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In our daily lives, we all face challenges and accomplish difficult tasks to meet our goals, whether they are personal, educational, or work-related. When creating a plan to meet goals, you, like many others, probably create lists and schedules to remember your goals and tasks, and write outlines to organize your thoughts for projects and presentations. However, these traditional methods of organizing your thoughts and ideas may be limiting your potential.

Mind mapping software is used by many large corporations and businesses to improve creativity, collaboration, and productivity, and you can use it in your own life to reach the same results. Mind mapping is a way of visually organizing information and ideas on a map in a way that allows you to easily see complex relationships and patterns; mind mapping can be used for organizing schedules and projects, drafting plans and outlines, managing and sharing information, collaborating with friends and colleagues, recording notes, brainstorming and meetings, and many more purposes.

A mind map begins with a central topic, usually enclose in a circle or box, which can be a general category or a problem you are trying to solve. You can surround this central topic with smaller, related supporting topics and ideas that are connected to the central topic by a line indicating a relationship. Each of these supporting topics can be developed by adding attached topics and ideas. A developed mind map often looks like a “web” or “tree” of ideas, all connected to one another in various ways.

Mind Mapping is Flexible and Dynamic

Traditional lists and outlines create a sense of inflexibility. When I am writing an outline in text, my cursor is restricted to a current section and thus I feel a strong pressure to complete that section before moving on. Once I do move on to a new section of the outline, I am hesitant to revise or change the previous section because I was so careful and cautious when writing it. Making an alteration to a previous section, dismantling the apparent solidity of the text, seems almost like an invasive, self-destructive process. Often I ignore and fail to record ideas because they do not seem to fit into the current category I am working on.

The whole process I have just described is counterproductive way of organizing ideas! When using traditional text for organizing ideas, we are unnaturally restricting the intuitive and associative power of our thoughts to a linear structure, and by doing so we weaken it. Instead of feeling free to record new ideas and make new connections, we limit our mind to only one topic at a time and reject thoughts that might not seem to fit into the linear structure of the current topic.

In mind mapping, the situation is completely different. You can choose to see the entire network of ideas, with thoughts and information supporting and connecting to one another, each category with plenty of room for additional ideas and information. Alternatively, you can zoom in to focus on a single topic for careful expansion. This freedom allows you to develop ideas at your own pace, keeping your broader goals and concerns in mind as you develop detailed plans and processes.

Categories are flexible; if you find that a single topic is related to two different categories, it is simple to show that connection visually, by drawing a line or an arrow and adding a small text bubble to describe the relationship. The visual appearance of the map allows you to visualize connections between different topics that would be impossible using a traditional text-centered interface.

Mind Mapping Encourages Collaboration

If a friend or colleague sends you a list or outline of a project, it’s impossible for you to change it without appearing to damage the original in some way. If you want to add information to a section, you end up having to shift and reformat whole pieces of text. The unity of the blocks of text creates a sense of stasis and completion that discourages you from making changes and additions.

In contrast, mind maps invite expansion and collaboration. A mind map is never truly finished; the space between topics and branches allows you and your colleagues to add new ideas and information without disrupting the original map.

Integrate Documents and Pictures

Mind mapping is a visual medium, which makes it simple to include information like pictures, notes, and documents into your maps. For this reason, mind maps can be used to plan meetings and presentations. By attaching notes about timing and scheduling, you can use mind maps to manage upcoming events and plans.

Jabe is a team member at MindMaple Inc., the developers of MindMaple, a new mind mapping software product.

Photo by MShades

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This article was originally published on 17 December 2007.

Photo by By POSITiv

To do lists. Those (in)famous little lists that supposedly keep us on track. I believe they’ve been around since the dawn of writing. To do lists, also known as next-action lists and many other names, are simply lists of things we need to accomplish. Every modern time-management system has them in one form or another.

The Evolution Of The To Do List

Back in the day, to do lists were informal scribblings of things that needed to be accomplished. Those that made them accomplished more than those that didn’t, just from removing memory from the equation.

As to do lists grew in size, next came prioritized to do lists. It acknowledged that there was a lot to do, but by putting your best efforts into the items that were most important, you could have great effect.

Quadrants came next. We were asked to distinguish between the combinations of urgent and important. We were urged to not work on things that were not urgent and not important, even though these same gurus told us this was where the majority of our work would lie. (Try telling any mother that she shouldn’t do laundry because it’s not a quadrant 1 or 2 item! Sooner or later, that unimportant and non-urgent task will be a very important and very urgent one!)

Getting Things Done took another approach to this, assuming that if the project was important enough to be on your horizon, it was important enough to work on, so priorities were banished. The to do lists were sectioned off into chunks based on “context“, or where you were at the time. That way if you had to accomplish something at home and you were not at home, you could dismiss it from your present thinking. These lists excluded mundane tasks that were relegated to checklists, or things to be repeated often.

Next up were the Do It Tomorrow closed lists. This is a list of items you commit to getting accomplished in a given day. It abandoned priority, since it would all get done, and it abandoned context for the same reason.

The Fundamental Problems with To Do Lists

I’ve been through all the types of lists. I started making lists when I was in school, and I’ve done it consistently ever since. I believe the main problem with any to do list is that they can quickly get out of control and un-doable. Also, by including everything all the mundane tasks, you will quickly have reams of paper and lose sight of the important stuff you want to get to.

Avoiding Being Overwhelmed

It seems to me that in order to avoid being overwhelmed, you need to limit what goes on the list. Recognize you have limited time and energy, and make sure your list reflects that reality. There are a few ways to go about this:

Look At Your Mundane Tasks

Sure, you might not need to be reminded on a list to brush your teeth, but it is still something you must do, and it takes time. On the same page, it is easier to keep up with household tasks as they come up than to deal with them in a mad rush on a weekend. Washing a day’s worth of dishes is easier than a week’s worth, and will also save you the psychological “ick” you get from seeing a week’s worth of amassed dirty dishes. But again, it takes time.

Grouping Tasks

In order to recognize that these tasks need to be done, but take up time, I group them. I know that “complete morning routine” involves showering, dressing, feeding the critters, brushing teeth, letting the dog out and making the bed, to name a few. “Make dinner” involves not only the food prep and serving, but also the cleanup, including wiping down the table and counters, and loading the dishwasher. I have two sets of weekly cleaning tasks that group the weekly chores I do in one place.

Eliminating Everyday Tasks

It may be that some of your routine tasks don’t need to be done at all. I used to bake all of our family’s bread. However, I found a whole grain loaf I liked at the grocery, and it saves me a great deal of effort to purchase. I still bake bread, but not weekly.

Look At Your Commitments

We don’t have unlimited time. I know I seem to think I do, and the number of active projects I have going on at any one time grows all the time. The only way I can rein that in is to cut back on what I am trying to do.

Don’t Underestimate the Time To Shift Between Projects

It is very tempting to think, I’ve got an extra ten minutes here and there, I can work on another project. But at the same time, it is never just ten minutes. It takes time to jump into a project, even to work on it for small time period. It is better for me to work on an existing project and complete it than to keep switching. Makes me think of the shift for multitasking…

Cut Back On What You Are Doing

I am no good to anyone if I don’t take regular time out, every day, to read and relax. That means that I have to severely limit what I do outside of “work”. I would love to tackle everything on my list, but the truth is, a large part of my daily time still goes to my clients. One of the items I do weekly is cull my program list to make sure I can work on a few things well instead of a lot of things poorly.

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Outsourcing. It’s been a big buzzword in many productivity books in the past few years. The concept makes a whole lot of sense: put the low-return work out to someone else and concentrate on the work that returns the highest payout.

It makes perfect sense if you have a lot of research or clerical work to accomplish; and if you are one of those people, look into having a virtual assistant help you out.

But what if the stuff is more mundane?

Household Stuff?

Most of us are not in the position to outsource the mundane work that is low-return. In my life that includes things like housework, cooking, walking the dog and the various things that make life run smoothly. Sure, I could hire a housekeeper, cook and dog-walker, but my income doesn’t stretch to that. So what is an ordinary person to do?

Outsourcing on the Cheap

It is possible to outsource mundane tasks. All it takes is a little ingenuity and a definition of what outsourcing is.

What Is Outsourcing?

Outsourcing is simply getting necessary work done — but not by you. It doesn’t mean having to pay for work, or that the work has to be done by a human.

So by that definition, getting work done can include using machines, or trading work with someone who is more efficient at the task.

Here are examples from my life:

Outsourcing By Machine

I routinely turn over my cooking duties to my crockpot, breadmaker and rice cooker. I put in the ingredients and the machine takes over the rest.

My floor cleaning is also outsourced, in the form of a Roomba vacuum. I turn it on, and it cleans the area, returning to charge itself when it’s done.

My garden watering is outsourced by a set of timers attached to sprinklers.

In each of these cases I may have to be there at the start, but I can let the machine do the work for me. If I had outsourced this to a human, I would have to be there at some point anyway, so I figure it is about even.

Outsourcing By Trade

Not all of us have the same talents and interests. (Thank goodness, or it would be a really boring world! But I digress). We can put these differences to use.

My husband, as a result of years in the Navy, wants his clothes folded a certain way. As a result, he does the laundry in the house. I find it taxing to get the clothes folded (at all) and this was a natural outsourcing.

The opposite is true of the dusting. My husband, for whatever reason, doesn’t see furballs rolling across the floor or cobwebs, but is allergic to both. So I take care of those.

Since I am allergic to grass, he cuts the grass. I handle paperwork better, so I deal with permission slips.

We play to our strengths, and the tasks get done quickly and with less effort.

Outsourcing As Training

The third way I outsource is by having my daughter work. My mother, old-fashioned soul that she is, calls these “chores”. I prefer to call it outsourcing. By giving my daughter tasks to do, I get the work done, but it also provides her with skills she will need for the future.

Do you have any thoughts about outsourcing? Share below.

Photo by Justin Dolske

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While I no longer follow the Flylady system (see Why Flylady Didn’t Work for Me), I still learned many valuable lessons from her.

Flylady, aka Marly Cilley, is a bubbly dispenser of no-nonsense advice on how to get your home in order. Her website, Flylady.net is a colorful portal to some common sense we may not have been given earlier in life.

Over the years I have applied bits and pieces of her methods and advice, to varying degrees of success. She is one of the pillars my personal philosophy of productivity is based on (see The Evolution of My Productivity System: Flylady). While it may seem strange to have a housekeeping system as a basis for productivity,  I have learned many things, as was highlighted in this series on Flylady Productivity techniques.

The Top 10 Things I Learned From Flylady

• #1: The Power of the Before Bed Routine
• #2: Taking Care of Me Makes A Big Difference
• #3: I Really Can Do Anything for 15 Minutes
• #4: Jump In Where You Are
• #5: Little Bits Add Up To A Lot
• #6: There Is No Magic Pill
• #7: Keep Supplies Where They Are Used
• #8: There May Be A Right Tool, But There Is No Perfect Tool
• #9: The Right Tool Can Make A Big Difference
• #10: A Timer Will Keep Me On Track
• #11: Progress, Not Perfection

Photo by Mr. T in DC

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In the course of my job as a web programmer, I use Excel a lot. Not in the ways that most people use it, for graphs and calculations and nice neat rows of numbers.

No, Excel is my powerhouse for assembling text.

