Kolz Blog

I know someone who has been doing the same management job for 18 years. Now in his late 40’s, this person has become burnt out and very frustrated with his job. As he has said to me, “how can someone do something for almost 20 years and not go insane?” For that reason alone it is important that you vary your responsibilities from time to time. Keeping your tasks varied and interesting will prevent you from beginning to feel bored and underemployed. This is akin to a child beginning to have bad grades because they are not being challenged enough in school- eventually, you just begin to let yourself slip, and the quality of your work will begin to suffer as a result. From an employment point of view, that is a very bad turn of events and is something that should be avoided. Taking new responsibilities on can be just as frustrating if you aren’t prepared to handle them properly. Before you approach your boss about taking new responsibilities, take some time to prepare yourself accordingly:

• Assess how new responsibilities will affect your career goals – this is important for the long run. If you are taking on new responsibilities for the sake of doing so, you are doing it for the wrong reasons. There’s a to be gained, but also a lot to be lost if you weren’t as ready for it as you thought you were. [Read more]

An Italian study has identified overweight as a direct cause of high blood pressure. And it also showed that up to half of overweight people can bring down blood pressure to healthy levels by weight reduction.

An Italian study has identified overweight as a direct cause of high blood pressure. And it also showed that up to half of overweight people can bring down blood pressure to healthy levels by weight reduction.

A few posts back I made the point that many computer users, including lots of web workers, reach for Microsoft Excel to do much more than just standard spreadsheets. Many people reach for it as their preferred way to produce charts and graphics, or do graphical prototyping. In this post, I’ll collect some useful ways to do Excel graphics and charts more efficiently, and make them look better. Speed Charts. Before you start going to work on formatting a chart and making it look pretty, take a peek at it. Just select the data you’re going to chart and hit F11 to get a nice big view of it. Use the tabs at the bottom of the sheet to return to your original view. You’ll most likely see a column chart. If you want a different default chart type, right click on a finished chart that you like, and select Chart Type. Then click the Set as Default Chart button. Add Patterns, Colors and Labels to Charts. In an Excel column chart, double click on a bar to bring up formatting choices. Select patterns, colors and more for your columns. This also works with other chart types. Using Autoshapes. Most people who use the Drawing toolbar in Excel make use of only the most basic tools, such as arrows for annotation. Did you know that Excel has extensive shapes and object types that you can insert in your sheets? Go to View/Toolbars and bring up the Drawing toolbar. Click on the Autoshapes choice at the left of the toolbar, and experiment with some of the drop-downs you see. These can really dress up your sheets. You can also keep the result of a formula in your Autoshape. For example, if you have the value $1,000 entered in cell A2, click within your Autoshape, go to the Formula bar atop your sheet, and enter this: =$A$2. The value will show up in your Autoshape, and change whenever you change the value in cell A2. [Read more]

As you enter a career of being an independent web worker, you can hardly avoid negotiating contracts with potential clients. Inevitably, the first questions that will come up are “how much is this going to cost?” and the closely-related “how long is it going to take?” Providing reasonable (and acceptable) answers to these questions is often the difference between a signed contract and an insincere commitment to call you back later. Whatever your skills as software developer or web designer (or whatever your web work career entails), you need to also understand the basics of estimating. Unless you’re doing utterly routine piecework (data entry from paper forms or perhaps transcription), estimating is more art than science. But there are some things you can do to increase your chance of turning out a good estimate: one that ends up bearing some resemblance to the time it takes to do the actual work. Here are five tips to help you get started on refining your own time estimates. 1. Estimate in inch-pebbles, not milestones. When you’re faced with a large piece of work to estimate, don’t try to come up with a single number to cover the entire job all at once. Break it down into pieces, and then break those pieces down into pieces until the pieces are small enough that you can see how you would do each one and put a number on them. As a general rule of thumb, if the pieces take more than 4 to 8 hours, they’re not small enough yet. Most people have trouble guessing their time to perform any job that will take longer than that. [Read more]

A while back I revealed here the Secret even more secret than The Secret: if you want something you’ve got to go out there and do something to make it happen. I got it right, but wrong: in this future-shocked age between the old industrial way of doing things and a Brave new Virtual Digital World, what you think you know is increasingly wrong - made obsolete by the rush of new discoveries, information, occupations and societal change. Not convinced? Watch Did You Know and Did You Know 2.0 on YouTube. Nowadays it’s not I want, I do, I get. It’s I want, I learn, I do, I get. You need - now more than ever - knowledge to do new things to get new results. Be that changing jobs - and getting into an occupation that didn’t exist when you were in college or finding people you can relate to - in places online that did not exist a year or two ago. But if you’re in your 30s (or in your 40s or tottering through your 50s), where do you go to learn what you need to so you can do what you need to do so you get what you want to get? The Good News is lots of places - and again, most of these places where few and far between until very recently. Here’s a quick roundup:

