Not all about technology - Hipster PDA

Life hacking does not rely on the use of technology for the sake of it, however. Indeed, perhaps Mr Mann's greatest claim to fame is the ironically named “Hipster PDA”—a stack of index cards held together by a bulldog clip that is, he contends, superior to an electronic personal organiser. Mr Mann's presentation of the idea resembles a comedy routine, but his point is a serious one: there is not much fiddling, configuration and customisation to be done with a stack of index cards, so users must instead get on with doing something useful

A thought on Priorities (for the parents out there)

PRIORITIES

100 years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the cars I drove... but that the world may have been different because I was important in the life of a child.

Philosophy

“THE most important contribution of management in the 20th century was the 50-fold increase in the productivity of the manual worker in manufacturing,” wrote the management guru Peter Drucker. “The most important contribution management needs to make in the 21st century is similarly to increase the productivity of the knowledge worker.”

But how? While manual workers toiling on assembly lines can be reorganised in a top-down way to improve efficiency, information workers are more self-directed, and must find efficient routines to process a constant flow of information on their own. The problem is akin to rewriting a piece of software to make it run more reliably. And just as programmers like to exploit tricks or “hacks” to get results quickly, a new “life hacking” movement is now applying the same approach to reorganising life off the screen too.

The Art of SLOW

First of all, why are we trying to be more efficient? So that we can answer more emails and make more sales? We don't talk about how screwed up we are today, trying to keep up with 21st-century life using 60-year-old tools.

But before we start running, hadn't we better understand which direction? We need to take time to really understand what you want out of life. Most people spend more time planning their holiday than planning their life.

Take time to read (NOT SPEED READ) In Praise of Slow by Carl Honore

Declare a “vertical day”

Switch off e-mail, mobile phones, everything, and devote yourself to a single, important project for an entire day.

Use a “dash” to beat procrastination

Putting something off? Devote five minutes, measured with a kitchen timer, to working on it. It will make the task seem more approachable.

Go full screen

Switch your computer to full-screen mode, filling the whole screen with your current application, minimising the visual distraction of other programs.

Park on a downhill slope

When wrapping up work on a task, make a note of what needs to be done next. This makes it easier to get started when you resume work on the task.

Slow down your email

Set your e-mail program to fetch new messages every 15 minutes or every hour, rather than every minute, so you are interrupted less often.

Switch off off the email notofocation sound / icon .. In Outlook go to Options-Prefereences tab - Email Options button, Advanced Email Options button

Beating Insomnia

• Wind down prior to bedtime
• Do not smoke (nicotine is a stimulant) or consume caffeine
• Try warm milk or a light snack before bed (if this doesn’t interfere with another treatment you are using)
• Exercise daily, but not right before bedtime
• Take a warm bath, but not right before bedtime
• Keep a regular bedtime and rising time
• Get in the habit of going to bed when you are sleepy and sleeping where you sleep best
• Reserve your bed for sleeping only
• Don’t have any clocks visible to you
• Reduce the amount of time you allow yourself to sleep until you fall asleep easily (your health care provider can help with this form of “sleep restriction therapy”
• Schedule worry time during the day and put worries out of your head when it is time to sleep; you can write them down on 3×5 cards, and then let go of them
• Get up if you have not fallen asleep in 15 minutes and practice a relaxing activity (e.g. handwork, reading a boring book) until you feel sleepy

Packing with just ONE carry-on bag

Benefits

- By limiting ourselves to one carry-on, we can be off the plane and halfway to Boulevard Saint-Germain while others huddle expectantly around the luggage carousel. We don't worry that our checked bags will take an unplanned detour to Duluth or Dar es Salaam.

- When the airline loses your bag (statistic is 5 passengers every flight) it defintiely isn't you

- You have only one bag to carry around with you

- Fnally, tt's a chance to pare down and simplify our lives, to discover what is truly essential and what is not. It's a reminder that we're more than the sum of our possessions.

Some general thoughts about the quite bearable being of lightness:

-- Make sure your carry-on has wheels to reduce the drag when yo uwalk 15 minutes form the plane to the exit

-- The amount of stuff you think you need is directly related to the size of your luggage. Get a smaller bag and you'll make do with fewer things.

-- There's really no difference between packing for a week and packing for a month or longer.

-- Carry-on allowances vary by airline. A bag measuring 9 by 14 by 22 inches fits the most restrictive rules. You usually are also allowed one "personal item," such as a day pack. If your duffel is larger than allowed but soft-sided and not full, they'll often let you slide by. If all else fails, wear your bulkiest clothes on the plane and offload as much as possible into your daypack, temporarily breaking the next rule.

-- A lot of travelers treat their day packs -- like their garages back home -- as overflow storage space. My personal rule is that even when stuffed full, my daypack must fit inside my main bag. If you ever find yourself running for a train you'll appreciate this.

-- Some international carriers are getting more rigorous about enforcing carry-on weight limits of around 15 pounds. Your carefully packed bag might wind up in the cargo hold anyway.

-- If you think something might come in handy, leave it at home. If you know you can't get along without it, bring it.

-- However, even in rock-bottom minimalist mode, allow yourself a tiny "luxury" or two. In my case it's my Sennheiser noise canceling headphones and PDA loaded with films on a2GB SD card.

-- Outdoor stores such as REI are good places to shop for travel clothes and gear. Items developed for backpacking or mountain climbing tend to be light and tough, making them perfect for travel.

-- Swiss Army knives are a real bugaboo. If you pack this marvelously useful tool, you can't bring your luggage with you in the cabin. A surprising number of people have told me they mail theirs ahead to their first hotel and then mail it home from their last stop. This seems like considerably more trouble than just checking your luggage. An obvious (if somewhat expensive) alternative is to buy a knife when you get there.

-- Make a sensible packing list and stick to it. Resist those nervous, last-minute urges to toss in an extra sweater or trench coat.

-- Pay close attention to your "go-withs." Make sure every top can be worn with every bottom.

-- The catalogs are full of wrinkle-free travel clothes, but you can skip these if you've spent your adult life, as I have, carefully cultivating a rumpled look.

-- Limit yourself to one pair of shoes, or, at most, one pair of shoes and one pair of sandals or flip-flops.

-- If a specialized activity -- snorkeling, tennis, climbing -- is the focus of your trip, by all means bring along the gear you'll need. But if these are just casual diversions, rent the gear when you get there.

-- Leave your hair dryer at home. Instead, get a low-maintenance haircut.

-- Most blue jeans are too heavy and slow-drying for travel.

-- As I've said before, if your trip involves both wilderness hiking and city pleasures, as mine often do, err on the side of the former in your packing. Better to be a little underdressed at a West End theater than on the windswept summit of Ben Nevis.

-- Don't fret if it turns out you really did need that extra sweater, or if you run out of toothpaste. Wherever you're going, they have these things for sale.

-- If you don't need a full guidebook, cut out the pages you want or photocopy them. But keep in mind that your plans might change.

-- If you or your travel partner require a lot of prescription medicine, split it up so you're each carrying half the supply of each drug. You'll avert disaster if one of you loses your luggage.

-- A sheet of paper filled with names and contact information weighs far less than an address book.

-- As you unpack after each trip, examine each garment and piece of gear and ask yourself if you could have done without it. If so, leave it off your packing list next time

Don't let your InBox become your task manager

If you do, then your setting yourself up for Procrastination Failure

When you see a requested action in an email, don’t do it immediately. It might be one of the least important things for you to do that day. Instead, immediately identify what the action is and put the email in a task folder. Change the title so that it states what you need to do, and put a due date on it and a priority level. You can do that in 15 or 20 seconds. Then you move right on to the next email. Now you’ll get through your to-do email remarkably fast. Drag all of your other emails into a process folder, so you now have an empty inbox, which is a really nice feeling. The next thing you do is go to your task list and ask, “What are the most important things I need to do today?” That’s the stuff that would keep you from going home at the end of the day.