Here are some interesting posts from around the ‘Net to catch up with over the weekend:
What are you reading this weekend?
FilerFrog is a neat Windows utility that adds a bunch of useful file handling tools to your context (right-click) menu, handling tasks like moving files and image resizing. As it only adds one top-level item, it won’t clutter your context menu, but all the tools are just a couple of clicks away. FilerFrog used to be a commercial product, but it’s now available for free.
Here’s a rundown of the things that FilerFrog can do:
FilerFrog is a free download, with versions available for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows machines.
Let us know what you think of FilerFrog in the comments.
Most of us are probably an expert in something, and we naturally get questions from people who want to learn more about our area of expertise. It is relatively easy to just jot down a few paragraphs, grab a couple of links and send off that email to the person asking the question. But think about how many times you’ve answered a similar question over the past month or the past year. Those 15 minutes chunks start to add up really quickly when you multiply them out across dozens of requests. That’s where reducing, reusing and recycling your work can have huge productivity benefits over time.
Today, for example, I met with someone who is moving into her first community manager position. After the meeting, I sent what looked like a pretty impressive list of 17 links to relevant information, but it took me less than five minutes to compile what she needed because I had most of it available in canned responses and other online documentation. Being prepared and ready with common answers allows you to be extremely responsive with details and comprehensive answers to questions without spending much time on them at all. Here are a few of the things that I do to reduce, reuse and recycle my work.
Don’t underestimate the power of online documentation. These frequently asked questions are a great way to come up with ideas for blog posts or other documentation that you can reuse over and over. I use my personal blog to publish most of my community management posts, and I have a “getting started” page where I’ve collected the posts that provide a good introduction to community management. A wiki is another good option for reusable documentation when you are working as part of a project, team or online community. The community that I manage has a wiki where we collaborate on FAQs, guidelines, technical documentation and many other documents. When I start to see questions coming up in the community on a common topic, it is often a sign that something isn’t well documented.
After your core set of documentation is established, many individual questions can be answered by sending a link or two. Whether you use a blog, wiki, collaboration tool or website, spending a few minutes writing online documentation now can save hours later when you reuse it again and again.
Once you have a good set of online documentation, you can start organizing it into collections and FAQ documents. I mentioned that I have a “starting point” page on my blog that simply links to collections of documentation, organized by topic. I also do this in the online community with FAQ documents and pages that organize information to make it easier for people to find. In many cases this lets me send people a single link or a couple of links that provide them with a whole collection of information on a particular topic. As I add new content, I go back occasionally to these collections and add additional information or links to some newer documentation on the topic.
When someone emails you with a question and you take the time to put together a complete, thoughtful answer, you should store it as a canned response ready for the next person who asks a similar question. I often use the canned response functionality in Gmail to do this, and your email client might have something similar available, but if not, you can always store snippets of emails for reuse in a text file or your favorite note-taking application. Now, I’m not saying that you should just blast these out to people as-is. I usually take the time to personalize them and add a little more information that is especially relevant to their situation. Each time I use one of these canned responses, I also take the time to see if it needs to be updated with some new information or additional links and then I save those changes for the next time I need to use it.
Most of my canned responses are actually collections of links to online documentation, so three ideas aren’t separate as much as they build on each other. You could also use the same techniques within a corporate environment with private collaboration tools inside your firewall. Whether the information is public or private, having great online documentation formed into collections and used as canned responses to inquiries is a great way to reduce, recycle and reuse your work.
What are your tips for reusing work?
Photo by Flickr user Nick Bramhall used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.
Some people use their email for everything — storing files, emailing notes to themselves, etc. If you fit that description, you should check out Notes for Later. It’s a simple free service that’s useful for keeping making notes of websites to remember at a later date. Sign up, and the site generates a custom bookmarklet that, when clicked, sends an email to your inbox containing the current web page’s URL, the time and date and any text that you’ve highlighted on the page.
Of course, there are plenty of other, more powerful services that are probably more suited to this kind of task already: bookmarking tools like Delicious and note-taking tools like Evernote, for example. However, for the person who spends most of their time in their inbox, Notes for Later is simple and extremely quick to use: Just highlight your text (if required) and click the button. Then when you need to find a note, it’s just a question of searching your inbox.
Each note is stored in a separate email with the URL of the page saved as its subject line; if you’re going to be using the tool extensively, I’d recommend creating a new folder and a filter or inbox rule to keep the Notes for Later emails out of your main inbox. It should also be possible to use the tool for collaborative note-taking — if a team was doing research, for example, they could all send notes to a central email address.
What do you think of Notes for Later?
