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News Home Archive Stepcase Lifehack</h3> <subtitle type="text">Daily digest and pointer on productivity, getting things done and lifehacks</subtitle> <updated>2008-06-20T14:00:00Z</updated> <generator uri="http://wordpress.org/" version="2.5.1">WordPress</generator> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.lifehack.org" /> <id>http://www.lifehack.org/feed/atom</id> <link rel="self" href="http://www.lifehack.org/feed/" type="application/atom+xml" /><feedburner:emailServiceId>71799</feedburner:emailServiceId><feedburner:feedburnerHostname>http://www.feedburner.com</feedburner:feedburnerHostname><feedburner:browserFriendly>This is an XML content feed. It is intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site, subject to copyright and fair use.</feedburner:browserFriendly><entry> <author> <name>Dustin Wax</name> <uri>http://www.dwax.org</uri> </author> <title type="html">Back to Basics: Your Inbox</h3> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LifeHack/~3/316344919/back-to-basics-your-inbox.html" /> <id>http://www.lifehack.org/?p=5770</id> <updated>2008-06-20T04:26:11Z</updated> <published>2008-06-20T14:00:00Z</published> <category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="Featured" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="Productivity" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="back-to-basics" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="capture" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="collection" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="gtd" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="inbox" /> <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/back-to-basics-your-inbox.html#comments" thr:count="4" /> <link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/back-to-basics-your-inbox.html/feed/atom" thr:count="4" /> <thr:total>4</thr:total> <content type="html"><img src="http://www.lifehack.org/wp-content/files/2008/06/20080620-tray.jpg" alt="Your Inbox" title="20080620-tray" width="300" height="225" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-5771" /> <p>This is the first post in an ongoing series I’m calling “back to Basics”, a “refresher course” in personal productivity. For people just starting to grapple with issues of productivity, it will serve as an introduction to the basic concepts that underlie much of what we write here at Lifehack. For more advanced readers, it will serve as a reminder of what you <em>thought</em> you were setting out to do before you started fiddling with your system.</p> <p>I’m not sure how long the series will be – I intend to keep going until a) I run out of topics to cover, or b) people start asking me to stop. <img src='http://www.lifehack.org/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':-)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p> <h2>Your Inbox</h2> <p>We start, then, where most productivity systems start: your inbox. By “inbox”, I don’t necessarily mean one of those plastic or wooden trays you set on your desk and pile everything into; that’s <em>one kind</em> of inbox, but not the only kind. Basically, <strong>an inbox is any place where you collect inputs into your life for later processing</strong>, whether those inputs are information, correspondence, notes, unfinished work, things you intend to look at later, or whatever.</p> <p>An inbox, then, can be a tray in your office, a table by your front door, a notebook you carry in your purse or pocket, or a pocket in your shoulder bag. We also have “virtual” inboxes: your email program, your RSS reader, note-organizing apps like Evernote, even a text or word processing file you keep open on your desktop. And don’t forget your computer monitor – if you’re one of those people who covers their monitor with post-its, that, too, is an inbox.</p> <h2>The Fewer, the Better</h2> <p>As a general rule, <strong>the fewer inboxes you have, the better</strong>. Fewer inboxes means less places where important material can escape your notice, and also less time to process everything you need out of them.</p> <p>As a practical matter, <strong>your inboxes should be treated as end-points</strong>, with all your various inputs funneling towards them. As I said, this assures that everything eventually gets put in a place where you’re going to pay some attention to it.</p> <p>With more and more of us using online web applications, it’s becoming quite easy to make sure your digital inputs end up in a single place. Most services will allow you to send things easily to your email, and you can set up rules to automatically forward stuff where it needs to end up, thus automating some of the processing of your inbox. For example, you could have all emails with attachments forwarded automatically to your Google Docs account so you can access them and even edit them from just about anywhere (that’s assuming you don’t regularly receive documents whose value you need to ascertain before deciding what you need to do with it).