28 Super Simple Tricks That'll Make Your Life Easier (Even if You Only Try One)

28 Super Simple Tricks That'll Make Your Life Easier

Whether you want to improve your productivity or take your stress levels down, these handy tips and tricks will make a big difference—without a ton of time and elbow grease.

If You Want to Save Time

1. Create a cheat sheet for the information you commonly need, so you can just copy and paste it.
2. Used canned responses to auto-fill those emails you find yourself writing time and time again.
3. Stop redoing the same report week after week and instead use Microsoft Word’s “Quick Styles” to apply your formatting with the click of a button. A number of other Word hacks can help you shave some time off your workday too!

If You Want to Get More Done (7 tricks)

If You Want to Streamline Your Inbox (5 tricks)

If You Want to Sleep Better (5 tricks)

If You Want to Plan Ahead (4 tricks)

If You Want to Reduce Stress (4 tricks)

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50 Free Apps To Make You An Incredibly Productive Person

You’re running a million miles an hour, trying to hold down a tight schedule full of tight deadlines on a tight ship. From messages to meetings to managing meddlesome minutiae, these 50 apps can help you work wonders with your otherwise limited time.

Unify Your Inboxes

If you’re like most people, you’ve signed up for at least a handful of email services. CloudMagic (Android, iOS) does an impeccable job of tying popular email offerings together into one powerful, feature-filled app. It’ll handle your corporate mail with ease, along with Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud, and a host of others, and you can save messages to big-name note taking, list making, and CRM services.

Keep In Touch With Your Team

Instead of relying on a mish-mash of email, instant messaging, text messaging, and phone calls, Slack (Android, iOS, web) does a good job of streamlining things down into a real-time communications tool that can hook into a heaping helping of popular third-party services. You and your team discuss topics in different virtual channels full of updates, images, files, tweets, and links that are open for all to see, which can help keep everyone on the same page. The free offering lets you set up an unlimited number of users, archives 10,000 past messages, and can integrate with up to 10 services.

Procrastinate Smarter, Not Harder

Boomerang (web) lets you temporarily clear messages out of your inbox to return at a time and date you specify. It’s a dead-simple way to turn messages into individual reminders. You can also use it to prewrite messages and schedule them to be sent later as well. Want that client to think you’re working hard on their big, important project? Schedule an email to send out at 3:30 a.m., even though you’re writing it at 2 p.m. They’ll think you’re burning the midnight oil, even though you’re really burning a grilled cheese before a Netflix binge. The free version lets you play God with 10 messages each month.

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25 Productivity Secrets from History's Greatest Thinkers

Want to get stuff done? Try these productivity tips from some of the most influential minds in history, as compiled by Mason Curry in Daily Rituals: How Artists Work.

1. Like many of us, Beethoven started his day by making coffee. He insisted on using 60 beans per cup.

2. Benjamin Franklin was "early to bed, early to rise," and in his later years, early to take it all off. Franklin's morning "air baths" consisted of reading and writing completely starkers for about an hour. Then he put his clothes on and got back to work.

3. Many famous writers and artists made sure to eat breakfast. Victor Hugo preferred his eggs raw.

4. Before Freud went into the office, he got a daily house call/beard trimming from his barber.

5. Agatha Christie never owned a desk. She wrote her 80 novels, 19 plays, and numerous other works wherever she could sit down.

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9 Productivity Tricks for the Time-Crunched Security Professional

Security professionals are a busy bunch. Thanks to sophisticated threats, limited resources, product complexities, compliance demands and business objectives, you already are being pulled in what probably feels like a thousand directions - and that's on a good day.

Your job may never slow down. But when confronting these challenges, you can implement clever solutions that will help boost your time management, efficiency and performance to get things done. Much of the advice out there for improving productivity is repeated over and over (arriving at the office early, limiting meetings, taking regular "fresh air" breaks) - but much less available are suggestions specific to security careers.

Here are nine actionable "hacks" that will help you pick up your game and optimize your infosec routine, all while sharpening both your hard and soft skills in the process.

Efficiency tools
Outsource resource-consuming work
Threat feeds and lists
Data breach repositories
Security stats
Virtualization
Coding
ModSecurity
McCumber cube

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Internet Tricks That You Might Not Know

That of Internet is an endless saga, and this is proved every single time we come across something that we didn't know. It might be something as hard as the mystery behind our dreams, or as simple as some tricks that could have made our life easier.

Here is a list of some tricks for your Windows Laptop/ Desktop that you would wish you had known before.

1. Ctrl Enter

2. Tab and Shift Tab

3. Drop Down Box

4. Alt D

5. Ctrl Shift R

6. Browser Tabs

7. Search In Quotes

8. Open A Link

9. Pausing YouTube Videos

10. Ctrl D Enter

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10 Social Networks Aimed at Improving Enterprise Collaboration

Historically, social networks were designed for consumers to keep in touch with friends or find out what family members are doing. Friendster and MySpace were once dominant in social networking, but are now distant memories. Today, the king of social networking is Facebook, followed by Twitter, Google+ and many others, and social networking is alive and well. Perhaps that's why social networking is increasingly making its presence felt in the enterprise. On Jan. 14, Facebook launched a limited release of its enterprise social networking service, Facebook At Work. The offering is designed to allow companies to create their own social networks to improve productivity and efficiency. More importantly, the announcement puts Facebook in direct competition with a range of major competitors. Whether it's Microsoft's Yammer or Slack or one of the many other services out there that cater to companies' social needs, the corporate world is embracing the idea of collaboration more and more. Now, Facebook is playing a major role in that space. eWEEK examines Facebook at Work and several other social networks that take aim at the enterprise and try to help companies collaborate far more effectively.

See the slideshow

McKinsey on Sustainability & Resource Productivity

In the coming decades, demand for resources
is set to continue to rise precipitously even as
supply constraints multiply, posing challenges
for economic growth, the environment, and
social well-being. Yet many of these challenges
could be overcome if organizations were to
adopt existing technologies and approaches—and
invest in developing new ones—that improve
resource productivity and increase sustainability.

In launching McKinsey on Sustainability &
Resource Productivity, our goal is to serve as
a catalyst for action, presenting insights and
approaches that organizations can use to seize
the opportunity to transform how they manage
resources and drive sustainable growth.

Download the issue (3.3MB)

The social economy: Unlocking value and productivity through social technologies

In a few short years, social technologies have given social interactions the speed and scale of the Internet. Whether discussing consumer products or organizing political movements, people around the world constantly use social-media platforms to seek and share information. Companies use them to reach consumers in new ways too; by tapping into these conversations, organizations can generate richer insights and create precisely targeted messages and offers.

To reap the full benefit of social technologies, organizations must transform their structures, processes, and cultures: they will need to become more open and nonhierarchical and to create a culture of trust. Ultimately, the power of social technologies hinges on the full and enthusiastic participation of employees who are not afraid to share their thoughts and trust that their contributions will be respected. Creating these conditions will be far more challenging than implementing the technologies themselves.

Download the full report (4MB)

Big data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity

The amount of data in our world has been exploding, and analyzing large data sets—so-called big data—will become a key basis of competition, underpinning new waves of productivity growth, innovation, and consumer surplus, according to research by MGI and McKinsey's Business Technology Office. Leaders in every sector will have to grapple with the implications of big data, not just a few data-oriented managers. The increasing volume and detail of information captured by enterprises, the rise of multimedia, social media, and the Internet of Things will fuel exponential growth in data for the foreseeable future.

Download the full report (6MB)

Internet matters: The Net's sweeping impact on growth, jobs, and prosperity

The Internet is a vast mosaic of economic activity, ranging from millions of daily online transactions and communications to smartphone downloads of TV shows. But little is known about how the web in its entirety contributes to global growth, productivity, and employment.

These (the report) findings suggest that corporate leaders will need to sharpen their focus on the opportunities the Internet offers for new products and expanded customer reach. Companies should also pay attention to how quickly Internet technologies can disrupt business models by radically changing markets and driving efficiencies. Public-sector leaders ought to promote broad access to the Internet, since Internet usage, quality of infrastructures, and Internet expenditure are correlated with higher growth in per capita GDP. For governments, investments in infrastructure, human capital, financial capital, and business environment conditions will help strengthen their Internet supply domestic ecosystems.

Download the full report (2MB)

8 Things You Should Not Do Every Day

It's for your own good. Cut these things out of your day and you'll see gains in productivity--not to mention happiness.

If you get decent value from making to-do lists, you'll get huge returns--in productivity, in improved relationships, and in your personal well-being--from adding these items to your not to-do list:

Every day, make the commitment not to:

1. Check my phone while I'm talking to someone.

2. Multitask during a meeting.

3. Think about people who don't make any difference in my life.

4. Use multiple notifications.

5. Let the past dictate the future.

6. Wait until I'm sure I will succeed.

7. Talk behind someone's back.

8. Say "yes" when I really mean "no."

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Info-graphics: What is your preferred method of wasting time at work?

While Americans put in some of the longest hours of workers around the globe, how many of those hours are really spent helping their employers? If you’re in charge of managing your company’s bottom line, you may not want to know the answer.

Here’s an infographic that explores the various ways employees spend their time when they’re at work, but not working. Use this Infographic (created for BOLT by Infographic World) to help you more easily visualize and retain this information to protect your business and increase your workplace productivity.

View the info-graphics

7 Tactics to Extract the Best out of Your Staff

With a weak economy and a long-running IT skills shortage showing little sign of abatement, technology workers have the ability to pick and choose their roles and dictate terms like never before. Here’s our guide to help you nurture , grow and extract the best out of them.

1. How to Extract More from Your Staff
2. 3 (Cheap) Tips to Win Over Staffers
3. How to Help Staffers Outflank Change
4. Staff Management: Are your Staffers at War with Each Other?
5. 5 Dysfunctional IT Relationships and How to Fix Them
6. How to Become a Better Communicator With Your IT Staff
7. How a CIO Saved His IT Staff from Layoffs

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10 ways to stay productive when you can't get an Internet connection

This article lists 10 ways of staying productive when you just can’t seem to connect to the Internet. Keep in mind that most of the items on the list are geared toward specific situations. For example, some are appropriate only for unscheduled outages, while others will work only if you plan ahead.

1: Use Windows offline folders
2: Print what you’ll need
3: Find another way to get online
4: Take care of other neglected tasks
5: Take the Internet offline with you
6: Answer emails
7: Have an impromptu staff meeting
8: Return phone calls
9: Catch up on your reading
10: Give your brain a break

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Productivity Future Vision (2011)

Watch how future technology will help people make better use of their time, focus their attention, and strengthen relationships while getting things done at work, home, and on the go.

Watch this inspired video by Microsoft of 6 min 17 sec

100 Keyboard shortcuts (Windows)

Getting familiar with keyboard shortcuts not only help you get the work done faster, but also more efficient. If your daily job rely heavily on using Windows, here are some 100+ Windows Keyboard Shortcuts you might want to check out.

Know them

No Magic Bullet: Seven Steps to Better Performance

The book, No Magic Bullet explains how organizations can improve their results through their personnel--not through the latest quick fix or business fad. To address the American corporation tendency to fall for fads, the author, Willmore provides an effective alternative to quick fixes with Seven Steps for performance improvement:

Step 1: Build in Accountability and Set Clear, Compelling Goals. Goals and accountability are critical to performance.

Step 2: Focus on What Matters. It is best to focus on accomplishments, not behavior.

Step 3: Analyze Performance Gaps. By focusing on the organization's accomplishments, a gap will reveal itself.

Step 4: Choose Systemic Solutions, Not Quick Fixes. Identify the root of the problem.

Step 5: Learn from Your Best. Identify outstanding employees, and learn from them.

Step 6: Give Feedback That Matters. Feedback is crucial to an effective organization.

Step 7: Implement Change to Support a High-Performing Workforce. Managers need to send clear and concise messages to implement effective change in organizations.

17 Tips to Double Your Productivity In 14 Days

I’m in Trinidad and Tobago, finishing up an intense but fulfilling tour through Latin America. Yesterday I spoke to the leaders of the government of this resource and culture-rich nation. As well as to 350 schoolkids on Leading Without a Title (here’s a link to a newspaper review of the event with the kids). I realized how much I love teaching kids about leadership.

Anyway, I’m also putting the finishing touches on the curriculum for the upcoming Remarkable Entrepreneur™ SuperConference June 10-12 which is all about helping small business owners double their profits while having more fun (there’s only a few seats left, register here: http://www.theremarkableentrepreneur.com). Entrepreneurs from over 26 countries have already registered. I haven’t been this excited about an event in years.

One of the modules is on “Doubling Your Productivity in 30 Days”, based on my work with some of the most successful entrepreneurs in business.

I wanted to share 17 of the tactics I’ve learned that I know will help you lean into your productive best in this age of dramatic distraction:

Pozen on Personal Productivity

In a seven-part series on personal productivity, Bob Pozen, chairman emeritus of MFS Investment Management and a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, talked to HBR's Justin Fox about balancing work and life.

This post links to seven blog posts

1. It's Not the Time You Spend but the Result You Produce
2. Business Travel With Eyeshades and Flashlights
3. Make Meetings Work: Fight the PowerPoint
4. What Not to Spend Your Time On
5. How to Be a Speed Writer
6. How to Be a Speed Reader
7. Will It Be Cheerios or Life This Morning?

Read this HBR blog post