"Don’t Let Your To-Do List Win: Getting & Staying Organized" or "Be More Productive without Human Cloning" Presentation from TBEX Europe 2013

1. Don’t Let Your To-Do List Win:
Getting & Staying Organized
Chris Christensen
Don’t Let Your To-Do List Win:
Getting & Staying Organized
Chris Christensen

2. Be More Productive without
Human Cloning
Chris Christensen
Be More Productive without
Human Cloning
Chris Christensen

3. Outline
• Assumptions
• Organization
• Time Management
• Automation
• Delegation

4. Chris Christensen

5. Chris Christensen

6. Chris Christensen

7. Assumptions
If you don’t have more to do
than you have time to do it, you
lack imagination

8. You can always count on Americans
to do the right thing
- Winston Churchill

9. You can always count on Americans
to do the right thing -
after they've tried everything else.-
Winston Churchill

10. Assumptions
There is no “right way” to get
get things done, but there may
be a right way for you to get
things done

11. GTDhttp://AmateurTraveler.com/gtd
• Get Things out of your head
• Put them someplace you trust
• Review periodically
• Todo items have “context”,
e.g. you write what you want
from the store on your grocery
list

12. Things

13. Things
• Scheduled Todos
• Someday/Maybe
• Periodic Todos
• Projects
• Periodic Projects
• iPhone app
• Automatic syncing
• Integration with Siri

14. File by Context
File Information based on when you will use it

15. examples:
Reddit for This Week in Travel
Delicious for bookmarks
Instapaper / Read It Later
Evernote for how to
Email Folder for Ireland
When Will I Need This?

16. One Drawer
One Folder
When in Doubt

17. Time Energy

18. There’s a Nap for That

19. Enemies of Productivity
• Perfectionism
• Inability to Decide
What is the cost of
being wrong?

20. Productivity Kryptonite
• TV
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Beer
• Other Substances
• Morning? Night?
• Tuesday Nights

21. Yak Shaving
Yak Shaving is the last step of a series of steps that occurs when you find something
you need to do. "I want to wax the car today.""Oops, the hose is still broken from the
winter. I'll need to buy a new one at Home Depot.""But Home Depot is on the other
side of the Tappan Zee bridge and getting there without my EZPass is miserable
because of the tolls.""But, wait! I could borrow my neighbor's EZPass...""Bob won't
lend me his EZPass until I return the mooshi pillow my son borrowed, though.""And we
haven't returned it because some of the stuffing fell out and we need to get some yak
hair to restuff it."And the next thing you know, you're at the zoo, shaving a yak, all so
you can wax your car.

22. Wasting Time
I feel more and more the time
wasted that is not spent in Ireland.-
Lady Gregory

23. Pomodoro Method
25 minutes of work
- focus
- shut off, log out
5 minutes of play
rinse, repeat

24. Maker / Manager
writing
editing
recording
programming
focus
email
social media
accounting
phone calls
multitasking /
microtasking

25. Habits
• Deadlines
• Don’t Break the Chain

26. Email

27. Global - 16 hours
USA - 32 hours
Europe - 27 hours
Bloggers - always
Hours Online

28. Email
Email is like a todo
list where you let
anyone in the world
add to it

29. Email
• Check >1 hour
• “Inbox Zero”
- decide quickly
- delete quickly
- file
• IMAP vs POP
• Mail Rules
• 1day@replylater.com

30. Email Triage Practice

38. TypeIt4Me
• Text Macros
- email templates
- article templates
- urls
- email addresses
- bio
• iOS macros /
TextExpander

42. Automation

43. Social Media Automation
• Buffer
• Hootsuite
• Facebook Page
• Chrome DoShare

44. Wordpress Scheduling
• Write when you can
• Schedule when you need

45. Virtual Assistants
KirstenJeffrey

46. Virtual Assistants
• Interns
• Who do you know?
• Who is in your audience?
• Overseas - http://virtualstafffinder.com/
hiring

47. Virtual Assistants
• Procedures
• Screencasts
• Google Doc spreadsheets
• DropBox
• weekly reports
• PayPal
managing

48. Bonus Tips
• Dictate Rough Drafts to Siri
• (Mac) Keep track of last 40 cut and paste - Jumpcut
• Listen to podcasts at 2x, 3x speed - Downcast
• Promotion tool - chris2x.com/tool
• 1Password to remember passwords
• (Mac) Turn articles into podcasts
http://amateurtraveler.com/make-your-own-free-audio-books-mac/

49. END

50. Extras

51. Efficiency
But I will say that living in Ireland has
changed the cadence and fullness of speech,
since the Irish love words and use as many of
them in a sentence as possible.- Anne McCaffrey
- Anne McCaffrey

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