The Productive Dad

Be more productive in Evernote using templates

Dean Ouellette — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 16:51:47 +0000

Most of you who know me know I am somewhat of an Evernote fanatic. As a matter of fact, I even wrote a book, Evernote for Real Estate. What I love about Evernote is how it saves me so much time by keeping everything in one location.

If you use Evernote for business, there is a way to to make this wonder-app even more of a productivity stud. Learn to use templates.

While Evernote does not have a default ‘create note from template’ available yet, that does not mean you cannot create templates to help you set up and create notes much faster.

I am a Phoenix and Chandler area real estate agent. Every client I work with has their transaction managed in an Evernote notebook. There is some information that is going to be tracked with each of my buyer clients. What I can do is set up a template, which is maintained in my ‘Template’ notebook. This template contains all of the information I am going to need for all of my buyer transactions.

You can see here on the top of the client’s note I have a place for all of basic information about the file I need.

Below this table, I have a checklist of all the steps that will be needed, followed by a note section.

It would take me ten minutes to set this note up each time to look just like this, but when I use templates to create my notes, this same note takes less than five seconds to create.

When you want to create a template, just save a note with the information you want included. Later when it is time to create a new note with the same format, just open the template, copy all, create new note and paste. As easy as that.

Do you create templates in your Evernote? If so, what do you use your templates for? Share your ideas with me.

My new e-book, Evernote for Real Estate

Dean Ouellette — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 05:07:59 +0000

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How sometimes “Being Productive” is not so productive

Dean Ouellette — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 15:37:18 +0000

Eat the big frogs first

Every Sunday night I spend about 45 minutes doing a weekly review. This has helped me immensely to see where my strengths and weaknesses in my productivity systems. I can do a whole post on my weekly review, as a matter of fact now I have my blog fodder for next weeks post.

Last week I felt as if I had a great week. One of my goals for the week was to make sure I got done a lot more of my to-do items listed in Evernote every day. At the end of the week, I felt I had done that so we had success. Then I started looking at it deeper during the weekly review.

All was not as it seemed
So there I was on Sunday night all proud of how many checkmarks I had completed during the week. Then it hit me, I had a horrible week. I had three items that I really wanted to make progress on.

Complete more of my to-do tasks each day
Complete two more chapters in my Certified Personal Trainer studying
Develop the idea for my underprivileged kids health foundation deeper

When I started looking back at my week and doing my review I realized I had made great strides in completing the little tasks on my to-do list, but I had failed miserably in making progress on my big to-do items that will really move the ball forward long term.

Know your big frogs
If you read David Allen’s Getting Things Done book, or any of Brian Tracy’s books, you know what the big frogs are. Frogs are the big items that are hard to swallow, but really move the ball forward. As an example let’s say you wanted to start a foundation to help underprivileged kids. You had an idea, and now you needed to start formulating it.

Your to-do list may look like this for the day

Formulate plan with dates for foundation idea Get eggs and chicken at store Run 3 miles
Call bank for work
Email Sarah about project Process inbox zero
Write a blog post
Check the blog for new comments and reply
Spend 20 minutes interacting with other blogs and Google Plus
Call for an update on Marshall file
Check Facebook for birthdays
Install new software

As you can see by this list, there are a bunch of things to do today. Many of these are short little items that do not take a lot of thinking and I can plow through them. Then there is the “formulate plan with dates for foundation.” This item is a larger idea that may take you a couple of hours and require some serious thought.

So the problem with my system last week, was I was focusing on all of the little stuff. I wanted the satisfaction of checking off the box as completed. The big items, the big goals, my big frogs, were usually saved for last when I had a large block of time. After all, seeing all those check marks at the end of the day felt great.

My problem? At the end of the week I made very little progress on my big items which are really going to move the ball forward for me in the long run. I was to wrapped up in the daily minutia of it all.

Eat your frogs first
So what to do? This week I am working the plan backwards. One of my goals for the week is to eat my big frog first every day. When I made my plan for the week there were three projects I wanted to get done, or at least make progress on this week. These are my big goals I am working towards right now. I am going to make sure that these items are moved forward and worked on every day before I get to my list of to-dos for the day. After all, is it more important that I complete my big items or install that new software I downloaded?

My challenge for you
I challenge you to figure out what three things you should be working on first. If you are having problems figuring those out go back to January 1st and look at your New Year’s resolutions? Your resolutions list for the year probably did not include things like checking comments on your blog or checking Facebook. It probably had larger items like start the new business, pass a certification or lose 20 pounds. These items on this list are your big frogs and should be tackled first.

If you do not have a list then make one now. Figure out three to five items that you want to accomplish in the next year or two. Once you have those figured out you will know what you need to eat first every morning.

What tips do you have in making sure you get the important things in your life done?

Photo Credit

How to go from inbox 80,000 to zero, and stay there

Dean Ouellette — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 15:19:37 +0000

What your life feels like before inbox zero

Last week I wrote about how I manage my inbox zero on a daily basis, but it is a lot easier for me when I start every day at or near zero. What about for someone who has an inbox of over 80,000 and wants to try to be an email productivity ninja?

Well a good friend Jay Thompson is in just that situation. He recently attended one of my seminars on productivity and said he was interested in trying to manage his inbox better, but when he looked at his inbox of over 80,000 he gets overwhelmed.

As someone who always had thousands and thousands of emails in his inbox, and never thought twice about it, I can assure you that getting to an inbox zero will be a relief off your shoulders that you cannot imagine. Even if you do not think there is an issue with all those emails there, in your subconscious there is this lingering feeling going on that is making you uneasy.

When I first made the decision to work on being an inbox zero ninja in late 2010 I looked at my Google Apps email inbox, and there were a little over 12,000 emails in my inbox. I spent about two hours a day between Christmas and New Years deleting, archiving and labeling every one of those emails so on New Years Eve I was at zero.

I do not recommend this for Jay. As a matter of fact, if I had to do it all again this is probably not the approach I would have taken within Gmail.

For Jay, or anyone in the situation where they have thousands of emails in their inbox, I would recommend starting a folder or label called Before-Zero or Archives or anything like that. I would then select every email you have, uncheck all the emails from today as we are going to work on those first and then move them to that new label you just created.

Guess what, now you are at inbox zero, less the emails from today, and you are off to a good to start.

Now for your next two exercises.

The first thing you will need to do is learn how to check your email. The second thing you will need to do is learn how to process your email. No, they are not the same things.

There is a couple of key tips to making sure you stay at inbox zero:

Try and never touch an email more than once. When you open it, do something with it.
Unsubscribe. Use that unsubscribe button as often as possible.
When its time to process rid the inbox of everything. Everything has a place.

I don’t care if you check your email first thing in the morning or not. To me there is value in checking your email early. As long as you have developed a system and work the system, you will be able to maintain an inbox zero.

Remember, it does not matter where you are today with your inbox, you cannot change the past. But you do have total control over the future.

Photo Credit

How I process my email for inbox zero

Dean Ouellette — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 01:58:45 +0000

If you read my last post on my effective use of the Pomodoro productivity system, you may not be clear about how I am currently managing my inbox zero. As I have mentioned before, inbox Zero was something I started in January of 2011 and with varying degrees of success have maintained for the last 15 months. Of those 15 months, the best months have been the last three.

So what am I doing now for inbox zero?

First let me give you the 30,000 foot level then. Will go into details. On weekdays I typically check my email several times a day, but only process my inbox twice a day.

What the heck is the difference?

I want to start with processing emails first because I think if I started with checking first it would not be as easy to follow.

Processing inbox

I will typically process all the emails in my inbox twice a day on week days, then again on Sunday right before I do my weekly review. More coming on that soon too.

