emendatio

As Robert is using the Remeber The Milk Plugin for his to-do list, GMaill now offers its own solution.

The options are quiet simple but for me it is all I need like categories, due date and notes.

Another cool feature I already know from Apple Mail is converting Mails into tasks.

GMail’s to-do list is a labs feature. To turn on labs switch your account to english language and enable labs in the setting menue. Under the tap “labs” you can enable all available labs-features.

News via GMail Blog

One thing that often confuses me when opening a website is when the main page of a domain can’t be reached without setting the ‘www’ in frot of the URL.

Why Waste Words?

I know that a domain without the ‘www’ isn’t automatically supposed to be forwarding to the word wide web presence, but IMHO it should be regarded as common to use a domain this way. When opening 200 websites a day, that saves you 200 seconds. Time enough to get yet another cup of espresso. And if i have to choose between another cup of espresso and typing ‘www’, i’ll stuck up with the first one.

Fact is, for repetitive actions, using the mouse is the longest, most inefficient way to get it done.

I couldn’t agree more to this quote. What the assembly line has done for mass production is what shortcuts can do to our personal workflow. They reduce the time we have to spent with things that can be done smarter otherwise.

Via:  Lifehacker.com - Reboot your Workflow this Fall

Yehaaa this is something I’ve been waiting for ages. If you use Outlook at work (like me) you’ve probably like the integration of the task list into the main interface as much as I do. For quite a long time now I kept looking for a similar solution for the only tab, thats always open in my firefox: GMAIL. I’ve tried different tools to organize my ToDo’s: 37signals tadalist, I want Sandy and Remember The Milk. The latter one cought my attention a few months ago with instant messaging integration and just released this great Firefox plugin which nicely fits into the GMAIL interface.

Tasks can simply be added, sorted by name and dates and grouped by different criteria. But thats not all: you can also attach URLs to tasks, set specific dates, even share them with other Google users and.. the best.. TAG them!! How nice is that? In order to get a deeper understanding of this nifty little tool you might want to read this great article from the unclutterer blog.

Link: A simple way to simplify email — From Stowe Boyd

Have you ever received an email from your Messaging Administrator, telling you that your mailbox size is exceeding its limits? Or have you noticed that your Outlook is booting and working a bit slower every month? Well we all learned how to (auto) archive emails, delete old mails and keep our mailbox tidy and clean. But did you know that you Calendar can eat up lots of space as well? When you use your outlook over several months old appointments will still remain in the calendar file, including all attachments and pictures. This can turn into a real nightmare but fear no longer: here are a few tips on how to free your calendar.

(1) In your Outlook Calendar click on View > Current View > By Category

(2) Delete old Events
You can sort the upcoming list by date and delete old appointments. Depending on how long you’ve been using Outlook these entries might reach long into the past. Be careful not to delete recurring events as you might kill the entire series.

(3) Delete “big” appointments
This list doesn’t display the size of appointments by default, but you can easily add the Size field to the top of the table.


Right click on one of the header fields (”Subject”, “Location” etc.) and click on Customize Current View. In the upcoming Window click on Fields.

(4) Select Size and click on the Add -> Button

(5) Sort the list by Size and delete large attachments.

Voilà thats it, you’re done.

Bonus Tip:

There is actually another method to find large appointments in the Calendar.

1. In your Outlook Calendar menu, click on Tools, select Find, then Advanced Find.
2. 2. On the More Choices tab, at the bottom under Size, select the greater than option
3. 3. Input the maximum amount you want to see, for example 100.

We all have to work with excel now and then, some of us more frequently than others. Sometimes the excel file you’ll have to work on is more than just your typical 3 rows 5 columns birthday list comparison… yes sometimes its a huge table with thousands of data entries. In these cases its a pain to get an overview or find a specific data entry, build graphs or just find relevant information. There is of course a way to set filters to hide irrelevant data but a more elegant way is to use Pivot Tables. The Productivity Portfolio blog just published a nice introduction into this topic and explains how to set up a Pivot Table without losing your nerves:

Pivot tables are an Excel feature that you should learn how to use. Instead of analyzing rows upon rows of records, a pivot table can aggregate your data and show a new perspective with few clicks. You can also move columns to rows or vice versa. The problem is people believe creating a pivot table is too difficult to learn. Grab a seat and we’ll walk you through a short tutorial using Excel 2007.

Do you know the feeling? You are planing to do something, work on a new project and you’ve completed all the necessary steps: preparation, gathering material, setting everything up… and right at start line your power withdraws. Ok lets get a bit more specific: On your way home you make a plan on how to spend the afternoon, maybe work on a private project, write on a paper, get back to some important emails. When you finally arrive at home, the energy is gone. Although you had the best intention you’re tired, lazy and the only thing left in your head is watching some crappy show on tv.

Over at the Livecleverblog the guys describe this as the "strike of a lightning bold" that takes all your power. They continue on giving you some advice on how to accept this situation and finding out why and how you’re reacting this way. Furthermore they also give you advice on how to live with the lightning, how to accept and enjoy it and even work around it.

Link: The Lightning Bolt

Inspired by the Keyboard Ninja from the How-to Geek, i’d like to give some very useful keyboard shortcuts for Adobes Reader. Sure, there are plenty more, but these are the ones that have saved me a lot of time yet:

• [Ctrl]+[1] , [Ctrl]+[2], [Ctrl]+[3], [Ctrl]+[0]: Switching the Reader’s display mode
• [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[n]: goto page
• [Ctrl]+[L]: Fullscreen reading mode
• [Ctrl]+[-], [Ctrl]+[+]: Zoom out/Zoom in
• [Ctrl]+[F]: Search box
• [F3]: next search result

If you have additional ones, let us know!

The University of Missouri-Columbia published a study saying that sitting while working may increase the risk of disease. As most of us work on desks we face the same situation where we sit in front of the screen all day hardly moving. Of course most of us had to do some kind of ergonomic training, maybe as a part of a company training, maybe voluntarily. But following the released study there is one minor thing that can fight this risk: just stand up.

“The enzymes in blood vessels of muscles responsible for ‘fat burning’ are shut off within hours of not standing,” Hamilton said. “Standing and moving lightly will re-engage the enzymes, but since people are awake 16 hours a day, it stands to reason that when people sit much of that time they are losing the opportunity for optimal metabolism throughout the day.”

Link: MU Study Finds That Sitting May Increase Risk of Disease

Just a link to an excellent term i’ve been stumbled upon: “most efficient time-waster ever”. Worth a read, definitely!

Link: Wired.com: Thanks to Google’s Tools, I’m the Most Efficient Time-Waster Ever