I recently saw someone with a paper-based planner.  I asked him, “how does that work for you?” He was surprised by the question, and had to stop and think about the answer.  So then he asked if we could sit down and talk about it, which I was happy to do.  He started by asking about other tools, both paper and electronic, and so we talked about PIMS (personal information managers).  I told him that to be sufficient, a tool had to do a good job at handling at least five things well: calendar, to-do list, email, contacts, and notes, plus a capture tool is necessary also.  Then I explained that there are three things to consider about your personal productivity (“time management,” if you will, although I think that term is no longer relevant):

1. Recognizing that a tool is necessary.  Why? Because you can only manage things when you can see them, and you can only see them when they are out of your head.  And ‘out of your head’ on little scraps of paper (physical or electronic) is not particularly helpful, so you need someplace to store all of it.
2. Choosing the right tool. Before the advent of electronic organizers, there were many kinds of paper tools, but most were essentially the same, with a calendar as the main feature, and perhaps a place for notes and an address book.  Early in the days of electronic tools, Microsoft Outlook was among the first and the most dominant, and it handles all 5 components pretty well (although most people use it only to a fraction of its potential, because of number 3.)  Now the problem is that there are so many tools on the market, and most of them are very specialized, i.e. focusing on only one or two of the 5 components. So now people are faced with the task of having to assemble their own set of tools, and they don’t even realize it, nor do they know how to pick the best one for them, because they don’t have a Process. Which leads me to #3….
3. Owning a set of clubs does not make you a golfer.  In other words, the PROCESS is the missing piece to using these tools successfully. You could have all the latest gadgets and a whole arsenal of apps, but unless you have a methodology, a step-by-step process for exactly how you need to use these tools for effectively managing all the details, then you’ll be just another hacker on the golf course.  I’ve spent my entire professional career developing my process, called the Empowered Productivity System, and through this company, RegainYourTime.com, I teach it to people.  There are also others.

For more to think about regarding your own personal productivity, or “time management,” you might enjoy my earlier post, “Three Secrets to Personal Productivity.”  Thanks for reading, and if you’re using Twitter, I’d love to connect with you there: @mnthomas. Also, I’d be happy to discuss your own process and tools with you any time.  Advice is always free!

-from THE ECONOMICS OF ATTENTION: MAXIMIZING USER VALUE IN INFORMATION-RICH ENVIRONMENTS

Managing your time used to be the same thing as managing your attention.  If you designated some time to attend to something, it was more likely that thing would get done.  This was back before the digital revolution so thoroughly changed the way information is generated and shared.  In other words, before there were so many distractions.  Now, the world is constantly available at our fingertips, with the plethora of radio, television, internet, scrolling marquees, skywriting & advertising, not to mention new ways to instantly communicate, and handheld digital devices that are becoming more and more omnipresent.  Allocating time to something no longer means that it will receive your attention, and without attention, your time is somewhat irrelevant.  Attention creates action, produces quality and facilitates productivity.  Attention also has a dramatic impact on your life.  What you give your attention to, is what determines your experiences.

Think about it…there are entire cultures built around subjects that probably don’t even register with you.  Don’t you know people who are involved in things you know nothing about?  Perhaps its monster trucks, or vampires, or science fiction, or quantum physics.  There are people whose lives revolve around subjects that are barely a blip on your radar.  Those people give their attention to those topics, and therefore have experiences around them.  And you do the same.  So, as William James noted, “your experience is what you choose to attend to.”  And all of those experiences eventually add up to your life. But if most of the time, you don’t “agree” to give your attention; you are just constantly distracted and reacting to all of those things that are vying for your attention, then maybe you do not have as much control over your life as you might like.

So perhaps it’s time to reconsider the way you manage the details of your life.  For most people, their primary tool is a calendar.  A calendar is a time-based tool.  Allocating your time on a calendar can help, but maybe it’s time to change your thinking.  Consider a productivity system that will enable you to view, and therefore better manage, all of those details necessary to service your life.  This is a better way of allocating your attention to them, and keeping them in your focus, making it more likely that they will get done.  You can only manage things when you can see them, and you can’t see them when they are inside your head.  If you can view your workload (or, more importantly, your whole life-load) in a meaningful way, and not just as random entries in your calendar, then those details are more likely to capture your attention, despite all the distractions.  If they get your attention, it’s more likely that you will take action around them.  Any good personal productivity system (of course I suggest my Empowered Productivity System, but you may already have a process that works well for you) has a comprehensive task management tool.  I’m working on compiling a list with reviews, so be sure to check back. But in the meantime, here is a place to start.

For more beautiful photos from Shawn P. Thomas, check out his Flickr stream.  Thanks for reading!

If you’ve been looking for an opportunity to be a volunteer for a worthy cause, now is your chance!  If you’re interested, please contact me directly at maura at regainyourtime dot com, or the Career Week Coordinator at GENaustin, Tiffany Merkel, at tiffanym at genaustin dot org.

Here is a little more about my involvement in GENaustin, and please check out their website!

I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me, and first is deciding to self-publish (with a small boutique publisher) or pitch to an agent or a large publishing house.  I look forward to learning about the publishing industry, and if you have any insight for me, I would be very grateful for you to share your wisdom with me.  Please contact me directly at maura at regainyourtime dot com.

A short description of the book-in-process is below, and I’d also love to hear from you if you have specific challenges or areas of interest related to this topic, that you would like to see addressed in the book.  Would you read this?

