We are using computers more and more these days. We use it to type documents, play games, browse the Internet, chat with our friends, and more. While there are alternative ways to interact with the computer (such as using speech), the main way of interaction is still typing. So, since we need to type a lot, improving your typing speed is a sure way to save time and increase your productivity. Yes, you need to invest time to improve your typing speed, but it will save you a lot more time in the long term.

The first thing to do to improve your typing speed is measuring your current speed. This way you will know how much progress you make when you learn to type faster. To measure your typing speed, go to this web site, press Start the clock, type the given text, and press Stop the clock. The site will then give you your typing speed in word per minute (wpm).

Next, you can take typing courses that teach you the right typing techniques. I browsed several courses on the Internet and the best I found is Peter’s Online Typing Course. It’s detailed, step by step, and free. It’s also accompanied with exercises to help you practice what you learn.

Of course, learning to type faster doesn’t have to be serious all the time. You can have fun too. Here are some typing games you can play in your browser:

• Barracuda
• Fingerjig
• Bubbles
• Free Typing Games (there are several games to choose here)

I’m sure there are other good resources out there I haven’t mentioned. Do you know any of them? Feel free to share them in the comments.

Photo by CFariello

When talking about productivity, we often talk about how to do things efficiently to save time. While doing things efficiently could save you time in the short term, you may still lose time in the long term. The reason is that you lose more time not by how you do things but by what you don’t do. Not doing things efficiently could cost you hours or days, but not doing things at all could cost you months or years.

Why does it happen? Why don’t people do what is right to do? There are three reasons for that:

1. They don’t know what is right to do.
2. They know what is right to do  but underestimate its importance.
3. They know it’s important but procrastinate doing it.

In this post I will focus on the first and second reasons. For the third reason you can read defeating procrastination habit or my review of The Now Habit.

The first and second reasons have cost me time again and again. One example in blogging is regarding Amazon Associates program. Since the early days of my blogging I often write about the books I read. Some of the posts (like 37 Lessons to Help You Live a Life that Matters and 106 Tips to Become a Master Connector) became popular and attracted a lot of visitors. But I didn’t know that I could earn commissions by referring people to Amazon through those post. Only after blogging for almost one year did I realize that and join Amazon Associates.

Experiences like this teach me that to save time I need to prevent such things from happening again in the future. I must find the right things to do and do them.

Here are some tips to save time by finding the right things to do:

1. Expand your knowledge

The first thing you should do is expanding your knowledge. If you don’t even know that something exists then there is nothing you can do about it. That’s why it’s important that you get as many options as possible on your radar. You can do this by regularly reading books, magazines, and blogs in your field. You can also read materials from other fields – whether they are related or not – so that you can cross-pollinate ideas. Of course, reading is just one way to expand knowledge. There are other ways like watching videos, attending seminars, and joining professional organizations.

2. Write down all potential ideas

While expanding your knowledge, you will find potential ideas along the way. Write down all of them in your idea journal. The act of writing makes the ideas sink deeper into your mind. You should write not only the ideas that incrementally improve your way of doing things but also the ideas that could radically change the way you do things. I often get such ideas from unrelated fields and experiences.

3. Take the ideas seriously

This is where I often make mistakes. It deals with the second reason above: knowing what is right to do but underestimating its importance. To overcome it, whenever you encounter an idea ask yourself: what if the idea is right? What consequences will it have on my way of doing things? Perhaps there is no consequences right now, but what are the potential consequences five or ten years from now?

4. Find the ideas that have the biggest potential regret for you

Since you have only limited resources (whether they are time, money, or energy) and most likely many potential ideas, you should choose only a few of them that are most promising to implement. My favorite way of doing this is by assessing the potential regret I would have if I didn’t implement an idea.

Imagine yourself years from now looking back. What can you potentially regret if you don’t implement the idea? Questioning potential consequences as you do in #3 should help you find the regret level you could have if you don’t implement it.

So here is a key question to choose the few ideas to look deeper into:

Which ideas – assuming the ideas are right – could make you regret the most if you don’t implement them?

5. Investigate the ideas

Now that you have a few promising ideas, you should look deeper into them. Get as much information as possible about them. Ask or learn from people who already apply them. Use the questions what, why, when, where, who, and how to guide your investigation:

• What is the idea?
• Why should I apply the idea? Why is it good?
• When should I apply the idea?
• Where can I apply the idea?
• Who should apply the idea? To whom should the idea be applied?
• How should I apply the idea?

If possible, find multiple viewpoints for the questions so that you get complete view of the idea.

6. Test the most promising ideas

From your investigation you will get one or two most promising ideas. Now what you need to do is testing them in the real world. Apply the ideas. Incorporate them into what you do. Find out by yourself whether or not the ideas work. Some of them will fail but that’s how you improve yourself to save time in the future.

