Genuine Curiosity

Author Dwayne Melancon is always on the lookout for new things to learn. An ecclectic collection of postings on personal productivity, travel, good books, gadgets, leadership & management, and many other things.

 

Lifehack: Laptop screen protection

For quite some time I've used a 3M Privacy Filter for my laptop screen. It keeps prying eyes from my seatmates away (useful when I'm doing things like studying budgets, dealing with personnel reviews, etc. on planes).

The problem is that these privacy filters get scratched up over time since they rub up against my laptop keyboard (to a lesser degree, my laptop screen got keyboard-shaped scratches and wear marks even before I used the privacy screen).

Last year, I came up with a lifehack that helps prevent this. I used that rubberized shelf liner stuff to make a pad to go between my keyboard and the screen. It not only adds a bit more cushion to protect the screen, it also prevents those scratches (click the picture for an enlarged view).

  • Pick a color that coordinates with your laptop, so you can be truly fashionable.

  • Cut a rectangular section to fit within the outer bounds of your screen (you can use scissors for this, or I like to use the paper cutter at my office).

  • Place it in between the keyboard and the screen when you close your laptop.

Voila - you prolong the life of your screen at a very low cost.

By the way - I previously had a black sheet of this, but I lost several of them because I'd forget about them on dark planes. I switched to the lighter shade you see in the picture and haven't lost one in a while.

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Be among the first to know...

I've been waiting for many months for the "official" David Allen Notetaker wallet (aka the Getting Things Done Evening Module).  They've been out of stock for many moons, and I just  noticed that David posted a note a few days ago to let people know they are back in stock.

That's old news to me - I got mine a couple of weeks ago.  How'd I do that - an insider tip from David?  No - I'm not that special.  Here's how I did it:

Rather than visiting the page all the time looking for when they restocked, I used a handy (free) service called "Watch That Page."

In this case, I set up a watch for the David Allen Company's product page.  Then, each time the page changes, I get an email showing me the differences on that page.  A couple of weeks ago, I got an email saying the price on the NoteTaker wallet had changed from "Out of stock" to $99.00 and I had placed my order about 10 minutes later.

This is handy to watch just about any publicly accessible page, and it provides a "smart" summary by sending an email showing only the parts of the page that have changed.

Give it a try - and if you like it, please donate some money to the site owner to help keep it running.

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Lifehack: An ounce of prevention

As a very frequent flyer, I wanted to share a best practice I picked up from a friend of mine, John Palazza. After noticing that John always had a bottle of hand sanitizer with him, I realized this small idea would be handy to get rid of traveler germs as I made my way through airports and other places where the unwashed masses may gather.

I have seen the following things on planes and in airports:

  • very grungy airline tray tables that haven't been wiped in who-knows-how-long

  • people leaving public restrooms without washing their hands (not me, I assure you)

  • people of all ages coughing and sneezing all over the place

  • other things I'd rather not mention

I then see people eat off those airline tray tables.

I believe this is why I have always had at least one good bout of flu or something more exotic every year. For example, I caught German measles (aka Rubella) after a flight full of coughers about 3 years ago - apparently my childhood vaccine didn't work the way it should've.

But that didn't happen this year! I've been using John's little trick since last summer, and I've now officially made it through a season of heavy winter travel without getting the flu, or even a cold. I attribute it to the wondrous anti-germ powers of my travel-size Purell hand sanitizer, complete with its own handy little rubber harness that allows me to attach it to my briefcase.

I then sanitize my hands before and after meal and beverage service on the flight, and when I get off the plane.

If you travel a lot, why not give it a try? John puts the "Pal" in Palazza.

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Take note (but no Moleskine for me)

Michael Hyatt has some thoughts on taking notes on Working Smart right now and, while I agree with most of his advice, I have my own variations on note taking techniques. Specifically, I disagree with his choice of notebook. Like Michael, I tried (and loved) the Moleskine notebook, but it didn't work for me as a note taking implement (though it is perfect as a journal or diary).

My favored technique was inspired by David Allen's use of legal pads, which allowed him to tear things off and put them in "In." Here is what I do:

I carry around a spiral notebook with micro-perforated pages, and take all my notes in there (here's a grainy Treo 600 snapshot of mine).

I prefer notebooks by a company called "Notebound" because they are cheap and durable, but look professional enough for a high-level business meeting. They also have a plastic pocket inside, which is good for stashing a couple of business cards and to serve as a traveling inbox when I don't have my red folder with me. I can also put temporary things like directions, etc. that I've printed out to help me get where I'm going. I can find these at Walgreen's for around $5 for the 10.5" x 8.5" size (120 or 160 page versions are available).

Here's where these are different from those beautiful Moleskine's: As I process the pages, I can tear them out and a) discard them, b) put the action items into my Outlook task list, c) file them, d) hand them off to someone else.

When I take notes, it's just for taking notes - so this process works for me. It means that I don't carry around a bunch of old notes that I will probably never read, and since I tear out pages as I process them I can see at a glance how much needs to be processed.

When I have notes I *do* want to retain in their original form, I can file them just like I would file any other piece of paper. More often than not, I need to summarize the outcomes of meetings in an email to other people and I use that opportunity to distill the meeting down to its core elements, then file that in my electronic filing system (which I can search easily with Lookout).

How do you deal with notes?

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[Updated] A map for easier performance reviews

[Updated July 2007 to correct broken links]

I'm in the midst of writing annual reviews. For the managers that report to me, I typically ask for input from people in their teams, people they interact with, and customers they work with. This is a great process, as you end up with a lot of different perspectives, stories, suggestions, kudos, etc.

One of my challenges in the past has been summarizing that in a concise, meaningful way. This year it was so much easier - it's the first year I used MindManager to organize the input.

I created a basic template to categorize and summarize the input and stories. Using this template, it was very easy to collect the information, and organize the information into summary "themes." You can download the template here: PersonnelReviewTemplate.mmap (16 KB).

I organized each person's input into three top level categories: input from their own department, input from other departments (I included customers in this category), and my own perspectives as a sort of summary.

Under each of these major categories, I created a branch for what they do well, and a branch for areas for improvement. I included stories and meaningful quotes from the feedback I received.

Then, as I wrote the review I had a handy reference catalog on each person. This made it easy to find relevant examples - for example, if I wanted to talk about the person's performance with regard to follow-through and effective communications, I could quickly scan the map and pull out a few nuggets along with an example or a quote for emphasis.

This year, I found that this method made it much easier to write these reviews. I also have a one-page summary of the input that I can keep on hand to refresh my memory as I develop coaching plans for the coming year. I think this approach will be part of my toolkit from now on.

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