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Distraction reduction for your Mac
Ah, the holidays: a time for reflection, relaxation, and finally getting your GTD feng shui into proper order. Who better to give you some leverage over the incredible source of distractions and detours that is your Mac than Merlin Mann? The 43Folders productivity guru gets focused with Leo Laporte on the most recent edition of MacBreak, covering additional ground after an October episode on desktop de-cluttering.My favorite attention-enhancing power tool is currently WriteRoom, which has made it much easier for me to take notes in meetings without getting lured away by the siren call of unread emails and projects in progress. What do you use to help clamp down on the tangents and procrastination?[via Lifehacker/43folders]
My Dream App voting round 2
The second round of voting is under way over at My Dream App. Vote and let your voice be heard! Plus, when you vote you get a free copy of Mori, Hog Bay Software's document organizer.This round's judges are the cream of the crop of Mac bloggers including John Siracusa of Ars Technica, John Gruber of Daring Fireball, Merlin Mann of 43 Folders. Oh, and somehow yours truly got invited to be a judge. Go check out the apps and vote for your favorite. My favorite idea so far? Blossom, I've never seen an app like it and I sure hope it gets some votes.
43 Folders rounds up best iCal tips
Merlin Mann of 43 Folders may be "shaking [his] hammy fist in impotent rage at iCal's numerous shortcomings," but he's still a devout user and has rounded up some of the best iCal-related tips to come across 43F to prove it. A couple of the tips, of course, center around that GTD (Getting Things Done) working philosophy that's such a hit in the nerd circles of the internets these days, but a couple others offer simple tricks for naming events and organizing tasks in more useful and creative ways, sans-GTD. If you've been looking for a little extra oompf in your scheduling workflow but aren't quite down for the full-blown systems and apps that are available, these tips might open some productivity doors for you.
43 Folders on timing apps
Are you an alpha geek? Do you need to schedule every activity on your Mac with military precision? Well then, Merlin Mann is probably some sort of god to you. Therefore it stands to reason that you would be interested in his take on Meridian and Flextime which are two timing applications.I am not nearly driven enough to use either of these apps, I just don't have the time (that's a joke, son).
5 Quicksilver triggers from 43 Folders
I will not rest until every OS X user has downloaded and installed Quicksilver. Sadly, Quicksilver is a bit like a mule with a spinning wheel; no one knows how he got it, and he doesn't know what to do with it.If you would like some real world examples of Quicksilver's trigger feature (remember the trigger tutorial we wrote about earlier) then 43 Folders has the post for you.
43 Folders shares 4.5 ways to master Mail.app
These 4.5 tips aren't ways to help you manage your email more effectively, rather they are ways to get you to stop noticing how much email you are receiving. The thought behind this is that if you aren't worrying about your email you can actually concentrate on the task at hand.Turning off notifications, hiding the Dock, and actually quitting Mail.app are all offered up as ways to help you spend less time in email and more time being productive.
iCalFix .1
Have you ever wished that iCal would automatically add a reminder for every event that you place on a calendar? Well, Merlin Mann of 43 Folders did and Robert Blum heard his pleas.Robert created iCalFix, which is a 0.1 release, which sets a reminder for any event placed in iCal. At the moment the reminder is hard coded to be 24 hours before the event, but in future releases I am sure Robert will add more robust preferences.[via 43 Folders]
