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Use multi colored post its for productivity
2008-03-09 12:15:00
If you’re the type of person who leaves notes, or scribbles to do items on notes, why not buy multi colored post its to cater for your categorizing needs? Take a look on Amazon, or your local office supply store and you will find millions of types to choose from in all the colors of the rainbow. I suggest having three colors and categorizing by importance. I don’t think any other method works well for notes, since you would need to find space to group them, but with importance you can get away with three. I would use red for immediate, very important, orange for tasks to be completed today, but in no particular order, or for tasks that are not that important. I would use yellow or plain white for ideas, things I would like to get to, but that are not important at all. Since I only use post its for daily matters, this works for me well. If you use them for longer term management as well, you may want some more colors or a different approach. If you need some post it dispe...
More About: Post , Productivity , Multi

Masking procrastination with work
2008-03-08 18:00:00
Procrastination is definitely the evil brother of productivity. While it doesn’t necessarily mean you do nothing, it means that you concentrate on things you don’t need to do, or don’t need to do now. I’ve noticed in my daily routine a special kind of procrastination, which would probably be called borderline procrastination if I had to put a medical term to it. Often when I have to do some work I don’t feel like doing, I will actually go off and do something else, that is still work, but not that important. If I decide for example to write a huge roundup of email applications, I may get bored and start writing another, short post. This is a kind of procrastination, because you are not doing what you’re supposed to, you are giving yourself only the feeling of work, while in fact, you are just escaping your tasks. This is probably more common than I expect, but since theoretically you are still working I would guess most people don’t notice t...
More About: Work , Procrastination

Organize your collections with Libra
2008-03-08 11:22:00
Libra is an organization program for your books, CD’s, DVD’s and games. It offers a beautiful setting and extensive features like bar code scanning, lending organizer and other awesomeness. The best thing about Libra that it can be modified to manage any collection, if you have some technical knowledge you manage your stamp collection, teddy collection and so on , not just productively, but with jaw dropping visuals. You can add items by doing an Amazon search, which is blindingly fast and you can save all items to your collection immediately. Vista is not necessary to run Libra, but apparently it looks better. It has a native Vista like interface with all the effects Vista users have become familiar with. It works much like the image gallery, so most Windows users will also be familiar with the interface. The biggest issue I found was that you couldn’t choose a different collection skin. I know this is purely visual, but If someone doesn’t like the look of w...
More About: Organize , Collections , Libra

Deezer - Music on demand
2008-03-07 21:12:00
Deezer is a great music on demand site I found via gHacks, and since I usually don’t regard these sites too highly (they are often mediocre at best) it took me a while to take a look. I was really surprised for two reasons. It actually manages to take over Pandora’s lead by offering content to non US residents and it offers true content on demand, not just radio stations with music similar to your search. I searched for Maroon 5, and I got 109 results, all instantly playable. Impressive to say the least. Deezer grabbed my attention even more when I saw that I could sort these by album, by title or by band (of course not relevant in this search), I could even rate, and then sort by rating. All this without ever having to register. In fact, most actions are available to casual visitors, you will only have to register to put together playlists and interact with the community. The design and execution of this service is first class, I would say that this is the best music se...
More About: Music , Demand , On Demand

Google Calendar Sync
2008-03-07 18:51:00
Google released a neat tool for syncing Google Calandar and the Outlook Calendar . It works both ways, and this is probably the reason I am going back to Outlook again. I love Google Calendar , but Outlook gives you a whole lot more tools. Just to be a Google fan I have been using Google Calendar, so now that syncing back and forth is so easy, I can just use both. Sync ing secondary calendars is not possible yet, so you will only be able to manage your primary calendar this way, but hope updates are on their way. With Gmail IMAP support and now the calendar syncing, I think I have everything to make Google and Outlook become my dream application. I’ll start using it right away, and fill you guys in on the details. _________
More About: Google

Change your battery settings for improved performance
2008-03-06 21:46:00
I didn’t actually realize thus far what a huge performance increase can be given to Windows by changing the battery settings. I should actually approach this from the other side, you can elongate battery life by a considerable amount if you take down power consumption. You can also dim the display and so on, just don’t forget to turn the battery consumption back to high performance when you are back at the desk. I was opening tabs, looking at a YouTube video and everything seemed really slow. The video was choppy and switching between tabs was a pain. I realized after about 5 hours of work that this is due to my battery setting, which I didn’t change back from “power saver”. If you recently used this setting, be sure to set it back, because you will experience performance issues otherwise. _________
More About: Performance , Battery , Change , Settings

Simple lists with Gubb
2008-03-06 10:21:00
Online list services can be found by the gallon. There are only a few though which stand out from the crowd, and for me, one of those is Gubb. Don’t expect a Remember the Milk like complexity, it’s just a simple jot-down-your-thoughts application, with a few very helpful tools. Upon registration, the friendly interface gives you the option to choose from some pre-fabricated lists which will immediately be shown on the main page for you. Apart from these, creating new lists is very easy, just choose new list from the top menu, name it, describe it, choose a color, and start adding items. You can add a description to all list items, give them a due date and rate them according to their priority and so on. You can also move them between lists, so integrating lists will be a cinch. I find that the rearrange feature of Gubb is one of the best. It’s simple drag and drop, but works effortlessly and gives you the freedom you need to put items anywhere. Once you’ve c...
More About: Lists , Simple

Gmail tip - the power of “Y”
2008-03-06 09:11:00
I don’t know how many people use keyboard shortcuts in Gmail , but I think it’s definitely worth the effort to learn a few. One of my favorite shortcuts is the letter “y”. The reason I love it so, is that it’s actually four shortcuts in one and will allow you to productively manage your emails. Officially it is the shortcut for “remove from current view”, but since there are many available views, it does different things. If you are in your inbox, pressing “y” will archive your message. If you are in the trash, “y” will move your message to the inbox. If you are browsing your starred items, you can unstar them with “y”, and best of all, if you are in a label view, the shortcut will remove that specific label. I would find it marginally more useful if this shortcut unarchived email, but alas, it does not aid me in this. Nevertheless it is a useful one to know, since you can do so many things with it. Enjoy! ...
More About: Power

SlideRocket exclusive invites for Hack Your Day Magazine Subscribers!
2008-03-05 22:06:00
As you all know, there is a new magazine for Hack Your Day. Take a look at my original post, and download the test copy here. For my next five subscribers I can hand out five exclusive invites to SlideRocket, an awesome online presentation maker with tons and tons of features, rivaling even PowerPoint. If you would like to get some invites quickly subscribe by dropping me a line at daniel [atsign] hackyourday [dot] com. You can take a look at all the details in the original post, make sure to indicate what type of subscription you would like and I’ll be sending you your invite in a matter of a jiffy or two. _________
More About: Exclusive , Magazine

Post it dispenser roundup
2008-03-05 20:19:00
Who doesn’t use Post its? I mean I’m not a frequent user, but whenever I need to scribble something down quickly, or leave a quick note on the fridge, I’d be lost without them. No one in my household is big on them, and we still have about 3 boxes of flags, 4 big post it packs and a few small yellow and green ones lying around. Imagine what the post it geek has at home? Since I do love this awesome invention, let me show you some of the cooler ways to store and use them. Clear Top Dispenser Let me show you one of my favorites for the desktop, this stylish Clear Top Dispenser. I really like the contrast of the black base with the slight curve of the clear top, holding the underlying post it pack firmly in place. If you have a modern desk this will definitely suit it, but perhaps it will go well with a huge oak desk too. It holds 3×3 notes, but I couldn’t really tell if notes are initially supplied. I found one here at home at Office Depot without one, bu...
More About: Roundup

FruitfulTime task management application and E-book
2008-03-05 18:27:00
I received an interesting letter the other day, letting me know about a productivity software. I noticed it because although it was product promotion email, it was at least addressed to me, and it very specifically said “productivity” tool. I answered and got an email back the same day from the founder, so I decided that this customer care alone was worth me taking the time to check out the product. FruitfulTime is a task management application for Windows, which can be downloaded with a free E-book on procrastination. I don’t really want to go into detail on the book, I had a quick read of the near 40 pages and it seems solid material. It won’t revolutionize how we think about procrastination, but it may open some eyes, and has some useful tips on productivity and organization everyone can use. Compared to the price (free) it isn’t a bad book at all, so I can safely recommend it. Now on to the software itself. This is the type of software I think some ...
More About: Management , Book , Application , E Book

SlideRocket preview coming up
2008-03-05 09:28:00
Sliderocket is an exciting new service which allows you to make awesome presentations online. Their motto is, to heck with simplicity, less is less, more is more. This time this actually means something, the interface is clean, but the feature list is huge, I mean you can do at least 70% of the things in Powerpoint and it’s still in closed beta. I contacted them a month ago and I got an invite for test purposes, although we agreed that I can not review the product before they want to start the media hype. I can tell you in advance that this is really, really cool, just take a look at their product tour which was also made in SlideRocket. I am really excited to be part of this project and I am waiting for the opportunity to let you guys know about it. Magazine subscribers will be the first to get insider info and get the first glimpse of SlideRocket, in addition, I will probably handing out invitations (you can jump the waiting list) among subscribers as well. I am still in tal...
More About: Preview

Hack Your Day Magazine available!
2008-03-04 12:08:00
I would like to introduce all of you to my newest project, Hack Your Day Magazine , packed full of productivity and organization and other juicy goodness! This is a test issue, freely available to everyone, but I am planning to make future issues a subscriber only option. Not to worry, it won’t cost much, and will contain a whole lot of added materials. The magazine can be split two ways basically, basic content, stuff that is available in the blog freely, and premium content, only available to magazine readers. Here’s a short list of what you get if you subscribe. All articles on the blog, without adverts of course Some articles may be expanded, or further commented on The magazine will be published every Friday, but it will contain all posts to be published on Saturday and Sunday as well. Interviews with experienced productivity Ninjas News and previews on upcoming Hack Your Day products Additional extras like invites to closed betas and so on I can hand out Please no...

Use checkbox selection in Vista
2008-03-03 11:30:00
In Vista there’s a cool feature to use the checkbox selection method to select multiple files or folders. This the need to press the control button, so if you feel more at ease with the mouse this is a great way to select multiple files quickly. When you hover over an item, you will se a checkox at the top left, if you click there, the item will remain selected, even if you select something else. If you select a file in any other location than the box, it will not remain selected, this gives you a lot of flexibility in handling files, since you can safely look at properties without having to deselect everything else while you’re at it. To access this feature, head over to Computer, or any folder and click the Organize button on top. Click folder and search options and find the item named “use checkboxes to select items”. If you select this, you will be able to use the feature, not just in the folder views, but while in an open dialog, or on the desktop as wel...
More About: Selection

Managing your time in chuncks
2008-03-03 10:31:00
One of the main reasons people have a never ending, never completed to do list is that they simply create the list, and either don’t prioritize it, or don’t make a conscientious effort after that to get stuff done. Creating the list is only solving part of the problem, you need to productively handle that list too. One method I found that helps me in many situations is task grouping. I have a set of a load of things I want to do, and today I just sat down and said that for the remainder of the day and all of tomorrow I will work on these two projects. This is a non prioritized list, so it doesn’t matter which on, in fact, the day after tomorrow I could decide to work on the same two things. This has two positive effects, apart from the obvious, that I actually get things done. First of all, it focuses me on specific items, making sure I will either finish them, or at least extensively work with them. The other benefit is that it gives me a warm, fuzzy, “I&rsq...
More About: Time

The basis of all organization and productivity
2008-03-02 11:05:00
I think that there is one part of organization and management which is either not stressed enough, or people sort of “voluntarily” forget about it, because it’s probably one of the hardest, and least fun of all. I am of course talking about our friend persistence. The ability to keep at it, even if you feel it’s no fun, and even if you feel it’s a bother. I am exactly the type of guy who finds this the hardest, because I like to work in different environments. I will start using Remember the Milk, then one day get bored of it and use Todoist, then go to my Moleskine and so on. In essence I don’t think it really matters which one you use, as long as you use something. What you should do, and what I’m trying to force myself to do, is to use just one method. It could be that the method is not for me, but the fact that I become bored with it doesn’t mean it’s ineffective, or unproductive for me. The benefits of organization will onl...
More About: Organization , Productivity

How to use link exchange
2008-03-01 12:08:00
After receiving an email from someone about a link exchange offer (which I initially marked as spam), I was actually contacted by the sender. I unmarked it as spam, but the offer was nevertheless quite useless. Here are some of my thoughts on link exchange and how I think it should be done best, both from a user vow and a search engine view. First of all, link exchange programs are not great. I mean the places they use it most is the adult sector and other, illegal sections of the net like torrent sites and warez sites. My main argument against them is not this however, it’s the fact that Google is actively fighting against these programs and has become quite good at unveiling them. Link s and whole sites may become discounted which is a huge problem for your. Secondly, I can never be really sure where my link will end up, and for me personally it’s not just about the numbers. If people start putting my link on warez sites I may get a few hundred visits, but search engi...
More About: Link Exchange , Exchange

Using Remember the Milk’s smart lists
2008-03-01 09:32:00
One of the best features in Remember the Milk is the smart list, which is essentially a search option, but your searches can be saved permanently. Normally you would want to save a search because you perform them often, but in Remember the Milk there are more benefits. I actually only have one “real” list in RTM, the others are all smart lists. So I have loads of tasks, all in one list, but tagged well. This means that if I search for “tag: blog”, it will show me all my blog related tasks. If I save that search, I now have a new list, with every item tagged with blog. The productivity aspect enters right here, because you aren’t limited to just viewing, you can edit and create tasks inside the smart list. This means that if you create a task, it will automatically be tagged with “blog”, and of course it will be created in your primary list. This feature is great if you do some more complex searches, like incomplete priority 1 tasks, tagged w...
More About: Smart , Lists

Spam I can live with
2008-02-07 22:31:00
I knew it existed, but I was only faced with it truly when I started writing my blog. There is a kind of spam that I think is a bit annoying, but acceptable. These are the people who own a company or web service, and go around on people’s blogs, writing quasi-useful comments with their link inside. First of all, it is not really good netiquette to include your link in forums, or comments. It may also get filtered if a blog has a very aggressive spam filtering system. Second of all, you can enter your website in the form, and if someone likes your comment, they can click on your name and whoosh, they’re at the site. The goal would be to write an interesting enough comment. However, I am prepared to accept “spam” like this, that is at leas half relevant. I wrote a post on managing your tasks with Remember the Milk a while ago, and recently approved the following comment: “The logo is cute - no doubt I was using the service untill I realized I needed so...
More About: Spam , Live

Batch renaming on your Mac
2008-02-07 02:45:00
If you loyal readers remember, a while ago I showed you a guide to batch renaming files. I just found the best alternative for you Max OS X guys out there. Batch renaming is one of the best productivity things you can do, since file operations like this can otherwise be the most tedious and boring jobs, prone to mistakes as well. With File List, the tool used for batch renaming you can set up file operations that would take you the best of a day, and it will be done in a minute instead. You can rename extensions, set lower and upper case, and as much as I can see of it, if you know some programming, you can set up very complex rules. The app comes with easily controllable complex rules already, so don’t be intimidated. I love batch renamers because I can not tell you how much I hate it if I have to do the same thing to more than two files. My productivity drops way down and start making mistakes. If you use a Mac, take a look, you’ll love it.

