One of my readers thought it would be funny, given my previous post about "faffing," if I made a "NO FAFFING" button for Facebook's Pieces of Flair application! So I did! If you are on Facebook, you can go here to install the "Pieces of Flair" application and then search for "faffing" to find this button. I just posted it, so it may not be in the Flair directory until an hour or two from now (Tuesday evening).
Related posts:
I am going to be writing articles again every other week now for Lifehack.org, one of the leading productivity blogs (over 68,000 subscribers!). (See the lower left sidebar of our blog's home page for a complete list of my previous Lifehack articles.)
Today on Lifehack I saw an article called "5 Ways to Get Out of Faffing Mode." What is faffing? According to Urban Dictionary, it means to waste time doing stupid things that are not necessary. The author of this article, Steven Aitchison, says it's "the art of doing something without achieving anything." Like checking your e-mail too many times? Hmm? Anyone relate?
Steven recommends that you get clear on your outcome and give yourself rewards... read more here. I have found it very interesting to use Rescue Time to monitor my computer usage, which has REALLY cut down on my own faffing! (See my previous post, "Honesty Check! How Do You REALLY Spend Your Time?"
Are you faffing RIGHT NOW? (LOL!)
I just found out from Kim Komando that there is this great site called "BRINGO" at www.nophonetrees.com that lets you immediately talk to a human being when you're trying to call a big company, like a lender, insurance company, or airline. You go to their site, find the company you want to speak with, enter your phone number, and they call YOU back.
I just tried it with AT&T/Cingular. First Bringo calls you, and I mean IMMEDIATELY, and you press # to verify your number. That is a one-time set up. Then they call you back again and you are connected. When I tried it, the guy answered "hello," so it was really very direct, definitely not a main public line! This saves tons of time vs. navigating through a confusing system and waiting in the queue!
Another way to save time on the phone (and aggravation!)...When you need to do complex calling between multiple parties, such as calling a health care provider and an insurance company to explain who has paid whom... it's great to do 3-way calling and add in both parties so they can hear what each other are saying. You get rid of the volleying-of-responsibility problem that you often run into in these situations. I have done this many times with disputes in health insurance, and I am sure you can think of other instances that this is helpful. Many people have 3-way calling on their phones and never use it.
Try Bringo and let us know in the comments how you liked it and what happened. I'm a believer!
I recently tested a couple of great resources for people who are managing a busy family's schedule.
Cozi, at www.cozi.com, and AirSet, at www.airset.com, are both really solid online scheduling tools for multiple people. (logos shown here from their respective websites) Both applications would be ideal if you have a computer in or very near your kitchen or in another very highly-trafficked area of your home.
Cozi Pros & Cons: They have a desktop download that automatically syncs with its online component, so you don't necessarily have to be online all the time to use it. The grocery list feature is AMAZING...you can get your grocery list text-messaged to you while in the store, and you can text it over to your spouse as well! Don't forget the milk, honey! They even have a recipe interface with Betty Crocker. Cozi is definitely more oriented toward families, with a photo on the home page of the application and a journal feature to capture little family memories. Each family member has a color code, and all appointments are shown with this code. The design is simple, intuitive, and beautiful. I have not found anything wrong with this application, except that I wish it featured a contact manager. I think that families often need to share contact information and this would be a natural component. Cost: Free.
AirSet Pros & Cons: AirSet can be well-used by a family, but it is set up to use as a workplace tool as well. It doesn't have the cool grocery list text messaging feature, but it does have LOTS of other tools as part of its very thorough interface. Shared calendaring is a given, and it also has contacts, which Cozi does not. It has a blog, a wiki, and even shared playlists and photo albums. It is very impressive, and many small businesses might do well to utilize AirSet as a substitute for networking with Outlook. You can also manage multiple groups from one place, such as a work group and a family group, maybe a team or other organization, etc. The only downside is that its multi-featured interface does not feel quite as simple or user-friendly as Cozi. It is very easy to use, however... just in comparison it's not as streamlined. Cost: Free, with an upcharge for mobile phone syncing.
What do you think? Has anyone used either of these regularly? I have only tested them but don't use them on a daily basis.
I heard Sandra Yancey, founder of eWomen Network, speak recently and really enjoyed it. She is one of many speakers I've heard who have quoted the idea that "you ARE the average of the five people you spend the most time with." This idea includes everything, from your actual net worth to the values and interests and quality of life that you have.
One of the big cellular phone providers has a promotion going on about your "Fave Five" people that you call frequently, and they are putting the question out there about who your Fave Five would be. So in the spirit of this "averaging" idea, ask yourself, "Who are your Fave Five?" You can decide for yourself if family "counts" or not-- the idea is that you take stock for a moment of the most important relationships in your life that are influencing who you are and who you will become.
When you boil it down, organizing our lives is ultimately about arranging our world to support us in becoming who we aspire to be, and it also includes decluttering the relationships that are not serving us. Is someone in your "Fave Five" contributing to your having less value, less freedom, less encouragement, less belief in yourself? Is someone's chaotic life bleeding over into your own? Do you aspire to the qualities that these people display to the world? Are these relationships positive? Do you WANT TO be the average of these particular five people?
Maybe your Fave Five needs decluttering... this is not an easy thing sometimes, but it doesn't always have to be a big visible ordeal like a divorce. It can be a shift, a different choice of how you spend your time. Just start by being conscious of your choices for your "Fave Five."
We've talked before about keeping a time log of how you spend your hours. To me, this is not necessarily something you'd want to do ongoing, but more of an exercise in awareness. It takes some time and energy just to do the logging itself... however, I am testing this software/web application called "Rescue Time" that automatically logs all of the time you spend on your computer on each application or website. It will really keep you honest!
For example, today, since downloading it, I have spent 22 minutes in Outlook and 9 minutes on our company's WebEx Office interface, and 9 minutes here in TypePad writing this post. I also spent 6 minutes on a cooking school website making a reservation for me and my mom to attend a class. It sees all and knows all!! Here is a screenshot of the "dashboard" where you can see how you've spent your time in graphical form. Click the thumbnail to see a larger version.
It logs everything you are spending time on, and then you can "tag" it with labels, like "work," "personal," "writing," etc. You only have to tag an application or site once, and then it logs it that way thereafter. So over time, I can get an absolutely accurate chart of where my time is spent in the categories that I want to track.
This is a great way to get a grip on the truth about how you spend your workday in front of your computer... WITHOUT having to painstakingly log it yourself. And if you spend MUCH more time on e-mail than you would like, for example, you can set "goals" to help you with changing your habits. Give it a try and let us know what you think!
I am always telling people to time themselves doing tasks they don't like, so you can be more aware of time in general and even conquer procrastination (read my recent post about this here).
Sometimes you might want to time yourself because you need to have a limit on that activity and you need to get on to other things. There is a little-known feature of the iPod called the "Sleep Timer." On my device it's under the "Clock" menu (also found in the "Extras" menu). Your device may vary-- share with us in the comments where you find it if yours is different. You can choose either 15, 30, 60, 90, or 120 minutes and it will automatically shut off the iPod when the time is up.
Today, for example, I wanted to spend 30 minutes on a home-related project before I started working in my office (for my "garage floor makeover" project we just had to take everything out of the garage and today I was putting the remainder of it back). I know that I am probably twice as productive doing this while listening to audiobooks, so I like having my iPod on. I set the Sleep Timer for 30 minutes, so when it turned off, I knew it was time to get to my work.
You could use this feature to time your organizing projects, remind you to make a phone call, remind you to stop and pick up the kids, or remind you to come in from the yardwork and have a water break... be creative! (Oh, yeah, you can also use it for its intended purpose of turning off your iPod when you go to sleep with it!)
I am always telling people to time themselves doing tasks they don't like. For example, if you time yourself folding a load of laundry, you'll find it takes only about 3 minutes. Knowing this makes it easier to conquer procrastination! It can also be good to time yourself if you are writing procedures or figuring out how to delegate something.
I was looking recently for stopwatch software for my computer, so I could time myself doing some things like bill paying and the like... I found XNote Stopwatch on Download.com, which is both a stopwatch and a timer. It's a nice piece of shareware (you can pay for it if you like it). I found out that it only took me 17 minutes to pay bills, and it only took me 16 minutes to update this tracking spreadsheet I have in our business that I dread.
Whether you use a stopwatch on your computer or a handheld timer or watch, time yourself this week doing something and comment here and let us know how long it really took!
In most of the US and Canada, we will be getting an extra hour of time next weekend, Sunday, November 4th. Because of Daylight Savings Time, we'll be "falling back" and gaining one hour...
What will you do with your extra hour? Sleep? Read? Exercise? What would you do if you had an extra hour every day?
I ran into a blog recently called How To Wake Up Early. Getting up earlier is one sure fire way to put an extra hour or more into your day! This blog is for people who are serious about wanting to get up earlier and it gives a bunch of tips for changing your habits to do this.
Enjoy your extra hour, and don't forget to set ALL of your clocks back Saturday before going to bed... don't forget the ones in your car!
One thing many of our clients have in common is the need to outsource services. They have way too much to do, and in order to manage their time and their lives, they need child care, pet care, senior care, and other services. I have just run into a brand new service online that matches up people with caregivers of all kinds-- www.care.com.
What a great idea! You sign up for free and you can search for caregivers and tutors in your area. With a premium membership, you get background checks included and can check references on the listed providers.
We are always telling people to get help and not try to do everything themselves, and we are seeing more and more clients caught in the "sandwich generation" between caring for young children and older parents at the same time. This is a great solution to help you easily find a qualified person.
This resource is a great way to delegate and clear some things off your own schedule. What else could you get off your plate today? See also my article for Lifehack.org on "How to Clone Yourself."
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