When I process my email, I am getting to inbox zero. Every email has a place, and I do what I can and make sure it gets there. My first task, after setting my Pomodoro timer, is I look through the emails for anything that should be deleted. Before I delete it, I ask myself is this something I can unsubscribe from. If the answer is yes i take the 30-60 seconds it takes to do so. You have no idea how much time this process will save you three months down the road when your inbox starts getting 95 emails a day instead of 146.

Once I delete what I can I then look at any news letters I have, scan them quickly and then either delete or email them over to Evernote with a read tag assigned for later reading.

Next I look at the remaining emails and see if there is anything that may look either time sensitive or maybe it’s an item I can do a required task in less than two minutes. I open these items one at a time. If the email is an action item I either delegate it, do it on the spot if it will take less than two minutes, or forward to Evernote to be placed on my action to do items. Then I either delete or archive the email.

Now once that is done I go to the bottom of the email list, to my oldest item, then start working up one item at a time. I use the same process as I read the email I decide if it is something I can just delete, delegate, complete quickly or email to Evernote as a todo item.

Once my inbox is at zero, usually takes about ten minutes once you get the system down, then I head to Evernote and make sure all the action items end up in a todo today list or a master action list for a future to-do session. You guessed it, more on that later.

And somewhere between 15-20 minutes after I started my inboxes are empty and that burden is off my shoulders. I can assure you, if you have never been an inbox zero person, and you become one, you will never wish you went back to that 15,000 inbox again.

Checking email

Now many people who look at my system and use a system of processing email twice a day will tell you that is all you need to check your email. They are probably right. At times, that is all I have checked it, and I survived quite well, but I check it more often.

As I mentioned in my Pomodoro post, I work hard for 25 minutes then take 5 minutes for me. During this time, I do what I want and often I will open up my google apps account and look quickly at my emails.

When I do this, here are the rules I try to live by:

Only look for email that may be time sensitive, something you were waiting for or motion critical If i open it and it is not one of those things I get out ASAP and move on If it is I process that email now and don’t wait.
I try and never open an email more than once. I am successful at this maybe 60% of the time.
There you have it. This is the system that has worked best for me over the past 15 months. It is not the only system, but it’s the one the Productive Dad uses. Let me know your system and remember.

I have never heard anyone who had an inbox zero say ”damn I wish I had more emails in my inbox”.

Next up how to get to zero when you are starting at 80k and what tools to make sure you never lose an email. This one will be dedicated to Jay Thompson

Pomodoro: Show the tomato some love

Dean Ouellette — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 17:43:38 +0000

My Little Pomodoro System

Been a while

It has been a while since I have blogged. That does not mean I have not been practicing productivity procedures, far from it. It just means I was deciding what to do with this blog. I have been blogging a lot about my physical and fitness transformation over at See Your Toes, but I have missed blogging here too. So here I am.

What has changed since I last blogged here? A lot! I have become even better at maintaining my inbox of zero and I will be discussing that over the next couple of weeks. I have become an Evernote fanatic, so much so that I have dropped my much loved Wunderlist and now use Evernote for my to do list too. Again, more to come on that in the coming weeks. Also I have adopted the Pomodoro System.

Love the tomato

What is the Pomodoro System? Think of it as setting the kitchen egg timer to 25 minutes and working as hard and as focused as you can for those 25 minutes. During that 25 minutes, you focus on the one thing you have at hand and get as much done as possible. At the end of the 25 minutes, your timer goes off, and you stop. Then you take a 5 minute break and rinse and repeat.

I use the “My Little Pomodoro” app for my MacBook Pro. All I need to do is hit begin, and it starts counting down and then when it goes off I hit break and it counts down from 5 minutes. As a matter of fact, I set it as I started writing this and right now I can see I have about 19:38 left until it goes off.

So how am I doing this?

I have my “To-Do” list broken up to a few parts such as

Real Estate
Political
Health/Fitness
Other

Each of my to-do items for the day is under one of those categories. Again, stay tuned for upcoming posts on Evernote and how I break these up and organize them. So when I sit down in the morning I look at what my big frogs are for the day, the three things I need to make sure I get done. Then my first three 25 minute Pomodoro segments are going to be dedicated to those.

So let’s say my big three for the day are

Write Executive Summary (Real Estate)
Call to set up PAC fundraising meeting later this month (Politics)
Write a blog post (Other)

My first three items of the day will be to spend a 25 minute segment on each of those. This way I can be assured I have made some progress on my important to-do items before the minutia starts adding up and taking over.

Once those three items are done, and I go on to the next Pomodoro time slot, things may not be as clear. Let’s say I get done my 25 minutes of each and I am done those three things for the day. Now for my next 25 minute segment I may look at my real estate section, look at all my to-do items for the day and just start going through them getting as much done and checked off as I can in that allotted time.

Now during these 25 minute segments my email will be closed, phone will be on silence and all distractions will be gone unless it is something I need to complete the tasks at hand. If I am doing my real estate and I need to send some emails it may be open, but I am not checking new emails.

During the 5 minute down time is when I will use the restroom, get more coffee or water, look quickly through my email to see if anything urgent or check Google Plus, Twitter, Look at TPD Facebook page, Google Reader, Drudge Report etc.

The key for me is to eliminate distractions as much as possible and just plow as hard as you can through those 25 minutes. I am always amazed how much I can complete in 25 minutes when I eliminate the distractions, and now little I get done when those distractions are there.

Now this works for me; there is no guarantee it will work for you. I would love to hear from you, have you used the Pomodoro system or what system do you use to make sure your productivity level stays high?

Paleo salad dressing: Make healthy dressing in 2 minutes

Dean Ouellette — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 16:08:49 +0000

When you eat a real food diet or a paleo diet you are going to end up eating a lot of vegetables. Eating lots of vegetables will undoubtedly mean salads. The problem with salads is the salad dressing.

Even the “healthy lite” dressings are really garbage. Go ahead, pick up a bottle of healthy dressing and see if you can read all the ingredients. Also I can promise you there will be either sugar or high fructose corn syrup in there.

In this video I show you how with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, dijon mustard, garlic and chipotle Tabasco sauce you can make a killer dressing in less than two minutes.

Make a little, make a lot, whatever floats your boat. I promise it will taste better than any store bought salad dressing too.

Also make sure you check out my first recipes video when I made paleo ketchup.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8C5jzCKGm0&feature=channel_video_title

How to help your kids with spelling and fitness at the same time

Dean Ouellette — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 03:57:26 +0000

Rachel doing burpees after getting entertainment wrong

So one thing we I do every week is help the kids with spelling words. Somehow it has become my responsibility to really make sure our 8-year old Rachel is ready come the end of the week.

So what do I do on Monday? We break out the list and go through them twice and find out what are the words she already knows. Once we have those segmented out we can break the list she does not know into a few groups and on Monday night, Tuesday and Wednesday we can work on those. By Thursday she should know them all and be ready for a few final run throughs before the test on Friday.

But what happens when she does not now the words by Thursday night? Well, now it is time to really get her focused. When she gets one of the words wrong, as soon as she gets it wrong it is time for either 10 sit-ups, five pushups or three burpees. She really doesn’t like the burpees, so if it is a word she should really have nailed by then, she is doing lots of burpees.

Just a fun and entertaining way to spend time with your kids and help them get a little workout in while they become supa smart.

What to do with Halloween Candy

Dean Ouellette — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 10:00:00 +0000

Don't let halloween be scary for your paleo lifestyle

Getting kids to eat Paleo can be a little tricky at first, but eventually they come around to the goodness of real food. Getting kids to jump on the Paleo bandwagon at Halloween, well that is a whole challenge in and of itself.

This is our first Paleo Halloween and the battle over Halloween candy is about to begin.