Writing posts with Windows Live Writer
2008-02-05 03:28:00
I first heard that Microsoft has a desktop blogging app and said “yeah right…”. I wasn’t really referring to my disbelief in the existence of the product, but rather in the fact that it’s any good. First of all, I wasn’t very comfortable with desktop blogging software and second of all, I mean what good would a Microsoft blogging app be? I could post to Live Spaces? Yay… Well, as it turns out, I was very wrong. I first tested the app about 3 months ago, and now I’m experimenting with using it exclusively. It worked when posting to blogger, and works perfectly for Wordpress as well. Finally Microsoft has realized that there are actually other companies out there. It recognizes popular platforms to the extent that the Wordpress logo is stylishly placed in the sidebar, I can add categories like I would in Wordpress and I can set publish dates. I can also go directly to my Wordpress dashboard and view recent posts and drafts (which can b...
More About: Windows , Writing , Windows Live , Writer

A new way to browse Wikipedia
2008-02-05 02:50:00
I just found an application called IndyWiki that enables you to browse Wikipedia in a very different way than you’re used to. You search for a term, and it will show you a multitude of related things, like pics, links, sections and so on. Although the interface is very intuitive, I think it needs a considerable facelift. It’s stark, and uses a gray interface reminiscent of 1997 applications. Despite this, the application is easily usable and is actually useful, it will increase your productivity by bypassing browsers and only showing you related info. If you enter a term it will display pictures related to that term and the related article (if there is no disambiguation), plus related links, leading to other articles. I found it refreshing that you don’t see the whole article, you see only the first section. You can view other parts by using the contents navigation pane to the left. I love this because many times the info I want is in the middle of an article, but...
More About: Browse

Jot down your thoughts with Google Search
2008-02-03 13:26:00
Yes, I know, it sounds a bit weird, but I’ve gotten into the habit of taking notes using Firefox’s Goggle search field. Basically, a few thoughts on posts came to my mind and I didn’t have any pen and paper at hand and I didn’t want to open a notepad. I came up with a solution that proved to be a great way of jotting down some thoughts in a productive way. All I do is when something comes to mind, like writing a post on Adobe Buzzword (coming up), is I open a new tab (Ctr + T) and type “Adobe Buzzword” in the search field. I don’t even wait for it to load, I go back to what I was doing immediately.When I am ready to “process” these thoughts, I go to the tab with the search and I will remember that I wanted to write about and in addition, I have already started some research by searching for it. When you process you can decide to write it down somewhere else, save the page as a bookmark, or just delete it. I actually have a separ...
More About: Google , Search , Google Search , Thoughts

Create invoices from Basecamp projects
2008-02-03 12:39:00
If you manage your tasks from Basecamp and track the time you work you will find Simply Invoices and elegant solution to create invoices for your clients. It will enable you to create simple, but stylish invoices, generated automatically from Basecamp info. That’s about all there is to this app, but the ability to create invoices and export them to pdf so fast is a huge asset, you can use your time in more productive ways than spending hours on invoicing. A great feature is inline editing, which means that once the data is imported and the invoice is created, you can still edit the entries, and you can also create new entries. This is a great feature if you keep track of some non-billable items on your Basecamp list. You want to see them for your own purposes, but you can’t put them on the invoice, so being able to just delete them right off the invoice is a great help. Simply invoices is a pay-for service with a free option. This should be enough for basic use for an...
More About: Projects , Create

Creating secure passwords
2008-02-02 12:35:00
As I’ve seen recently, the worst security leaks ever, are the users themselves. They create passwords like Daniel1985, which is just absurd, and other “impossible” to guess ones. So how do I go around creating random ones? Well, I never-ever use software, or at least not without any user intervention. I basically have two methods. Software and randomness One thing I’ve done is create 8 character passwords with software using who knows what algorithms, which yield results such as “A@-8Q:uS”. This alone isn’t bad, but I feel that since this is an algorithm, it can be reverse engineered. The essence of an algorithm is actually just that. It is a set of rules. It takes an input and transforms it into an output, with a set of variables. However complex this is, it can be reverse engineered. Therefore, I take the result, and randomly modify it, maybe even adding, taking away characters. So it may become: “I@-8:uS” This subtle change ...
More About: Creating , Secure , Passwords

