Professional Grade Access with Gmail

I’ve become quite a fan of Gmail this year and here’s why. With relatively little effort and with reasonably inexpensive equipment, anyone can have access to their email from just about anywhere, get world class spam filtering, and enjoy better search capabilities than most corporate email systems.

I’m still tethered to a work email system (Lotus Notes of all things), but for the rest of my life I find Gmail an amazing addition to the kit. Polling multiple POP3 accounts, filtering mountains of e-mail into manageable piles, and giving me access to my messages anywhere I go means I get out of my office more and more.

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Five and Five – Tips on Productivity and Concentration

Five Tips for Staying Productive When You Work Where You
Live – Marshal Loeb (marketwatch.com)

  1. Separate your work space from the rest of your home and spend time in it only when you are working – “Create physical barriers, such as a door or a flight of stairs to isolate yourself from your home routine and focus your attention.”
  2. Sit at your desk at the same time every day and keep normal business hours – “One of the major challenges is prioritizing your tasks because nobody is there to tell you what to do,” says Holly Reslink, a member of the Professional Association of Resume Writers and Career Coaches, “so it helps to create a daily goal sheet.”
  3. Dress in a way that will help you feel professional. – “You do not have to wear stockings and high heels, but it helps to get out of your pj’s and put on a crisp shirt”
  4. Disregard house chores until the end of the business day – “You wouldn’t wash the dishes, walk the dog or cook lunch for the kids if you were in a real office..”
  5. If your work does not require constant access to email, turn off your email program and check messages only at scheduled times – “Take advantage of your situation by enjoying a few moments in your backyard or on the front porch.”

Original article at CareerJournal.com

Five Tips to Maximize Your Ability to Concentrate

  1. Get Your Rest- “It might seem obvious, but the biggest factor affecting concentration is rest…”
  2. Make a Plan – “When you sit down to work without a plan, it’s easy to get caught up in crutch activities like checking email and browsing the web…” (Great tie in to #2 on Marshall’s list)
  3. Eat Light and Healthy – “Nothing slows down the mind and body like a big greasy meal…”
  4. Exercise – “If you don’t exercise regularly, this energy can manifest itself in the form of a distracted mind…”
  5. Take Breaks and Mix Up Your Environment.- “It can also be helpful to work in different places. Instead of being chained to your desk all day, make a point of moving around.”

Carefully picked from many less interesting rocks at Zenhabits.

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Where’s my Personal Air Vehicle?

Flying car implies it will replace anybodys car, said Carl Dietrich, chief executive officer of Terrafugia, which is developing the Transition, a personal aircraft designed to travel on skyways and highways. Flying car brings out a lot of connotations and The Jetsons.

A quick look at what it takes to control normal automobile traffic in our cities and states gives it away. We won’t be getting flying cars anytime soon, but I still just enjoy the fact that Paul Moller does what he does. I was a bit surprised to hear he’s 70 years old and I assume that means at some time in the next few decades we’ll lose updates on this story.

Fortunately for all of us, the X-prize and Google’s recent move to back the endeavor promise to bring us loads of fun for years.

  • Google offers $30 million for the first commercial lunar rover
  • Rover must safely land on the moon and beam back images and video to Earth
  • Google partnered with the X Prize Foundation for the moon challenge
  • Ansari X Prize contest led to the first manned private spaceflight in 2004

If You Knew What You’ll Know

Nice simple piece at Businessweek today on your own perspective at the age of 95. I roll this into the same category of what you’d realize if you were fighting cancer and in remission. There are some events in life that help us cut through the fog and attain some level of clarity on what’s important.

In conducting research for one of my books, my co-author and I interviewed more than 200 high-potential leaders from around the world. A key question that we asked was: “If you stay in this company, why are you going to stay?”

The top three answers:

1. “I am finding meaning and happiness now. The work is exciting, and I love what I am doing.”

2. “I like the people here. They are my friends. This feels like a team—like a family. I might make more money if I left, but I don’t want to leave the people here.”

3. “I can follow my dreams. This organization is giving me the chance to grow and do what I really want to do in life.”