***

These tips will help you save time in the long term. As you’ve seen, the idea is to minimize your potential regret. Minimizing your potential regret has nothing to do with playing safe. Instead, it requires you to take risks here and there.

Photo by Michel Filion

Justin wrote this comment on my post Ask the Readers: What Productivity-Related Problem Do You Have? :

I’ve found that not getting things done is sometimes almost as important as getting things done in productivity. When people request too much of me, I have a hard time telling them no without killing the relationship. Yet if I say yes to everything, I only hinder my productivity with work overload.

It’s a situation I believe many of us face. People give their requests to us and we aren’t able to say no because of fear that saying no will ruin our relationships with them. Eventually that makes us feel overwhelmed. But, as Justin said above, not getting things done is sometimes just as important as getting things done. In fact, I think that it is equally important.

Not getting the wrong things done is just as important as getting the right things done. Of course, it’s up to you to classify something as the right or the wrong thing to do. But once you decide that something is wrong to do, you should not get it done and not even work on it in the first place. That ensures that you have the time and energy to get the right things done and done right. Reserve your mental energy and don’t waste your resources on something that will give you nothing in the end. Of course, it doesn’t mean that you should be selfish and not help others. What I mean is you shouldn’t help others in a way that will harm yourself.

How can we decide whether or not something is right to do? Here are two questions to help you decide:

• Does it help you reach your goal in one way or another?
• Do you have the capacity (time and energy) to handle it?

If your answers to both questions are no, then most likely is it’s not worth doing. The second question is especially important if the request is unrelated to your goals (which could happen pretty often).

For requests you think you shouldn’t do, you should learn to say no without feeling guilty. Some people may try to make you feel guilty if you don’t comply with their request, but don’t fall into the trap. If you know you’re right, you should be confident with yourself. Say no, give them the reason if necessary, and don’t apologize.

Here are three reasons why it’s important to learn to say no:

1. Other people should have realistic expectations about you

One reason people give their requests to you is because they have unrealistic expectations about you. They may think that you have large capacity to handle more requests while in fact you aren’t. Your saying yes will only worsen the situation. If you say yes, people around you will continue to have wrong expectations. It’s your job to let them know that your capacity is limited.

2. You can’t please everybody

Perhaps you are afraid that you will ruin your relationships if you say no. But the fact is no matter how kind you try to be some people may still resent toward you. While it’s important that other people have realistic expectation about you, it’s equally important that you have realistic expectation about yourself. There is no way you can please everybody. Trying to do so will only drain your time and mental energy.

3. Your self worth is not determined by your performance

If you think that you are worthy because you meet people’s requests, you need to change your mindset. Your performance doesn’t determine your self worth. You are worthy because of who you are and not because of what you do. So don’t fall into the trap of trying to meet everyone’s expectation. Even if they say something negative about you, understand that your self worth is not determined by it. You can still feel good about yourself no matter what other people say.

***

Learning to say no is essential to reserve your mental energy and be productive. Do you have tips or thoughts about it? Feel free to share them in the comments.

This article is part of June 2008 theme: Productivity

Photo by Jeronimo Palacios

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
William James

The art of nonfinishing (which Tim Ferriss mentioned in The 4-Hour Workweek) is a key to productivity. We are productive not because we accomplish many things, but because we accomplish the right things. If we accomplish many things but a lot of them are unnecessary, then the value we produce won’t be as good as it should be. On the other hand, if we can prevent ourselves from doing the unnecessary, we will have more time to do the right things.

So, when we do something and realize that it’s no longer worth our time, we should decide to stop. Don’t hesitate to leave it unfinished. Just because you start doing something, it doesn’t mean that you must finish it. Save your time and get more value by doing something else.

Here are 7 time-saving ideas you can use by applying the art of nonfinishing:

1. Reading

If you are reading a book and no longer feel that you get enough value from it, then stop reading it. Leave it and move to the next book. The same principle applies to reading magazines and articles.

2. Listening

There are a lot podcasts you can listen to. If you find that the one you are listening to is not good enough, simply stop in the middle of it. You can then use the time to listen to another podcast.

3. Watching

If you are not entertained by the movie you are watching, then leave it. Why should you waste another 90 minutes if you know within 30 minutes that it isn’t worth your time?

4. Commitment

Do you have a commitment which just drains your energy? For example, maybe you commit to do a kind of social work but after doing it for a while, you realize that it doesn’t fit your strengths well. Or perhaps the cause doesn’t matter to you. If these happen, try as well as you can to cancel the commitment. You can then use the time and energy for another commitment or simply reduce the number of commitments you have.

5. Project

There are times when we work on a project but later realize that it won’t succeed. The wise thing to do is to just stop where you are. This way you can save a lot of time, energy, and money which can then be used for a more promising project.

6. Traveling

Maybe you are on the way to go to a place, but something happens that makes it no longer worth it. For example, you are going to your favorite restaurant, but you hear that there is a bad traffic jam ahead. If you don’t think the restaurant is worth a one-hour traffic jam, then turn around as soon as possible and go back home.

7. Career

Maybe you are now in a career which, after some time, you find is not fulfilling. Perhaps you do not work in your passions, or the workplace doesn’t allow you to grow to your maximum potential. If such things happen, take the decision to switch to another place or even another career. I know it’s easier said than done, especially if you have been there for years, but work takes so much time of ours that I don’t think we should tolerate something unfulfilling. It’s better to act now than to wait until everything is too late.

***

The art of nonfinishing can be applied to many other things beyond these seven ideas. I want to be wise by knowing what to overlook, and I hope you do too.

Photo by laffy4k

I’m now reading an interesting book entitled Organizing from the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern. There are a lot of useful tips there about how to declutter our life and better organize it. I especially like the fact that it takes the organizing issue from the inside out, which means that it creates a system that matches our personality rather than blindly takes one of the systems out there.

I haven’t finished the book, but a thought came to my mind: there is a way to make decluttering and organizing much easier and less complicated, and that is a step to be taken prior to decluttering. I believe it will make our life simpler and happier, and here it is:

Think twice before accepting new stuff into your life

Spend time to think and think again before accepting new stuff into your life. We may think that having more stuff is a sign of abundance, but having more stuff actually takes up more resources: money to buy it, storage space to store it, and especially mental energy to think or be distracted by it.

So you should have a filtering system not to let stuff easily comes into your life. It’s a prevention to cluttering problem. If you have this filter in place, you may eliminate the need of decluttering in the first place.

To apply it, here are some questions regarding new stuff you should ask yourself:

1. Can I eliminate the need? What is the worst thing that could happen if I don’t get the stuff?
   Often the “worst thing” is not as bad as we first think. Once we realize that we can eliminate the need, it will be much easier not to accept the stuff.
2. Is there any other way to meet the need?
   If you do need the functionalities, can you get them in another way, especially using your existing stuff?
3. Will I use the stuff often?
   If you can only meet the need using the new stuff, how often will you use it? If it’s only occasionally, there are usually better means to get the functionalities without acquiring the stuff. One obvious way is borrowing.

If the stuff passes all the three questions, then there is still one more step to go:

Wait 30 days and then ask the questions again.

After 30 days, what you initially think as absolute need may eventually become unnecessary. If for some reasons the need can’t wait for 30 days, just wait as long as you can.

Eventually, if the stuff passes all these tests, then get it. You definitely need it.

Photo by nilexuk

Saying “no” is one of the biggest timesavers in existence. It could spare you from unproductive commitments which may cost you hours, days, or even months of your time. Unfortunately, it may not be easy to say “no” when someone asks you for something. You may have a guilty feeling which makes you give a “yes” to the request while it actually deserves a “no”. As a result, you would be trapped in productivity pitfalls which will benefit neither you nor anybody else in the long term.

So how do you use this big timesaver without feeling guilty? How can you say “no” with a smile and move on in your life? Here are four simple steps to help you do so:

1. Be sincere
   Sometimes the guilty feeling is there for a reason. It may serve you as reminder if you say “no” while your heart actually says “yes”. So, first of all, you should be honest with yourself. Do you say “no” out of a sincere heart? Are you sure that you say it not because of your own ego or self-centered interests?
   If you’re sure that you are sincere, then you have a firm foundation to say “no” without feeling guilty. Otherwise, you may need to introspect and change your answer according to what your heart tells you.
2. Be sure that the world will be better if you say “no”
   You can say “no” without ever feeling guilty if you’re sure that your decision will eventually make the world a better place. It may not be easy, of course, since it’s often the case that your decision seems good just for you but bad for the others in the short term.
   To overcome this problem, you should have a firm purpose in your heart. A firm purpose allows you to see further and deeper, and that enables you to see your decision as part of a larger story which will eventually benefit the world.
3. Find a benefit for the other party
   While having a purpose and seeing the larger story will help you feel comfortable with your decision, you still need to make the other party feel the same. To do so, you need to somehow give them a reason which will benefit them.
   If you are sure that the world will be a better place through your decision (step #2), you can then look through the others’ eyes and find a benefit for them.
   It may save them time, help them grow, or enable you to help them more effectively in a different way. Your saying “no” should create a win-win situation for both you and the other party.
4. Communicate the benefit clearly to the other party
   After you have a good reason for the other party, you need to communicate it clearly. Choose polite but firm words which will give them a clear “no” but also a clear reason of why doing so may benefit them. A well communicated reason will make them feel comfortable with your decision, and that will put the guilty feeling even further from you.

Following the development in personal productivity field could be cumbersome. There are simply too many good resources out there than what I could possibly follow through my feed reader. So what can I do?

One solution I can think of is creating a “knowledge base” of personal productivity resources. The “knowledge base” should contain information from multiple sources in one place which can easily be searched to find exactly what I need.

That’s why I create the Productivity Search Engine (PSE). It’s a Google Custom Search Engine which is designed to search 50+ productivity blogs at once. These blogs are select blogs taken from Zen Habit’s Top 50 Productivity Blogs with some additions from me.

Unlike the normal Google Web Search, this search engine limits the results only from those 50+ productivity blogs. Since newest ideas and trends often come from blogs instead of other kind of web sites (due to blogs’ very democratic nature), I believe PSE could give you better results on productivity topics.

If you are a blogger interested in productivity topics, the benefit of using PSE is even more obvious: you can quickly figure out what other bloggers have said about certain productivity topics. This will make you look even more knowledgeable in front of your readers :). And you can do that in very short time.

Please check it out. It’s very useful for me (I use it extensively to do research for this blog) and I hope it’s also useful for you.

I’ve written about how keyboard shortcuts can boost your productivity when working with computers. The next step is – of course – putting it into action.

Most (if not all) popular applications have keyboard shortcuts to help you use them efficiently. Therefore, once you are inside the applications you can use those shortcuts to improve your productivity. It’s only a matter of familiarizing yourself with the applications’ keyboard shortcuts (how to familiarize yourself effectively, however, would be another post).

But before you reach that point, first of all you need to launch the applications. And this could be a big bottleneck, especially for applications which you launch often.

One of the slowest ways to launch an application is launching it from the Start Menu. This is especially true if the application is buried deep inside the menu hierarchies. For example, to launch Magnifier in Windows XP you must go through Start | All Programs | Accessories | Accessibility | Magnifier – a five-level depth! A better way would be to use a desktop shortcut or Quick Launch shortcut. But still, no matter what way you choose, nothing beats a keyboard shortcut. It would be best if you can use a keyboard shortcut to launch the application.

So how do you assign a keyboard shortcut to launch an application? Well, you need to install a utility for this purpose and my favorite utility is Winkey. I like it because it’s easy to use. You can customize your shortcuts through a user-friendly interface. Furthermore, with Winkey you can assign shortcuts not only to applications but also to files and folders. It means that you will be able to quick-open not only your applications but also your files and folders!

After downloading and installing Winkey, you can open it by pressing Win+F9 or double-clicking its icon in the System Tray. Next, you can customize your shortcuts by pressing Add, Remove, or Properties buttons.

To make the most of it, you should list the applications, files, and folders you use most often. They should be given priority to be assigned keyboard shortcuts. Then you should choose shortcuts which are easy to remember for them. For example, I use Win+O to open Outlook.

What applications, folders, and files should you assign keyboard shortcuts ?

Everyone has different applications they often use, but I think browser is one of them. So assign a shortcut to your browser. I assign Win+X to my Firefox browser (Win+F is not available because it is used by Windows to launch the Search window). For me, some other applications I often use are Outlook (Win+O, as mentioned above), OneNote (Win+N) and iTunes (Win+T).

For files and folders, I guess My Documents would be among those people use most often. So assign a shortcut to open it (I use Win+1). If you have any subfolders inside My Documents you use often, you can also assign them their own shortcuts.

Technorati Tags: productivity

In this information age, computers have been a big part of our life. In fact, many people spend much – if not most – of their time working with computers. As such, there is a simple way to improve your productivity when dealing with computers:

You can save a lot of time by using keyboard shortcuts instead of other input devices such as mouse. The same tasks can be completed in much less time by using shortcuts (well, maybe that’s why it is called shortcuts in the first place).

For example, let’s see software familiar to most of us: Microsoft Word. How do you open Thesaurus in Word? You can use mouse to click menu Tools, and then Language, and then Thesaurus. Or you can instantly open it by pressing Shift-F7. And how do you open Macros in Word? You can use mouse to click menu Tools, and then Macro, and then Macros, or just use the shortcut Alt-F8. Much quicker, right?

People playing computer games now how important keyboard shortcuts are. I once played multiplayer games against my friends. Though I knew the features quite well, I didn’t know the shortcuts. So I used my mouse to build new troops and new buildings. All my more experienced friends didn’t bother using the mice; they all used keyboard shortcuts. Guess who won the game ? Obviously, it wasn’t me. My friends who used shortcuts could build their force much faster and just stormed mine.

Of course, keyboard shortcuts would be beneficial only if you are familiar with your keyboard. If you can find the menus with mouse faster than the letters in your keyboard, then mouse would be a better solution for you. However, with more and more people spent their time with computers, many people are now familiar with their keyboards.