• Wikipedia. You’ve heard of it, but do you really use it? “The English Wikipedia edition passed the 2,000,000 article mark on September 9, 2007 with a total of over 609 million words, roughly fifteen times as many as the largest edition of Encyclopedia Britannica.” The sheer depth of that sea of knowledge makes it the default place to get general information about bits of the human condition.
• Classes Online. Today, not only can you get a degree in just about anything, you can take - often for free - a class at some university on just about anything. Head over to the Online Education Database and this post in particular for a long list of classes you can take online and for free.
• Podcasts. You know, I always wanted to take a few classes at Yale. Or maybe Duke, or Stanford or MIT. Now I can, for free, from the comfort of my desk. You can load up on both free video and audio podcasts of lectures delivered by some of the brightest minds on the planet free, courtesy of iTunes U available via a free copy of iTunes. Can’t stand iTunes? hustle over to Libsyn and check out the Creative Commons-licensed podcasts there. Don’t forget to check your favorite blog for free podcasts, or Google find podcasts for more directories.
• YouTube. Yes, you can find videos of people stupidly doing dumb things, but you can also find videos of people doing new and interesting things. The trick is searching for what you’re interested in, not just screensucking whatever is there. For example, I’m learning Ruby on Rails, a programming framework presently. There’s 267 videos on YouTube - that amounts to my own private dedicated television channel. Also, as non-network video becomes more ubiquitous, you’ll find more and more and still more available.

Bob Walsh sells MasterList Professional, a Windows task management and writes, codes, podcasts and blogs about different aspects of the digital lifestyle at 47hats and Clear Blogging. His second book, Clear Blogging, is now available at Amazon and elsewhere. Bookmark or Share this with a friend! Related Articles:

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If you are looking for a little weekend reading, here are the top 10 downloads for the month of August. If you haven't tapped into these manifestos, give 'em a print and enjoy with a cup of coffee on Sunday morning after you've finished the TImes or WSJ. Simply follow the link below or visit ChangeThis. Thanks to everyone who read or passed on a manifestos this past month! Making the Most of Your Time by Rajesh Setty Mind of the Innovator by Matthew E. May How to be Creative by Hugh McLeod 25 Ways to Distinguish Yourself by Rajesh Setty The Bootstrapper's Bible by Seth Godin [Read more]

Recently Get Rich Slowly did an excellent article on Getting to Now: How to Beat the Procrastination Habit, with good tips on doing things immediately instead of putting them off. While the article doesn’t address this directly, the Habit of Now is one of the most important factors in how organized you are. If you want to get organized, you must develop the Habit of Now. The other important factors in getting organized? There are three:

1. Have a place for everything. If you have an item in your hands, you should know where it belongs.
2. Put everything in its place. Instead of just tossing a paper any old place, or pasting a scrap of information in a random text file, put it where it belongs.
3. Keep your information in one place. This is related to #2 above, but if your information is in multiple places, you’ll waste time looking for it. Try to keep everything centralized, to save time and searching.

But even with those three factors, if you don’t develop the Habit of Now, things will fall apart. Instead of stacking a bunch of papers to put away where they belong later, do it now. If you don’t have a place for something, such as a folder, make one now instead of later. The Habit of Now, of course, isn’t always that easy to develop. We tend to procrastinate. However, it’s just like any other habit: if you focus on it for long enough, it will soon become automatic and easy. Here’s how to do it: 1. Write it down. Print out a big sign that says, “DO IT NOW”. Also list the actions you must do right away: filing, creating a place for something, putting things where they belong, the top item on your task list. 2. Log it. You don’t need to create a detailed log for each time you follow the Habit of Now … but it would be very useful to do a running tally. Just have a small piece of paper on your desk, and when you Do It Now, put a tally. You can also do a tally of the times you forget to Do It Now or procrastinate on it. The tally simply makes you aware of the activity, and reinforces the habit, and it really works. [Read more]

The art of relaxing on a weekend has become scarce as we allow activities, errands and chores to crowd out the down-time that we truly crave. Without being intentional about our time, we can find ourselves running from one thing to the next, left exhausted and without pause. What can you do to relax and simplify life this weekend? Here are four simple ideas:

1. Cancel something that you were going to do. I'm not suggesting that you bail out on an important commitment but often there are "fluff" items built in to our schedule which can be pruned in order to free up time. Is there an errand that can be done on line? Do you really need to drive across town for one more thing?
2. Enjoy the Fall. I love this time of year (as do the folks at LivSimpl) and there are country fairs, sidewalk sales and everything in between to participate in. Check out your local paper for a calendar of what's going on.
3. Throw something away. [Read more]

Mindjet’s Director of Solutions Marketing, Michael Deutch, and PMPi’s James Bulmer, MCP - Senior Associate, will present "Productivity-Improving Techniques for Using MindManager in the PMBOK^® Framework" at PMI Global Congress 2007.

Sunday, October 7th

12:30 pm –2:00 pm   Room A404

You’ll walk away with:

• An understanding of the new techniques for managing projects within the PMBOK^® Framework
• An understanding of basic methods of applying MindManager in project management
• Knowledge of the best practices for reducing the time required for requirements capture, scope definition and project communications

Visit Mindjet at booth #722 by downloading this free exhibit hall pass and get a firsthand look at MindManager 7 and the Project Management Jetpack.

 

 

 

 

I first heard about the Web 2.0 map in Nick Wilson’s Metaversed blog. Nick pointed me to George Kurtz, the mastermind and creator of what is possibly this lifetime and Second Life’s largest map, built in MindManager. Just how big is it? According to George, SL aka Butch Dae, the 3D version of the map in Second Life measures about 120 x 510 feet/ 40 x 160 meters - well over the size of a football field, and contains over 400 parent topics with over 3 gigabytes of references. The landmark for the map in Second Life is Quiricosta (228,87,108). In a recent phone conversation, George and a small team in Second Life are working on what they describe as the Virtual Information Technology (VIT) World Project, an effort to stimulate development and promote collaboration within Second Life. They define VIT as “the computational hardware, software, and human systems that handle the ever-increasing amount of available data.” They have learned that the management, analysis, and interpretation of such massive streams of data demands a new perspective. George describes these changes as “a refresh in the way we work, interact, communicate, collaborate, and play.” The VIT team uses MindManager to capture the enormous amount of information related to their project. George reports that by identifying all the components of Virtual Information Technology and developing the hierarchical structure of the information, he then can start seeing the trends that are developing, what’s working and what’s not. George said, “It’s like putting a puzzle together. If I don’t have all the pieces, I will not have a complete picture of what’s going on." [Read more]

Each Wednesday we look at David Allen's productivity system, Getting Things Done. It's been said that the reason why teachers leave the field of education is due more to a lack of administrative support than to poor salaries. I've worked with a few who we wished had less administrative support so that they would stop complaining and find a new line of work. No names mentioned of course. What is it that keeps someone miserable in a given job? On the flip side, could it be that a GTD practitioner is actually happier due to his ability to process even the simplest of things? One San Francisco consultant seems to think so. Pat Lencioni of the Table Group has produced a new resource that helps organizations track the following: anonymity, irrelevance and immeasurement. The point: unhappiness at work spreads like a cancer so why not track it in order to shift the worker's attitude and focus? While The Table Group doesn't specifically teach GTD, the creation of a metric like the Anti Misery Worksheet is proof positive that the little things at work do matter. Check out Pat's new book here.

Photo by Zara-Jay Every Thursday is Happiness Day on Zen Habits. Every day, I get emails and comments that are amazingly positive and encouraging, and in truth these messages are the very thing that sustains my blogging. However, I also get negative comments now and then: criticism of my writing, and not nice criticism either. How do you deal with criticism? I think the first reaction for most of us is to defend ourselves, or worse yet to lash back. And yet, while criticism can be taken as hurtful and demoralizing, it can also be viewed in a positive way: it is honesty, and it can spur us to do better. It’s an opportunity to improve. Recently, I ran an “Ask the Readers” post asking for suggestions for improvement, after receiving a few critical emails and comments. I responded to one of the critics with a “thank you” and asked him to comment in the Ask the Readers thread. The reader emailed me back, and here was his response:

After sending my email, I felt I might have been a little harsh. But now, after reading your response, I think you would have the perfect qualities to write an article or two about taking criticism with grace and appreciation.

I really liked that thought, so here is that post he suggested: how to take criticism with grace and appreciation. Stop Your First Reaction If your first reaction is to lash back at the person giving the criticism, or to become defensive, take a minute before reacting at all. Take a deep breath, and give it a little thought. Personally, I tend to get a little angry when I’m criticized. But I have also taught myself not to react right away. For example, I’ll let a critical email sit in my inbox for at least an hour before replying. Or I’ll walk away from someone instead of saying something I’ll regret later. That cooling off time allows me to give it a little more thought beyond my initial reaction. It allows logic to step in, past the emotion. I don’t have anything against emotion, but when it’s a negative emotion, sometimes it can cause more harm than good. So I let my emotions run their course, and then respond when I’m calmer. Turn a Negative Into a Positive One of the keys to my success in anything I do is my ability to find positive things in things that most people see as a negative. Sickness forces me to stop my exercise program? That’s a welcome rest. Tired of my job? That’s a time to rediscover what’s important and to look for a better job. Supertyphoon ruined all my possessions? This allowed me to realize that my stuff wasn’t important, and to be thankful that my loved ones were still alive and safe. You can do the same thing with criticism: find the positive in it. Sure, it may be rude and mean, but in most criticism, you can find a nugget of gold: honest feedback and a suggestion for improvement. For example, this criticism: “You write about the same things over and over and your posts are boring and stale.” Can be read: “I need to increase the variety of my posts and find new ways of looking at old things.” That’s just one example of course — you can do that with just about any criticism. Sometimes it’s just someone having a bad day, but many times there’s at least a grain of truth in the criticism. See it as an opportunity to improve — and without that constant improvement, we are just sitting still. Improvement is a good thing. [Read more]

Action Project Manager for Microsoft Outlook is a utility software for project management, planning, scheduling and tracking individual tasks for small organizations and Individuals. You can create task and track till its completion by sharing between multiple users, monitoring it as a centralized system and keeping track of the proceedings. It ensures an on time delivery of projects and meeting the expected output for a successful Project management. For Outlook 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007. Beta.

Later today at DigitalLife, Microsoft's Windows Media Center chief Joe Belfiore will demo the new Media Center Extenders you're just now hearing about, including the Linksys DMA2200 and DMA2100, and the D-Link DSM-750 MediaLounge Media Player. Another one he'll show off is the Niveus Media Extender, which we'll cover in more depth tomorrow. Microsoft will also introduce a new Internet TV service for all Vista Home Premium and Ultimate users: starting this Friday, those customers will find the option in their Media Center interface, and can use it to get a range of video programming without the need for a TV tuner. Check out more details on that and the MCEs in the press release below:

Microsoft Unveils Extenders for Windows Media Center and Internet TV Beta - Connected Entertainment Comes Home for the Holidays New devices from Cisco's Linksys division, D-Link and Niveus Media deliver new video formats, form factors and HD TV over wireless home networks; Internet TV Beta debuts with more than one hundred hours of free full-screen video NEW YORK -- Sept. 27, 2007, 12:01 AM EST -- Today at DigitalLife, Microsoft joined initial launch partners in revealing highly anticipated details on new Extenders for Windows® Media Center. These devices, which are expected to be available for purchase this holiday season, will allow easy access to premium cable, high-definition TV, popular video formats including DiVX, music, paid movies, photos and more from any TV in the house, with a wired or wireless network connection. People can even pause a recorded show in one room, and then resume it from the same moment in another room. Adding to the wealth of content available on Windows Vista Media Center PCs, Microsoft launched a beta test of Windows Media Center Internet TV, which will offer more than one hundred hours of ad-supported entertainment from MSN Video, including full-length shows, music concerts and movie trailers. "These new extenders bring the Media Center experience on a Windows Vista PC to any TV around the house in full HD over a standard wired or wireless home network connection," said Joe Belfiore, Corporate Vice President, eHome division at Microsoft. "We are excited to show consumers how easily they can enjoy their digital lifestyle around their house with any of the new sleek looking and quiet Extenders from our launch partners." New devices build a wireless entertainment bridge throughout the home The Cisco/Linksys DMA2200 Digital Media Center Extender with DVD Player is an elegant solution integrating an upscaling DVD/ CD player with wireless Extender for Windows Media Center in a single box, letting people reduce clutter while still having easy access to their HD television content with 5.1 audio, using just one remote control. Linksys will also offer the DMA2100 Digital Media Center Extender, which delivers all the appealing features of Extender for Windows Media Center in a compact wireless device. Both products support dual-band draft Wireless-N networking for high quality video and the utmost in convenience. Both devices will support WMV, DivX and XVid formats and are expected to be available for consumers in the US before the end of the year. Pricing has not yet been announced. The D-Link DSM-750® MediaLounge® Media Player is housed in a sleek 17-inch black aluminum chassis, and connects to the home network using Ethernet or dual-band draft Wireless-N networking to make it easy to enjoy the Windows Media Center experience with friends and family on a home entertainment center. The player will support WMV, DivX, and XVid formats and the DSM-750 includes a USB 2.0 port for instant access to music, photos and videos stored on removable USB flash drives or hard drives. Designed for the high-end home theater enthusiast, the Niveus Media Extender offers a high fidelity experience, uncompromised 1080p video, digital audio, and the same amazing 3D user interface found on the award-winning Niveus Media Center. Additionally, the Niveus Media Extender features the proprietary Niveus Glacier™ Passive Cooling system for cool and quiet performance and a sleek and stylish A/V form-factor. Windows Media Center Internet TV Beta Launches [Read more]

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Earlier this month, Sling Media's Slingbox SOLO surfaced courtesy of the FCC, and now the firm's first box to be released with built-in component jacks is finally official. Granted, we already know that this FCC-exposed Slingbox is set to include these coveted ports as well, but this bad boy should be the first of the two to hit store shelves. [Read more]

Sling Media rolled out Slingbox Solo, a set-top box that lets you watch a home-bound HD source from anywhere in the world on a PC, Mac, Palm OS or Symbian mobile device. It's called "Solo" because it controls just one set-top box, instead of the four of its more-expensive Slingbox Pro brandmate. The idea of a cheaper, single-source HD-compatible Slingbox is a great one. Before we got this Slingbox Solo, we'd been using a Slingbox Pro for a year, and its variety of inputs has proven to be way more than we've ever needed. (Really, why would we want to watch a DVD via the Slingbox? TiVo is all we want to watch remotely.) But this Slingbox Solo ($179.99), positioned in the Sling product line between the Slingbox Pro ($229.99) and the Slingbox AV ($129.99), hit that Goldilocks sweet spot: It's just right. The Slingbox Solo carries on that Aztec temple-like design of the Pro, but it's about two thirds the width. If you care about such things, its shiny piano-black surface is definitely a fingerprint magnet, but after wiping it off with a microfiber cloth, it still looks sparkly, low-slung and sophisticated as it takes its place on our component rack. [Read more]

At 9 PM Wednesday, Sling Media announced that it's adding to the Slingbox family of products with the Slingbox SOLO. It will sell for $179.99 in the U.S., and is also launching in Canada ($199.99) and the UK (£129.99). [Read more]

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Networking

Right on cue, D-Link has made its own Media Center Extender official on the same day as Linksys. The DSM-750, which strangely boasts the exact same model number as a different product we heard about at CES, becomes the latest in the firm's MediaLounge lineup and enables "high-speed, [Read more]

Greetings from a jazz bar in Sardinia, Italy! If you’d like to see what I pack when I also hit cold weather like the pelting rain of Scotland — while still keeping it under 20 lbs. — check out my recent post on Gadling here. The Monica grape wine here is excellent and a new taste for me. In the spirit of trying new things, I wanted to share a few tips for the would-be bloggers/writers out there (that’s you at some point). Here are five timesavers to save you grief and suffering: 1. Decide how you’re measuring success before writing a post—what’s your metric? Form follows function. Is it Technorati rank? Then focus on crafting 1-2-sentence bolded sound bites in the text that encourage quoting. Quotes can be just as important as content. Alexa or other traffic rank? Focus on making the headline and how-to appeal to tech-oriented readers on Digg, Reddit, etc. Number of comments? Make the topic either controversial or universal and end with a question that asks for opinions (slightly more effective than asking for experiences). 2. Post less to be read more. No matter how good your material is, too much of it can cause feed-overwhelm and unsubscribes. Based on input from close to a dozen top bloggers I’ve interviewed, it takes an average of three days for a new post to propagate well in the blogosphere. If you write too often, pushing down the previous post and its visibility, you decrease the reach of each post, run the risk of increasing unsubscribes, and create more work for yourself. Test posting 2-4 times per week—my preference is two—and don’t feel compelled to keep up with the frequency “you have to post three times before lunch” Joneses. Quality, not quantity, is what spreads. 3. Define the lead and close, then fill it in. This is a habit I picked up from John McPhee, a master of writing structure and recipient of the Pulitzer Prize. Decide on your first or last sentence/question/scene, then fill in the rest. If you can’t decide on the lead, start with the close and work backwards. A good formula for the lead, which I learned from a Wired writer, is: first sentence or paragraph is a question or situation involving a specific person, potentially including a quote; second paragraph is the “nutgraph,” where you explain the trend or topic of the post, perhaps including a statistic, then close the paragraph explaining what you’ll teach (the “nut”) the reader if they finish the post. 4. Think in lists, even if the post isn’t a list. Separate brainstorming (idea generation) from synthesis (putting it all into a flowing post). I generally note down 10-15 potential points for a post between 10-10:30am with a double espresso, select 4-5 I like and put them in a tentative order from 10:30-10:45am, then I’ll let them marinate until 12am-4am, when I’ll drink yerba mate tea, craft a few examples to match the points, then start composing. It’s important to identify your ideal circadian schedule and pre-writing warm-up for consistent and reliable results. [Read more]