When Windows 7 launched last year, Microsoft offered a discounted Windows 7 “Family Pack.” It was a boxed package that contained the Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade for both 32- and 64-bit systems and a product key that could be used on up to three machines; at $150, it was a pretty good deal for families — and workers with more than one machine to upgrade. Unfortunately, the Family Pack was only available in limited quantities, and was sold out in the U.S by December.
The good news is that, in time for Windows 7′s first anniversary on October 3rd, Microsoft is bringing back the Family Pack. It’s the same deal as before — three upgrade licenses for $150, although you’ll probably be able to find it a bit cheaper online. If you haven’t already upgraded your machines to Windows 7, it’s definitely worth considering as, once again, it’s only available “while stocks last.” The Family Pack will also be sold in Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Australia and “many other markets” on or after October 22nd to mark Windows 7′s first anniversary in those territories.
Have you upgraded to Windows 7 yet?
“Forge your own path. Discover a route from one place to another that hasn’t been paved, measured, and quantified. So many times we want someone to tell us exactly what to do, and so many times that’s exactly the wrong approach.” – Seth Godin, LinchpinMy friend Betsy Talbot and her husband Warren are forging their own path and making their own way. Two years ago, they decided that they wanted to travel the world. Life was too short, they decided, to wait for that dream life to magically create itself. They had to figure out a way to make things happen — their own way, right now. They created a plan for saving money and paring down to make room for an around-the-world trip of one to two years, and one month from now on October 1, just over two years from originally setting out their intentions, they will be embarking on an adventure of a lifetime.
Betsy and Warren’s story is very inspiring, but unfortunately, the most probable initial reaction as an outsider is to think, “I could never do something like that. I have [x, y, z] obligations, and anyway, even if I wanted to do it, I wouldn’t know where to start.” The thing is, I have known Betsy for many years now, and she’s just like a lot of other people I know, myself included, and yet, somehow she and Warren have made this happen, so what’s their secret?
One thing that struck me that Betsy said recently was, “I’m becoming more comfortable with the unknown.” I don’t think it occurred to her that she and Warren had become comfortable with the unknown quite some time ago.
I’ve watched them carry out their plan over the past couple of years, and at almost every step of that journey, they were not exactly sure what to do or how things would go, and yet, they kept going and remained confident that they would figure things out along the way, and that’s exactly what they did.
As business owners, we have to get used to not having all the answers, knowing that if the answers were easily found, anyone and everyone could attempt to start a business, and they would all succeed at it.
I think our first instinct, anytime we don’t have the answers or when things don’t seem to be moving along as smoothly as we might have expected, is to think, “I must be doing something wrong,” when in all likelihood, it’s just that what we’re doing has never been done before in quite the same way, and maybe that’s a good thing.
Instead of immediately thinking we should change course and do things the way someone else has done them, perhaps we might step back and ask ourselves, “Is there really one answer, one right way to do this? Has this even been done before, or do I simply need to become comfortable with creating my own way?”
Perhaps the biggest part of it is learning to stay the course, even when the course doesn’t yet exist. There’s no path laid out ahead of you, and you’re learning to navigate as you go. Learn to keep going, in spite of not having clear directions. Create a plan you believe is most likely to succeed by studying the cues of those who have succeeded before you, but accept that you are forging a new path in many ways, so the answers may not always be immediately available.
How have you learned to become comfortable with the unknown?
Photo by Flickr user VinothChandar, licensed under CC 2.0
For many of us, brainstorming is a lot like play: it’s something we used to do in the golden age of youth, but these days, we have serious work to do, and have no time for futzing around with different colored pens and butcher paper.
In some workplaces and industries, a strong reliance on processes can reduce the perceived need, opportunity and respect for brainstorming as a valid work process. Where brainstorming does take place, it’s often on a “corporate retreat” and adopts a cheesy, hackneyed air — the inference being that it’s not “real work.”
I find brainstorming an immensely helpful process, and I think one of the reasons it’s so commonly dismissed as a frivolity is that few people actually know how to take the outputs of brainstorming and apply them to whatever it is they’re supposed to be doing. Here, I’d like to outline some tips for getting the most out of brainstorming — including applying what you learn.
You don’t need to be a big-shot creative, or part of a team-building exercise, to find brainstorming useful. As an independent freelancer, I find it handy, first and foremost, for starting difficult tasks.
If I’m not sure how to tackle a job, or what to do about a work problem, I can wind up avoiding thinking about it altogether — a very unproductive way to go about things. I find brainstorming an excellent way to get around this problem.
Similarly, brainstorming can really take the pressure off when you’re working on something important. Since brainstorming is unstructured and fun, using it to tackle different work challenges can reduce the performance anxiety I can feel when I’m facing a tough deadline, important client or career-defining project.
Finally, I find brainstorming a fantastic way to innovate, to get disparate thoughts “organized” (or at least work out roughly how they might fit together), and to relieve my thought patterns from the process-oriented tracks they usually run along.
I’ve found these tactics to be especially helpful in making brainstorming a valid, valuable aspect of my work practice.
If you want to be able to use the outputs of your brainstorming exercise, you’ll need to know what kinds of outcomes you want from the work.
Usually for me, the answer to this question is “story ideas” or “pitch angles” or something similar, but obviously it will depend on the task you’re brainstorming. In any case, I usually try to visualize what I’ll have at the end of the process — a list of bullet points, a mind map or a process flow, for example — so that I have some idea of what I’m working toward.
To get the most out of my brainstorming, I usually set limits — or, more specifically, a time limit and an output goal.
The time limit helps me avoid dwelling on any one idea for too long. If I’m only brainstorming for fifteen minutes, I know I have to keep my thoughts moving, and not get bogged down in details. An output goal supports those objectives — it provides motivation for me to keep thinking, and thinking, and thinking, rather than to stop after I get one or two ideas that I think are OK.
I find my ideas go through a bit of a lull in the middle of a brainstorming exercise: the first few ideas might be acceptable, then they head downhill, and then I break through a sort of wall, or get a second wind, and there are a few more good ones. So setting time and output expectations help me to stay on track and produce usable outputs.
I find that it helps me mentally distance myself from my “normal” work processes and thought patterns if I can leave my workspace and brainstorm somewhere else.
If I can’t leave my desk, I usually switch off my monitor and turn myself away from my usual working position. For purely psychological reasons, this seems to help me to clear my mind and focus on doing “something different” from the usual.
My brainstorming is always most effective when I’m not at my desk, and I’m not using my computer. I usually brainstorm using a notepad and pencil — and if I have some, unruled paper works wonders.
I find that my thoughts move more freely when they’re not constricted by the structures applied by software or technology. The paper is really often only there to capture random thoughts and help me remember how I put them together later. In short, using different tools for brainstorming than you would ordinarily use for everyday work can signal new freedom to a tired, restricted mind.
When I’m in idea-generation mode, I try to stick to the mantra that no ideas are dumb ideas (which is definitely easier to believe when you’re brainstorming solo!) and that once they’re noted, I can move on.
This increases brainstorming productivity, but it also helps me not to get too bogged down on the issue of whether an idea is clear, appropriate, or just plain good enough. Whatever it is, I write it down, because my brainstorming philosophy says that once that’s done, I can move on to other ideas.
Once your brainstorming time is up, don’t just throw down your pen and head out for coffee. Take a moment to list your outputs, or formulate them somehow into a usable format.
Then, when you come to apply them in your work, send them to your team mates, or try to extend them further in your next brainstorming session, you’ll have concrete, pragmatic items to work with.
These are the main approaches I use to ensure that my brainstorming work is as productive as possible. What tips can you add from your brainstorming experience?
Is there an area of your life or business where you just can’t seem to get a grip? You try and try, but can never seem to fix it.
I was thinking about this recently over something that’s been plaguing and frustrating me on a daily basis for quite some time — not consistently sticking with an exercise routine, and I started wondering if there was something more to it.
The fact that I don’t exercise more bugs me all the time. “You need to exercise,” or some variation of it, crosses my mind a minimum of ten times a day. That’s ridiculous. The energy, attention, and time I spend on simply thinking about exercising is far greater than what it would take to simply stop everything and actually do it, so what’s the problem? The answer: Something is controlling me. In my case, it’s a schedule.
I feel a constant pull to conform to someone else’s idea of when I should work and what times things should happen: What time to wake up, eat, work out, run errands, go to bed, etc. It’s silly, but true. A schedule (or really some crazy idea I have of what constitutes a “normal” schedule) is controlling me and making me not live the way I want to live. It doesn’t matter that I might function better and be more productive and content following an altogether different routine than everyone else on the planet. No, I’d rather struggle to do things the way everyone else does. I’d rather see how many ways and how many times a square peg will not fit into a round hole.
Why is that I can commit to forging my own path in every other area of my life, but struggle with this one? I think it’s because it’s so easy to become controlled and not live or work the way we really want to live or work. Think about it. Maybe you’ve wanted for many years to:
But, why haven’t you? What’s stopping you from doing what you want to do?
If there’s something in your life or business that you want to do, something that you know would make all the difference in your productivity or contentment, think hard and honestly when answering, “Why am I not doing it?” Are circumstances, other people, your attitude, your complacency, or anything else controlling you?
Once you know (and perhaps admit) that something is, in fact, controlling you, what are you going to do about it? How will you take back your power?
Sometimes simply being aware of something can change the way you approach it. Just having the knowledge that I’m allowing some arbitrary definition of a “normal” schedule control how I live and work makes me reevaluate how I spend my days and, at the very least, question my motives for doing things a certain way.
