed they have used their smartphones will socializing with others, nearly a quarter have used them during mealtimes, and over a fifth used them while in the bathroom.

Another study originally published in the Journal of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing concurred that smartphones are taking over some people’s lives. The researchers identified what they call a “checking habit” – when you repetitively look at your device for 30 seconds or less and access a single application. Apparently, this is a habitual response to boredom, and/or the need for constant distraction. It is easy to see how an out-of-control checking habit could result in negative consequences ranging from a traffic accident to a strained relationship with a family member.

And How Does That Make You Feel?

David Greenfield, Ph.D. is a psychologist and the author of Virtual Addiction: Help for Netheads, Cyberfreaks, and Those Who Love Them (non-affiliate link). In Susan Davis’ article for WebMD,Greenfield is quoted as saying that computer technologies can be addictive because they’re psychoactive, alter mood, and often trigger enjoyable feelings. E-mail in particular gives us satisfaction due to variable ratio reinforcement, meaning that we never know when we’ll get a great e-mail, so we keep checking over and over again.

So how do you avoid becoming a slave to your smartphone without throwing the baby out with the bathwater? Here, some tips:

Don’t buy the Lexus of phones: There is no need to purchase the most feature-rich, complex device on the market just because it’s available. Select a phone that meets your needs and ignore the bells and whistles that will only serve to confuse you.
Don’t go app crazy: The more apps, the slower your phone works, and the faster it runs out of battery. Constantly buzzing and beeping apps can also be distracting. The truth is, most people only use between 5-10 apps regularly. So stop the downloading madness.
Leave the phone in another room: If you constantly have the urge to check your smartphone, leave it in another room so that you aren’t tempted to pick it up. This is especially useful if you have set aside time to do something away from your phone, like finish a report or play a game with your family.
If you’re talking to someone, don’t answer it: Unless you are expecting an urgent call, do not allow your phone to interrupt an in-person conversation. Sneaking peeks at your phone or typing away on it while someone is trying to command your attention will negatively impact your relationships and productivity.

(Photo credit: young businessman playing with his cell from Shutterstock)

Alexandra Levit is a career and workplace expert at the Intuit Quickbase Blog , a daily source for advice on how to be exceptional at your job. You can follow her on Twitter at @alevit.

To Automate or not to Automate Your Personal Productivity System

Chris Smith — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 11:30:54 +0000

Robot photo via Shutterstock

We are all about doing things faster and better around here at Lifehack. And part of doing things faster and better is having a solid personal productivity system that you use on a daily basis.

This system can be just about anything that helps you get through your mountain of projects or tasks, and helps you get closer to your goals in life. Whether it’s paper or pixels, it doesn’t really matter. But, since you are reading Lifehack I have to assume that pixels and technological devices are an important part of your workflow.

“Personal Productivity System” defined

A personal productivity system (at least the definition that this article will use) is a set of workflows and tools that allow an individual to optimally get their work done.

Workflows can be how you import and handle your photos from your camera, how you write and create blog posts, how you deploy compiled code to a server, etc.

Tools are the things like planners, todo managers, calendars, development environments, applications, etc.

When automation is bad

You may be thinking that the more that we automate our systems, the more we will get done. This is mostly the case, but there is one very big “gotcha” when it comes to automation of anything.

Automation is a bad thing for your personal productivity system when you don’t inherently understand the process of something.

Let’s take paying your bills for example. This may seem very obvious, but if you can’t stick to a monthly budget and have trouble finding the money to make payments on time, then automating your bill payment every month is completely useless and can be dangerous for your personal finances.

Another example is using a productivity tool to “tell you” what tasks are important and what to do next. If you haven’t taken a step back and figured out just how your productivity systems should work together, this type of automation will likely keep you from getting things done.

You can only automate something in your personal productivity system that have managed for a while. If you try to automate things that aren’t managed well already, you will probably feel a bit out of control and have a greater sense of overwhelm.

Another thing to remember is that some things should always be done by yourself, like responding to important emails and communicating with others. Automating these things can show your coworkers and colleagues that you don’t care enough to communicate yourself.

When automation is good

On the other hand, automation is a great thing for your personal productivity system when you understand the process of something and can then automatically get the steps done. When you know how to manage something effectively and understand the step-by-step process of a portion of your system, it’s probably a great time to automate it.

I have several workflows that I have introduced in the last year that takes some of the “mindless” work from me so I can be more creative and not have to worry about the details of something.

On my Mac I use a combination of Automator workflows, TextExpander snippets, and now Keyboard Maestro shortcuts to do things like automatically touch-up photos imported from my iPhone 4S or open all the apps and websites needed for a weekly meeting to the forefront of my desktop by typing a few keys. Once you open yourself up to automating a few of your processes, you start to see other pieces of your system that can benefit from automation.

Once again; none of this works unless you understand your processes and know what tools you can use to get them done automatically.

The three steps to determine if something is “ripe” for automation

If your workflow passes these three steps, then automate away, baby:

You can do this process in your sleep and it doesn’t require your full, if any form of attention. It can (and has been) managed in some form prior to automating it.
The process is time consuming.
The process doesn’t require “human finesse” (ie. communicating and responding to something personally)

Automating your personal productivity systems can be a great for you in the long run if you are careful and mindful of what you are doing. You first need to understand the processes that you are trying to automate before automating them though. Don’t get stuck in thinking that anything and everything should be automated in your life, because it probably shouldn’t.

Pick and choose these processes wisely and you’ll find the ones that take up most of your time to be the best ones to automate. What have you automated in your personal productivity system?