Every year Santa delivers presents to all the boys and girls around the world. It’s fair to say he’s a pretty busy guy. In order to keep Christmas magical Santa has to keep his time management skills in check. And if you’ve ever been delighted with the gift of your choice on Christmas morning…you know he’s good, real good at this!
Here are some ways you can be more like Santa and get more done: Read more
Around this time of year we find ourselves adding more and more to our to do lists. I know I feel like 2015 hasn’t even begun and my list is already stacking up. Especially as my book is being published in January! If you are also feeling a bit overwhelmed maybe it’s time to start subtracting from your list instead of adding.
My friend Cass McCrory runs The Subtraction Project to help you do just that. What the Subtraction Project does is provide 30 days of actionable prompts to subtract the extra in your home, your inbox, your brain and your life. It’s free so there’s no subtraction from your wallet.
The project starts on January 1st — so sign up soon to get a kick start on your new year. Even if you know you have a busy January ahead, don’t worry as each prompt will be short and sweet. They take between 5-15 minutes to complete. Cass is also going to feature my book on day 11, as that day focuses on to-do lists. So make sure to check it out.
What are you going to subtract from your life in 2015?
I’m sure most of you have your go-to outfits for when you have an important presentation to give or a special dinner to attend. But what about some other go-to must haves that will make your life easier and more efficient?
I was reading an article in Fast Company magazine where they had a productivity tip from Christina Wallace, the founding director of the American Museum of Natural History’s Bridge Up: STEM Initiative. She encourage readers to have a go-to list of meeting spots in the neighborhoods they frequent most. Read more
According to this study, on average we send and receive 120 emails at work every day. It’s easy to see how some of us can spend an entire day just replying to emails. So if your feeling a bit overwhelmed, don’t worry, there are several ways to fight back against the email onslaught.
Here are some tips for tackling your email inbox:
Download Boomerang – This Gmail app can help you get your inbox back down to zero. There are several useful features like being able to schedule emails to send at a later date. I love this feature for when I’m up late getting things done but don’t want my email to get lost overnight. I just schedule it to go out in the morning and off it goes. This is also a great feature when you want to write emails right away about a subject but don’t want to send them right away. Let’s say you want to remind someone about a meeting or a conference. You can write up the email and schedule it to send the day before the event. That way you get it off your plate and still get the goal accomplished.
You can also set an incoming email to be returned to the top of your inbox at a more relevant time. So if you get an email you don’t need to deal with until tomorrow, Gmail won’t display it in your inbox, until the next day when it’ll appear right on top for you to tackle. The service is free for up to 10 scheduled emails but after that there are paid packages.
As much as I love new technology, especially technology that helps increase your productivity – there are a few ways in which I’m still behind the times. For starters, I still have one of those old school style address books. I write addresses in pencil so I can easily update when someone moves. It works – until I need an address when I’m not at home! This week I’ve been trying to drag myself into the 21st century by looking at online address books.
While looking at all the various sites, I started to realize that at some point I was going to have to sit down and manually enter all my contacts! It’s not a job I’m particularly looking forward to, but that’s one of the necessary evils of modern technology. There are options to auto sync your contacts but I don’t want to import everyone’s email addresses, phone numbers, etc. I just want their physical addresses in one spot! Read more