Key to the open door, a photo by Tawheed Manzoor on Flickr.

This post is the first in a series with suggestions on how to improve your online exposure.

Reviewing your Google Account

On March 1, 2012, Google made changes to its privacy policy that had many folks chattering online.

It’s always a good practice to periodically review your account settings, privacy settings and online exposure. Here are a few places to check:

1. Go to http://www.google.com/account/ and review your settings. Pay attention to Account Overview, Profile and Privacy as well as Google+.

2. Consider what data is really necessary on your profile. Purge what is not.

3. Review your Google+ posts, as well as your +1s. Purge any that are unnecessary.

Use the page “Keeping personal information out of Google” as a reference and guide to clearing other unneeded items.

Refer to “Me on the web” to monitor and alert you when information is posted about you on the web, and for a guide in requesting removal of information.

We don’t often think of how freely we share information about ourselves on the net. Spending time periodically sweeping and checking your online exposure is an important investment in protecting your online security.

As the holiday season approaches, you may still be searching for ways to make things a bit simpler in your work life. Today, I’m sharing two of my new favorite tools for simplifying your work day.

Have you met Workflowy? Workflowy.com is at first so simple-looking that you may discount it as a less useful tool, or one that lacks power. If you are an outline person, a linear thinker or perhaps you are a Mac user who adores OmniOutliner, Workflowy may be just what you’re looking for. Create lists and outlines using this online tool, and share them with friends or colleagues. This browser-based tool doesn’t mind if you are a Mac or a PC, and currently it is free (and has a nifty free Android and iPhone app as well).

Turn off the noise and get straight to the point with Readability. Readability.com is a free web and mobile app that strips out all the junk and noise on a web page, when all you want to do is read. Install the bookmarklet on your browser or the app for your mobile device. When you activate Readability on a page, the ads, images and other extraneous junk go away so you can get to what really matters.

I don’t normally share humor as a blog post, but most of these are so true (and so true in my life right now!) that I wanted to share the smile.

1. Law of Mechanical Repair – After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch and you’ll have to pee.

2. Law of Gravity – Any tool, nut, bolt, screw, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner.

3. Law of Probability – The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of your act.

4. Law of Random Numbers – If you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy signal and someone always answers.

6. Variation Law – If you change lines (or traffic lanes), the one you were in will always move faster than the one you are in now (works every time).

7. Law of the Bath – When the body is fully immersed in water, the telephone rings.

8. Law of Close Encounters – The probability of meeting someone you know increases dramatically when you are with someone you don’t want to be seen with.

9. Law of the Result – When you try to prove to someone that a machine won’t work, it will.

10. Law of Biomechanics – The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach.

11. Law of the Theater & Hockey Arena – At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle, always arrive last. They are the ones who will leave their seats several times to go for food, beer, or the toilet and who leave early before the end of the performance or the game is over. The folks in the aisle seats come early, never move once, have long, gangly legs or big bellies and stay to the bitter end of the performance.

12. The Coffee Law – As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold.

13. Murphy’s Law of Lockers – If there are only 2 people in a locker room, they will have adjacent lockers.

14. Law of Physical Surfaces – The chances of an open-faced jelly sandwich landing face down on a floor, are directly correlated to the newness and cost of the carpet or rug.

15. Law of Logical Argument – Anything is possible if you don’t know what you are talking about.

16. Brown’s Law of Physical Appearance – If the clothes fit, they’re ugly.

17. Oliver’s Law of Public Speaking – A closed mouth gathers no feet.

18. Wilson’s Law of Commercial Marketing Strategy – As soon as you find a product that you really like, they will stop making it.

19. Doctors’ Law – If you don’t feel well, make an appointment to go to the doctor, by the time you get there you’ll feel better. But don’t make an appointment, and you’ll stay sick.

How many inboxes do you have? No, not just email inboxes. Here are some other likely inboxes for many folks:

• The kitchen counter (or wherever you set your postal mail when you come in the house)
• Your mobile phone SMS messages
• Your mobile phone voice mail
• Your office and home phone voice mail
• The notebook in your bag
• Your Circa, Filofax, Franklin Planner
• The surface of your desk at work (how many notes, post-its and mail items are there?)
• The notepad in your car
• The memo board by the garage door

You get the idea. To tame the flow of information, you need to pare down the number of information points in your life. Here are my four steps to wrangling some of your inboxes and getting on with your life.

1. Use Google Voice for everything. Make it your mobile number. Make it your SMS number. Give it out to everyone. Google Voice lets you route a call in a specific fashion or play a specific voice mail based on the group in which you’ve categorized the caller. Got someone who is contacting you that you don’t want to hear from, such as marketing spam? You can even set up Google Voice to play a “this number is not in service” message.

Set Google Voice to handle your voice mail, and email transcribed messages to you. Set Google Voice to email SMS messages to you.

2. Use one Gmail inbox for everything. Set up Gmail to pull your email from other accounts, and configure Gmail so that you may send messages  from any of your other email addresses right within your Gmail account.

Need a reminder at 6:00 pm? Instead of sticking a note on your monitor or your dashboard, use an email reminder tool such as NudgeMail, Follow Up Then or Letter Me Later to send an email ping you at the appointed hour.

3. Use Filters in Gmail, but start over. I’ve been nailed by this. One filter runs sooner than a filter you created a while back. The result is unintended or unexpected. Start over. Build your filters thoughtfully, combining by using Boolean operators when possible. Chances are that you now know a lot more about Gmail filters than you did when you first started using Gmail. A clean slate is a good idea – it was for me.  (Special note – Stepcase Lifehack has a great article “20 Ways to Use Gmail Filters.” Read it here.

4. Get the hell out of your inbox. You’ve got other stuff to do. Set times to check your email once in the morning, lunchtime and evening. Other than those times, turn off the Growl notifications and the email sound notifications.

Bonus tip: Select a centralized note-taking application such as Evernote and install it on your smart phone, your laptop, your desktop, your tablet. Use it as the inbox for all those little snips of information and notes that you take. (Don’t forget you can take “notes” by snapping a pic with your mobile phone camera as well)

mac pro workstation, a photo by Chic Co on Flickr.

Recently, the Sophos Naked Security blog posted on the short history of Mac malware.

As more and more of us are working from mobile locations – coffee shops, hotel rooms, the car (when someone else is driving) – having a streamlined bag of goodies necessary to keep your tech humming and you productive has become quite important.

Nora’s top 8

• USB drive.  Whether you use a key-shaped thumb drive or something a little more traditionally shaped, a USB drive is always a good idea to have handy.
• Small screwdriver. I love this multitool, which comes with a flat, Phillips and micro-screwdriver and a few other tools. Handy for tightening a screw on your computer, or your glasses.
• Cables. I like this mini-cable kit, and I also recommend stashing an ethernet cable in your bag, for times when the wifi in your hotel room stinks and you have the opportunity to cable connect in your room.
• Flashlight. You never know when you’ll need light and not have it. Very handy if you’re working in a tight space on a computer or stuck in the back seat of a car. I love this Gorillatorch by Joby, which lets you position the light however it is needed.
• Strappy Organizer. The Cocoon does a great job of organizing all your stuff and keeping it from falling into some black hole within your bag. There are lots of different sizes depending upon how much stuff you need to organize and the size of your bag.
• Moleskine. There will be moments when it is simply easier to write than type – keep a Moleskine or similar notebook in your bag, ready for action.
• Power. Make sure you’ve got a good power splitter for those limited outlet moments. You may also find you’d like to have a PowerSquid in your bag.
• Solar. The Solio Bolt charges hundreds of different tech items from smart phones to cameras, ereaders and gps devices. Handy when electricity is not an option.

barb, a photo by Bilegt Kinshasa Ganbaatar on Flickr.

Wounding with words is one of the most powerful acts of damage to another human. Unfortunately, it is far too common in the workplace. It is also a silent burden that many virtual professionals bear, out of fear of losing business or out of a false assumption that this behavior is an occupational hazard.

If your contact

- uses passive aggressive barbs in emails or voice mail messages

- uses profanity in messages to you

- acts impatient when you struggle to understand a question or task

it may be time to move away from that individual.

I fail to understand why the holidays bring out the worst behavior in some humans. One of the best gifts you can give yourself is to step away from an injurious connection and move forward with relationships that are fulfilling for you whether personal or professional.

Typewriter Letters, a photo by Laineys Repertoire on Flickr.

Did you know Merriam-Webster was an Encyclopaedia Britannica company? Neither did I.

MW has a section on their web site dedicated to new words and slang that have not yet made it into the publication officially. A few of my favs:

- workflow (use this word all the time myself)

- scanography

- snowpocalypse

- hanitizer (brilliant slang for hand sanitizer such as Purel)

- slacktivist

Neologisms

Remember Sniglets by Rich Hall on “Not Necessarily the News?” I loved Sniglets! A few of my favorites:

- cinnemuck (that sticky stuff on the floor you walk through on the way to your seat in the movie theatre)

- administrivia (all that mindless admin-related stuff that can make you insane if you don’t have a virtual assistant or online business manager)

- triority (another reason you need a virtual assistant or online business manager – when you have three things all due and all important at the same time)

filofax mix, a photo by kate paper on Flickr.

Snipped from D*I*Y Planner.com and oh so wise:

“Never underestimate the stress-reducing power of a tickler. If you don’t need to think about doing a particular task now, you don’t need to see it now. You also don’t need to worry about remembering to do it in a few weeks time. (The stress that results from worrying about forgetting is greater than most believe.) If you have a digital system, put it in your calendar or a future task. If you have a paper system, put it in a tickler folder (a la GTD) or mark it in your planner in a future action list or calendar day. Have confidence that your trusted system will remember it for you.”

Whether you are planning in an analog planner such as a Filofax or Moleskine or you are using an online planning tool (or a combination of both), a tickler file is a great tool for keeping you together.

A simple 43 folders system will serve you well and takes up little real estate.

“In the parlance of Getting Things Done, a Tickler File consists of a series of 43 file folders: 12 monthly and 31 daily folders. Items are filed in a folder corresponding to when the item will need to be handled, thus reminding or “tickling” the user about it. These items might be action reminders, bills, receipts, reports, letters, or any number of other things.”

- from the 43 Folders Wiki

Large size here

• Limit language and focus more on imagery, when possible
• Color, font and design are important to creating an eye-catching and memorable infographic
• Don’t miss the opportunity for your title to be an ear-catching and eye-catching hook

And from MakeUseOf.com, here are a few more tips:

• Keep it simple! Don’t try to do too much in one picture.
• Research some great facts and statistics.
• Think of it as a visual essay: ensure your arguments hold and are relevant.
• Remember that it’s all about quickly conveying the meaning behind complex data.
• Draw conclusions.
• Reference your facts in the infographic.
• Include your URL so people can be sure who made it.

Tools for infographics

Check out these tools for creating your own infographics:

• Stat Planet
• Hohli
• Creately

Click for more tools and ideas here.