Jan 28, 2014 [Updated Feb 4, 2014 for price reduction]
Lenovo just posted on their website their new Mixx 2 10-inch Bay Trail tablet, shipping now. This is a good looking productivity tablet with the same size, weight, and processor as the Asus Transformer T100 I reviewed about 2 months ago. And like the Asus, the price includes a keyboard dock. However, the Mixx 2 posts a price about $300 to-$350 $100 to $200 more than the Asus
Jan 27, 2014
We are going to be updating the 4th edition of the Outlook book often, perhaps several times a year. The updates will show up first in our PDF copy of the book, then in Kindle books, and later in any new printings of the 4th Ed. paperback book (as the older printings sell out). PDF buyers will get those updates free. It looks like Kindle users will also get those updates free—others we are not sure, it depends on the ebook seller policies and technology (we have no control over them). More on that below.
Jan 25, 2014
I’ve been meaning to mention this for a few days. About a week ago we posted an updated PDF of the One Minute To-Do List book out on the free book site (replacing the old one).
Feel free to download it again and get the latest copy. The quickest way to do that is to go to the book’s extra’s page and click the download link near the lower left corner:
If the page asks you again for an e-mail address, just reuse your previous one and input any name; you won’t get subscribed twice to the newsletter–it knows better.
Mostly Minor Changes
The newer book has the same file name, but once you open it you’ll see the version increment and new 2014 date on the copyright page. The changes are not huge, mainly small fixes and some nods to Outlook 2013, which was not out when the book first came out. Also, a month or two ago we updated some of the free videos that are linked in that book (on the same extras page) to include Outlook 2013.
As before, the book supports both Outlook and non-Outlook users (the latter through showing how to use Toodledo with our productivity systems).
If you’ve liked the book before, download the new one and share it with your colleagues. Everyone deserves to learn how to dig out from an overwhelmed workday.
Michael Linenberger
Jan. 8, 2014
I bet you have a lot of incomplete projects hanging out there that you’ve been trying to work on, when you have time. If so, then you are probably feeling a bit guilty about being behind on some of them. Given that it’s the beginning of the New Year, perhaps you’re ready to move some of those projects ahead. But first, you need to get them sorted out or back on track again to do that.
Rapid Mind Mapping
Here’s a method I’ve used over and over again to get my projects sorted out—or to restart a project that has stalled out. It uses a rapid form of mind mapping to paint the big picture, find all the moving parts, and to then zero in on what tasks need to be done next. By the way, this process finishes by creating some tasks in your to do list, so the process assumes you’ve got a 1MTD or MYN task list already in place.
Jan 5, 2013
If you’ve gotten behind in your 1MTD or MYN system it’s not hard to dig out and start using the systems again—you can usually do that in minutes. Here are some simple steps to take. The first steps work for both systems, and the last one is focused on MYN.
Jan. 5, 2013
Physical piles containing work documents, memos, trade journals, or low-priority paper mail, whether on your desk or side table, feel lousy. If you can toss them all in bulk obviously you should. But if they contain things that must be done you can’t just toss them, and the piles remain as unattended responsibilities that will nag at your psyche and lead to dropped commitments.
Here’s a quick way to clean up piles that still have lots of to-dos buried in them—it’s a method that takes advantage of the 1MTD or MYN system ability to track and prioritize your tasks. Doing this will get the pile processed and out of sight, and will move important actions into your single task list (where the associated action can be tackled in priority order). That removes the stress the pile represents and gets things done when needed.
Jan 1, 2014
One of your New Year’s commitments might be to get your Inbox under control—to get it back down to a reasonable size, perhaps even empty it. Assuming you are familiar with either the 1MTD or MYN system, you know there are simple ways in those systems to empty your inbox using a single-folder filing approach. But you may have forgotten the methods, or gotten behind, or not yet studied them, and your inbox may now be a huge mess.
In my seminars, after participants have put the 1MTD or MYN task system in place, I teach the following simple and quick method to empty a neglected inbox. Consider doing this now; what a fantastic thing to do here at the beginning of the New Year—think about how great it will feel to start the year this way!
Dec. 27, 2013
Now that you know how to hide and show the To-Do Bar more easily in Outlook 2013 (while showing both tasks and appointments), here’s a feature change you’ll appreciate that came with a recent Office update: Microsoft added back in the ability to see more than one day’s worth of appointments in optional Calendar/Appointments section of the To-Do Bar (to see that section, go to View tab, To-Do Bar, select Calendar).
Dec 20, 2013
I can’t believe I overlooked this. I’ve been complaining since Outlook 2013 came out about how unhappy I was that Microsoft eliminated the Minimize button for the To-Do Bar. Well, there is another button set that can be used instead, one that works pretty well and that I overlooked.
Background
As I talked about in that earlier post, the problem with removing the Minimize button from the To-Do Bar is that when you close the To-Do Bar (using Off or using the close boxes on its sections), you have to reopen and resize all its components one by one. If you have a lot of optional sections open in it, reopening the To-Do Bar can take 7 or 8 mouse clicks. I basically concluded that, because of that, you should probably use the To-Do Bar only for tasks since closing and opening that one section is not so bad.
The Reading View Button
The button set I overlooked is the Reading View button set Continue reading
Dec 17, 2013
[May 18 2014 Update: I’ve got a new article on how to configure TaskTask 4 for iOS. Use that if starting configurations from scratch].
The makers of the excellent TaskTask software for iOS (iPhone, iPad) recently updated their software to version 4. I showed how to configure version 3 of this software for MYN here. When you upgrade to vers 4, nearly all those settings will be saved. However, the upgrade seems to toss out one setting: the Start Date filter. So you need to reset that.
Here are the steps to get to this screen and make that one corrective setting (I’ll assume you’ve got all the other settings in place from version 3, from that earlier article).
I’ll try to find some time to recreate all the MYN config steps for version 4, in case you are starting from scratch. They are pretty much the same as in the version 3 article, but a few minor differences.
(Thanks to Kyle Vickers for alerting me to this needed fix!)
Michael Linenberger
