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December 12, 2008 @ 7:53 pm
As I mentioned last time, I was going to isolate from phone and e-mail to make progress on some projects. Success! I finished a major report today for a client; feels good! Lesson learned: at the beginning, I ignored e-mail. However, I didn’t tell anyone I was ignoring email. So, a couple of things did not go the way I would have quite liked. I turned on an auto-responder that said: Thank you very much for your email, I appreciate it very much. !!!! Please Note !!!! I am currently heads down in customer projects and _not_ monitoring email during the day to be more productive. However, your email is very important to me and I will respond to it when I check emails, normally once around noon time and once at the end of the day. If your message is of an urgent nature and cannot wait, please call me. Thanks again, Once that was in place; it worked well. One client indeed needed me and called – it worked perfectly, and the report for the other client is done! December 1, 2008 @ 7:52 pm
Some random thoughts I’ve been thinking about….
I’ve written a lot about “focus” before, but I think focus needs some extra focus in the world of being productive. September 29, 2008 @ 7:15 pm
(Alternate Title: Open Multiple Windows in Outlook so Foresight Stays Right Where You Need It!) When I designed Foresight, I designed it to be your “dashboard.” I designed it have all your pertinent information right in front of you, and, Quick Capture to be right there to snap up any interruptions. However, in several conversations I’ve had lately, people have asked me, “How can Foresight do this for me when I have to change to my Inbox to work on email, or, to my calendar?” After I showed them how I use Foresight and Outlook, they left the conversation smiling. When I start Outlook, I have it start on my calendar. I do this as Outlook has enough to do on start up and bogs itself down without trying to load Foresight on top of it*. After Outlook is done loading and done checking email, I switch to Foresight Today so my dashboard is in front of me – and that is where it stays. When I’m ready to process email, or need to review my calendar, I open these in new, separate windows. You can do this by right-clicking on the item you want and selecting Open in New Window as shown below.
I’ve taken this a step further by using some macros based on those originally developed by Michael S. Hyatt. This allows me to put buttons on the toolbar that let me instantly show my calendar and Inbox all in new and automatically arranged windows - giving you an incredible planning and productivity tool.
* Performance tip: disable any add-on’s you don’t need – this alone helps significantly with Outlook’s performance. September 21, 2008 @ 8:14 pm
Here in Arizona it was 100 degrees (Fahrenheit) today. However, I know Fall is here because they started changing out the grass in my neighborhood. September 3, 2008 @ 7:25 pm
I’ve been using this feature more and more lately and wanted to pass this Foresight Tip along. If you are like me, every day, you get pieces of information here and there about projects you are working on. They may not be anything you need to make a Task or Calendar Item out of. Yet, you know you just need to keep it - like a note about a conversation, or a password, or a link. Foresight will let you quickly and easily Quick Capture this information right into the Notes section of the Project (appending it to what might already be there). This lets you quickly get it off your mind and lets you get back to what you need to be focusing on. Just enter it like I show above. For more information, click here. September 1, 2008 @ 12:03 pm
(Alternate Title: For Sale - Foresight, the Business) Back in January, I wrote about Seth Godin’s book called The Dip. At that point I recognized I was in the dip and thought I could push through it. However, I’ve been doing a lot of re-evaluating lately about the dip and realize that I need to take the advice from The Dip in a different light. For example, (per the book,) I’ve asked myself the question “do I have the time and resources to push through the dip and make Foresight as successful as I know it can be?” The hard answer I’ve finally come to is “no.” So, this post has three purposes. 1) A Lesson The purpose of my blog always has been “useful stuff {about} personal productivity and effectiveness.” With that said, one of the best ways to personal productivity and effectiveness I have circled around to several times is to re-evaluate – frequently. Life changes from moment to moment, day to day, month to month and year to year. What was working previously might not, and most likely will not, work for the reality of now. On a side note, I received a great fortune out of a fortune cookie the other day. It said “Notice the uniqueness of every situation.” I’ve been taking that to heart in many ways. i.e., just walking down the street I’ll look around and notice the “uniqueness” of the situation – the trees; the weather – and get a really fresh / great feeling inside. When it comes to work, I’ll look at what I’m doing and note the uniqueness about it, getting a good feeling to help me push forward on the task at hand. Looking at the uniqueness of the current reality can give you that fresh / great feeling and help you move forward. 