Book-in-Process:  Control Your Attention, Control Your Life:  Succeeding in the Attention Age

Summary:

Change is upon us.  Technology is evolving faster than ever before, and the sheer volume of information to manage is staggering. Digital Convergence is changing the way we communicate and learn. Although technology evolves very quickly, our brains evolve very slowly, and the rapid advance in technology over the last 40 years is shaping that evolution. It is literally rewiring our brains. The old ideas of multitasking and time management in the “Information Age” are being replaced by new ideas of focus and the Attention Age. The secret of productivity, of getting things done, of living the life we want now comes down to the ability to manage our attention. This goes way beyond time management, and it’s much more complicated than a calendar and an address book, or even the latest gadget or app. It requires greater knowledge of how our brains work, an understanding of the demands on our attention, and a rich, but uncomplicated, arsenal of behaviors, techniques, and technology.  This book will contain step-by-step instructions to learn to control attention by effectively managing the details of a busy life (commitments, communication, and information), discussing not only a behavioral methodology but also incorporating paper, PC, Mac, handheld, and cloud-based solutions.

I’d love to hear from you.  Thanks for reading, and for voting!

One of the lessons, from Curry Sensei of the Alaska Dojo was “Eliminating Chosa” which was about refining your movements to remove wasted effort.  It reminded me that efficiency is useful regardless of the application.  In martial arts, conserving your energy by eliminating chosa can provide you with the extra burst you need to win a fight or escape an attacker.  Throughout your day, how many times do you switch tasks, right in the middle, because something else called your attention?  Switching between tasks greatly increases the time it takes to complete any task and also decreases the quality of your output, just like wasted movement in martial arts.  Perhaps in your work day, the consequences aren’t as dire, but you still need more effort and get less done.

Another lesson was from Soucy Sensei of the Connecticut Dojo and he reminded us that if you understand the way that your joints and limbs move, where they are strong and where they are weak, you can control them and use that control to gain the advantage in a match or a self-defense situation.  I believe his words were, “control or be controlled.”  This is so true not only in martial arts, but it also reminded me of the value of controlling your attention.  There are so many things competing for our attention, trying to take our attention from us, that if we don’t exert control, we are at risk of spending all of our time just blowing in the wind of reaction, too infrequently being purposeful and making choices about how we spend our time (more on that here).  Just like in martial arts, if you can only react and defend, you can never take control of the situation.

Nationals reminded me that my practice with Shoshin Ryu is not only about sport or self-defense, but also about personal growth and discipline…an exercise for the mind and spirit as well as for the body.  I am so grateful to all the Shoshin Ryu teachers and students for allowing me to participate and helping me to advance my art.

Thank you for reading!

In their book, Nudge,  about decision making, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein describe the planner and the doer. The planner and the doer exists within each of us. As an example, the authors describe the planner as the part of us that sets the alarm clock at night with the intent of getting up early in the morning to exercise. The doer is the part of us that in the morning either hits the snooze button 4 times, or gets us out of bed to implement the planner’s plan.

Many of us have set our alarm again and again with great intentions only to have our sleepy doers foil our attempts to do something good for ourselves. And all of us tend to blame our doers for this lack of well-intentioned action. It is our doers, after all, that are ineffective at getting us out of that nice, warm bed and into our running shoes or the gym. It seems like the doer is at fault when we fail at implementing our plans and achieving our goals. But the real problem may lie with the planner. Any successful leader or manager can tell you that motivation is one of the most important keys to getting things done. In addition, they will tell you that part of their job is understanding exactly what motivates each of their employees. Therefore, one very important part of our planner’s job is to understand what will motivate our doer to take action. And this is especially true in situations where the action to be taken is challenging.

Let’s go back to the example of getting out of bed early enough to exercise before work and add an example of motivation. Getting out of bed to exercise in the morning can be especially difficult for anyone who is unaccustomed to the gym. One of the most significant barriers to exercise is a lack of experience or knowledge. Knowing that we may lack the sufficient experience or knowledge to feel comfortable using the gym equipment provides us with a good indicator of the motivation necessary to get us to the gym. In this case it would be best for us to have a plan in place to meet with a personal trainer who can guide us through the exercises that provide the best chance of helping us meet our goals. With the added motivation of having a knowledgeable personal trainer waiting to provide us with assistance, and the commitment we made to meet them there, we stand a much better chance of getting ourselves out of that comfortable bed.

Take some time to think about things that you would like to change. Identify in each case the work currently being done by your internal planner and doer. More than likely, if you identify things you’ve wanted to change for some time but have not found success at doing so, you have identified a problem for your planner to solve. Your next step then is to identify some things that will ensure that your doer has the proper motivation to take the right actions and get things done. Once you have identified the proper motivation, make completely sure that it is incorporated into your plans and you will soon find that you are finally making progress toward achieving your goals.

Thanks for reading!  And please don’t forget to vote in the Biz Book Pitchfest!

I appreciate your help!

Book-in-Process:  Control Your Attention, Control Your Life:  Succeeding in the Attention Age

Summary:

Change is upon us.  Technology is evolving faster than ever before, and the sheer volume of
information to manage is staggering.  Digital Convergence is changing the way we communicate
and learn.  Although technology evolves very quickly, our brains evolve very slowly, and the rapid advance in technology over the last 40 years is shaping that evolution.  It is literally rewiring our brains.  The old ideas of multitasking and time management in the “Information Age” are being replaced by new ideas of focus and the Attention Age.  The secret of productivity, of getting things done, of living the life we want now comes down to the ability to manage our attention.  And this is much more complicated than a calendar and an address book, or even the latest gadget or app. It requires greater knowledge of how our brains work, an understanding of the demands on our attention, and a rich, but uncomplicated, arsenal of behaviors, techniques, and technology.

