A while back, I wrote about a tool called "ClipMarks" that I was using to share snippets of web pages with other people. I really like it.
However, I have now found a tool I like better for this, and I have converted to i-Lighter. I'd looked at it before and didn't like it, but they've made significant improvements since then and now I think it is awesome. What's so cool about i-Lighter? Read on...
Easy as a yellow pen (but much better)
i-Lighter is a free browser add-in (Firefox and IE) that gives you the virtual equivalent of a yellow pen that you can use to highlight all or part of a web page. You see the highlights right there on the page.
First, you download the browser add-in and create an account at the i-Lighter site (this stores your highlights centrally in a sort of catalog). Then you click the i-Lighter toolbar button to turn on your yellow pen, and start highlighting.
Share the love
Once you've marked the best parts of the page, then the fun really starts. i-Lighter has a bunch of options for what you can do with your highlights:
- Add a note to the highlights to blend in your own commentary
- Email the page (with highlighting) or just the highlights to someone else (you can create an i-Lighter address book to streamline the process)
- Send the link to Twitter - this automatically creates a tinyurl for you!
- Blog it (Wordpress or Blogger only)
- Tag it on del.ici.ous
I use this quite a bit these days to share news article on interesting topics with my coworkers, and find that i-Lighter makes it very easy. If you want to see i-Lighter in action, check out the online tour.
By the way - this is Windows only for now, but the i-Lighter CEO's blog says a Mac version is likely in the future.
Read More
I work at a software company, and our dress code around the office is fairly relaxed most of the time. Therefore, when I'll be in the office all day and not seeing any customers in person, I usually wear blue jeans.
The other day, I didn't have any clean jeans so I threw on a pair of khaki trousers from The Gap and went to work. I got quite a few comments like, "Why are you so dressed up - is a customer visiting today?"
Why was I surprised by this reaction? I was (literally) wearing all the same clothes --right down to the shoes-- that I usually wear to work except the blue jeans. Changing my trousers noticeably changed others perception of my professionalism.
This small effect reminded me that it doesn't take much to positively influence how others perceive us. I'm not just talking about clothing - I think the "little bit extra" factor can make a difference in a lot of things we do.
Becoming purposeful
Now, I'm trying to be more conscious of when I could add a "little bit extra" to key activities and deliverables in my job to positively impact others' perception of my work. For example, some examples of areas I can improve are:
- Planning more for meetings I chair and sending out agendas, expectations, and pre-reading ahead of time.
- Being more conscientious about follow-up after meetings and calls, including sending out meeting recaps and action items.
- Being more proactive in informing others in my team about things that I'm working on which may affect them.
This is not an overnight change, as it takes time to develop new habits in this area, but I think it will be worth it. Just added a Next Action to my "@computer - web" list to order more khakis...
What about you - have you discovered any small changes that make a big positive difference?
Read MoreOK, so this happened a while back, but I just remembered it during a conversation with my mother who's visiting us this week.
At one of our family reunions, I saw an uncle I hadn't seen in about 10 years. He'd gone completely bald since the last time I saw him.
Me: "Hey - what happened to your hair?
Uncle John: "It's the strangest thing - one day I woke up and my forehead went all the way to my ass."
I'll keep that line --I just might need it one day.
Read More
After reading an article from the Nov. 21 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, I wanted to get a pedometer that I could use every day. You see, the study says that people who use a pedometer to track their daily steps tend to increase their step count by about 2400 steps per day. I guess it's one of those "That which gets measured gets improved" situations.
Trouble is, I didn't want to hang some funky pedometer on my belt (most pedometers I've seen are either too bulky or gaudy for me to want to wear them every day). I still haven't found a "businesslike" pedometer, but I've found the next best thing: the ThinQ Pocket Pedometer from Sportline. This is designed to fit in your pocket (I find it works great in either your pants pocket or shirt pocket).
It seems about as accurate as my older, geekier pedometer and it is very unobtrusive. The ThinQ also has a clock, a stopwatch, and calculates the distance (be sure and set your stride length for more accuracy) and estimated calories burned through walking.
The ThinQ comes in blue, orange, and green and you can get it on Amazon, and it is on sale at the time of this posting through REI.
By the way - the AMA article also suggests 10,000 steps as a good goal for most people. Walk on, everyone.
Read MoreThanks to my dear friend Rosa, I have been reading a great post from Web Worker Daily on "Getting Things Done (GTD) for Bloggers."
As the name implies, this article is an adaptation of David Allen's Getting Things Done, geared toward bloggers. I think it does a fantastic job of mapping GTD activities to the tasks of blogging. I'm tempted (but maybe not that tempted...) to produce such a mapping for my "day job," too.
Innate or acquired productivity?
As I reflected on this, I was wondering: how much of productivity is learned, and how much is wiring? I have three children, and they each approach organization and planning in very different ways. My youngest is a natural listmaker and planner. For example, this past weekend, she had a sleepover at a friend's house. The Sunday before, she had her bag packed and had created a little sign that she put on top of her bag, reminding her to put her toothbrush, toothpaste, and her favorite stuffed animal in the bag before going to her friend's house.
She's only 7 but she is by far the most "together" member of the house - and this is all stuff she picked up on her own.
So, what do you think? I consider myself to be productive, but not naturally so. I've learned some tricks and techniques to help with organization, but I must work at it to stay with the program - what have you observed in your own life?
Read More