2) An Offer With all of this said, I’ve decided to sell Foresight. Foresight needs someone who has the time and resources to push it through the dip and make it even more successful. If you think you have what it takes to push through the dip and are interested in a full, “turn-key” software business, please contact me* and let’s talk. 3) A Promise With all of that said, I want to assure current Foresight users (or people trying Foresight) that I’m not abandoning ship on you! Your business and the relationships I have built with you all means too much to me. Between now and when I find a new steward, we will continue to develop and support Foresight. We have a maintenance release coming out soon. And, as always, feel free to use the support website for any support issues. [] * You can contact me at jeffrey@FixYourToDoList.com. Please note that you will receive an automatic challenge email to make sure you are a human and not SPAM. Please be on the lookout for this email (including keeping an eye on your SPAM folder) as I will not receive your email without you responding to the challenge. Thanks for your understanding. June 22, 2008 @ 4:52 pm
I’ve wanted to write about this for months. I wish I could remember where I read about this; it’s been a great productivity booster for me. In the past, I have written and advised that one should not put priorities on tasks. Instead, one * might * considered putting a due date on a task. A great example of this comes from the best tip I picked up out of Jack Welch’s book - that you have to follow-up with (on) people in order to be effective. To accomplish this, I create a task on a project and put a Due Date on it so it will pop up in the Projects Widget on the right day and remind me to do the follow up. In the past, I would have to pull down the calendar and look forward a week or two to assign the due date. Not only did I have to go through the physical motion of pulling down the calendar, but the mental motion of thinking about looking forward on the calendar for two weeks out. But, not anymore! In the Due Date field (or any date field in Outlook for the most part), just type what you want. i.e.,
Outlook will automatically replace it with the correct date (once you move off the field). Quick, easy and effective! @ 4:17 pm
(Alternate Title: Wishy-Washy Post, 2008) I recently was offered and accepted a position creating a consulting division for a company. It’s and incredible opportunity; something I’ve always wanted to do and something I’m excited about. With the opportunity comes a lot of work added onto an already crowded physical To Do list, as well as the virtual mental one. The latter has been a little bit on overload lately, so I’ve been pausing here and there to do a little “sharpening of the saw.” Funny; it’s apparently been about a year since I’ve done this (looking back at my post called “Wishy-Washy Post”). Here’s what I’ve looked at that has helped me. I wanted to pass it along in case you are in the same boat:
This has been a good self reflection and I’m ready to tackle things for another year. April 2, 2008 @ 5:24 pm
Heather writes: “Yesterday I was actually DOING my work rather than ‘organizing’ it. That might be a good blog post for you - how many of us procrastinate ‘getting things done’ by shoving our tasks around in our organizer of choice and consuming what has been called ‘productivity p@rn’ (aka lifehacker & 43 folders blog posts, David Allen articles, etc.) March 11, 2008 @ 3:35 pm
As I have said, focus is critical to success – on any project, or goal, or venture. With that in mind, I’m going to apply some focus to my blog, at least for awhile, and focus on how Foresight helps me be productive, even with many projects on my plate - as well as interruptions during my day. I have high hopes that even if you do not use Foresight, you can still pick up a tip or two out of these posts. If you navigated to this post from a link promoting “Foresight Productivity Tips,” then I just wanted to let you know that this post, as the posts above it, are those tips (that is, when you are looking at only posts in the Foresight - Tips category). I hope you find this information helpful. As always, if you are looking for a productivity tip or trick in particular (Foresight or not), please don’t hesitate to contact me.
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Miscellaneous thoughts and some useful stuff from Jeffrey W. Cox. Personal Productivity and Effectiveness are the main orders of the day, with some Business sprinkled in here and there. 
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