The idea used to be that information overload was the problem.  My work illustrates that itʼs not
the volume of information that exists, itʼs the fact that information is NO LONGER PASSIVE.  It
gets pushed into our consciousness and competes for our attention.  Consider this:

• In 2008, nearly 6,000 people died, and over a half million were injured in distraction-related driving accidents.
• 62% of at-work email users report checking work email on the weekends, and over 50% check it on vacation.
• More than one in twenty U.S. adults surveyed nationally said their relationships have suffered from excessive use of the Internet. (Stanford University School of Medicine Study, Impulse Control Disorders Clinic)

Letʼs face it.  Our lives are out of control.  Most days, we donʼt make decisions about how we
spend each minute or each hour or each day.  Those decisions are made for us, by our phone, our email, or any of the other unrelenting bits of communication and information that insert themselves into our lives every minute of every day, which are designed to steal our attention from us. And if we donʼt make decisions about the minutes or the hours or the days, then weʼre at risk for losing control over our lives.  Why should you give up the decision over one single second of your precious life?  Studies show that people who exert cognitive control more often, report happier lives.  This book is your key. It will contain step-by-step instructions to learn to control attention by effectively managing the details of a busy life (commitments, communication, and information), discussing not only a behavioral methodology but also incorporating paper, PC, Mac, handheld, and cloud-based solutions.

Thanks for reading, and please don’t forget to vote!

(Technorati Claim Code WS49C88MCN7N)

Digital convergence, the idea that all types of different technologies are merging into one ubiquitous “presence,” means that it’s almost impossible to escape the demands on our attention.  And make no mistake, not only is more information being created than ever before, but it’s also being pushed to us in ways that are designed to take our attention from us.  Virtually every new technology has some feature to get information in front of you, whether by popping up on your computer screen or handheld device, or by ringing, buzzing, or vibrating within earshot.  Website creators speak in terms of “eyeballs” (get you to look at it) and “click-throughs” (get you to click on it).  Marketers speak in terms of “taglines” and “calls to action” (make you notice and then do something).  Have you ever noticed that commercials come on louder than the programming?   The ability to write “attention grabbing headlines” is a valuable skill.  New ways to get you to notice information are being invented and refined every day.  The term “demands on your attention” was never more appropriate.

The philosopher William James was noted for saying, “my experience is what I agree to attend to.”  But with the increasing adoption of ever-present technology, often times we don’t “agree” to attend to anything.  We spend our days simply reacting to whatever happens to be buzzing, blinking, or vibrating in front of us.  But if we’re not in control of our attention, can we really be in control of our lives?

So we’re moving into a new era.  The “Information Age” is being replaced by the Attention Age, where attention is becoming the most valuable commodity, and focus the most valuable skill.  But the ability to focus is like any other skill, if it’s not practiced, it’s lost.  Children are showing signs of being easily bored without constant stimulation, and teenagers are scoring poorly on cognitive functioning tests designed to determine their reasoning and critical thinking skills, the kinds of skills that require deep thought and reflection.

The work we do at RegainYourTime.com is evolving with this societal change.  Our training is designed to raise awareness about these issues, and call attention to individual behaviors that sabotage our client’s success, rather than support it.  For more information about presentations or training on attention management, and others related to personal productivity and effective workflow processes, please click the links, explore the site, or contact us for a chat.  We’d love to discuss it with you.

Catch Up with Part 2 here (researching & purchasing all the components)

Whew! So hooking everything up wasn’t so hard, actually, although the sound gave us some trouble.   First we connected the mini-DVI converter to the HDMI cable (images in part 2).  Then the computer from the mini-DVI port to the HDMI connection on the back of the television.

Here’s where we ran into trouble with the sound: we had the wrong audio cable.  I don’t actually understand why, but no matter which of the red & white connections we tried on the back of the TV, from the “headphone out” jack on the Mac mini, we couldn’t get sound.  After too long, we realized we needed a cable with a headset jack on both ends.  One end into the “headset out” on the Mac mini and the other into the “headset in” plug on the back of the TV.  Finally, sound from the computer out of the TV speakers!  But we also have surround sound so then we needed a cable that had the “Y” red & white connections on both ends.  So, one set of red & white plugs into the “out” section (near the cable connection) on the TV, and one set into the receiver for the surround sound.  Now, sound from the computer coming out of EITHER the television speakers OR the surround sound system.  Success!

Now, the Mac Mini doesn’t come with a keyboard or a mouse, and we certainly could have bought them, but they are expensive and I didn’t really want a keyboard & mouse in my living room.  In one of the articles I listed yesterday, we learned about a free software called Teleport (free), and we installed it on both of our MacBooks.  It actually works quite well to allow us to control the Mac Mini with the keyboard or trackpad on either of our MacBooks.  I recommend it.  I also just learned about Mobile Air Mouse Pro for iPhone which apparently will allow me to do the same thing from my iPhone, instead of having to use one of the MacBooks.  Here’s a review from someone at MacWorld doing exactly this.  I’m excited to try it.  The only remaining problem is that the icons and words on the 40” TV screen look very tiny and are difficult to see from the couch.  I just discovered these instructions and I’m hoping that they help.

With the antenna and tuner we’re getting all the major network channels: ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, and PBS.  All of these seem to come in well without any adjustments to the antenna (we just have it sitting on top of the entertainment center, and it’s in the interior of the house, not near a window).  We also get the CW, however we realized that we did need to adjust the antenna to get this to come in better, but with a few corrections it now seems to come in just fine.

The Eye TV software plus a subscription to the online TV Guide (inside the Eye TV software, free year one, then $19.95/year) allows us to view what’s on, and record shows to watch later.  However, we can only record ONE show at a time, and I haven’t seen a warning that tells me when I’ve got two shows set to record that conflict.  It seems to just pick one, and we’ve missed a couple of recordings due to this.  However, the network websites run many full episodes online for a period of time.  Also, we CAN watch a recorded show while a live one is recording.

