WorkloadMaster

Article: If (no) Then yes; loop

Bob Patterson — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:27:18 +0000

Here’s another excellent post by Eddie Smith from blog, Practically efficient. Eddie is an actuary by day and productivity geek by night. His blog is rapidly becoming one of my favorites with is short and simple takes on living and working more effectively. It has found a home in my RSS reader. Check it out.

If (no) Then yes; loop
http://www.practicallyefficient.com/2011/10/19/no/

I’ve learned that saying no is extremely important, though. And it only gets more important (and harder) the more successful and productive you become.

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Article: Here lies X. He was so busy.

Bob Patterson — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 16:54:12 +0000

Here’s an excellent post from one of my favorite blogs, Practically Efficient.

Here lies X. He was so busy.
http://www.practicallyefficient.com/2011/08/19/busy/

If you provide any form of client services, please don’t tell your clients that you’re busy. If you do, and your clients are like me, what they’ll hear is “I’m spread too thin, and my priorities are unclear.”

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Article: The Most Common Regrets People Have on Their Deathbed (That You Can Avoid Now) [Life]

Bob Patterson — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 13:53:56 +0000

I saw this on another blog recently and thought it was a good thing to share at the end of the week.

Enjoy.

The Most Common Regrets People Have on Their Deathbed (That You Can Avoid Now) [Life]
http://lifehacker.com/5807794/regrets-people-have-on-their-deathbed++that-you-can-avoid-now

There may be no better way to learn about life than by listening to people who are facing death. A palliative nurse has posted five of the most common regrets people have in the last few weeks of their lives—lessons for us all now.

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Outlook 2010 Task List Size Adjustment

Bob Patterson — Sat, 14 May 2011 20:14:35 +0000

Some monitors (especially older ones) won’t display your custom task list properly. Fortunately there’s a simple fix for this by making one change to the task pad (task list) view settings. Here’s a quick video that shows you how.

Article: The Power of Tweaking – by Dumb Little Man

Bob Patterson — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 16:00:24 +0000

I once had boss who would say “What gets measure gets done.” While I didn’t like the guy, these words have stuck with me over the years.

Today I saw a post on The Dumb Little Man blog about this very subject. I like it because the writer has applied this concept to small business and our personal lives.

The link is below if you would like to know more.

The Power of Tweaking – by Dumb Little Man
http://feeds.feedburner.com/dumblittleman

It’s very good to have a strong mind and be persistent, but ignoring reality is not the way to go if you want to get results

Enjoy!

Bob

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Article: WiseStamp for Email Marketing and Social Signatures

Bob Patterson — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:37:32 +0000

WiseStamp for Email Marketing and Social Signatures
http://smallbiztrends.com/2011/04/wisestamp-email-marketing-social-signatures.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SmallBusinessTrends+%28Small+Business+Trends%29

Social email seems redundant. Every so often, I hear the term and I have to think: Isn’t all email social? What I think social email means is that you make yourself more accessible by way of a smart, link-friendly signature in your email.

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This is a very slick tool for adding social media (particularly LinkedIn)links to your e-mail messages. BTW this comes from Small Business Trends, a must read for any small business owner.

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Good words for the new year

Bob Patterson — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 19:25:48 +0000

I saw this quote at my health club and thought you would enjoy it to begin the year. I like it so much that I plan to use it in an upcoming productivity pointer.

If you’re not on the distribution list use the form in the sidebar on the right. I promise not to spam you.

If you like to collect quotes below is the text so that you can copy it:

“Every man is enthusiastic at times. Sometimes for 30 minutes, sometimes for 30 days. but its the man who has it for 30 years who makes a success of life!”
– Edward Butler

Interview with LinkedIn Expert Crystal Thies

Bob Patterson — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 15:10:45 +0000

If it’s important to your business and/or career to network with others then using LinkedIn (the professional social networking site) correctly can streamline the process.

Earlier this year LinkedIn expert and consultant, Crystal Thies, wrote a guest post on this site about the Three Top LinkedIn Tips. That one post has generated so much interest that I asked Crystal to do an interview to discuss her system in more detail. When she was in town for a speaking engagement recently she was nice enough to carve out some time form her busy schedule to sit down with me.

She is an excellent resource so it will be well worth your time to listen. Just click the link below.

Click Here to listen

For more information about Crystal Thies and how to leverage LinkedIn to grow your business (and career) visit her website Crystal Clear Buzz

Link to Crystal’s LinkedIn Profile

Crystal’s Twitter address is crystalcleabuz (note it’s only one “z”)

Crystal’s interview can also be found on the On Target Podcast but I included a link here for your convenience. Please feel free to listen here or download it for later. If you’re an iTunes subscriber you can add the podcast to your feed by clicking here.