BNET has a great article on managing employees in remote locations that includes tips for building trust. Trust is key to the effective functioning of any team, whether distributed geographically or not. Fortunately, you don’t have to meet face to face to create and maintain trust with remote colleagues, especially with so many communications tools available online. Here are BNET’s tips for building trust on virtual teams, with my web worker additions below. BNET: Be available. Don’t let employee calls go to voicemail. When you absolutely can’t be reached, reply ASAP. The web way: Use workstreaming (sharing a flow of your work activities and output) and lifestreaming (sharing a flow of what you’re doing personally and professionally throughout the day) so people know when you’re available and when you’re not. Be available at least some of the day for quick chats by IM — you can eliminate a lot of email back and forth that way. Get on the phone when you need to resolve conflicts, discuss complex issues, or just check in on someone. BNET: Beware of using sarcasm and teasing in distance interactions, like email and conference calls, where signals can easily get crossed. The web way: Use humor if you want, but if doing so by email, use an emoticon to show you’re joking around. Use instant messaging as a back channel during conference calls so people can quickly address misunderstandings. If you feel you’re on the receiving end of something that offends you, remember that tone and humor don’t always come across distances exactly as people intend. Shrug it off or ask the person exactly what they meant; don’t just let bad feelings fester. [Read more]

Restore the trusty Run command to your Windows Vista Start menu with the simple step-by-step instructions at weblog IntelliAdmin. Just right-click your Start menu and click Properties. [Read more]

If the next rung on your corporate ladder belongs to your boss, you're probably not going to get promoted until your boss does, and Wired's How To Wiki details how to secure this kind of promotion. [Read more]

In this interview, I talk with Jim Kouzes, co-author of The Leadership Challenge. The book is a classic and was the first to look at leadership from a research-based perspective. I could have talked with Jim for three hours. If you are not familiar with this title, listen to Jim talk about the difference between management and leadership, his thoughts on how leaders made, and why he named the book Leadership Challenge. mp3, 47:14, 32.4MB

There seems to be an inevitable progression in the lives of many web workers: we get more and more overloaded with sites to update, things to do, systems to follow, interests to pursue, blogs to read…until something snaps and we have to reset our lives to a saner level once again. It’s easy to understand this pattern when you think about it: there are thousands of people out there building bright, shiny things for you to get interested in, and only one of you to be interested in them. To preserve your sanity, you need to set some limits on how much of the web world you try to absorb. Over time, most web workers develop their own systems for cutting back their daily load on a gradual basis, so that they don’t have to throw everything out at once. Here are three proven strategies for getting your own overload back under control when you feel your free time vanishing under the strain: 1. Add One, Drop Two - A simple idea from Amazon’s Jeff Barr that works great for decluttering your RSS reader, social network friends lists, and similar dumping grounds. When a list you haven’t reviewed for a while is getting too long to handle comfortably, force yourself to prune it back whenever you add something new. Adding a new RSS feed? Get rid of two of them that you’re not really following any longer. Repeat until you’re back to a sensible list. [Read more]

Windows only: Track your latest Amazon purchases for price drops qualifying for their 30-day price guarantee or just watch your wish list for price drops or availability with freeware application Amazon Price Watch. After you've installed the application, Amazon Price Watch can automatically track any item you add to your cart or wish list. [Read more]

So you’ve decided to say goodbye to your days when you were everyone’s problem, huh? Changing your bad ways to good sounds promising especially when you realize that there’s so much you can achieve if you only start paying attention. Here are some ideas on how you could take on life by developing a new and better you. (more…)