We have been doing the Paleo lifestyle for long enough now that my kids understand candy and things that are made of sugar or high fructose corn syrup are harmful to them and make them feel sick after they eat it. Their attitudes about Halloween right now range from, “I don’t want to go” to “I want to go, but know all that candy is bad for me.” So we have worked out a compromise.

Yes, we are going to allow our kids to go trick or treating on Halloween. And yes we are going to allow them to fill their buckets to the brim with Halloween candy, but no they will not be allowed to keep it all.

The deal we have with out kids this Halloween is they get to pick ten pieces of candy they can keep and the rest is going away. We have done a good job I believe in teaching our kids that junk food made of high fructose corn syrup and other artificial ingredients is very harmful. But I would also like to teach them that things in very limited moderation on special occasions are okay.

When we first told our kids about this plan of course the first reaction from our 6 and 8-year olds were tears and lots of “that’s not fair!” They wanted their Halloween candy and this damn eating real food thing was getting in their way. But over the last couple of weeks they have grown to accept the changes with the Paleo lifestyle and now they look forward to going trick or treating and giving away their candy.

So what to do with all the excess candy we gather?

There are many options you have, and to tell you the truth, I am a little torn on what is the best option.

One option is to donate it to the troops overseas. Many dentists will buy the excess candy from kids and then donate the candy to our overseas troops.

Another option is to donate the candy to local charities or children’s homes.

A third option is to just throw the candy away. And while this may seem like a waste, throwing away all that perfectly fine “food,” I find it much better than the second option. If I believe that candy is extremely harmful for my kids, why would I encourage other kids to eat the junk?

What will my kids be doing with their excess Halloween candy this year? We will probably find one of the local dentists who pay $1 per pound and then they donate it to the troops overseas. At least the troops understand the dangers of candy and they can make up their own mind if they want to partake or not.

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Paleo, why it works for me where 4 Hour Body failed

Dean Ouellette — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 16:11:51 +0000

A big reason 4 Hour Body failed this junkie

The day 4 Hour Body came out I downloaded it to my iPad and started reading it. I think I stayed in bed until about noon that day plowing through the book and immediately started implementing the principles that Tim Ferris laid out in the book.

One thing you need to know about me is I love junk food. Candy bars, ice cream, cupcakes, cookies, fast food, you name it and I ate a lot of it and have a hard time saying no. I have been this way since I was a teenager. When I was in high school it was a rare day when you got in my car and there was not a box of Devil Dogs in my glove box or on my front passenger floor. Ahhhhhh, the good old days when you were a youngster and could eat all that junk and still not gain half a pound.

Between 2006 and 2010 I put on a lot of weight, probably a good 40 pounds. Adding all that weight was having a horrible impact on my life. I noticed as I gained weight my energy level went down, the amount of sleep I required went way up and my productivity fell way off. After starting to read 4 Hour Body I decided this was how I was going to start taking the weight off and taking my life back.

One thing I know is diets don’t work. A diet is a temporary change in your eating habits to take weight off. The only way to keep weight off is with a lifestyle change. I knew I ate way too many carbs and way too much sugar. It was time for a lifestyle change and after reading 4 Hour Body I thought I had found the solution.

The first month of being on the slow carb / low carb diet that is laid out in the 4 Hour Body I had huge success and could easily see myself doing this for a long time. One of my favorite parts of the book was I could eat the low carb diet six days a week, but then on the 7th day, I got a cheat day. Cheat days were great because you could eat whatever you wanted and I would pig out on my sweets to the point where I wouldn’t want to see another sweet for a week.

Usually my cheat day fell on a Saturday. By the time Tuesday or Wednesday started rolling around I would start getting cravings. I tried to stay out of convenience stores because I knew seeing those Rolo’s or donuts, my cravings might get the best of me.

At first when I got those cravings I used the cheat day as my way to push the cravings off. I would tell myself, I don’t need to say no, I just need to tell myself in a couple days. I would even go as far as adding the craving I was having into Evernote so I could quench that craving on Saturday.

