Grab bag ‘o tips
Here’s just a total brain dump of various “do it easier/faster” tips that I’ve collected recently:
- Check movie listings on Google by typing: movies: your-movie-name. If Google already knows where you are, the first clickable result will be all your local listings. If Google doesn’t know where you are, you’ll get a place to input your area code.
- Squirt updates to Twitter via Quicksilver using this script. (Mac only)
- Use Zotero to quickly collect and annotate research (for whatever: blog posts, a report at work, etc.).
- Make screencasts showing instructions for stuff. This is powerful at work when you find yourself doing the same training over and over. Just make a screencast once and send it out as often as you need. Use Camtasia (Win) or Snapz Pro X (Mac).
- Do ebay research by searching expired listings for prices. This’ll give you a quick check on the range of prices. Just hit the “advanced search” link at the top right of any ebay page. Right below the keyword field and the category field you’ll see a checkbox for expired listings. Click that when you search.
- Send your boss a weekly report of what’s going on. This’ll satisfy their curiosity and keep ‘em off your back. (I need to get better at this)
- Get your internet video via Democracy or iTunes, but use a del.icio.us feed. Build your own del.icio.us feed kinda like this: http://del.icio.us/rss/popular/system:media:video for popular videos. Or http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/system:media:video+funny for funny videos. You get the idea.
- Use 3×5 cards to organize website navigation. Each card represents a page (write the page title or description on the card), then keep sorting them and organizing them until you’re satisfied. Take a picture.
- Use your cameraphone to take pictures of whiteboard sessions and send the picture around to the people who need it.
- If you’re a blogger and you need inspiration, then mark books as you read them to indicate good blog post ideas. Check out how Guy does it.
I guess that’s enough for now. Time to go to the beach. ;-)
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POSTED IN: creativity, innovation, management hack, tips and tricks, web/tech
1 opinion for Grab bag ‘o tips
BobG
Mar 26, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Hey Bren - Imagine my surprise when I searched “murse” on Google and slackermanager popped up! Zowie! I’m looking for a new one - the zipper on mine is toast. Hadn’t been by your place for awhile - good tips you give…especially the one about a list to the boss :) - And I’ll definitley check out Guy’s advice. Look for my mug at your community on mybloglog soon - you can find onereaderatatime there, too.
Enjoy the beach!