Michael Linenberger's Blog

May 14, 2014

Lenovo has finally announced release of the next evolution of their lightweight Windows tablet line, and it’s called the Lenovo ThinkPad 10. On paper it looks like a natural Bay Trail replacement for the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 that I found so useful last year, but which feels pretty slow these days. The big deal about this new tablet is that it ships with a Wacom stylus and digitizer—finally a worthy tablet-sized Tablet PC may be out! It’s planned to ship next month starting at $599.

It sure took a while—Bay Trail was October 2013 news—so this tablet feels like it is 6 months late! But perhaps it’s worth the wait, because the other big news is that it has the option to run 64-bit Windows, which means you are not limited to 2GB of RAM. And it reportedly has 128 GB of storage.

It seems to be targeted toward business users, with lots of docking station and keyboard options.

Here are some detailed write ups:

http://winsupersite.com/mobile-devices/lenovo-thinkpad-10-preview

http://www.zdnet.com/lenovo-unveils-thinkpad-10-business-tablet-with-smart-accessories-7000029304/

http://mashable.com/2014/05/13/lenovo-thinkpad-10/

http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/13/lenovo-thinkpad-10/

Michael Linenberger

May 7, 2014

Announcing the first new class material I have taught for years. It’s a live webinar about how to manage small background projects: The full name of the class is:

“Control Background Projects with The One-Minute Project Manager”

[UPDATE: Webinars sold out and are now available as a video class]

This is for those pesky background projects that a lot of us have, that we must manage along with our regular day-job duties. We can have two to ten of these projects running in the background at any one time. Because we try to fit them in with our regular duties, they tend to get insufficient attention and so bog down or lose direction. And then your boss is all over you for not making progress on them—you look bad. Sound familiar? Well, finally, here’s a solution.

Continue reading →

April 29, 2014

The Kindle edition of Total Workday Control Using Microsoft Outlook, 4^th Ed. just went live today (finally!). We learned a lot of lessons on this in terms of speed to market, but are proud of the book results.

Matchbook $2.99 Pricing

And we put it through with Amazon matchbook pricing which means if you bought the paperback 4th edition of the book first on Amazon (months ago, or even a few seconds ago), the Kindle edition will cost you only $2.99. Just make sure you sign in on the same account you bought the paperback with, and the $2.99 pricing will show up on the book page automatically. [Update: the Matchbook pricing only works on the United States Amazon site.] Continue reading →

April 17, 2014

As many of you know, one of the things that distinguishes the MYN system from 1MTD (and from nearly all other task list systems) is its use of start dates for FRESH Prioritization. FRESH Prioritization is where the task list is configured to automatically sort older Opportunity Now tasks lower in your list. The instruction for FRESH Prioritization is to put today’s start date on nearly all new tasks so that newer tasks start at the top of your list, similar to an e-mail inbox. The result is that older tasks automatically scroll lower in your list, unless you manually promote them higher.

Advantages

One reason this works so well Continue reading →

April 8, 2014

[UPDATE 1/21/2017: This article is out of date and has been updated. Go to this new link]

I’ve been recommending Exchange Server a while for 1MTD and MYN Outlook tasks users. That’s because by using Exchange Server with your Outlook desktop application, you can store and view your tasks (and contacts and calendar items) in the cloud. That means you can access MYN tasks and other data on all your computers and smartphones. But if you are an Outlook Desktop user without Exchange, there seems no easy way to go mobile with Outlook tasks. You could use Toodledo instead of Outlook for tasks; but tasks in Toodledo don’t show up in Outlook.

Well, it turns out there is an MYN suitable task server for Outlook desktop users that can serve your Outlook tasks into the cloud. That server is Outlook.com.

Continue reading →

April 2, 2014

We recently rolled out a new low-fee coaching and consulting plan with me. In the past I’ve charged quite a bit for one-on-one coaching/consulting, but I want to let others give this a shot, so you can now find a limited number of coaching slots at $75 for approximately one hour.

If demand is too high I’ll raise the price, so grab these slots while available. Online reservations only please (don’t call). To learn more, and to see how to reserve a slot, go to this link.

Michael Linenberger

April 2, 2014

Back in May I wrote about the software TaskUnifier that provided offline access to Toodledo data and met 1MTD and MYN requirements. Well, the makers of that software just released an online version called OrganiTask (www.organitask.com). I haven’t tested it yet but I am told it also supports all needed MYN features. Good to have another choice for 1MTD and MYN!

Michael Linenberger

April 1, 2014

The Workday Mastery Pyramid can help you find success and satisfaction in your life’s work. It’s a structure that I developed for my 2010 book Master Your Workday Now, and while I don’t write about the pyramid as much these days, it really is at the basis of everything I teach, and so it is very much worth learning about.

The pyramid identifies three levels and styles of activity you need to apply to your work to be successful. Most failures in work come from trying to use the wrong tools for the wrong jobs, and applying Workday Mastery Pyramid principles helps solve those problems. In this article I explain the pyramid and how you can use it to help you succeed in work and life.

Continue reading →

March 27, 2014

Microsoft announced today the release of Office for iPad. These are not iPad versions of the lightweight dumbed-down apps that were released for the iPhone last year. Rather, they are (nearly) full-functioning versions of the desktop copies of Word, Excel and PowerPoint, optimized for the iPad touch environment. There is also an update to the OneNote app that is already out for the iPad.

I haven’t tested these yet (other than OneNote earlier), but all reviews so far indicate these are very powerful programs.

Continue reading →

March 10, 2014

I mentioned here that a new app has been released by Toodledo for use on Android devices. Well, I recently installed it and, after making a few set-up steps, confirmed it works very well with 1MTD and MYN. Obviously it syncs with your Internet-based Toodledo account.

In this article I describe the app briefly, and show you how to configure it for 1MTD and MYN.

Continue reading →