</p> <p>For physical inputs, <strong>make sure everyone knows where to put things that they want you to see and do something about</strong> – mail, documents to review, research material, whatever. At work, this tends not to be so difficult; at home it will be another story! You’ll help make sure that your chosen inbox is seen as a place to put things that need action if you regularly process it’s contents so that it doesn’t become a place where inputs go to be forgotten. </p> <p>And <strong>make sure you set an example by using your inbox yourself</strong>! When you’re away from your desk or from home, keep a notebook or pack of index cards with you and jot notes, appointments, numbers, etc. down as they come to you. When you get to your inbox, drop it in and process it according to your normal schedule. If you don’t make good use of your inbox, nobody else will. </p> <h2>An Inbox Alone Isn’t Productive</h2> <p>It’s important that your inboxes not be treated as <em>final destinations</em>! <strong>An inbox is only useful as a place to collect everything that’s important, to get it out of your head so that you can <em>do</em> something with it.</strong> Inboxes that just keep filling up are worse than useless; not only do they not help you do the things that are important enough to you to end up in your inbox, but they soon overflow and leave you in search of a new inbox to fill with all your <em>new</em> important stuff. All the while you get further and further behind…</p> <p>Set up an inbox-cleaning routine that fits your workstyle and the rate at which it fills. While you don’t want to let it fill to overflowing, you also don’t want to feel compelled to process everything the moment it hits your inbox. The point of your inbox is to help you manage your inputs, not to allow your inputs to manage you!</p> <h2>Next Time: Processing Your Inbox</h2> <p>In the next “Back to Basics” post, we’ll look at ways of processing the material that ends up in your inboxes. While it might take some effort and discipline to make sure your inboxes are used effectively, maintaining an inbox is a largely passive affair: stuff keeps filling your inbox whether you do anything or not. Processing is the first part of <em>doing</em>, where you start making active decisions about what to do with each item in your inbox.</p> <p>Do you have any useful tips to help your fellow readers channel all their inputs into one place? Let us know in the comments!</p> <hr/><em>Dustin M. Wax is a contributing editor and project manager at lifehack.org. He is also the creator of <a href="http://www.writerstechnology.com">The Writer's Technology Companion</a>, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he's not writing, he teaches anthropology and women's studies in Las Vegas, NV. His personal site can be found at <a href="http://www.dwax.org">dwax.org</a>.</em></p><p class="akst_link"><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/?p=5770&akst_action=share-this" title="E-mail this, post to del.icio.us, etc." id="akst_link_5770" class="akst_share_link" rel="nofollow">Share This</a> </p><h3>Related Posts</h3><ul class="related_post"><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/how-many-inboxes-do-you-have.html" title="How Many Inboxes Do You Have? ">How Many Inboxes Do You Have? </a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/4-random-tips-to-get-more-done-with-your-pc.html" title="4 Random Tips to Get More Done with Your PC">4 Random Tips to Get More Done with Your PC</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/podcast/lifehack-live-for-june-9-danny-bader-of-the-david-allen-co.html" title="Lifehack Live for June 9: Danny Bader of the David Allen Co.">Lifehack Live for June 9: Danny Bader of the David Allen Co.</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/podcast/join-me-at-10am-pst-for-lifehack-live-today-danny-bader-of-the-david-allen-company.html" title="Join Me at 10am PST for Lifehack Live! Today: Danny Bader of the David Allen Company">Join Me at 10am PST for Lifehack Live! Today: Danny Bader of the David Allen Company</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/boredom-can-be-good-for-you.html" title="Boredom Can Be Good For You">Boredom Can Be Good For You</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/how-your-ipod-can-make-you-more-productive.html" title="How Your iPod Can Make You More Productive">How Your iPod Can Make You More Productive</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/how-to-improve-your-memory-2.html" title="How to Improve Your Memory">How to Improve Your Memory</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/are-you-lifehacking-too-much.html" title="Are You Lifehacking Too Much?">Are You Lifehacking Too Much?</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/working-in-project-space.html" title="Working in Project Space">Working in Project Space</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/getting-green-done.html" title="Getting Green Done">Getting Green Done</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/5-ways-to-get-out-of-faffing-mode.html" title="5 Ways to get out of faffing mode">5 Ways to get out of faffing mode</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/whats-missing-in-productivity-today.html" title="What’s Missing in Productivity Today?">What’s Missing in Productivity Today?