We cancelled cable (Yay! Savings of $88/month) and have been using this set-up for about 2 weeks now, and we’re still getting used to it but it’s a surprisingly small adjustment.

The next item on my agenda is to look into software that I believe will aggregate video and music from the web and stored on my hard drive and allow me to browse and select it for viewing/listening all from one place.  I have learned of two:  Boxee and Plex.  I read this review that concluded that Plex was better, so I downloaded that.  However, there is no user guide, everything is a video and the software is not intuitive.  So I have not taken the time to watch the videos yet and so I haven’t figured out how to use it, so that subtracts points from Plex in my book.  So far it seems to be no trouble to go to a website (Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, or a network site) to find whatever shows I want, but I do think it would be convenient to view my choices in one place.

I would love to hear any comments/feedback you have on this whole experience, if you’ve done it, or if you’re planning to try it.  Thanks for reading, and I hope you have found it helpful!

We forged ahead with the laptop repair, and luckily, Best Buy ended up solving the initial dilemmas for us.  When the laptop came back for the 4th time still broken, they agreed to honor the terms of the Black Tie Warranty and replace the computer.  I opted to take the value in a Best Buy gift card, and this was enough to purchase a Mac Mini (we decided on the lower-end $599 version), plus about half the cost of a new TV.

Now, buying a new TV presented a challenge in itself because I didn’t know anything about the new technology: 720p or 1080p? 60hz or 120hz? LCD or Plasma?  What brand is best?  After looking on Consumer Reports, speaking with the very helpful Home Theater staff at Best Buy, and measuring the space in the house where the TV was going, we decided on a 60hz, 1080p, Toshiba LCD HDTV.  Here are the reasons in a nutshell:

• we were told that a plasma TV presents a far superior picture, however plasmas start at 42” and we were confined to a 40” or smaller due to the spot we were planning on putting it.
• almost all of the 37” & 40” TV’s were 1080p
• we were told that you most notice the benefits of of 120hz if you are planning to use the TV primarily to watch sports and play video games.  We weren’t doing much of either of these, and looking at the 60hz side-by-side with the 120hz in the store, we saw no difference, even when sports was on.

So, the computer and home theater staff at Best Buy were very helpful and we were told that we would need an audio cable to run from the Mac Mini’s headset jack into the television, plus an HDMI cable to connect the TV to the computer.  Also, the Mac Mini has a Mini-DVI port so we needed an HDMI to Mini-DVI converter.  (We learned later that this was the WRONG audio cable – see Conclusion).

Best Buy had only the HDMI cables, and they were very expensive, between $50 and $120.  I didn’t know which one to buy so I launched Safari on my iPhone in the store and discovered this article on CNET which said that expensive HDMI cables are a rip-off and you shouldn’t pay more than $10 for one, so I knew we weren’t going to buy them there.  Other Apple converters were $29.99 at Best Buy, and I’ve paid that price at least 4 times (for use with various MacBooks), but they didn’t have the one I needed so I then I went to Google on my iPhone to find the converter.  I landed at an Amazon page that offered the converter AND a 6 ft. HDMI cable for $9.97 (yes, $9.97.  I think what I saved in just this one instance almost covers the cost of my iPhone.)

So, we were taking the computer and the new TV home but would have to wait to hook it up until we received the cable and the converter.  At this point I also did some research on USB tuners for Mac and most sites pointed me to the Elgato Eye TV Hybrid, and in reading about this I became convinced that since digital channels are free over the air, our tuner would better pick up what was available if we got an antenna to amplify the signal.  So included in my Amazon order was also a digital antenna and the Elgato tuner.  This was not an insignificant investment as the total cost of my Amazon order was almost $200.  And I learned that shopping around for antennas pays off too because I almost ordered it from another site for more than $75, and found that Amazon was offering the same one for $36.

I’m not actually sure if I really needed the antenna, and I’m also not sure if the audio cable I got is the best way to get sound from the computer to the television.  But I will find out, because finally all the orders came in (it only took a week with standard shipping) and I’m now ready to move on to the next phase of my Adventure in Dumping Cable…trying to get it all hooked up and working.  Stay tuned for Part 3!

I used to be much more into television that I am now, and for a long time I have been paying for cable TV services that either I am not using, or I am getting/could get other places.

So I decided to see if I could really have all the TV I wanted without cable.

I quickly learned that this is not necessarily an easy task, but as with most things, the more I have learned, the easier it is becoming.

This was my initial plan…my husband had a 3 year old laptop with a battery problem, and it was about to fall out of warranty.  He had not wanted to have it serviced up until this point because Best Buy said they would have to send it out for two weeks.  Given that the laptop was older, and was a Windows PC, I thought I would buy him a gift of a MacBook (yes, this was partially selfish on my part because I wanted to move us toward a Mac-only household.)  So I bought the MacBook with my Best Buy card, which offered an interest free payment plan for 18 months.  I figured that once his old laptop was repaired, we would use it for internet on the television (a media center), and we would come out ahead on the MacBook payments once we weren’t paying for cable anymore.

Our living room TV was a 10-year old, 32-inch analog with only S-Video connections.  The old laptop had an S-Video connection too so we were all set there.  This would allow us to watch Netflix (with a $9/month subscription), Hulu (free site for aggregating online TV), and the network stations online, at least.  Not a bad start, but I was concerned about giving up the DVR (digital video recorder) since not everything is available online when we want to watch it.

Then I learned that USB “tuners” (for carrying digital tv signals to your computer) typically come with PVR (personal video recorder) software.  However, there were two problems here…the first is that tuners pick up the digital channel broadcasts that come over the air (for free), provided that you also have a screen (monitor or TV) that is capable of receiving the digital stations.  Our TV was analog, so it was not.  The second problem was that most tuners were made for either a PC or a Mac.  Remember my desire to move to a Mac-only household?  I figured that we could use the 3-year-old laptop until it died (which we honestly didn’t expect to be more than a year or so), and then get another set-top box (Apple TV, Roku, another computer) to stream internet television in our living room.  After doing some research on these, I decided on a Mac Mini, because it has all the features of AppleTV plus all of the benefits that result from it being a full-blown computer.  So I didn’t want to invest in a PC tuner, only to have to buy a Mac tuner later.  (The August edition of Mac Life Magazine put this bug in my ear to begin with, and you can see some of that article here.  Other articles that were really helpful to me are here, here, and here.)

Ok, now that you have some of the background and preliminary information, the story continues in part 2…

A question I get a lot is how to sync Tasks in Outlook with an iPhone.  I found an article online with detailed instructions for doing this and got permission to repost it here.  It comes from Daniel B. Curran’s excellent how-to blog.  Below are his instructions.  I hope this helps.  If you try this and run into any snags, I’d love to hear about it.  And incidentally, I’m using To-Do (the app he mentions) to sync Tasks with iCal and I am VERY happy with it – well worth the $10 in my opinion.  You can read about my experience with that here.)

Here is Daniel’s Post:

Let’s start with how you can sync your Microsoft Outlook Tasks to your iPhone for free.

I have read several articles about how to do this but I found the process to be convoluted. Let me make it very simple.

Step 1. Set up a free account at Toodledo.com The direct link for a new account is right here.

That should have taken you about 15 seconds. Let’s move on to step 2.

Step 2. Close Outlook, download Chromatic Dragon’s Toodledo Sync Application and install it.

Almost done! The sync application will want your Toodledo ID number. Leave it open on the tab that wants the ID number.

Step 3. Log into Toodledo and from the menu on the left select Account Settings. On that page you will see your Unique ID, simply copy and paste it into the sync program that you left open.

On the Synchronization tab you can change your Automatic Synchronization to whatever works for you. I don’t add tasks very often so once every 60 minutes is fine for me. To close the Options window select File -> Close. You will see a green checkmark icon in your tool tray. Right click it and hit Manual Sync.

Outlook is now synchronized to ToodleDo.

Ready for the iPhone part?

Ok, 2 ways to do this. The Free Way and the $10.00 way.

The free way? Toodledo now has an iPhone optimized version of their powerful, easy to use task manager. Just point your iPhone webbrowser to http://www.toodledo.com/slim and book mark it to your iPhone Home Screen. (Hit the + and select Home Screen, I renamed mine to “Tasks”)

Now you have the tasks that were in Outlook right there on Your iPhone screen!

Make a change on your iPhone and it will sync back to Outlook!

There is also a third party iPhone / iPod touch application that will synchronize with Toodledo and allow you to work offline. This application is called Todo and is available from Appigo on the iTunes App Store for about $10 but to be honest I don’t see the advantage of paying for it.

Do this for me, use the free way I described. I have the Todo software and will write another post later about the differences and let you know if it’s worth the $10.

UPDATE: ToodleDo has released an application to the iTunes store for $3.99 Check out Sync Tasks: ToodleDo Free Link vs. the ToDo $10 application.

Tips to Fight Holiday Stress and Holiday Blues, Pt. 2
by Dr. Harvey Kitzman

1. Get enough rest. By making sure that you get enough sleep, you will decrease your cortisol levels (this is the hormone involved in the fight-or-flight response.  Elevated levels contribute to adrenal fatigue and increased belly fat).
2. Continue your exercise program. Many of us, especially when we travel, get out of our normal exercise patterns. Regular exercise is well document as having stress reduction effects, especially by increasing brain hormone levels that are involved in mood regulation. I know myself that after a few minutes warming up on the elliptical trainer, I get “in the zone”, and I find it to have a very calming effect. Be sure to continue both cardiovascular and weight training.
3. Don’t overindulge on the sweet foods. I enjoy Mom’s Christmas cookies every year, so I am not telling you to avoid eating them. Just watch your amounts so that you don’t get the sugar crash and feelings of lethargy that accompany them.
4. Watch your alcohol consumption. Alcohol is a depressant, and too much alcohol can affect your mood levels.
5. Continue to eat well (as best you can). Rich leafy greens and fruits and vegetables that have deep rich colors not only provide the proper nutrients, but they can also provide the antioxidants that we need to fight free radicals. Again, you don’t need to avoid the holiday foods, just watch your consumption levels, especially if you are in a situation where you can not exercise.
6. Nutritional supplements can help you to reduce holiday stress levels as well:
   1. A good multivitamin will ensure that you are getting the proper nutrients to maintain normal metabolic functioning, and to supplement nutrient deficiencies in diet. They will also help your body heal itself.
   2. Omega III Fish Oils perform so many helpful functions in the body. With respect to mood levels, they will provide essential fatty acids needed for normal neural functioning.
   3. A good antioxidant will scavenge free radicals, cutting down their levels.
   4. B Complex vitamins help decrease stress and improve mood, help maintain healthy levels of serotonin, increase energy, and help to maintain proper neural function.
   5. A good Greens supplement with probiotics will boost the immune system, and aid in providing the body with enzymes, nutrients, probiotics and phytonutrients that a vegetable-rich diet offers, helping individuals to receive well rounded nutrition.
   6. There are herbal formals available that contain adaptogenic herbs. Adaptogens are natural herbals products that help to increase the body’s resistance to stress, fatigues, trauma, and anxiety. They help to increase the body’s resistance to stressors and return it to normal physiological functioning.

