Ruthless Productivity

Yes, I am still alive belive it or not.  And thanks to those of you who perhaps still have me in your RSS feeds.

I have come to the conclusion that I need to post more than I have in the past - but not as much as I want too.

I have told myself that less is OK - as long as what gets posted is helpful.

Off to catch a plane…

Yes, I am still around and plan to be back “online” in the very near future.

In the meantime be sure to get your Firefox 3 on…

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

Google announced today that it was allowing access to some new tools and fun stuff. To check it out click on settings within your Gmail page and then click on Labs. You will then be able to select which new features you would like to try!

http://groups.google.com/group/gmail-labs

The full list of new features includes the following:

Quick Links
Adds a box to the left column that gives you 1-click access to any bookmarkable URL in Gmail. You can use it for saving frequent searches, important individual messages, and more.

Superstars
Adds additional star icons. After enabling this feature, you can choose which icons you wish to use in the “General” Settings page.

Pictures in chat
See your friends’ profile pictures when you chat with them.

Fixed width font
Adds an option to the reply dropdown menu that lets you view a message in fixed width font.

Custom keyboard shortcuts
Lets you customize keyboard shortcut mappings. Adds a new Settings tab from which you can remap keys to various actions.

Mouse gestures
Use your mouse to navigate with gestures. Hold right-click and move the mouse left to go to a previous conversation, move it right to go to the next conversation, and move up to go back to the inbox view. Works best on Windows.

Signature tweaks
Places your signature before the quoted text in a reply, and removes the “–” line that appears before signatures. Can’t use this and the “Random signature” Labs feature at the same time.

Random signature
Rotates among random quotations for your email signature. Can’t use this and the “Signature tweaks” Labs feature at the same time.

Custom date formats
Adds options to the general settings page allowing the date and time format to be changed independent of language. For example, you can use a 24-hour clock (14:57) or show dates with the day first (31/12/07).

Muzzle
Conserves screen real estate by hiding your friends’ status messages.

Old Snakey
Kick it old school with Old Snakey! Enable keyboard shortcuts and hit ‘&’ from the main page to play a game of snake.

Email Addict
Lets you take a break from email and chat by blocking the screen for fifteen minutes and making you invisible in chat.

Hide Unread Counts
Hides the unread counts for inbox, labels, etc.

Hey!  What happended to my lists?  How am I getting anything done?  Am I working on the most important things?  Gosh I hope so!

I have had about a 2-3 week period in which a certain project became my life.  There is nothing like a good deadline to bring things together!  However, I cant tell you the last time I looked at any of my @Context lists…scary!

• Good News - The project (at least this phase) is satisfied with my work product.  But its just the beginning.
• Bad News - All my other projects suffered, not terminally, but they have suffered.  I have not done a weekly review in well…weeks. My mind has turned numb.

Yes, this is another testimonial to the weekly review.  And it is getting done tonight!

I am currenltly on the outbound part of a trip that will not wrap up unil Thursday.  While being away from the family is tough - but it does allow some time in the evenings to really focus on WORK.  And boy do I need such time.

Our next post will target some ideas and tips on how to stay productive while on the road.

Better get that one on my next action list!

A few weeks ago I upgraded to Wordpress 2.5.1 and found myself not being able to post images (at least easily).  Seems there is some bug with this version of Wordpress.  I am on the case and hope to have a little more eye candy posted in short order.  Thanks for understanding.