</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/audiobook-review-david-allens-gtd-weekly-review.html" title="Audiobook Review: David Allen’s “GTD > Weekly Review”">Audiobook Review: David Allen’s “GTD > Weekly Review”</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/personal-productivity-in-the-21st-century.html" title="Personal Productivity in the 21st Century">Personal Productivity in the 21st Century</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/why-doing-nothing-may-sometimes-be-the-best-action-of-all.html" title="Why doing nothing may sometimes be the best action of all">Why doing nothing may sometimes be the best action of all</a></li></ul> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/LifeHack?a=K5Jk41"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/LifeHack?i=K5Jk41" border="0"></img></a></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?a=TODBGi"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?i=TODBGi" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?a=W9z6Di"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?i=W9z6Di" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?a=etUKrI"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?i=etUKrI" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?a=lsRkXi"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?i=lsRkXi" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?a=lyOGKI"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?i=lyOGKI" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?a=qxzerI"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?i=qxzerI" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?a=uIUcJI"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?i=uIUcJI" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LifeHack/~4/316344919" height="1" width="1"/></content></entry> <entry> <author> <name>LorieMarrero</name> <uri>http://www.clutterdiet.com/</uri> </author> <title type="html">7 Ways to Be Greener and More Productive with Your Printer</h3> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LifeHack/~3/316344920/7-ways-to-be-greener-and-more-productive-with-your-printer.html" /> <id>http://www.lifehack.org/?p=5749</id> <updated>2008-06-16T10:50:02Z</updated> <published>2008-06-20T13:00:43Z</published> <category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="Productivity" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="hack" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="office" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="organization" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="printing" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="supply" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="tip" /> <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/7-ways-to-be-greener-and-more-productive-with-your-printer.html#comments" thr:count="5" /> <link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/7-ways-to-be-greener-and-more-productive-with-your-printer.html/feed/atom" thr:count="5" /> <thr:total>5</thr:total> <content type="html"><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/wp-content/files/2008/06/labelforpaperfeed.jpg"></a>Your printer is probably a utilitarian workhorse that you don’t think about until it’s broken. Why not spend a moment to consider the use of your printer so you can save some time and some paper too? Here are seven practical, easy-to-implement tips:</p> <p>1. <strong>Keep supplies at the point of use.</strong> You can use <a href="http://tinyurl.com/489cyz " target="_blank">Velcro (I like Industrial Strength</a>) to stick frequently used supplies directly onto the side of your printer or the printer cart. This photo shows a rubber stamp that says “FAXED” that is attached with Velcro to the side of this printer/fax machine, for example.<img class="alignright" style="float: right;" src="http://www.lifehack.org/wp-content/files/2008/06/faxstamp.jpg" alt="fax stamp" width="200" height="150" /></p> <p>2. <strong>Print in “draft” mode to save ink.</strong> Using the draft printing mode of your printer’s settings can save you ink (and therefore money). When you need to print something formally, you can change the settings to normal.</p> <img class="alignleft" style="float: left;" src="http://www.lifehack.org/wp-content/files/2008/06/scratchpapertray.jpg" alt="scratch paper tray" width="175" height="295" />3. <strong>Keep a scratch paper tray.</strong> This photo at left shows paper trays located in the printer cart just beneath the printer, which have new, pristine paper in one tray and scratch paper in the other. When you print something that has only a few lines on it or otherwise can be used again, you can easily throw it in this tray.</p> <p>4. <strong>Make your printed documents come out in proper order.</strong> You can usually change your printer’s settings to print document pages in reverse order by default. The result? Papers come out already stacked in the right order, ready to staple. No more shuffling 36 pages of a document to reorder them! [EDITOR'S NOTE: Not all printers print backwards by default; test yours with a short document first.]</p> <p>5. <strong>Use scratch paper by default, and print on new paper only when necessary.</strong> Before inserting a stack of scratch paper into your printer for use, put a sticky note on the back of the last page of the stack. <img class="alignright" style="float: right;" src="http://www.lifehack.org/wp-content/files/2008/06/scratchpaper.jpg" alt="scratch paper" width="200" height="150" />Then put that stack on top of some new paper. (See photo at right for illustration) When you’re ready to print on new paper, you can see the sticky note indicating the bottom of the scratch paper stack and pull it out quickly.</p> <p>6. <strong>Label your printer’s particularities.