Posted in Quotes on December 31st, 2006 | No Comments »
I think this quote by Mark Twain sets a good stage as we approach the end of the year:
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So through off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Follow your passions, feel the emotions and enjoy your life. I wish everyone a happy and successful New Year!
Posted in Interesting Links on December 20th, 2006 | 1 Comment »
Interesting things on the net:
CampaignMonitor - an online service (SaaS) for companies who create and send email newsletters for themselves and their clients. CampaignMonitor allows you to track the results of your campaigns and to manage your client’s subscribers. Very neat !
Confabb - combines an aggregate database of major conferences, conventions, and trade shows sorted by industry with social networking tools designed to empower conference attendees to improve their overall experience.
RelentaCRM - an online CRM (customer relationship management) tool. Includes email, contact manager, shared calendar, email newsletter marketing, autoresponders. Relenta pricing varies from permanently free to custom plans depending on the number of users and contacts, volume of email, and disk space usage. Short review here.
The Economics of Online Storage - good article comparing the cost of online storage to local file storage. This raises an interesting question: will we store all our files online in the future ?
Posted in Productivity on December 13th, 2006 | No Comments »
There is a big hype around personal productivity these days. New websites are appearing almost daily, promising to help in the search for the perfect solution.
I am not surprised by this trend. The stress-level of the average business person has become almost unbearable. There is big demand for personal productivity systems to help us cope with our daily workload and all those things entering our lives. Just look at 43folders, DIY Planner, Getting-Things-Done (GTD), Franklyn Covey and Total-Workday-Control (TWC). They are all really worth a look - you will definitely find some great input to increase your efficiency.
But, beware! The search for the perfect system is a dangerous one, because:
1) there is a risk to get over-organized - this is something I experienced myself: you implement a sophisticated system that becomes either very complicated to maintain or which simply is incompatible with your personality
2) you are easily traped by the temptation to keep on trying new systems - as a result you will wind up less productive, because “searching for the system” or “improving it” becomes more time/energy consuming than the productivity gains you get through using the system.
So, my advice on this is very simple (and I admit I am sometimes guilty of not following it through myself): (more…)