In the past, what has stopped you from doing things the way you wanted to do them in life and business, and how did you find a way to overcome them?
Photo by Flickr user seantoyer, licensed under CC 2.0
While everyone experiences job-related stress at one time or another, those of us who work mostly or entirely online have a slightly different type of stress. We trade stressful commutes and stressful office environments for the stress that results from spending too many hours in front of the computer with little human interaction. We all need to find ways to deal with stress before it becomes a problem. Over the years, I’ve developed some stress reduction techniques that help me manage stress without letting it get out of control.
First, you need to take a balanced approach to stress by focusing on the things you can control. Most people who have real issues dealing with stress let too many things that are out of their control increase their stress level. If something is out of your control, then worrying about it or dwelling on it to the point that it causes you stress just isn’t productive. Take a step back and think about the problem with an objective eye toward focusing your time and energy on those things that you can control and focusing your work in areas where you can have an impact. Learning to let the rest go and not letting those things that are out of your control increase your stress level is very difficult, but it can be mastered with practice. People who regularly read my posts will notice that this is a common theme for me; in most things, I have learned to focus on a few areas and let the rest go.
Getting regular exercise and keeping your body moving is a time-honored way to reduce stress. Exercise increases your endorphin levels and gives you a boost, which is why I try to exercise during lunch when the weather isn’t too hot because it gives me a nice little break in the middle of the day and lets me hit the afternoon with a fresh burst of exercise-induced energy. This is also a perfect opportunity to get some fresh air and maybe even a little sunshine, depending on where you live. Even if you just get outside long enough to make the trip to the gym, getting out of your home office for a short break and a little fresh air can be useful. On those days where your schedule refuses to cooperate, even a 5-10 minute walk around the block can really help reduce your stress.
Great conversation and laughter with friends is one of my favorite ways to reduce stress. When was the last time you had a nice lunch away from the computer or went to happy hour with some friends after work? Make it a point to plan a couple of activities with friends every week. This doesn’t need to be complicated or time-consuming. Take a 20-minute walk at lunch with a friend, work out or run with a partner, invite a few friends to happy hour or dinner, or even attend some local social events related to your areas of interest. Talking to real people, in person, is a great way to decompress after a long day at work and reduce our stress.
Turn the television off, shut the lid of the laptop and spend a few minutes doing something in the real world that doesn’t involve typing. I love to read, and I try to spend at least 30 minutes every evening with a book — the dead tree kind — to get away from the glare of the computer screen. I also like to turn on some music and cook a real dinner occasionally (you know, the kind of dinner where you recognize the ingredients as something from nature, rather than something out of a box). If you don’t have a hobby, find one, and spend some time relaxing and forgetting about the things that leave you stressed out at the end of the day.
The real key to managing stress is to stay ahead of it by making your stress reduction techniques just another part of your daily routine. By exercising, getting fresh air, socializing with friends and making time for your hobbies, you naturally keep your stress levels down without having to take any drastic measures later.
What are your favorite ways to reduce stress?
Photo by Aaron Hockley of Hockley Photography used with permission.
I was both lucky and blessed to vacation at Rancho La Puerta in Tecate, Mexico, last week. It was a kind of busman’s holiday insofar as I was teaching editing classes four of the six days I was there. But there couldn’t be a more splendid place to do so!
One of the treasured takeaways from my week in paradise was learning about a beautiful way to start the day. I read it in a book that the ranch’s former Fitness Director and now yoga and meditation teacher Phyllis Pilgrim, self-published. Phyllis’ classes gently attuned me to my breathing and my body so that when I left her classes, I felt taller, grounded and centered. I loved the classes so much that when I heard about Phyllis’ book, The Hidden Passport, which describes her early years in Japanese concentration camps during World War II (she was only five years old when her mother, brother and she were led away to the first of four camps), I went straightaway to the mercado (gift shop) and bought a copy.
While hers is an amazing story of resilience and love amidst grueling, inhumane conditions, what I will remember best from the book is the intention that Phyllis’ mother learned from her nanny and used to keep hope alive in the camps:
“See something beautiful, hear something beautiful, and say something beautiful today.”
These simple words can be a powerfully positive portal into your day. Print them out. Post them in your bathroom, on your computer or fridge. Use these words as a morning prayer. They could change your life.
By Anne Simpkinson, July 29, 2010
Anne Simpkinson is the online managing editor of Guideposts.com. She co-authored Soul Work: A Field Guide for Spiritual Seekers and has edited two anthologies Sacred Stories: A Celebration of the Power of Stories to Transform and Heal and Nourishing the Soul: Discovering the Sacred in Everyday Life. Therapy, a spiritual practice, good friends, a lakeside cottage and two cats continue to transform and enrich her life.
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