</strong> Are you (or your coworkers) forever asking, “Now which way does the paper go in? Face up or down?” Manufacturers often indicate this on the printer itself in some kind of international symbol language nobody seems to notice, but you can make it simple by just printing a label that says “FACE UP.” Here are a couple of examples.</p> <img style="vertical-align: baseline;" src="http://www.lifehack.org/wp-content/files/2008/06/documentfeeder.jpg" alt="face up label" width="200" height="108" /> <img style="vertical-align: baseline;" src="http://www.lifehack.org/wp-content/files/2008/06/labelforpaperfeed.jpg" alt="paper feed label" width="200" height="150" /></p> <p>7. <strong>Just don’t print.</strong> Of course, it’s better to not print at all if you can possibly do that. If you don’t already have software to make PDF documents, by all means, get that capability so you can print to PDF instead. Try <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat</a> or <a href="http://www.cutepdf.com/" target="_blank">Cute PDF</a>. Also try <a href="http://www.snagit.com" target="_blank">SnagIt</a> (one of my personal favorites- see my previous article “<a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/a-professional-organizer%E2%80%99s-favorite-software.html " target="_blank">A Professional Organizer’s Favorite Software</a>” for more). SnagIt takes screenshots of regions of your screen or even scrolling web pages (saving the links!).</p> <p>Appreciate your workhorse printer today! And if your printer is cranky, maybe implementing these tips will make it be nicer to you.</p> <hr/><em>Lorie Marrero, CPO®, is the creator of <a href="http://www.clutterdiet.com">The Clutter Diet®</a>, an affordable organizing program that helps members lose "Clutter-Pounds" from their homes by providing online access to her team of Professional Organizers. Lorie writes something insanely practical every few days or so in the <a href="http://www.clutterdietblog.com">Clutter Diet Blog</a>.</em></p><p class="akst_link"><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/?p=5749&akst_action=share-this" title="E-mail this, post to del.icio.us, etc." id="akst_link_5749" class="akst_share_link" rel="nofollow">Share This</a> </p><h3>Related Posts</h3><ul class="related_post"><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/50-tricks-to-get-things-done-faster-better-and-more-easily.html" title="50 Tricks to Get Things Done Faster, Better, and More Easily">50 Tricks to Get Things Done Faster, Better, and More Easily</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/advice-for-students-11-ways-to-make-this-your-best-semester-yet.html" title="Advice for Students: 11+ Ways to Make this Your Best Semester Yet">Advice for Students: 11+ Ways to Make this Your Best Semester Yet</a></li><li><a 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src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?i=bvG8OI" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?a=g9IpHi"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?i=g9IpHi" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?a=zbldjI"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?i=zbldjI" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?a=XowFaI"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?i=XowFaI" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?a=X2EhFI"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?i=X2EhFI" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LifeHack/~4/316344920" height="1" width="1"/></content></entry> <entry> <author> <name>Joel Falconer</name> <uri>http://www.joelfalconer.com</uri> </author> <title type="html">4 Tech Tips to Keep Ahead of the Game for New Entrepreneurs</h3> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LifeHack/~3/315511225/4-tech-tips-to-keep-ahead-of-the-game-for-new-entrepreneurs.html" /> <id>http://www.lifehack.org/?p=5767</id> <updated>2008-06-19T13:42:21Z</updated> <published>2008-06-19T13:30:17Z</published> <category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="Featured" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="Technology" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="business" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="entrepreneur" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="gps" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="information" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="rss" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="skype" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="u" /><category scheme="http://www.lifehack.org" term="virtual assistant" /> <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/4-tech-tips-to-keep-ahead-of-the-game-for-new-entrepreneurs.html#comments" thr:count="3" /> <link rel="replies" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/4-tech-tips-to-keep-ahead-of-the-game-for-new-entrepreneurs.html/feed/atom" thr:count="3" /> <thr:total>3</thr:total> <content type="html"><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/wp-content/files/2008/06/signhere.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-5769" title="signhere" src="http://www.lifehack.org/wp-content/files/2008/06/signhere.jpg" alt="" width="380" height="285" /></a></p> <p>Thinking about starting a business or trying to make some cash out of the web? Technology can enable people and it can just as easily distract. We’ve got a few tips for you to consider to cut down on those distractions and costs and get more done, more efficiently and more effectively.