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Scoop.it!
From
99u
Trying to maximize every task and squeeze every drop of productivity out of your creative work is a recipe for exhaustion and procrastination. 
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Scoop.it!
Beth Kanter's insight:
No wonder I can't remember anythning
Scoop.it!
Beth Kanter's insight:
The Hazards of Email Bring up the subject of workplace email during conversations with C.E.O.’s, and the mood often shifts. Email is a hot-button issue, and clearly a source of endless frustration. The problem, of course, is that for all the obvious benefits of email in speeding communication, it is also a dangerous trap. Emails are too easily misinterpreted, with often-disastrous consequences for the culture of an organization, because they can damage whatever connective tissue exists between colleagues. Yet the allure of email is powerful, and people fall repeatedly into the same trap, thinking that email is the best way to accomplish a lot of work in a short time. Many C.E.O.’s are perceptive observers of the hazards of email, and they establish a variety of rules in their companies to discourage its use and encourage people to talk instead. “If there’s a conflict and you need to resolve it, you cannot really do it in an email because people don’t know tone,” said Nancy Aossey, chief executive of the International Medical Corps. “They don’t know expression. Even if they like you and they know you, they might not know if you were irritated or joking in an email. There are things we can say in conversation that you can’t say in email because people don’t know tone and expression. “People change when they talk in person about a problem, not because they chicken out, but because they have the benefit of seeing the person, seeing their reaction, and getting a sense of the person. But arguing over email is about having the last word. It plays into something very dangerous in human behavior. You want to have the last word, and nothing brings that out more than email because you can sit there and hit ‘send,’ and then it just kind of ratchets up and you don’t have the benefit of knowing the tone.” By talking over the phone or in person, you’ll not only avoid dangerous misunderstandings, but you’ll also develop relationships and a sense of trust with colleagues — essential ingredients in fostering the kind of high-performing culture that drives innovation.
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Beth Kanter's insight:
The FOCUS Diagnostic is designed to accompany FOCUS: Using Different Ways of Seeing the World for Success and Influence, the highly-anticipated new book published by Hudson Street Press/Penguin in April, 2013. The purpose of the FOCUS Diagnostic is to give you insight into your dominant focus, at work and in general, along with a sense of how well you work with both promotion and prevention motivation.
Scoop.it!
Beth Kanter's insight:
I just discovered that one of the better curators is also a manual list maker. That is - not using the online tools to make to do lists, but writing it out on paper. I found that doing too much of my work online line - with hands on the keyboard and eyes on the monitor gets me into a distracted space. But, when I write down a list or the bullet points as this method points out. I'm all of sudden more focused!
Robin Good's curator insight,
December 14, 2013 10:28 AM
Bullet Journaling is a simplified manual method to organize, plan and archive all of your most important life activities, meetings and things you want to do with just pen and paper. Forget Evernote or Asana, this is only for those who really crave for staying away from the digital tools - at least for this task - and who love to "curate" by hand their daily tasks and future activities, while maintaining a useful paper track of it all. I am one of them. As you can read on the Bullet Journal home page: "For the list-makers, the note-takers, the Post-It note pilots, the track-keepers, and the dabbling doodlers. Bullet journal is for those who feel there are few platforms as powerful as the blank paper page. It’s an analog system for the digital age that will help you organize the present, record the past, and plan for the future." Bullet Journaling, invented by Ryder Carroll, is a way to organize on paper your personal (or professiomal) life, not a way to "curate" your life or experiences. But it is from the keen ability to organize and put things in order that a curator can then extract and identify what has been of value and what not. For this reason I am looking at Bullet Journaling not jut as a way of curating your life priorities but also as a good example of the curator's best spirit and attitude:
The reference web site is a destination worth checking out. Made just of one long page, organized into sections, it offers a complete how-to manual on getting started immediately with bullet-journaling. Fascinating. Useful. Ingenious. 9/10 Find out more: http://www.bulletjournal.com/ Original video: http://youtu.be/GfRf43JTqY4 Check this review: http://www.fastcodesign.com/3016456/this-note-taking-system-turns-you-into-an-efficiency-expert
Sue Rizzello's curator insight,
December 18, 2013 12:48 PM
In the beginning there was paper. In between the to do list systems and GTD platforms, there was paper. All the productive people I meet have a strong affinity with paper lists and systems, even if they play fast and loose on occasion with Evernote et al. Could this chap have the answer? Well, I will give it a try, why don't you too. We have nothing to lose but the chaos.