I have done the low carb diet routine before and really enjoy it. I have had more success with that, than any other diet in my lifetime. So the first month and a half or so that I was on 4 Hour Body I was good. I know there are a lot of people who have had success with the program, including Shawn over at Back Packing Dad who is currently doing the program.

The one thing that never changed though was the cravings. Even though I had success pushing them off, they never went away. And eventually I fell off the wagon, and then fell off the wagon again, and then once again. Before you knew it I was back to stopping at Circle K three times a week for a Hershey bar, Rolo’s or a thing of Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food.

And wouldn’t you know it, the weight started coming back quicker than I had lost it.

Over the summer I started reading a lot more about diet and nutrition. The more I read, the more I learned just how addictive things like sugar could be. And I knew that was my problem. I was a junkie who was allowing myself a fix one day a week, while the other six days I was staying true to my low carb diet.

The more I read, the more I was blown away by the myths we learn about food and the dangers of the modern diet. I don’t think it is a coincidence, and there is plenty of evidence out there to support it, that the current human diet since the agricultural revolution has caused many of the problems we see today. The more I read the more I was intrigued by the Paleo diet and the Paleo lifestyle. To me a Paleo diet is basically eating real food, nothing processed.

Many people I talk to about it ask me, “Isn’t Paleo just like a low carb diet, or the 4 Hour Body diet without the beans?” In many ways yes, but there are some big differences.

I do not count carbs. I can eat basically any food that is natural like vegetables, fish, meat etc. I try to stay away from super starchy foods like potatoes, but in general if it is not processed, then I can eat it. The Paleo diet allows me to eat when I am hungry, but also because I am eating foods that are high in fat and protein I do not get hungry nearly as often as when I ate a lot of processed foods that were typically high in carbs.

Another big difference between the 4 Hour Body and Paleo diet, besides beans, is the cheat day. With the Paleo diet there is no cheat day. And this has been my biggest reason for success with Paleo where 4HB failed me. Like I said, I am basically a full blown junk food junkie. And the only way to truly break an addiction is to give something up completely. How many drug addicts can take a hit now and then, or how many gambling addicts can lay down a bet now and then without falling off the wagon? Not many. Not me.

Now am I saying I will never eat a sweet again? No. But the great thing about being Paleo so long is I really have completely lost those cravings. They are gone. I can see a cupcake and not get a craving to have one, or two or three. I no longer look at a tub of Ben and Jerry’s as a treat. How is it a treat to put all that shit in your body? To me, the treat is how great I feel physically every day.

If you ever wonder how wheat and grains effect your body give them up for while. Then eat them for a day and see how you feel the next day. While I have not done this in months, one thing I have done is had a few beers at the game with buddies. While beer may not be your typical junk food, it does have lots of grains and gluten in it. And I can tell you, the next day after having half the beers I used to drink, my stomach feels like crap.

So that is why Paleo has worked for me whereas 4 Hour Body failed. I am a junkie, and with a junkie you cannot have cheat days, because those cheat days never allow you to truly break the addiction.

If you want more information on Paleo and real food I highly recommend you read Mark’s Daily apple, and if you want to learn more while being truly entertained make sure you watch Fat Head the movie which you can stream on Netflix.

The Productive Dad

Be more productive in Evernote using templates

Related Posts:

My new e-book, Evernote for Real Estate

Related Posts:

How sometimes “Being Productive” is not so productive

Related Posts:

How to go from inbox 80,000 to zero, and stay there

Related Posts:

How I process my email for inbox zero

Related Posts:

Pomodoro: Show the tomato some love

Related Posts:

Paleo salad dressing: Make healthy dressing in 2 minutes

Related Posts:

How to help your kids with spelling and fitness at the same time

Related Posts:

What to do with Halloween Candy

Related Posts:

Paleo, why it works for me where 4 Hour Body failed

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