If you have any questions about this information, or would like a free consultation to learn more about nutrition, nutritional counseling, or nutritional supplementation, contact Dr. Harvey Kitzman at hkitzman@austin.rr.com or 512-657-3432 (for your free consult, just tell him you read this article on the RegainYourTime.com Blog).

Have a happy and healthy holiday season!

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Tips to Fight Holiday Stress and Holiday Blues, Pt. 1
by Dr. Harvey Kitzman

With the holidays already here, many people see an increase in their stress levels, and some people even have the holiday blues. Who doesn’t get stressed out with all of the shopping, cooking and travel plans that happen during the holidays? How many of us are time crunched and sleep deprived already? Add to that the fear of the flu bug and the H1N1 flu that we hear about on the news, and that worry just adds to our holiday stress levels.

What is stress anyway? Stress is an internal reaction to external events. It is an evolutionary response – the fight or flight response. Continuous stress can manifest itself as GI problems, losing sleep, increased fatigue, heightened blood pressure, headaches, concentration problems, adrenal fatigue and other symptoms. As we all know, many events can trigger the appearance of stress in our lives – job, marriage, money, new baby, holidays etc. The body does not distinguish between “good” stress (marriage, new baby, starting a new biz) and “bad” stress. It only knows that there is stress, and it reacts. Are there other types of stresses? Yes. Our bodies are subject to stress from many sources, both internal and external. Another type of stress we need to be concerned about is oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is defined as a condition of increased oxidant production in animal cells characterized by the release of free radicals and resulting in cellular degeneration. Think of this like taking a bite of an apple and letting it sit for a few minutes. The brown pigmentation that we see is due to oxidative stress. The same analogy can also be seen by rust forming on metal. This type of stress has been shown to be present in many types of medical conditions, including atherosclerosis, diseases involving inflammation, such as IBS, IBD, arthritis, periodontal disease, Crohn’s disease and Alzheimer’s. Free radicals are produced from both our internal cellular processes, such as the electron transport chain, and from the external environment. For example smoking is one method that is used by smokers to alleviate stress. When we smoke, however, each puff delivers 1027 of free radicals into our lungs. Think about that for a second. How much damage do you think this is doing internally?

Come back tomorrow to read Dr. Kitzman’s top 6 tips for fighting stress. All are easy and inexpensive, to make sure that you can start 2010 calm and capable!

If you have any questions about this information, or would like a free consultation to learn more about nutrition, nutritional counseling, or nutritional supplementation, contact Dr. Harvey Kitzman at hkitzman@austin.rr.com or 512-657-3432 (for your free consult, just tell him you read this article on the RegainYourTime.com Blog).

Have a happy and healthy holiday season!

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Last year I decided I needed a wireless headset for my iPhone, since I often do other things while on the phone such as empty the dishwasher, fold the laundry, make coffee, etc. (I also drive while talking on the phone more often than I should. This is NOT safe and I am trying to wean myself from this habit).

So I went on CNET to check out their reviews and at the time, one of their favorites was the Jawbone by Aliph. It claimed to use military technology called “Noise Assasin” to eliminate background noise, including wind. One or two others were similarly rated, but the Jawbone came in pink so this was a no-brainer decision for me.

I used it for just about a year and while I could always hear people on it just fine, I got many complaints that people could not hear me. I tried adjusting the size of the earpiece but the complaints continued. Sometimes I had to abandon the headset and take the call directly on the iPhone. Another problem for me was that it didn’t come with a case, and would always turn itself on in my purse, thus draining the battery and it was often dead or dying when I needed it. Since I paid over $100 for the Jawbone, I did not care to spend yet more money (about $9.99 on Amazon) for a case. I found an old snap-shut jewelry box that was about the right size for a thrifty solution to that problem.

Last week, I lost my Jawbone, jewelry box and all. I looked for about a week, all over my home, office, and locations I frequent, but it did not turn up. I found it frustrating to be without one so I bit the bullet and decided to purchase another. So back to CNET to find that Jawbone had a newer version than the one I bought last year, and CNET still gave it a high rating. But another headset with exactly the same rating was the Plantronics 975. Since I wasn’t completely satisfied with the Jawbone the first time around (even though it now comes in purple!) I decided to give the Plantronics a shot.

I was hoping that the prices of high-quality bluetooth headsets would have come down, but the Plantronics was even more than the Jawbone at $129.99 (BestBuy). However, I knew that BestBuy did offer price protection so while I was in the store, I fired up Safari on my iPhone and did a little price comparison. Amazon had the Plantronics for $107 and my helpful BestBuy representative agreed to match the price. This made the price for the Plantronics headset competitive with the Jawbone (note: yesterday I saw a Jawbone in Costco for $69.99, but I’m unsure if this was the newest model. I think they make it hard to tell on purpose). But here’s what I think makes the Plantronics a better deal: it comes with not only it’s own case (solving the turn-on problem in my purse) but it’s a charging case! When the case it fully charged, it can provide the headset with two complete charges before it needs to be recharged. Also there is a small LCD screen on the charging case telling you the charge status of both the headset and the case. And it even has a handy-dandy hook for attaching the case to a strap or your purse or clothing.

All of those things give the Plantronics 975 bonus points in my book, but the real test comes in the usability. What I’ve found is that most of my callers don’t even realize I’m on a headset, and tell me that I sound clear as a bell. No sound problems on my end, either.