Scoop.it!
Twitter lists are a powerful way to structure your attention on Twitter so that you focus on the people who matter most.
Beth Kanter's insight:
Twitter lists are a powerful way to structure your attention on Twitter so that you focus on the people who matter most. By providing a way to sort different types of contacts into different HootSuite streams, lists help you focus on different people or conversations at different times or in specific contexts. They are just as helpful at a company-wide level, since it allows colleagues to build and share lists of people to follow without requiring them to follow everyone who might be relevant to anyone in the company. But they have a crucial limitation: unless you keep your account and/or your list private, other people can see who you are tracking and how you’re tracking them. That’s why it’s useful to create a second “listmaker” Twitter account for the specific purpose of managing and sharing Twitter lists with your colleagues. Use this account to create lists like:
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Election Day is over, and we all know what that means: tomorrow you'll wake up to an onslaught of annoying, ignorant Facebook posts from your friends (God love 'em) complaining about whichever candidate won.
Beth Kanter's insight:
Instructions for using social fixer
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When was the last time you looked at your Facebook feed and actually liked everything you saw? For all of Facebook's fancy algorithms, it can never create the perfect feed for you.
Beth Kanter's insight:
These are some simple tips for flitering and fine-tuning your FB newsfeed so you get updates and content that are of more interest - more signal to noise. Note that most of these tricks apply to your Facebook friends, but the same rules can often be applied to pages you've liked as well, so don't forget to give those a thorough cleaning using the same tips once you're done culling your friends lists.
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Beth Kanter's insight:
Good tips to keep creative
Scoop.it!
Do you struggle to use your time wisely when running your Facebook Page? I know I do. That's why I put together this list of distractions you MUST avoid.
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The blog for the contemplative computing project, which documents efforts to create technologies and interactions that don't distract users and fracture their attention, but promote concentration and mindfulness.
Beth Kanter's insight:
This is the Alex Soo Jung-Kim's blog. He is the author of the forthcoming book called "The Distraction Addiction." He uses the term: Contemplative computing. This may sound like an oxymoron, but it's really quite simple. It's about how to use information technologies and social media so they're not endlessly distracting and demanding, but instead help us be more mindful, focused and creative. Here's 2011 talk and good introduction to the project and its big ideas. A more recent Guardian post that puts it more in context of this mindful online movement http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/may/10/conscious-computing-twitter-facebook-google
Scoop.it!
Twitter, Facebook, Google… we know the internet is driving us to distraction. But could sitting at your computer actually calm you down? Oliver Burkeman investigates the slow web movement
Beth Kanter's insight:
Great piece. Love the idea of "calming technology" This is the question motivating the embryonic movement known variously as "calming technology", "the slow web", "conscious computing" or (Pang's preferred term) "contemplative computing". Its members hope that we might be able to perform a sneaky bit of jujitsu on the devices that dominate our lives: to turn the agents of distraction into agents of serenity. Their inventions so far include wearable sensors that deliver rewards ("calm points") for breathing well while you work, developed by Stanford University's calming technology laboratory; iPad apps to help you meditate yourself into a state of super-focused concentration; software that lets friends decide collectively to disable their smartphonesfor the duration of a restaurant meal; and scores of pieces of "zenware" designed to block distractions, with names such as Isolator andStayFocusd and Shroud and Turn Off The Lights. I wrote most of this article using OmmWriter, which filled my screen with a wintry backdrop of bare trees and my headphones with the hypnotic clanking of old railway engines. I also used f.lux, which changed the glare of my screen to yellowy evening light, precisely timed to synchronise with the sunset outside.