Photo by Mark Jen

Interactive Microsoft Office migration guides to save time

Bob Patterson — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 20:30:24 +0000

If you’re making the switch from Microsoft Office 2003 to 2007 or 2010 you may find the Ribon (menu system) difficult to navigate.

If you’re working from a home computer it may seem surprising that people still use Office 2003. However a high percentage of corporate and institutional users have stuck with 2003 rather than upgrade.

Why? First, Office 2003 meets most users’ needs and second it is very costly to upgrade hundreds and even thousands of work stations. However that’s changing because Microsoft no longer supports 2003. And rumors have it that they are offering large clients free upgrades to newer versions.

As a result we are hearing from many of our Outlook clients about how to switch. Their biggest issue is that Ribbon.

Fortunately Microsoft has posted an Interactive Migration Guide on their web site for each of the Office products.

It’s pretty cool. Pick your program (Outlook, Excel, Word etc.) then use the virtual menu to select your command in question. It then shows you how to accomplish the same task in 2010. Office 2007 is very similar to 2010 so it will be helpful too.

Give it a try.

Use Gmail as a productivity tool

Bob Patterson — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 14:43:16 +0000

Gmail can be a very powerful time management tool, particularly if you receive lots of e-mail (and who doesn’t these days). It has a ton of add ins that can streamline the process and gives makes management on a mobile device a snap.

A few weeks ago I embarked on a new journey by switching all of my e-mail management to the Gmail client. This was a big change for me since Outlook is such a big part of my personal management system. At first I was a little nervous, but as I became more comfortable with the user interface and additional tools, I was hooked.

I used Gmail for years for a personal e-mail address but didn’t give it much thought as a business tool. In a span of a few weeks several clients had told me that they switched everything to the platform. I was skeptical at first, but the more I looked into it the more sense it made for me.

Best for small businesses and soloists

I have to add that this approach makes more sense for small businesses and solo operators than it does for individuals on corporate networks. But it also gives the little guy the same functionality and ease-of-use enterprise Blackberry users have had for years.

Many people have asked me why I made the switch since I spend a great deal of time teaching time management with Outlook. Like all technology it’s a matter of personal choice, not unlike choosing a pair of shoes. The fit is individual.

Here are my main reasons:

I switched to Outlook (Office) 2010 to become familiar enough with it to create a new version of our Master Your Workload with Outlook. Unfortunately 2010’s contacts no longer sync with Gmail contacts without jumping through a number of hoops. I looked at moving my contacts to Gmail and it made sense. Besides I’m a big fan of cloud applications. When I update a contact on my mobile device (right now I’m using the Android), desktop or laptop everything is changed at the source. No more synchronizing.
Same thing with e-mail. I set forwarded all of my company e-mail boxes to my Gmail account and now I can manage everything live at the source no matter which device I use. And I’m able to take advantage of Google’s IMAP. As a longtime Blackberry user I had found the POP e-mail clunky on the Android, often not receiving messages. Now that everything is in one place I haven’t missed anything.
Using Gmail’s labels and filters gives you the ability to identify messages coming from multiple e-mail addresses. And I find them to be easier to use and versatile than Outlook’s Rules.
If you use the right tools you can make your inbox do double duty as a mail receiving dock and as an adjunct to your task list. I don’t advocate letting everything sit in your inbox so that you can use it as a task list. But by using labels and filters correctly you can quickly archive e-mails (get them out of your inbox) and view them later as tasks. This saves converting them to separate tasks. If you are a fan of the Getting Things Done (GTD) approach you can make it mimic your lists.

In fact there’s a cool Gmail application called Action Inbox that allows you to manage your e-mail using GTD lists. I hope to have the creator as a guest on our podcast soon.

What’s the catch?

On the downside, the task tool in Gmail is weak…very weak. But if most of your activity is driven by e-mail then it may not be a problem. Also, you are at the mercy of the gods at Google.
Last week a friend told me that she had a Gmail virus that spammed everyone on her list in a matter of minutes. Google immediately shut her down and it took hours to resolve the problem. In the meantime she had no access to her contacts and messages.

Be sure to back up everything on a regular basis. Don’t trust your cloud provider, no matter who it is, to make sure your data is safe. You may recall the incident a couple years ago when T-Mobile lost the e-mail of millions of customers. Stuff happens.

Tips and new premium content here

As I use Gmail for my daily work I see how it can easily be integrated into our own WorkloadMaster time management system. I’ll be sharing some tips and tricks here on the blog and will create a series of how-to training videos for our premium members.