Use Belvedere to automate folder file operations
2008-02-02 11:58:00
Lifehacker has released a new version of their folder file operation automating software, Belvedere . In essence this small script residing in the system tray lets you create rules (very much like email filters) that will perform an action on files in a folder when a specific set of conditions become true. For example you can set the app to delete all files in a folder you haven’t modified in the last week. This is a great way to keep an archive folder clean for example, because the rules are monitored all the time. So if you create a file now and don’t touch it for a week, they will be deleted. You can also create multiple rules and set the app to take action when all, or any of the rules are met. Rules are set for specific folders, so set up may take a long time, but it’s worth it, because you can create a very usable system maintenance and archiving plan. It can help your productivity to no end, since boring jobs not only take away your time, but your morale as ...
More About: File , Folder

Conditional formating in Office 2007
2008-02-01 10:15:00
A great new feature in Office 2007 is conditional formating. While its use is mainly visual, since if you are doing statistical analysis you would use variance, standard deviation and the lot to numerate the properties of data sets, you can use the conditional formating options to get a quick glance, or for other features, like determining duplicate values and so on. Let me show you a few great uses that are easy to implement and could help you in your daily work. It may also help you in productivity, since the simple duplicate checking may free up a lot of time. Duplicate values First of all, you will need a data set to work with. I fabricated a table with dates from January 1st to January 31st and I filled up the column next to the dates with site visitor counts (the values aren’t real). First of all, select the values you want to check. This can be any set, from highlighting a few values, to selecting multiple rows and columns. The next step is to “Conditional Forma...
More About: Office 2007

Taking a quick nap - and managing to wake up
2008-02-01 09:28:00
I’ve always read about how politicians and people who need to get by on little sleep take micro-naps. Well, if I need to sleep, I need to sleep, so a micro sleep is perhaps an option for me for one, maybe two nights. If you need to use the extra wake time, but need a hour or two of shut-eye, I read about a great way to make sure you wake up. This will most probably only work for people with a minimal every-day caffeine intake, because what you should do is drink a can of coke, or a cup of coffee just before going to bed. By the time the caffeine releases its waking up goodness you will have slept an hour or so and you will wake up more easily. I won’t guarantee this works every time, but it may make the differenc between the “Oh my God, I can’t lift my eyes” type of waking up and the “I’m really tired” waking up. As you all know caffeine is also a great productivity booster, but I would advise to only use it when you really do need it....
More About: Quick , Wake , Wake up , Taking

Spam from Hallmark
2008-02-01 08:51:00
A type of troublesome email I’ve seen recently is fake Hallmark e-card emails. If you get one, be sure to hover over the link to the card itself. In the email I received, the link points to “http://62.183.68.110/card.exe&rdqu o;, hardly a legit Hallmark card. If you get anything that isn’t directly from someone you know, or doesn’t contain any very specific info about the sender, always take care with clicking links. Even if you do click this Hallmark one, you still have to choose to save or run it, if you accidentally run into this, just cancel and you should be ok. I wanted to contact Hallmark about this, but in the process it became clear that they know about the problem, so in the end I didn’t submit my email. Good job Hallmark for noticing and doing something, I hope they manage to accomplish something.
More About: Spam

The grand reopening
2008-02-01 03:31:00
February 1st has come (at least in my part of the World), so as promised, welcome to the reopened Hack Your Day blog, serving all kinds of productivity breadcrumbs every day. There will be 3 posts a day at least, probably more at times, and fun will indeed be had! I’m still doing a bit of re-categorization, so that may change a bit, as well as the sidebar. The posts will keep coming though so keep an eye out. Starting from today, you will also find me consistently posting on gHacks and Make Use Of, two great blogs. I f you have anything to share, I want to hear what you have to say, so don’t be shy, use the comments and drop me a line personally if you want to. You can reach me at daniel [at-sign] hackyourday [dot] com
More About: Grand , The Grand