|
Small, Powerful
& Efficient Productivity Hacks
The biggest enemy to a productive day is
wastage of time. Anything that saves time is a hack that you shouldn’t
ignore. Luckily, a computer, smartphone and a little know how is all you
need.
Quickly Learn How to Speed Read
If your workday requires you to read large
passages of text (and comprehend them) quickly, consider
learning how to speed read. On an average, a person reads about 200
to 250 words per minute (wpm) and this is slow compared to speed readers
because of sub-vocalisation — you subconsciously read every word to
yourself as you read. Eliminating subvocalisation is one of the basic
tenets of speed reading. On your Android phone or tablet, try an app called
Speed Reader (by P Garrison); on Google Chrome, try an extension called
Spreed and on iOS devices, try an app called Speed Reading HD (by Le Yi
Siftware, ad-supported). These apps use a technique called Rapid Serial
Visual Presentation — it displays one word at a time, very rapidly, in the
centre of your screen — eliminating sub-vocalisation and the time your eye
spends moving between words. You’ll find that you’re instantly able to read
300wpm and with a little practice, up to 500 or even 600wpm. You’ll be able
to finish reading three times faster with a few days practice.
Use Timers to Remind You to Take Breaks
Working or sitting and staring at a
screen for long hours at a stretch can hurt your body, affecting
productivity in the long run. Experts recommend taking frequent
breaks from work to prevent undue stress to your eyes and repetitive strain
injuries among numerous other health issues. One quick way to do this
without installing anything is to use an online timer at www.onlineclock.net.
Just open the link on a web browser and set a timer to remind you to take
breaks – every 20 minutes is a good place to start. Start the timer and get
back to your work – just make sure that your computer speakers are on at a
comfortable level. The webpage will play a sound when the timer is up. If
you prefer to use your phone or tablet as a timer, you can try apps like
Countdown Timer (from MindTheApps) for Android, Countdown Timer (by Tomas
Hubalek) for BlackBerry and Simple Repeat Timer (by Alberto Hung) for iOS.
Keep Your Computer & Portable Devices Running Fast & Lean
If you have a slow computer or phone, you’ll
probably spend several minutes a day just waiting for your device to catch
up with you. Those minutes will add up to several lost hours of
productive time per month. If you have a fairly new
device, you don’t need to replace it with a faster, newer model — just keep
it running faster and you’ll gain those extra hours for free. For Windows,
get Glary Utilities (www.glarysoft.com) to boost speed and fix random crashes
or freezes. On a Mac, get OnyX by Titanium Software (www.titanium.free.fr) that
will help fix errors in the startup, perform maintenance (clearing caches)
and check files for problems. For Android, Clean Master (by KS Mobile) will
help speed things up by freeing up RAM, removing junk files, fixing system
problems & removing files that you do not need.
Mirror Notifications on Your Computer
Depending on how many notifications (texts,
emails, instant messaging, social networks) on your phone are
vying for your attention, you could be spending a significant amount
of time just alternating between your mobile device and computer. You need
an Android device or iPhone, Google Chrome or Firefox on your computer and
something called PushBullet. Install the PushBullet app on the phone and
the extension for your web browser and you can have all your notifications
pop-up on your screen using the browsers desktop notification system. You
can dismiss notifications right from your computer which also dismisses it
on your portable device. Finally, you can use PushBullet to move things
from computer to phone and vice versa which saves you time of having to
Bluetooth or email stuff.
Automate the Regular Backup Process
One of the things that is probably on your mind
is safeguarding critical data. You must take multiple backups of critical
data. There are two ways to do this: offline backup, which requires an
external hard drive or flash drive and online backup, which requires a paid
subscription to a backup service. Start with offline backup and use an
external drive to mirror the contents of your computer. To automate this
process, you can use
SyncBackFree (www.2brightsparks.com). Paid versions of the same program
offer more features, but the free version stays functional and does not impose
any limits. With SyncBack, you can either choose to do a simple backup
(copy files to another directory) or a synchronisation (where the program
keeps track of changes made to the original folder and replicates those in
the backup natural disaster, fires and so on. Carbonite (www.carbonite.com) offers unlimited online space and
automated backup for $59.99 per
computer, per year.
REDUCING DISTRACTIONS
Isn’t it annoying to be
constantly bombarded with pop-ups, fluorescent banners and bright colours
when all you’re trying to do is a bit of reading on the web? There are a
number of web browser extensions that will help you do just that —
eliminate all distractions on a web page and present only the text in a
clear and easy-to-read format. Try Read Mode on Google Chrome and Easy Read
on Firefox. If you need a little bit of forced discipline, try an extension
called StayFocusd for Google Chrome. Allot yourself some time per day to spend
on things like social networks or on sites that you may be addicted to and
StayFocusd will allow you only that much. You can also block entire sites,
paths, subdomains or even block certain types of content (like videos).
AUTOMATE ROUTINE TASKS
Trigger is a powerful app for
Android that uses certain events (triggers) to perform a certain action. It
can automate all the silly time-consuming things you do throughout the day.
For instance, it can automatically launch your mail application once you connect
to your office WiFi and automatically launch Facebook or Twitter when you
connect to home WiFi. You can also have a look at Agent, a set of
context-aware tools that helps in your daily life.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment