Archive for April, 2006

A Geek’s Best Lifehack

A geek’s greatest hack wouldn’t be getting Vista to run as a virtual machine in OSX, nor would it be to organise his ToDo-list in bash.

It would be, in fact, a hack for the geek to take back his life - that would be the ultimate Lifehack.

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#The Ultimate Lifehack HowTo#
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1) Make a ToVisit list of websites and restrict yourself to that list. Do not explore more than 2 links… » Continue

April 30 2006 | By Kelvin | Tagged: balance, mind, time, tips, todo, work, work-life, workflow | 26 comments»

You Can’t Keep Up

Kathy Sierra is willing to call you out regarding this issue of your intentions versus what you really are going to get done.

You can’t keep up. There is no way. And trying to keep up will probably just make you dumber.You can never be current on everything you think you should be. You can’t simultaneously be current on:

Technology
Current events
Pop culture
Professional practices
Health/fitness/diet trends
And on and on and on…

Kathy covers a… » Continue

April 30 2006 | By Chris | Tagged: lifebalance, motivation, Productivity | 1 comment»

Podcasting for Sharing

I’m all about the idea of creating content versus just consuming content. This morning, I listened to Richard Lucic and Zach Pogue from Duke University. They talked about how podcasting really boosted the value of information given BACK by the students. So, instead of a student turning in a five page paper full of garbage, the peer effect of putting out an audio podcast that the entire class would hear… » Continue

April 30 2006 | By Chris | Tagged: audio, education, learning, Podcast, portable, presentation, video | 2 comments»

Great Apps for Your USB Stick

I’m a big fan of using USB sticks for standalone applications. For instance, I use a portable version of Firefox written by Jonathan Haller at PortableApps.com, and I carry this to any Windows machine when I want the same look and feel for my browser. The trick behind the portable applications is that they store all their files on the stick and don’t muck with the guest machine’s registry… » Continue

April 29 2006 | By Chris | Tagged: software, usb | 2 comments»

Jazz Up Your Interpersonal Skills

Presentation Zen has a great piece discussing how jazz handles the experience of connecting with other people. It’s really a great fusion of the concepts behind being a musician and also being a great communicator and social being.

Most students of jazz will not go on to be professional players. And few students turned on by the creative arts in school will go on to be professional artists. And that’s… » Continue

April 28 2006 | By Chris | Tagged: Communication, conversation, Lifehack, lifehacks, music, presentation | no comments»

Fish in the Ear

It’s a global world and you’re just playing in it. You want to connect to a lot of people? Start doing a little more to speak their language. Today, Yahoo! rolled out Babel Fish today, a translation site that lets you cut/paste snippets of text into a box and then request it back in other languages. The translations are never good enough to pass you off as a native speaker… » Continue

April 28 2006 | By Chris | Tagged: Communication, tool, vocabulary, web | 5 comments»

Use Design Methods to Define Problems

A fascinating conversation is happening over at Functioning Form, a design journal written by Luke Wroblewski. He is using the skillsets common to designers to unlock the other have of problem solving. Think about it: designers are often considered to be holding the solution to a problem. Instead, Luke says in his conversation with Tom Chi that a very powerful use of a designer’s skills and knowledge is to… » Continue

April 28 2006 | By Chris | Tagged: discipline, Lifehack, lifehacks, problem | no comments»

Professional volunteering: the killer app!

When I was first out of grad school trying to get a job, I heard people saying, “you have to network,” etc. I thought at the time, and still do, that that approach is only particularly effective if you have a current job or some kind of existing network to use as a springboard. However, once you’re safe and sound in a position you’re okay with, you can use volunteering… » Continue

April 28 2006 | By Nick | Tagged: | 6 comments»

The Six Basic Needs of Customers

Early yesterday morning, I used the time I had waiting for an inter-island flight to purge old documents from the hard drive of my laptop. I came across a lesson plan I had done with my retail team a few years back on customer service, detailing what we noticed to be the six basic needs of guests visiting our stores. I found the lesson plan was definitely worth keeping, a… » Continue

April 27 2006 | By Rosa | Tagged: basics, customer, service | 1 comment»

Roll Your Own Ringtones, MMS, and More

Motorola has announced StudioMoto, a site where a user can mix up text, video, sound effects, graphics, and download it to their phone.

Studio Moto connects you to some of today and tomorrow’s biggest music artists- through their music, Motorola technology, and your own imagination.

Or so says the promotional quote. I checked it out and the concept is interesting. Why? Because it’s a hack that lets you mix content… » Continue

April 27 2006 | By Chris | Tagged: music, personal, phone | no comments»

Status Cues and the Presentation of You

In his great book, Improv for Actors, Dan Diggles talks about how actors use status to convey subtext. In this context, status means how one actor’s role is perceived against the other actor. A rich CEO acts full of vim and vigor while the lowly gardener keeps his head low and his eyes averted. In acting, status is helpful to convey the meaning of a scene. It’s exaggerated to make a stronger contrast for the sake of the audience. But there’s something here for you to consider. » Continue

April 27 2006 | By Chris | Tagged: attitude, behavior, Communication, performance, personality, tool | 5 comments»

Dealing with Manipulative People

Unfortunately, I’ve got one or more of these I’m dealing with currently. So I’ve hit the library and come up with George’s Simon’s book In Sheeps Clothing: Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People. It is not a huge book, but manages to be quite comprehensive and helpful. First off he talks about what these situations look like, and then later he talks about what you can do. Here’s the brief list of how to handle these difficult cases, summarized from the book. » Continue

April 27 2006 | By Nick | Tagged: | 31 comments»

Introduction to our guest bloggers

Before I go and catch my flight, I want to introduce couple of new faces at lifehack.org while I am away:

Chris Brogan - He is interested in self-improvement, creativity, and the use of creative content like visual thinking to help people communicate. He runs chrisbrogan.com.

Nick Senzee - He runs Nicks’s Book Blog. He loves organizational techniques applied to business processes, and of course GTD.

Kelvin Quee - He is… » Continue

April 26 2006 | By Leon | Tagged: news | 5 comments»

From a freshman: Five tips for success in college

As the academic year comes to a close, I’d like to thank Leon for inviting me to contribute to lifehack.org. For this post, I asked my daughter Rachel, who’s finishing her first year of college, what advice she might offer to lifehack.org’s student-readers. Here are Rachel Leddy’s tips for success in college:

1. Build a social network. Living away from home in a dormitory with 1000 other people your age is… » Continue

April 26 2006 | By Guest | Tagged: studying | 8 comments»

Getting Things Done vs. Fear of Failure

Dave Pollard is on to something. What if you’re following along with David Allen’s Getting Things Done, and for whatever reason, it’s still not working? He suggests you consider your feelings around failure.

As the delightful Imogen Heap song suggests, maybe you’ve got your heart in a headlock. Fear of failure is not the same as procrastination: Procrastination is usually the result of a project or Next Action just being… » Continue

April 26 2006 | By Chris | Tagged: failure, fear, gtd, personality | no comments»

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