's comment May 24, 2013 9:51 AM
I feel like grasshopah...
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Scoop.it!
From
99u
When life gets tough, James Altucher asks himself What would a Jedi do?
Beth Kanter's insight:
Love that it uses a star wars metaphor
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Here is the list:
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From
99u
We're addicted to distraction, and it's holding us back. To find genius in the 21st century, we must build a discipline of unplugging and deep thinking.
Beth Kanter's insight:
The potential of our own creativity is rapidly being compromised by the era we live in. I believe that genius in the 21st century will be attributed to people who are able to unplug from the constant state of reactionary workflow, reduce their amount of insecurity work, and allow their minds to solve the great challenges of our era. Brilliance is so rare because it is always obstructed, often by the very stuff that keeps us so busy.
Scoop.it!
From
99u
Not all tasks were created equal. Add “contexts” to your action items to make sure you get them done when you need to.
Beth Kanter's insight:
I love these ideas, especially the energy-based context way of writing up your to do list. I find that I have to create several versions of my to do list, with one that is putting it on my calendar.
Scoop.it!
Twitter Lists are awesome. Or not? What's your view? You have a view? Do you love to hate lists? Can we change your mind? We dare you to find out! Take us for a spin.
Beth Kanter's insight:
The best feature for filtering your Twitter feed is the use of lists, but they are not social. List.ly is now integrated. That means you can manage your Twitter lists and also make them social - have folks add to them. Here are the steps
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With each update, Facebook has gotten incrementally more cluttered, perplexing, and ornery—and I'm not even talking about all your annoying acquaintances flooding it with inane status updates.
Beth Kanter's insight:
More instructions for using social fixer
Scoop.it!
Social Fixer for Facebook is a FREE browser extension that fixes annoyances, adds features, and enhances existing functionality to make Facebook more fun and efficient
Beth Kanter's insight:
Social Fixer for Facebook plugs into your browser and improves the existing Facebook.com web site. You get to pick which features you want to use: Filter your news feed by keyword, author, and more Tabbed news feed organizes posts by games, apps, etc Hide parts of the page you don't want to see Don't show posts you've already read Auto-switch to the Most Recent news feed Add some style with custom themes
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How to Relax and Better Focus? 10 Online Apps for Better Focus. See more
Scoop.it!
"Significant gains in writing productivity can be gained by a combination of the right kind of practice and the right kind of tools. I’ve written about many of these tools and techniques previously, but I’ve organised all the advice here into a three step program, with links to useful resources. Review your writing tools Often the ‘industry standard’ software is not the best tool for the job. Take Word processors as just one example. You must move back and forth over the text to achieve flow and make sure everything is in the right place. If you can move around your documents more easily your writing speed will increase. Unfortunately the industry default, MS Word, does not, out of the box, perform this task well. Anyone who has been reading this blog for a while will know this is the key reason I am a huge Scrivener fan. Scrivener is a different kind of word processor that enables you to write ‘chunks’ and move them around easily..." Via Howard Rheingold
Howard Rheingold's curator insight,
September 25, 2013 12:36 PM
This is about infotention -- "combination of the right kind of practice and the right kind of tools." I share thesis whisperer's enthusiasm for Scrivener for long projects or even short writing projects that have many moving parts. 
Ra-eesah Mohamed's curator insight,
October 2, 2013 9:38 AM
writing faster in class is a constant battle in lectures then learning how to write faster seems like a legit tool to use in everyday life.
Scoop.it!
The iPhone has the largest selection of apps on the mobile side, but that means it's also the most frustrating to find what's worthwhile.
Scoop.it!
Beth Kanter's insight:
Some new books coming out on the distraction issue, one that takes a technologist approach (Alex Pang). But always good to understand the thought leaders of this space - including Howard Rheingold and Linda Stone
Howard Rheingold's curator insight,
May 24, 2013 12:20 PM
Linda Stone was one of the inspirations for infotention and I quote her heavily in Net Smart. |
Good advice: