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Working with the Moutai Prince

Made by the sky and earth inheriting the tradition of Moutai
Same origin and source the style of a king

Moutai Prince Liquor is the series of products of Moutai. It has the same origin and source as Moutai, and it has inherited the tradition of Moutai. It is yeast sauce liquor made from high-quality broomcorn and wheat brewed on the basis of the technique of Moutai Factory after long-time of storage and careful blending. It has the style of dense sauce, elegance, coordination, purity, long-lasting aftertaste and fragrance left on the empty cup of Moutai.

Ingredients: high-quality broomcorn, wheat
Degrees: 53% (V/V), 46% (V/V), 39% (V/V)
Package: paper box, colored box, milk white glass bottle

Via Kweichow Moutai Co., LTD

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Do You Manage Your Work, or Your Time?

One of my favorite magazines, Inc., the handbook of the American entrepreneur, has bestselling author Jim Collins on its cover and a fascinating interview inside.  Here are some of the insightful tips Collins shares, with some of my personal observations:

  ~ Accept the idea that work is infinite and time is finite.
Now, think about that for a moment. The work, let's face it, never ends. It will always be there. That's a downer, sure, but knowing that you can't possibly get everything there is to do done in one day... is kind of freeing.

  ~ Manage your time and not your work.
Since work is neverending but life is short, it behooves us to look at our day in blocks of time (instead of as 'getting all the work done.' ) Allocate your blocks of time toward specific tasks or projects (try using a timer; I use mine throughout the day), and then move on to something else.

  ~ Create a laserlike focus on doing first things first.
How you choose to prioritize your to-do list is up to you, because your day is not exactly like anyone else's, but here are hints: which task on your list is the most potentially revenue-producing? and/or, which task on your list have you been postponing the longest?

  ~ Have a ferocious understanding of what you're not going to do.
These days, I try not to dwell on the negative, but I still find it helpful to know where my productivity weak-spots are, and the activities I should avoid until the end of the day (hello, Twitter!)

  ~ Sift through the blizzard of info that hits you nonstop.
My personal productivity increased the day I decided to take current-events news feeds off of my start page. News-surfing, if it lasts more than five minutes, can be a productivity killer.

  ~ Do you have the discipline to not have your email on?
A lot of people have just given up on this one, and check their iphones or blackberrys every ten minutes.  I find it helpful to go online and opt-out of all the emailing lists and newsletters that I don't read. I solve the problem at the source, by decreasing the amount of email that makes it to my inbox. I do this every other month; it takes about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, which of these concepts do you believe you would find the most challenging to implement? Please leave your comments below!

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Key to time management -- focus on results!

Great article on getting more done in less time -- they talk about 2 not so simple rules (especially rule #2)

1. Choose a work schedule that you think provides the ideal balance of effort and relaxation.
2. Do whatever it takes to avoid violating this schedule.

• Dramatically cut back on the number of projects you are working on.
• Ruthlessly cull inefficient habits from your daily schedule.
• Risk mildly annoying or upsetting some people in exchange for large gains in time freedom.
• Stop procrastinating.

http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/time-management-how-an-mit-postdoc-writes-3-books-a-phd-defense-and-6-peer-reviewed-papers-and-finishes-by-530pm/

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Idea Organizer for the iPhone [WebWorkerDaily]

via webworkerdaily.com

"Idea Organizer combines an audio recorder, a text notebook and an image capture tool to help make sure that you can not only keep track of any ideas that pop into your head, but also the ones you get from the world around you. You can create an idea using any type of media mentioned, and then add other types of content later to provide context."

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A nicely designed notepad - perfect for my daily task list

Does a notepad really need to be well designed?  I think so; in fact, I think that all products & tools should be expertly designed.  Just think about all the items used on a daily basis that aggravate you due to their poor design...now imagine a world where you barely notice you are even interacting with a product because the design is just that good...ahhh...nirvana.

After much personal research, I chose to befriend the Action Runner, found at Behance Outfitter.  You may be thinking: it's so small, I can't fit all my notes - well, that's sort of the point...In any meeting, discussion, or event that requires notes, there should be very clear action items that you can quickly jot down in your handy notepad. A tiny notepad forces you to filter your scribblings down to the bare essentials. It may not work for everyone; but for me (a working Designer), less is more - I definitely have a larger notepad as well, but for collecting my daily action items, this works great.

Oh, and I also use Ta-Da list online (created by 37 signals) it is the most simple & streamlined to do list application that I have found - it has everything I want and nothing I don't.

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Using Google Voice as a Personal Recorder

A couple of months ago I was lucky enough to be annointed with an early release of Google voice. I immediately made it the home base phone number for my band Kill Miss Pretty (561-247-KILL). One day on my way to work I got an idea for a riff that I wanted to capture. Instead of using the iPhone Voice Memos app (or Recorder) - which obviously require a little more attention than is appropriate while driving, I tried dialing in and leaving a voice mail on the Kill Miss Pretty voice account.Unfortunately, since the account was linked to the cell phone that I was calling in on, it took me into the administrative area of the account instead of allowing me to leave a message. Alas the riff was lost.

Little did I know then, that there is a simple setting (that you really have to dig for) that let's you control whether you jump right into the admin when calling from the phone linked with the account or whether you get prompted with the greeting that everyone else hears WITH the opportunity to leave a message.

From the Google Voice main screen:

1. Click Settings in the upper right.
2. Click Phones
3. Click "Show Advanced Settings"

You will see the following - click the radio button for "No".

That's all there is to it. From that point on you can call your GVoice number and use it as your personal auditory scratch/idea pad. It saves all the files as MP3s so that you can download them into iTunes or wherever you prefer - or you can just dial in and listen to them at any time.

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Google Tasks on the iPhone

What may or may not be obvious to the average iPhone user is that you can make a desktop/homescreen icon out of web pages that you view in Safari. So for instance a favorite site that you visit every day, or your own blog, or whatever you want to have one click access to, can be available via desktop shortcut - just like it can on your regular pc desktop.

Where this comes in particularly handy is in the case of google apps, and even more specifically Google Tasks. You first need to get the Google mobile app (free) from the app store. Launch that, log in, and click on apps at the bottom (it defaults to search). A lengthy list of apps will display including tasks. Click on that to open the tasks web app. (I personally think it's even slicker on the iPhone than the desktop version.) Anyway, once it's open just hit the plus sign at the bottom of the window, and select the option to Add to Home Screen. An icon like this  will appear on the desktop of your phone.

Now you have a one-click solution to a tasks app that you can also view & use in gmail and on your igoogle home page. For me it's a very handy way to manage the many things I try to keep track of. There are definitely more elegant task applications available for the iPhone (free and paid) but none as wide in reach and convenience.

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Introducing Focusr

One aspect of time management that is critical to success is finding a way to focus on tasks. For many people, myself included, it is a pretty serious battle that takes tons of practice and creative techniques for fooling yourself to stick to the task at hand. One such technique is the Pomodoro Technique. I haven't read the book or would consider myself an expert by any stretch, but the basic idea seems simple enough to run with it despite formal training.

In a nutshell, you give yourself 25 minutes to complete a task and then take a short 5 minute break before moving onto the next task. From what I understand, the book emphasizes using an egg timer that is visible to make the whole process convenient. Seeing as I'm a programmer and there are multitude of ways built into my desktop to get my attention, it seemed like a good opportunity to create a simple tool.

The result is Focusr. This is really simple timer that helps to complete Pomodoro like cycles. You say you want to start a task, it starts the 25 minute timer, lets you know when the times up and does the same for the break. Rinse and repeat. It is super simple and surprisingly effective.

You can grab it from the web or install it with easy_install or pip. It uses libnotify's

notify-send

command to do the actual notification. Also, I created a simple Emacs function so I could start it easily.

 
(defun pomo ( ) 
 "Start a pomodoro task 25 minutes working and 5 off" 
 (interactive) 
 (setq msg (read-string "What do you want to work on? ")) 
 (setq cmd (concat "focusr " msg)) 
 (comint-simple-send (make-comint "pomodoro-task" "bash") cmd)) 

While I'm sure buying the book could be helpful, it seems more helpful to understand what Pomodoro is actually doing. For myself, it presents a attainable period of time focus on a task. I've read over and over again that one key to better productivity is breaking large tasks into smaller tasks. This is easier said than done though. By taking on the day in 25 minute chunks you're forced to consider how you can break up tasks such that you finish a task with in the time limit. In addition to getting better practice breaking up tasks, you also are exercising your estimation skills and getting a better understanding of how much work you can really do.Like I said before, the concepts are really simple with or without formal training.

For myself, I also appreciate the obvious openness of the system. Becoming more productive is partly effectively utilizing systems while always evolving your techniques. As a person you have an innate ability to hack around your own efforts. I think this technique is simple enough that it can be used many different ways to help keep your mind guessing, which in turn helps to truly learn how to get more focus.

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Omniwriter

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Best of Productivity & Personal Development links for week ending 11/22/09

Quote of the week:

"An unhurried sense of time is in itself a form of wealth." - Bonnie Friedman via Sid Savara

Articles of the week:

1. "Getting Things Done with Mind Maps" by Michael Deutch via GTD Connect http://bit.ly/13boGG - This is a wonderful presentation by Mindjet Evangelist Michael Deutch facilitated by GTD Coach Kelly Forrister on how to integrate mind mapping into your GTD process.  It's lengthy, but definitely worth the visit.  This was produced for the GTD Connect community, so if you're not a member you can sign up for a free trial and view. Also, be sure to check out the mind map templates below the presentation.

2. "Learn new Skills, ask Questions, practice Yoga & only Travel Carry-On" an interview of Gwen Bell by Gretchen Rubin http://bit.ly/1fnzKc - If you don't get anything else out of this interview, at least examine this tidbit by Gwen, "To be happy you have to serve others. In order to best serve others you have to practice self-study and self-reflection."

3. "How To Instantly Make Time For Yourself  & Get More Accomplished" by Sid Savara http://bit.ly/346qlt - Five simple, practical and "actionable" strategies to "instantly" make time for yourself.

4. "Develop and Maintain Successful Business Relationships with GTD" by Matt Handal via GTD Times http://bit.ly/60nqiv - A quick hit article on how to process new business connections (business cards) to encourage follow-up and growth.  btw, I use a similar process utilizing Evernote.

5. "How an MIT postdoc writes 3 books, a PhD defense, and 6+ peer-reviewed papers - and finishes by 5:30 P.M." by Ramit Sethi via I Will Teach You to Be Rich http://bit.ly/8ZohIB - An interesting look at "fixed-schedule productivity".

6. "Researched Comparison of GTD Programs" by Priacta via Productivity Hacks http://bit.ly/2jMEms - A thorough interactive comparison of productivity software.

via Dan G. Druen, Jr.

mail {at} dandruen {dot} com

202.540.0669 (cell)

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