Archive for the ‘Getting Things Done’ Category

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iPhone tip: Use a Silent Ringtone to Screen Calls in Your Sleep

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

Have you ever wished your iPhone would ring only when certain people call? Here’s how to do it:

  1. Download the “Silence” ringtone here: silence.m4r
  2. Copy this file into the Ringtones section of your iTunes. (Click to enlarge.)

    adding_ringtone_to_itunes
  3. Sync your iPhone with iTunes to load the ringtone.
  4. On your iPhone, change your ringtone to “Silence” (under Settings -> Sounds -> Ringtone). You’ll no longer hear your phone calls.

    2_iphone_silence_ringtone
  5. For each person whose calls you still want to hear, change his or her Custom Ringtone to something audible: Click the name in your contact list, choose Ringtone, then choose something besides Default

    3_iphone_important_caller 4_iphone_audible_ringtone

Now you can screen calls in your sleep. Because Sunday afternoons are for napping.

Posted in Apple, Communication, Getting Things Done, How To, Mac, Main, Tech, Tips, iPhone | 25 Comments »

3 Uses for iPhone Screenshots

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

For all the iPhone users out there: You probably know you can take a snapshot of whatever you see on your screen:

  1. Briefly press the top and front buttons at the same time.
  2. The screen will flash white and you’ll hear a “snapshot” sound.
  3. A picture of your screen is now in your iPhone “Photos”.

I’ve found it extremely helpful to make screenshots, and I do it all the time. Here are a few reasons:

Remember an Interesting Part of a Podcast

If I’m driving and hear something I like in a podcast, I make a quick screenshot of the playback screen. When I get back to my computer, I can return to that spot in the podcast and take notes.

iphone_screenshot_podcast

Save a Point on a Map

Sometimes I want to “bookmark” a location on the map before looking up something else. A screenshot is a fast way to do this.

iphone_screenshot_map

Save a Website Address Without Interrupting Your Reading

Sometimes when I’m reading in Google Reader, I want to save the location of an article to read later. (I don’t want to leave Google Reader immediately because it has to entirely reload when I return.)

If you hold your finger on a link for a few seconds, a menu will popup with the address of the link. Sometimes I simply save a screenshot of the link, then hit Cancel and go back to my reading. Later I read the items I saved in my screenshots.

iphone_screenshot_opened_link

Screenshots can help you practice “ubiquitous capture” — capturing all notes, thoughts, and ideas, as they come to you, so you don’t have to keep them in your head.

Posted in Apple, Getting Things Done, Mac, Main, Tech, Tips, iPhone | 1 Comment »

Too Much Information (TMI)

Thursday, December 27th, 2007

There’s danger in consuming too much information. I’m sure you know what happens when you eat too much food. Like food, information needs digestion. It’s only useful to the degree you can distill it into actions, habits, and wisdom.

Dallin H. Oaks gave a good talk on focus and priorities:

We have thousands of times more available information than Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln. Yet which of us would think ourselves a thousand times more educated or more serviceable to our fellowmen than they? The sublime quality of what these two men gave to us—including the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address—was not attributable to their great resources of information, for their libraries were comparatively small by our standards. Theirs was the wise and inspired use of a limited amount of information.

I know where to get my information binge if I want it. (Thank you, RSS.) I’m sure you do too. The challenge is to consume less of it and use it more wisely.

I wonder what Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln would do in our shoes.

Posted in Focus, Getting Things Done, Main, Priorities | 3 Comments »

Teaching the unteachable skills

Wednesday, December 12th, 2007

If you tend to perform tasks you’ve never performed before, what does this mean for education? Does your school teach you to solve problems, prioritize tasks, and prepare you for non-assembly-line jobs?

“Training a student to be sheepish is a lot easier than the alternative. Teaching to the test, ensuring compliant behavior and using fear as a motivator are the easiest and fastest ways to get a kid through school. So why does it surprise us that we graduate so many sheep?” (Seth Godin in Sheepwalking)

Maybe teachers should ask harder questions — questions they’ve never answered — and allow students to use “real life” tools.

Here’s what just about every exam ought to be: “Use Firefox to find the information you need to answer this question:” And as the internet gets smarter, the questions are going to have to get harder. (Seth Godin in The Wikipedia Gap)

In the past, you had to memorize knowledge because there was a cost to finding it. Now, what can’t you find in 30 seconds or less? We live an open-book-test life that requires a completely different skill set. (Mark Cuban in Time magazine)

I’ve called this intellectual self-sufficiency, the ability to search out answers for yourself.

How about these test questions? (Internet and cell phone allowed.)

  • What can you buy with 1 yen, in Japan?
  • Find a picture of Rio de Janeiro taken today.
  • Who is the most famous author of all time? Defend your answer.
  • Your friend is visiting downtown Boston and calls you for help. Help her get to D.C. You’re in Provo, Utah.

The answers don’t really matter, but the process does.

Posted in Education, Getting Things Done, Main | 5 Comments »

Tee ‘em up

Tuesday, December 11th, 2007

Golf provides another metaphor for getting things done. Take #2 on “crankable widgets”.

Growing up in Las Vegas, our favorite place to hit golf balls was Desert Pines. It was 30 minutes away, but it boasted a double decker driving range and automatic tees. After each hit, the tee dropped into the floor and re-emerged with a new ball. You could hit ball after ball without the pesky work of bending down to tee them. You could keep your stance and stay in the zone.

Imagine “teeing up” your tasks. Thoroughly prepare each task so the actual work of doing it is a simple, fluid stroke. Poorly prepared tasks require you to lean down. Well-prepared tasks are ripe for the hitting.

Bad: “Do taxes”
Good: “Find W2 forms and receipts in folder. Call accountant to setup appointment.”

Bad: “Christmas shopping”
Good: “Spend 10 minutes with pen and paper brainstorming what David might like for Christmas. Ask Mom for suggestions. Wait a few days to think about it. Order it online.”

Can you see how using concrete words makes each task easier to grasp? These changes may seem obvious to you, and perhaps you won’t need this much description. Be as descriptive as you personally need. But you’ll be surprised how fluidly you’ll move from task to task if you’ve taken the time to describe each task specifically and concretely.

Posted in Flow, Getting Things Done, Main, Motivation | 4 Comments »

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