Tag Archive for: apps

5 Ways to be Productive While Being Lazy

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Screen Shot 2015-02-23 at 9.26.42 PMYou can be productive and be lazy at the same time.

This sounds crazy, right? But it’s not impossible to get stuff done AND be a couch potato!  It’s true! There are a lot of ways you can be efficient without leaving the couch.

So I’ve put together a list:

1.  Watch a Ted Talk. All you need is access to the Internet. Ted Talks are powerful videos that cover a wide variety of topics. Their goal is to spread ideas and give insight to those who are looking for a deeper understanding of the world. Gain knowledge and spark ideas all from the comfort of your home

2.  Outsource: I’m a huge fan of giving your to-do list to someone else. Take advantage of some of these instant gratification apps so you can relax while your chores get.

  • Wun Wun will deliver you food from a restaurant, supermarket or shop in under and hour, for about 8 bucks.
  • Postmates is similar to Wun Wun, except they charge $5 for delivery. You can get just about anything delivered to you while you watch the latest episode of Girls.
  • Zipments is a bike messenger style currier app that allows you to text or talk to your courier directly.  You can use this to send paperwork, pick up dry cleaning or drop off lunch to your kid’s school. They also do restaurant and store pickups too. It’s also worth comparing these against other couriers such as Shiply, especially if you regularly use couriers for things like motorbike deliveries.
  • Minibar will deliver wine, spirits, beer and mixers to your door. Delivery is free and under an hour in NYC and 2 hours or less in the Hamptons.  A great solution to prep for a party without leaving the house.

3.  Listen to Umano. Sit back, relax, and have your favorite articles read to you. Umano offers a wide selection of content. The more you listen, the more recommendations you will receive. You can also build playlists! Subscribe to the List Producer Umano playlist for free, and use my code to get unlimited listening:  NN8MEZ

4. Use Evernote While You Lounge. This is basically a digital filing cabinet. Strategically organize everything from your grocery lists to your bucket list. You can do this on any device while lounging around the house. If you’ve tried it before and just can’t get into it – trust me…give it a second chance.

5. Exercise! Yup, there’s a lazy way to exercise. I put together a Pinterest board for you to check out.

Follow Paula Rizzo – ListProducer.com’s board Exercise the lazy way! on Pinterest.

11 Free Fab Finds for Productivity

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Screen Shot 2015-02-18 at 5.03.21 PMGetting things done doesn’t always have to be time consuming and costly. There are actually a whole lot of free ways to be more productive.  I’ve put together this list of freebies that will get you on track:

Time Savers

1.  Pathtalk: This app is really versatile (and awesome)! It allows you to contact local businesses, make dinner reservations, book appointments, compare prices, and check in-store availability. Not to mention, you can do all of these things without making a single phone call!  I use it all the time.

2.  Dragon Dictation: Have a brilliant idea but don’t have any paper? Dragon will transcribe whatever you say with pretty good accuracy into a tweet, Facebook post or e-mail.  This is great for capturing to-dos that pop up when you’re on the run.

3.  Umano: This app allows you to listen to professionally recorded short news articles! Sign up and choose from a wide variety of publishers and bloggers (including me!) to listen to. It’s perfect for when you want to listen to stuff on-the-go! If you decide to try it out, use my code when signing up to get unlimited listening: NN8MEZ.

4.  Timeful:  A way to schedule all the things you really want to do!  You can connect Timeful to a calendar you already use and schedule in tasks like reading and meditation.Timeful will suggest the best times for you to complete each task – which you can accept or deny.

5.  Minutes Please: Control your web time here! You know how it goes — taking a 10 minute break to check Facebook turns into one hour. Enter the URL of the website and the number of minutes (up to 120) you want to spend on it. Minute Please will give you a countdown at the top of your browser. Never waste time online again!

6.  Scannable: A new mobile scanning app introduced by Evernote. I’ve already used it a bunch of times to scan receipts, insurance cards and articles.  All you have to do is point and click and you can instantly save or export the picture.

7.  HelloSign: You can sign e-signatures with this site that are legally binding.  This was a lifesaver when I was buying my apartment.  There’s just so much paperwork to fill out.  I used HelloSign to scan, edit, and sign documents.

8.  Hellofax: From the same makers of HelloSign.  With this app, there’s no need to have a fax machine anymore. HelloFax takes a high quality scan of your photo and securely faxes it to wherever you want. One of the best parts is, you can keep your current fax number to avoid confusion with customers. There’s a free 14 day trial.

Email

9.  Email Game: If you have an endless inbox — conquer your e-mail, with a game! This game encourages you to read and responds to e-mails faster and more decisively. This adds a fun twist on the boring task of sifting through your inbox.

10.  Unroll.Me*: Junk e-mail can pile up pretty quickly. When you’re in the store and they ask for your email, all of a sudden you’re getting a ton of useless newsletters. Unroll.Me will identify every newsletter that you’re subscribed to and you can opt-out with the click of a button.

11.  Boomerang: Get your inbox back down to zero. This app provides various useful features. If you’re up late answering emails, you can schedule to have them sent out in the morning. This way you can get your day starting out doing other tasks. You can also prioritize certain emails that you want to tackle later. Plus you can schedule emails you’d like to follow up on to pop back up into your inbox when you’re read to deal with them. The first 10 emails are free.

Still feeling overwhelmed by your email? Check out my course Take Back Your Inbox, which I created to help you get back in control!

Check out these free fab finds and let me know what you think below!

*Unroll.Me makes money by learning what people stay subscribed to and what they unsubscribe from – that data is valuable and helps corporations learn what people want and what they don’t want. Your email address is NOT sold. If you’d like to keep your subscription list private you’ll need to unsubscribe manually from individual email subscriptions. If you appreciate the swiftness that you can unsubscribe from multiple sources while helping brands service customers better then Unroll.Me is for you!

Stop Googling Yourself

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mentionI have a confession — I’ve been known to casually Google myself every now and again. Come on…we’ve all done it! I even have Google alerts set up for my name, and a few keywords like list making and to-do lists. But there’s a better way!

I’ve discovered the app and website Mention. It’s amazing and acts like your own personal Internet trolling system. I started using it just before my book Listful Thinking launched because I want to know who is talking about it on the Internet. It can be hard to track them down using Google alerts only.  Infact, Google alerts hasn’t alerted me at all about the book. What’s up with that? Read more

3 Ways Short Deadlines Help You Do More

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Italiano: Autore: Francesco Cirillo rilasciata...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The problem with time management is that humans are, in genera, fairly bad at judging time and how long things take. For example, five minutes seems like a short amount of time, but try holding a heavy box for five minutes and it’ll seem like an eternity.

So when we say we’re going to work on a project for an hour, we’re often setting ourselves up to fail. That’s why I believe splitting up your task into manageable chunks is actually the fastest way to get it done.

As a TV producer I’ve had years of practice so I know what 45 seconds vs. two minutes and 45 seconds feels like.  It takes a while to get the feel just right.  But when you do — it can be an amazing productivity tool.

Here’s some easy ways to break tasks into bite-sized pieces: Read more

Apps That Save You In a Pinch

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iphone-410311_1280If there is one thing organized people fear, it’s when life doesn’t go as planned. It’s because we make lists and detail everything out in order to leave as little room for error as possible. Sadly, no matter how organized you are, things can still go wrong.

I’ve struggled with this my whole life. But I think there’s a reason I became a TV producer – it has helped me deal with this. When I worked in live TV – I always needed a backup plan…just in case.

Here are some apps you should download for when things go awry you aren’t caught off guard and can immediately move on seamlessly: Read more