If you plan to use your headset a lot, my suggestion would be to go for a higher-end model (what’s the point of having one if it doesn’t work well?), and it seems that most reviewers compare the Plantronics 975 similarly with the Aliph Jawbone. Having used both, I think the Plantronics is the hands-down winner. Even though it doesn’t come in pink.

If you’d like to share your experience with your bluetooth headset, please do so in the comments, I’d love to hear what you have to say. Thanks for reading!

One of the things that’s difficult for me to “find” the time for is exercise. Sometimes I’ll think, “if I skip my workout, I can make some real progress on my to-do list.” Skipping meals, especially breakfast, also seems to be a common time-saver among my friends.

I’ve come to realize that there is an important point that’s missing with this logic. Exercise and eating right, especially breakfast, actually add time to your day. We treat them like a net-negative when it comes to how much time we have in the day to do things. They are actually a net-positive, and not only on a cumulative basis, but on a daily basis. We all recognize that when we eat right and exercise, we have more energy and motivation. But even when you look at it that way, it makes it easy to think that skipping a day is ok, and before you know it, you’ve skipped many days. But what I’ve come to realize is that if I have a healthy bite to eat in the morning AND exercise for at least 20 minutes, I get MORE time IN THAT DAY than I had without it. On the mornings when I take 15 minutes to grab a bite for breakfast, and 20-30 minutes to exercise, I actually feel energetic and productive well into the evening. On the days I don’t, I’m typically drooping in the mid-afternoon, and then again by about 7pm. During these “droopy” times, I’m easily distracted, unfocused, and end up resorting to busy-work-type activities that don’t accomplish much, or sometimes even daydreaming or otherwise fussing around without getting anything done. On the days without breakfast or a workout, I’m longing to hit the couch by 7pm, the dishes stay in the sink and the dog doesn’t get a walk because I’m spent.

Exercise and breakfast actually give me more productive hours in my day. They help me to spend a productive afternoon focusing and getting important tasks accomplished, I whirl around the kitchen making dinner, cleaning up, walking the dog, tidying the house, preparing for the next day, and feeling great about it all. That 45 minutes or so I allow in the morning to take care of my body, easily adds several hours of productive time to my day. Now every time I feel like I “don’t have the time” for breakfast or a workout, I remember this and it’s a powerful motivator to lace up my running shoes! You might find that a change of perspective, from a good diet and exercise as a net-negative, to a net-positive of time in your day, might be just what you need to motivate you to change your habits.

Do you have anything to add? I’d love to read your comments. Thanks for reading!

Your brain was not designed to manage the details of your life. So in order to be effective, you need a tool. And that tool needs to manage at least 5 things well: calendar, contacts, to-do’s (or tasks), email, and notes. I believe that everything in one place is best. If it can’t be one place, the fewer the better, in my experience. On a PC, this is handled quite effectively by Microsoft Outlook, and Outlook has the added advantage of syncing pretty seamlessly with most smartphones.

Mac’s answer to this challenge is 3 different programs, and those programs don’t work particularly well together (even though Apple claims they do): Apple Mail, iCal, and Address Book. It’s not easy enough to create a task from an email, so I had to install an add-on program called MailTags (and BTW, MailTags does lots of other things. I’m a fan). The next problem is that Notes and Tasks don’t sync to iPhone. I am not alone in my shock that Apple would ignore such basic functionality, but there it is. I went outside the Mac native tools for my notes, and chose Evernote, and it enables me to see my notes on my iPhone. My one complaint with Evernote is that my notes are not synced locally on my iPhone, so I need an internet connection to view/edit them. So now instead of one program for my productivity system, I’m up to four.

Until recently there was no good solution to take your tasks from iCal and get them to your iPhone (see comments on OmniFocus, below). There are plenty of simple to-do apps that are web-based, like Remember the Milk, Toodledo, and Jott. But what I wanted was one that would sync with my tasks from iCal, so that I didn’t have to add yet another tool to my productivity system (4 already seems excessive). Finally, Appigo has solved my problem. They offer a free sync tool called Appigo sync, which you download on your Mac, and an iPhone app (although pricey for an app at $9.99) called ToDo. Finally! This solution allows me to sync my tasks from iCal to my iPhone, and it has lots of functionality for managing views, such as viewing by calendar, priority, due date, etc. If you’re a Mac user and looking for a productivity solution, I suggest you give this formula a try. There is another solution to task management that will also sync with your iPhone, called OmniFocus, but in my opinion, it’s unnecessarily complicated, it may not play as well with Mac OS as OS-native tools, and it’s pricey ($79.95).

If you’re a Mac user with another solution for managing the combination of tasks, calendar, contacts, email, and notes, that is also accessible from your iPhone or smartphone, I’d love to hear about it. Thanks for reading!

On the drive down (about 90 minutes from Austin), we used listening to an audiobook (or several) as fodder for conversation. This was possible through our subscription to Audible, an iPhone (iPod would work too), and an auxiliary outlet in the car. Oh, and we were also navigating to the hotel via Google Maps on the iPhone. What’s even better than the text directions is that the iPhone 3G shows your current location as a dot on the map so you can tell if you’re heading in the right direction, how close the turn is, whether or not you missed it, etc. Priceless for those, like me, who are directionally challenged.

We have not had a lot of down time lately, and we’ve visited San Antonio several times before, so we decided that after the talk, we were going to hole up in our room and indulge our “Lost” addiction. This was possible thanks to free internet access at the hotel, a laptop, and an $8.99/month Netflix subscription, which allows unlimited streaming of shows or movies, directly to your TV or computer. Personalized, on-demand entertainment on the go. I could not have imagined this 10 years ago.

