Welcome Back to the fold Aaron!
Aaron, this is in response to “But does Maine have anything to say to Texas?“; I’m with Adri on using IM over email for quick, easy, efficient conversations. I can’t imagine life or work without my IM, and you should see my buddy list, I have to scroll up and down 
. It made me more accessible to my students last year, and yes, I did instruct them to first check my status to see if I was available or away. Oh, did I mention my status messages are a mile long too? And yes, I’m on Facebook, and I Twitter on a regular basis, and I still I do get serious work done.
I guess I’m a burst worker, but email can’t, just can’t, beat the efficacy of turning to a trusted colleague and friend, who is an expert in his or her area, for a quick rundown on a problem, or exchange of ideas, or even a quick hello to stay connected. For my students, the opportunity to quickly clarify something via IM as they worked on their assignments was a huge plus. OF course, they were instructed to check my status to ensure I was available first. What I got out of it was the opportunity to stay connected with them even after they had moved on to other classes and assignments.
Email has it’s place, and it’s a great way to disseminate information or communicate with a large group of people. But IM is real, one-to-one conversations, and often times, that is exactly what’s needed. As knowledge workers and information sifters, the challenge is to identify which communication tool best serves our need at the moment, and live in neither, not our email inboxes, nor our IM windows.
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FeedRaider
Was pointed to FeedRaider by a participant at the TCC Conference today. Like Google Reader, you just hover over the headlines to see more of the content. It has a nice crisp, clean, interface. Now, if it has a Firefox extension as well… ooh baby!
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Life Without Firefox Extensions
is unimaginable to be perfectly honest. I can’t remember what I did before I had my “Tag” button to quickly tag a website to my del.icio.us site, or click on the del.icio.us icon button to access my del.icio.us site. Web site design and development probably took way more time before I had my handy-dandy Web Developer toolbar and Firebug to debug XHTML and CSS on the fly, and HTML Validator to validate my code. ScribeFire (previously Performancing) lets me blog as soon as an idea strikes, or at the very least, when I have the time to actually reflect and let an idea float through .
The crown jewel of them all however, is the Google Notebook extension. Google Notebook is my note taker for projects I’m working on, and the ability to immediately jot down a comment, idea, or question without having to worry about filing or keeping track of scraps of paper is invaluable in my opinion. And having a button that readily available to do it quickly and efficiently and return to the task at hand, even more so. Hmm, wonder if Firefox extensions would count as effective GTD tools by David Allen?
So, what’s in your Firefox?
Technorati Tags: GTD, Firefox, extensions
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The MultiPot
Let’s face it, I’m a gizmo gal. As such, I’m always on the lookout for a device that will let me charge my various technology gizmos in a simple and efficient manner and look great while doing so – a functional objet d’art as it were. Well my friends, it appears I may have found just the thing! Called the MultiPot, it’s essentially “a hybrid, multifunctional
lamp, which combines a LED ambient light, a Multisocket,
and a lower vase-shaped, containing space to tidy
away any extra cabling.” There is no way to order it online at the moment, but the website does provide a toll-free number you can call for more information.
As a side note, in the process of writing this quick post via Performancing, I discovered that Option+arrow keys (I suspect this might be Command+arrow keys on a Mac keyboard. My setup is a little different as I’m using a Microsoft wireless keyboard connected to both my MBP and my PC via a switch) lets me scroll back and forward in my browser window. Yayyy! Aren’t keyboard shortcuts the greatest?
Technorati Tags: multipot productivity tools
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Dang, I’m Such a Geek! ;-)
Thanks to my personalized Google Home Page, I came across a blog post at 43Folders titled “Getting Started With ‘Getting Things Done‘”. I have not heard of this book – not surprising given that I haven’t had time lately to read, reflect, and generally be a normal human being! – but a quick scan of the blog post has convinced me that it merits further reading. The clincher however was this:
I think Getting Things Done appeals to geeks for a lot of reasons. Overgeneralizing for effect:
- geeks are often disorganized or have a twisted skein of attention-deficit issues
- geeks love assessing, classifying, and defining the objects in their world
- geeks crave actionable items and roll their eyes at “mission statements” and lofty management patois
- geeks like things that work with technology-agnostic and lofi tools
- geeks like frameworks but tend to ignore rules
- geeks are unusually open to change (if it can be demonstrated to work better than what they’re currently using)
- geeks like fixing things on their own terms
- geeks have too many projects and lots and lots of stuff
Sure I’ve been told I’m a geek, and yes I have a notion what that means, but this list above brought it home and right between the eyes. It was like ‘Oh my goddess, I’m such a ‘geek’ !!!” I’ff off to Amazon now, this geek needs to spend some moolah, and hopefully, things will get done .