</p> <p>These tips all center on one thing: technology, whether it involves a specific device or just the way you use tech, computers and the internet in general. Enjoy.</p> <h2>Save time with Skype</h2> <p>It’s becoming increasingly common advice: swap an expensive phone plan for a cheap - or free, if you do things right - Skype solution. And it’s true. You can save a whole heck of a lot of money thanks to Skype and solutions like it.</p> <p>But while most people are talking about the money you can save, I think there’s something better for entrepreneurs to get out of Skype. The combination of instant messaging and VoIP allows you to control your communication methods better than any old phone line. Can’t or don’t want to take a call? It’s certainly not worth breaking your concentration if you’re on a roll.</p> <p>With Skype you can divert incoming calls to instant messaging and deal with requests and questions at a time of your own choosing. Corresponding via text allows you to focus on a main task while you take their message. But for those who prefer to talk by voice, deferring the call is still a good idea.</p> <p>Most calls take a while to get to the point; time that, even if minute from a perspective of quantification, is taking your mind further from the tasks and issues that you need to deal with. Shifting the mental gears is a time-expensive task. Filtering calls through instant messaging means the pretext for the call has been set and you can get right to the point and back to work.</p> <p>I personally prefer to communicate via text because it’s swift and doesn’t use as much attention quota.</p> <h2>Install a GPS Unit</h2> <p>Install a GPS unit in your car or grab a PDA phone that has this handy technology built in. If you go the PDA route, make sure you get a mount for it installed in the car you’re most likely to use for business purposes. When you’re starting a business, you want - need - to deliver the best impression for potential, more established business partners. While <a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/punctuality-counts.html">being punctual</a> is just something that all people need to do no matter what their level of experience or degree of establishment is, you don’t have a reputation to precede you and need to go the extra mile to develop one.</p> <p>By using GPS you guarantee that you won’t get lost, late and end up irking the other party, or even having the meeting canceled. Any technology that enables you to <em>respect the time of others as fiercely as you defend your own</em> is a good one.</p> <h2>Get a Virtual Assistant</h2> <p>So hiring a VA isn’t really tech, but it has the word “virtual” in it, right? The topic of virtual assistants has crawled its way into this article because you can free up <em>hours</em> of your time that would’ve been spent at the computer beforehand.</p> <p>Depending on who you talk to, virtual assistants can be hired from as little as $5 an hour and you can have them take care of a whole range of things:</p> <ul> <li>Monitor your emails and only send you those that need personal attention. You should set up another email account such as assistant@yourname.com and direct correspondence there, rather than giving anyone access to your own account.</li> <li>Send standard form emails for you - fielding the same questions from customers, despite having a FAQ that covers them? You don’t need to cut and paste your standard “Have you checked our FAQ?” letter to them all when there’s a virtual assistant assigned to the task.</li> <li>Research topics you need to be informed on, write or speak about.</li> <li>Manage your calendar appointments and contacts, so that you don’t lose upwards of an hour each day just planning it.</li> </ul> <p>And there are about half a million other things you can delegate if you sit down and brainstorm the topic. This is the best investment you can make in technology - freeing up the time you have to spend with it (even if that just gives you more time to spend with it in less menial ways).</p> <h2>Create a News Filter</h2> <p>Keeping informed takes up huge chunks of time for some people. The most popular methods of dealing with information are the least efficient.</p> <p>The first thing you can do is see how much of the information you consume truly is important. For instance, let’s say that you’re the typical web-worker or online entrepreneur and you’ve subscribed to a whole bunch of feeds relevant to your field. You keep up with these feeds because if you don’t, you’ll miss something really important, but in between those occasional high-priority stories, how many are you consuming that aren’t important ‘just in case’ or ‘just because’ they’re there?</p> <p>Usually, the feeds you find necessary to subscribe to are simply those that are most popular and, via social proof, considered most important in your field. They may not be news-based at all. Or, they’re entirely news-based and thus conform to the 24-hour news cycle and deliver too much “news” that isn’t important and you don’t need to read about.</p> <p>After you come to this realization it’s easier to cut down on subscriptions to only those that are strongly relevant, don’t publish with great frequency and don’t miss important news. This may mean gathering a few that sometimes overlap, but that’s better than a total overdose.</p> <p>The more technically involved way of creating a news filter via feeds is to use <a href="http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/">Yahoo! Pipes</a> or a similar service to craft conditional feeds that only deliver entries based on a certain set of conditions. The most basic use would be to take a popular news site that covers only the most important news in a variety of fields and filter by certain keywords to extract just one field, or even better, by author where you know that he or she specifically covers one topic’s big news.</p> <p>The way you filter news is up to, and limited by your imagination (okay, and the technology), but as long as you’ve got a system in place to weed out most of the filler, you’ve used technology to reclaim a whole bunch of time.</p> <p>And a bonus tip: make liberal use of off switches. When it’s not essential that you keep your phone or computer on, do it - keep the work-life boundaries clear. This is where so many entrepreneurs go wrong; they can’t see the forest for the trees and decimate their home and personal life in pursuit of riches.</p> <p>Good luck!</p> <hr/><em>Offering a unique perspective and insight on productivity based on his experience as a writer, musician, family man and manager, <a href="http://www.joelfalconer.com">Joel Falconer</a> has been published online and off, and brings to Lifehack's readers practical advice you can use to be more efficient and effective.</em></p><p class="akst_link"><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/?p=5767&akst_action=share-this" title="E-mail this, post to del.icio.us, etc." id="akst_link_5767" class="akst_share_link" rel="nofollow">Share This</a> </p><h3>Related Posts</h3><ul class="related_post"><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/go-on-a-high-information-diet.html" title="Go on a High-Information Diet">Go on a High-Information Diet</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/simplifying-your-information-intake.html" title="Simplifying Your Information Intake">Simplifying Your Information Intake</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/my-struggles-with-email-triage.html" title="My Struggles With Email Triage">My Struggles With Email Triage</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/finding-more-entrepreneurs-and-fewer-jerks.html" title="Finding More Entrepreneurs . . . and Fewer Jerks">Finding More Entrepreneurs . . . and Fewer Jerks</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/book-review-small-business-answer-book.html" title="Book Review: Small Business Answer Book">Book Review: Small Business Answer Book</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/small-business-treasure-trove.html" title="Small Business Treasure Trove">Small Business Treasure Trove</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/entrepreneurial-help-and-advice.html" title="Entrepreneurial Help and Advice">Entrepreneurial Help and Advice</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/bulletproof-startups.html" title="Bulletproof Startups">Bulletproof Startups</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/work-like-a-pirate.html" title="Work Like a Pirate">Work Like a Pirate</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/how-to-write-in-a-thousand-words-or-less.html" title="How to Write (in a thousand words or less)">How to Write (in a thousand words or less)</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/saving-time-on-routine-tasks-reading.html" title="Saving Time on Routine Tasks: Optimized Reading">Saving Time on Routine Tasks: Optimized Reading</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/management/six-great-ways-to-ruin-a-brainstorm.html" title="Six Great Ways to Ruin a Brainstorm">Six Great Ways to Ruin a Brainstorm</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/the-other-epidemic-of-obesity.html" title="The Other Epidemic Of Obesity">The Other Epidemic Of Obesity</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/do-you-read-too-many-blogs.html" title="Do You Read Too Many Blogs?">Do You Read Too Many Blogs?</a></li><li><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/following-email-etiquette.html" title="Following Email Etiquette">Following Email Etiquette</a></li></ul> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/LifeHack?a=JhTU8H"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/LifeHack?i=JhTU8H" border="0"></img></a></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?a=fy1iMi"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?i=fy1iMi" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?a=S8TjAi"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?i=S8TjAi" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?a=GgjO9I"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?i=GgjO9I" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?a=ac9ayi"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?i=ac9ayi" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?a=7vlKYI"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?i=7vlKYI" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?a=i4pC6I"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?i=i4pC6I" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?a=A6W67I"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/LifeHack?i=A6W67I" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LifeHack/~4/315511225" height="1" width="1"/></content></entry> <entry> <author> <name>Craig Harper</name> <uri>http://www.craigharper.com.au/</uri> </author> <title type="html">A Shove with Love - 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