If you’ve tried various productivity systems and found them either too focused on top-down or bottom-up management, you might want to take a peek at The Middle Way Method, a system that blends the strengths of both techniques.
Photo by Randy Son of Robert.
Over at D*I*Y Planner, an organization site focused on creating your own planners and organization tools, they found themselves disillusioned with some of the more popular productivity systems:
From studying all these planning systems, I noticed that they fell into two categories: Top Down or Bottom Up. The first is Top Down Planning, and the Franklin Covey methodology provides a great example of this type, which says “Know who you are, and work from there to become who you want to be.” The second type is Bottom Up Planning, and Getting Things Done (GTD) system, follows this methodology. GTD is designed to clear all of the “Stuff” in your life, and process it effectively. However, I found that neither of these systems really work best for me. Over time, I kept track of what worked for me from each system, and I used that to create my own system, called The Middle Way Method.
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I’ve been using a Macintosh computer for a few years now, but just a few a weeks ago, I decided to look in my Utilities folder—one of those spur of the moment kind of things.
I found the regular utilities like Activity Monitor, Airport Utility, Console, and Migration Assistant, but what I just stumbled on was something that has saved me so many times from that point on. DigitalColor Meter. Apple likes to secretly tuck away their best utilities in folders that people will most likely never end up using.
So what makes DigitalColor Meter so special? The app does a lot of things, but what I found most useful was the ability for me to hover over any pixel on my screen, and to find out the exact RGB value (read up on RGB here).
Got a job that’s totally boring but pays the bills? Hold onto it. But don’t use it as an excuse NOT to go after your dream of being self-employed doing something you love.
A common misconception about successful independent workers is that one day, in dramatic fashion, they quit their dayjob, hung a shingle, and lived happily ever after. The truth is, most freelancers start off moonlighting, volunteering, interning, and doing client work at night and on weekends in addition to a nine-to-five gig. If you fantasize about living the freelancer life, you can do the same—even in a recession, starting now. Let's turn some of your free time into a new career without giving up the steady paycheck.
The numbers are in. And they look good. It appears that online holiday spending rose slightly this year, by 5 percent, to $27 billion for the shopping season from November 1 through Christmas Eve, according to comScore. For the time period from Black Friday through Christmas Eve, sales showed a slight uptick, rising 3.5 percent. With respect to individual product categories, consumer electronics saw yearly sales growth of slightly over 20 percent, while sales of jewelry and watches also rose.
From reports over the past few months, the numbers indicated that the total online spending would be higher this year than last, when the U.S. spending was blindsided with a crippling recession. The final shopping weekend before Christmas saw a 13 percent growth rate in online spending from the previous year, thanks to the wintry mess that hit the Eastern Seaboard. And the full week posted a 6 percent yearly increase in spending, setting a one-week sales record with more than $4.8 billion in spending. Online sales numbers from Black Friday and Cyber Monday also appeared to be stronger than last year.
Continue reading Times Square New Year’s Eve ball drop brought to you by… some furiously pedaling tourists
You’ve got a file that needs opening, or a piece of software that, frankly, sucks. Want to find a better, or maybe free, alternative? One reader has found Google’s auto-completing “Suggest” feature a great recommendation engine.
We’ll let reader Alex tell the tale himself:
Mainly, this tip is for when you’re looking for a list of products that all fall into a single category. All you have to do is type a single example of the product, followed by ” vs”, and you’ll get a pretty exhaustive list of alternatives. For instance, let’s say you’re looking for new text editors. The one you’re familiar with is notepad++. Go to the Google home page and type: “notepad++ vs” and wait a moment. The auto-complete will pop up with a list: Textpad Notepad2 UltraEdit PSPad Programmer’s Notepad Read the rest of this entry »
Mainly, this tip is for when you’re looking for a list of products that all fall into a single category. All you have to do is type a single example of the product, followed by ” vs”, and you’ll get a pretty exhaustive list of alternatives.
For instance, let’s say you’re looking for new text editors. The one you’re familiar with is notepad++. Go to the Google home page and type: “notepad++ vs” and wait a moment. The auto-complete will pop up with a list:
Textpad Notepad2 UltraEdit PSPad Programmer’s Notepad
Mobile search and general Web search are two different beasts, especially when it comes to voice search, which is becoming increasingly popular. The list of the top ten mobile voice searches below by mobile voice app startup Vlingo confirms that people are much more action-oriented when they are on the go. The top search, curiously, is “YouTube,” which suggests more people than you might think are watching videos on their phones. But the next two, “Facebook” and “MySpace,” are social networks, suggesting that people want to stay connected to their friends on the go, which is what phones were originally intended to do. “Twitter” is No. 6 on the list.
Facebook and Twitter are also on Google’s list of top searches for 2009, but that list is dominated more by news, entertainment, and celebrity related searches such as “Michael Jackson,” “New Moon,” and “Lady Gaga.” The Vlingo list is dominated by more specific, action-oriented searches such as “Weather” (Is it safe to go out?), “Movie Times” (What can I see right now?), “Yellow Pages” and “White Pages” (I need to call someone right now and want to avoid 411 fees).
If you’re forced into carrying a balance on a credit card, paying it off while making purchases can seem like an endless two steps forward, one step back. Consumer writer Bob Sullivan suggests keeping a “clean card” to get ahead.
Sullivan, author of Stop Getting Ripped Off: Why Consumers Get Screwed, and How You Can Always Get a Fair Deal, writes at The Consumerist blog that the key to paying off a card with a balance is to stop using it, so as to avoid accruing day-to-day interest charges that start the month you can’t pay the balance. For small items of convenience that you know you can pay off by the end of the month, carry a separate “clean card.”:
The sale of virtual goods is turning into a billion dollar industry and one of the hottest trends in technology say experts.
Experts predict that 2010 will be the year when 3D technology leaves the cinema and moves on to TVs, PCs and consoles.
