333 Shares “Alright everybody…back to ones.” This is what you’ll hear if you’re working on a film set and they’re going to reshoot a scene. I’ve been an extra in several films, and the more times I heard that phrase meant the more hours I was going to be spending on set that day. It wasn’t the greatest sentence to hear, but deep down I knew that the intent behind it was to get the scene completed just right. Going “back to ones” time and time again rebooted the scene until it worked. There... More »
The latest, greatest OS from Apple has been out for almost a week. Now that we have started to put it through its paces we can bring Lifehack readers some tips and guidance. This article is simply about iOS 5 specific enhancements. Later this week we will cover Siri and and how you can use it to increase your productivity. Check out the list below and click on the thumbnails to see a more detailed view of the screenshots. If you have a tip that you love about iOS 5 that isn’t... More »
131 Shares Ah, Inbox Zero. An achievement that so many of us long for. It’s elusive. It’s a productivity benchmark. It’s an ongoing battle. It’s also unnecessary. Don’t get me wrong, the way Inbox Zero was initially termed is incredibly valuable. Merlin Mann coined the phrase years ago and what he has defined it as goes well beyond the term itself. Yet people have created their own definition of Inbox Zero. They’re not using it with the intent that Mann suggested. Instead, it’s become about having nothing left in immediate view. It’s become about... More »
973 Shares Let’s face it. We all fail. As we go through life we have relationships that don’t work out, jobs that just aren’t right, exams that we flunk, initiatives that don’t succeed. The more new things we try the more failures we are likely to have. In fact, the only way to avoid failure is to do nothing new. The important thing is how we deal with failure. It can be part of a downward slide in which lack of confidence reinforces feelings of inadequacy and incompetence. But experiencing failure can be a... More »
208 Shares We have all heard the old adage, “Life is short, go live it.” The problem is that it takes so many people an entire life before they start living it or not living it. It’s so easy to get stuck living the everyday mundane tasks instead of doing those that really make your heart sing. We spend our lives working our jobs waiting around to live, and when that time arrives we often end up on the porch lamenting about all those things we didn’t do, while we wait around to die.... More »
193 Shares Flossing your teeth is one of the best examples of the principles of time management. Why? Well, we all know it’s something you should do, yet probably don’t do. After you see your dentist, you vow to do better this time, you stay on it for a few days, maybe, and then let it go again, until your next appointment. Why does this happen? Well, flossing is a hassle, and the payoff is in the distant future. If I told you I’d give you a million bucks if you flossed your teeth... More »
232 Shares Could you imagine going a full day without your iPhone or BlackBerry? What would it be like if you couldn’t check Facebook and see what your friends had been up to? Or if Twitter was temporarily out of action and your feed of 140 character messages were eliminated from your day? What if the newspaper didn’t arrive — and you had no Internet access? What a nightmare! How would we survive this hypothetical day of disconnection? We regularly hear talk of the modern phenomenon, “Information Overload”, but have you noticed that we... More »
56 Shares overworked from Vinet_ on flickr There are few managers out there today who are not coping with this issue. Many of us are working on departments that are expected to be more productive with a lower headcount. However, when your staff begins to complain that they’re overworked, you have received a dangerous signal that they are burning out and may look elsewhere when the market improves. Stop the Fire Hose A good first step in managing your team’s workload is to sit down with each employee individually and list the tasks they... More »
165 Shares People create emergency kits for car problems and bad weather, but few create kits to deal with more common but less urgent situations. In particular, misplacing a wallet or forgetting a work laptop at home can play havoc with a person’s workday. With a little bit of planning, you can create emergency kits that will let you deal with these types of situations in a calm and productive manner. Creating a backup kit for your wallet Besides your keys, your wallet is probably your most important daily companion. Without it, you lack... More »
16 Shares Having been a dog owner since 1979, I can claim with absolute confidence that pets have an uncanny ability to teach us humans certain things better than any person can. If you are willing to allow pets to become part of your personal development team, here are some of the things that they can teach you. True Unconditional Love Dogs are especially good at teaching us what unconditional love is. They love you no matter how much money you make, what kind of car you drive (or lack of one), how bad... More »
220 Shares I’d like to call myself a writer. But I have found that it is hard to do. Mostly because of fear of the craft and how I sometimes don’t think that I can “stack up” to other, better writers. What I have found is that my notion of me being terrible at writing isn’t anything unique. Not in the slightest. The best writers in the world all struggle with this notion on a daily basis. It’s hard for me to believe that writers like Steven King and Natalie Goldberg don’t believe that... More »
191 Shares In my last article here at Stepcase Lifehack,one of the comments I received suggested that there is a fine way to get around the question of having a “sacred’ calendar. Popular books like Getting Things Done and others advocate the use of calendars for appointments, trips and other activities that “must” be performed on a particular date. Unfortunately, the word “must” is imprecise, and likely to be interpreted differently by each person. The principle that they are attempting to reinforce is more clear: don’t populate your calendar with commitments that aren’t firm.... More »
144 Shares Do you spend too much time in meetings? If so, you are in good company. One of the most common complaints of office workers is that their productivity is hampered by too many unproductive meetings. Ineffective meetings lead to frustration. They waste the time of the participants and they undermine the effectiveness of the whole organization. Here are some ways to tackle this problem. 1. Fewer attendees. The meeting should be restricted to those whose presence is essential to review the issue and to make the decisions. People who want to be... More »
219 Shares Do you remember the story about the new prisoner on the block? He is settling in nervously on the first night of his sentence, when he hears a series of numbers yelled out, each one followed by raucous laughter from his fellow inmates. Nervously, he asks his cell-mate what is going on. The cell-mate replies, “That’s the lifers, they have been in here so long that they have heard all of each others’ jokes, so rather than telling the joke, to save time they just shout out the joke’s number.” If your... More »
176 Shares When I say “library” most of you are going to picture books. Getting books from the library is the most inexpensive way to read books. But there are unexpected ways that libraries can save you money: Preview Music I love buying music. Unforatunately I have often bought CDs only to find out that I didn’t like the album, or only liked one song. This means the music languishes in the library, unplayed. Even previewing snippets online doesn’t entirely get rid of this problem, since so many songs change after the first thirty... More »