But before the Lost marathon, we decided to head out for lunch. The Yelp app on the iPhone came in handy here, and thanks to that, we found a GREAT place to eat (which I highly recommend if you’re ever in San Antonio) called Texas Farm to Table. Using the app we got some options, read reviews, found out the details, and got directions to the restaurant. Yelp never lets me down when I’m in a new city. It’s like having an “insider” everywhere I go, and thanks to the iPhone app, I don’t need to make lists before I leave: I can check what I need on the fly.

I know that some people find it scary to embrace all of this new technology, but honestly I am amazed almost every day at how much easier and more convenient it makes my life.

If you have a story about how technology has made your life easier or more convenient lately, I’d love to hear it. Thanks for reading!

First, let me just mention how handy the camera is, especially combined with email, and now text (AT&T finally supports images & video in text messages).  My husband and I have been doing a lot of decorating lately, and it’s come in so handy for shopping.  We were looking for some furniture & accessories, but it’s hard to visualize how things will look inside the house.  I’ve snapped pictures of furniture in different stores, so not only could I compare pieces, but I could bring them home, hold up the picture in the spot, and visualize how the piece will fit in.  I took a picture of the wall color so that I could get curtains & a pillow that would complement it.  While shopping at the store I hold up the picture to check the colors together.  I snap a shot of something & email it to my husband to make sure he likes it before I buy it.  SO handy.

I’ve also discovered several apps that facilitate meditation & deep sleep which are great to help me relax and I use them at various times, like after a difficult phone call, before an afternoon powernap, and often while drifting off to sleep at night.

If you travel at all, you’ll want to check out Tripit and Packing.  Each has proven to be invaluable to me both getting ready for trips and to access useful information while I’m on my trip, so now I use my iPhone even more when I travel.

I could go on and on here, so I’ll just briefly mention a few more of my favorites:

Yelp & Around Me help me find great local businesses (& my favorite chain stores) when I’m out of my neighborhood.

Snooth (or Beer Brands) helps me pick a good wine (or beer) at dinner or to bring to a party.

Stanza is my favorite eBook & PDF reader for my iPhone – I find a Kindle unnecessary thanks to Stanza (incidentally, Stanza by Lexcycle is the brainchild of former Austinite Neelan Choksi, and was acquired this year by Amazon).

FaceBook & LinkedIn have iPhone versions that let me quickly check in with my social media connections.

Pandora & Slacker let me listen to commercial free music in my choice of genre at any time.

Pret-a-Yoga allows me to get a yoga workout even when I can’t attend a class. I’m also considering buying my yoga teacher’s DVD and loading that on my iPhone.

Bump helps me easily share contact information & files with other iPhone users.

What’s YOUR favorite, use-it-every-day, can’t-live-without-it iPhone app?  I’d love to hear it!  Thanks for reading!

Something else to consider when evaluating social media is WHY are you thinking about it?  Business? Pleasure? Some combination?  Your goals will help dictate how much time you may want to devote to it.  Also, what tools do you have available to access it?  Are you at a desk with a computer all the time?  (Convenient, but very easy to waste time.)  If you’re away from a computer much of the time throughout the day, do you have a handheld device where your interface is easily accessible, or will you have to spend evenings and weekends trying to stay active?  Evaluate whether this is an effective, and welcome, use of your “down” time.

Whether you’re using a computer or a handheld device to access your social media, I suggest that you use “clients” and “aggregators.”  A “client” is a 3rd party application that simplifies the data you receive so that you can review it more quickly, and an “aggregator” lets you send and receive information from several services at once (Ping.fm which I mentioned yesterday is an aggregator for sending information.  Tweetie is a client that I like for Twitter.)

Once you have a client, you can program it so that you see exactly what you want to see immediately, and let’s discuss what you’re likely to be looking for.  First, are there people you are following whose updates you don’t want to miss, such as prospects, competitors, experts in your industry, or good friends?  If so, dedicate a window or a column to each of those people.  Also, reading your “current” stream is helpful, which is the most recent page of updates from all the people you are connected with.  In addition to Tweetie, Tweetdeck is another client that makes it easy to do both of these simultaneously and there are several others.

What else should you care about?  Well, you definitely want to keep an eye on what’s called your “vanity stream.”  This means tracking anytime your name or your company or product name is mentioned anywhere on a social media platform.  Tweetie, for example, makes it easy to search for “at-replies” (@replies), meaning anytime someone addresses something to you or otherwise mentions you in a “Tweet” (update, or post).  The Facebook app for iPhone also alerts you to “notifications,” which is essentially the same thing, but on Facebook instead of Twitter.

The next thing that you want to check is private messages to you.  In Twitter these are called “DMs” (direct messages).  In most of the other platforms, these messages appear in your inbox in your account, such as in Facebook and LinkedIn.

One last thing you might be interested in, is what new people are now “following” you or “friending” or otherwise connecting with you (getting your updates or wanting your updates)?  And which of those do you want to reciprocate/allow/accept?

I know this seems like a lot, but honestly if you have the right tools, you can do it all in just a few minutes at a time.

One warning I will give you about Facebook if you are concerned about wasting time is to stay away from the games and the quizzes.  They just eat up too much time with nothing good received in return.  The one exception is the RippleTag FaceBook app created by my friend Steve Harper.  This is a great way to find connection points with people in your network.

Like all of the communication tools before them, these social media applications take some time to learn and to incorporate into your life, so that you can evaluate them for yourself.  It’s my belief that ignoring them for as long as you can is not the most efficient way of dealing with them.  You might as well jump in, especially now that you have some advance knowledge, and see what you think, because they are not going away anytime soon.  They will either be enjoyable and useful, or not.  And if they are not, that’s probably ok.

If you have other ideas, I’d love for you to share them in the comments.  Thanks for reading!