Black Belt Productivity

For some of you that are more hardcore Jott users than I am, this might be old news. But this morning I discovered that Jott now allows you to set up a reminder over the phone. Really a cool new feature.

This will probably make me a more frequent user of Jott. I am one that is highly dependent on reminders to keep me on track. This feature will certainly enhance the value of the tool for me.

If you are not using Jott, let me recommend it. It is a great tool to help you “toss” items into your inbox…when you are not near your capture tools.

Having dealt with a couple of situations at the office in the last day or two, and having had to address an issue with one of my own children at school, I have had the difference between hearing and listening fresh on my mind.

Unfortunately, it is becoming more difficult to communicate today. Part of the reason is that we are being pulled in so many directions that we do not take time to listen. Some of us also spend a significant part of out time formulating our answer or rebuttal instead of processing the information we are being given.

After reading Leo of Zen Habit’s article last Friday at Web Worker Daily, I decided to post about how I am keeping my Gmail clean and slim.

Since I got my Macbook Pro in March ‘07, I have been POPing [1] my Gmail off of the server and using Gmail itself as my online mail archive. I have setup a LOT of filters and tweaked settings so that I can keep a clean inbox and an archive structure that makes it relatively easy to purge unwanted mails.

I was greatly saddened when I learned yesterday that Vitalist has unwisely changed their pricing structure. I had heard about it on another blog (whose name escapes me). So I went to the Vitalist blog, The Net Effect, and read the article detailing the changes.

I was shocked at what I was reading. Basically, the free accounts will let you have 5 contacts/contexts/projects. This is outrageous. You can upgrade to $5/month (Basic) and get 25 + 250MB of storage, and even further to $10/month (Premium) and get unlimited with 1GB of storage.  It seems that they have adapted the Nozbe pricing structure, and that was one of the biggest turn off for me earlier this year.

MAN!!! Have things been busy lately!!!

The plate is so full today that I felt the need to make appointments with myself to block off time to get some specific things finished today.

So today I have a full calendar in Outlook, in spite of the fact that I have only one meeting. Quite unusual for me!!!

Do you have a need to do this from time to time? What other things to you do to help you focus on a specific task for a while?

Have a productive day!!!

Jason

I was tagged by Stephen about the most influential books in my life. I don’t have quite as many as He does, but they are just as important to my life.

1. The Bible - I have been a Christian for most of my 35 years on this earth. First in the Roman Catholic Church and the last 10 years in the church of Christ. It is the model that I try to live my life by, and the model that I am trying to teach my children.

Today, I followed a link to a video interview with Robert Scoble (aka the Scobleizer) that show how he digests the content from his 600+ RSS Feeds every day. The video was shot by Tim Ferriss (of The 4-Hour Work Week fame). It is located on Tim’s blog here [How Scoble Reads 622 RSS Feed Each Morning].

I found a number of great tips from watching this video.

In GTD, the “to-do” list is typically frowned upon. However, from time to time, I think it pays to have a short list of stuff you have need to do today. It can be taken from your project and NA listing and put in a specific place as a reminder or a checklist.

This past Tuesday, I had an opportunity to work from home. That does not happen often. I would be away from the phone. Some of the distractions of the regular work day would be absent.

Lead-down principle #6 in John C. Maxwell’s book The 360 Degree Leader is to transfer the vision. If, as a leader, you are able to lead effectively and model the way for your organization…you are building relationships, building people up, and training them…the last piece of the puzzle is to transfer the vision.

This is easier said than done, the trick is to figure out how to interpret the vision to first the organization as a whole, and then to individual teammates as needed. Each organization is different. What works in interpreting the vision for one, may not necessarily work for the another.

For those of you that are into mind mapping (like myself), Chuck Frey has a blog that is geared toward discussion of mind mapping software.

His latest entry is a good writeup on Eric Mack’s webinar on using MindManger as a knowledge management tool.