productivity Archives - blogjunkie.net

Posts Tagged with “productivity”

Recently I’ve started to wake up at 5am to get a head start to my day. I usually rise this early 4-6 times a week. I’ve found that I manage to accomplish a lot more when I wake up so early. Some days I begin the work day at 6am, other days I go for a run first. All in all, waking up at 5am is a real productivity booster.

The problem is that by lunch time, I’ve already been awake for 6-7 hours and I’m tired out. I need a nap to top off my batteries if I want to make it through the day. Afternoon naps FTW! And with all that “practice”, I’ve developed a few tips to make make the most of my naps.

Most important tip: Naps should be 15-20 minutes long only, 30 minutes at most. Any longer and you’re more likely to be groggy the rest of the day. Read More »

1 Mar 2013

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"Getting Things Done" system explained

Found this via the Productivity community on Google+. I have been practicing the Getting Things Done (GTD) system for… 9 years now I think. I use it because there are so many things that demand my attention every day I need a way to put them all in a trusted system so that I can get back to them later. This way I can let my attention be engaged by the important things in life, not in the minutiae of the moment.

Unfortunately, the GTD system is a little difficult to understand. So this video is a great 2-minute primer. If you need to un-jam your to-do lists, give the Getting Things Done system a try.

29 Oct 2012

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"Copy Address" in Apple Mail without the contact's name

By David Wang

In recent versions of Apple Mail (Snow Leopard onwards to be exact) choosing Copy Address from a contact’s contextual menu would put the contact’s name with the email address in brackets, instead of just the email address. So from the example above, you would get the following on your clipboard:

iTunes Store <[email protected]>

This is not really helpful when you really just want to copy the email address, and not fiddle with deleting the extraneous information. Longtime Apple Mail users might also prefer the behavior from versions before Snow Leopard. Luckily there’s an easy way to change the default behavior and only copy the email address without the contact’s name.

Start by quitting the Mail app. Then launch Terminal and type (or copy and paste) the following command (all on 1 line):

defaults write com.apple.mail AddressesIncludeNameOnPasteboard -boolean No

Now when you open up Mail again, copying and address will only give you the email address without the contact’s name. Yay!

If you want to revert back to the default behavior, quit Mail and run the command in Terminal again but switch the last word to Yes.

20 Mar 2011

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Hacking Together A DIY IKEA Standing Desk

By David Wang

Update: I’m now using an upgraded hack. See my Custom DIY standing desk with Ergotron LX Dual Stacking Arm

I’m standing as I’m typing this. I’m standing because I’ve got a new desk–a standing desk.

Why Use a Standing Desk?

One of the first questions I get when I tell people I’m now standing while working is why?

The biggest motivation for me was because I didn’t want to sit on my ass the whole day. I feel that sitting for long periods has been contributing to my growing waistline and makes my work day very sedentary.

Standing on the other hand, takes a significant physical effort. At the end of my first week using the desk, my calves are sore, and I can feel my hamstrings and glutes at work. I can’t slouch while standing so my shoulders and back muscles are activated as well.

Building My DIY IKEA Standing Desk

I’ve never really stood up while working, so I wasn’t sure if I could really make the switch. So ideally my desk had to revert back to a sitting desk if standing and working didn’t work for me. One solution was to get an ergo desk–there’s Geekdesk in North America and I saw a pretty good one in The Curve in Mutiara Damansara–but they were way beyond my budget.
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18 Mar 2007

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