It occurred to me that people might get some benefit from learning how to do this, so here is my method:

The Data

Usually when I am assembling chunks of text, the data has come to me with bits of it in columns, and I may have to add in other text. Since I don’t want to geek out on you here, I’ll use an example with putting together addresses.

Let’s say we have a spreadsheet with 6 columns: First Name, Last Name, Address, City, State and Zip. We want to transform those into three columns: Name, Address, CityStateZip. Here is what the data would look like to start with:

Basic Text Formulas and Operators

There are a few things you need to know about working with text. Here is the summary:

All formulas start with “=”. The equals sign tells Excel it is going to do a “calculation”, even if it is on text.

Reference cells by their location. Excel has columns that are labeled with letters and rows that are labeled with numbers. To reference a particular cell (or “box”), use the column letter followed by the row number.

Know that Excel uses Relative Referencing by default. Excel formulas reference things relative to the position from where you are. So if you are in column G, row 2 and you reference column A, row 1, Excel sees this as “go to the left of where I am 5 columns and up 1 row”. Be careful with this, or it can lead to unexpected results.

All text that doesn’t change goes in double quotes. If you want to add something that doesn’t change into a text string, you put it in double quotes (“). For example, if you wanted the text to start out saying “The Grand High Exalted Muckity Muck”, the formula would be

="The Grand High Exalted Muckity Muck".

Concatenate with &. To put two chunks of text together in Excel, you need to use concatenation, which is the ampersand (&). The plus sign (+) is for adding numbers.

Example: to put John and Doe together, it would become

="John" & "Doe"

Trim off the spaces. Nothing can throw off putting text together than extra spaces. Trim off the extra spaces in your text by using TRIM(). If you wanted to format the name in the example above, the formula would become as follows. This translates to “trim the spaces off either end of the text in cell A2, then add a blank space, then add the text of B2, which has also had the spaces removed from both ends.

=TRIM(A2) & " " & TRIM(B2)

Pad zip codes with 0s. Zip codes can be a bear. They are numbers that are treated as text, but sometimes Excel doesn’t seem them that way. You can fix this with some padding. We use the REPT function to generate a string of 0s, then add the zip code to the right of this, and take the rightmost five characters. (It sounds more complicated than it is).

=RIGHT(REPT("0",5) & F2,5)

You can add new lines to the text. If you need the text to appear on multiple lines (say for address labels) you can do that by inserting a CHR(10).

=C2 & CHR(10) & D2

Extend the formula with copying. To get the formula where you need it to be, copy the cell with your original formula into the cells that need it.

The Results

Below you can see the formulas and the results:

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Mondays are productivity days at SimpleProductivity blog. I am taking a break this week. Please enjoy this article from the archives!

Originally published on 6 July 2009.

Back in April (2009) Tim asked me about procrastination tips. I am assuming that we want to know about how to get around procrastination, rather than how to procrastinate!

Awareness

The first trick to getting around procrastination is to know when you are procrastinating. This means being aware at the time, rather than looking back on a day or a week with little progress made. By recognizing it when you are in the middle of it, you have a chance to fight it.

Symptoms of Procrastination

You can figure out if you are procrastinating by taking measure of your feelings. Perhaps you have a vague sense you should be doing something else. Or while looking at a list of things you need to do, you rapidly skip over something with a bit of guilt. The signs of procrastination can be subtle, but they are there and you can learn to recognize your particular brand of them.

Differentiate

Sometimes a task gets procrastinated on simply because it is not in line with your goals, interests or intents. Take a look through the list of things you have to do right now, and ask yourself if there is anything on there that doesn’t need to be done at all, should be done by someone else, or that you said yes to in a weak moment? Take steps to get them off your list. If the task doesn’t need to be done at all, cross it off. If it needs to be done by someone else, hand it off. If you were conned into doing it, contact the original requester and back down (“I’m sorry, I know I said I would do this, but I just don’t have the time to do it well right now…”)

Use PATs

Zen To Done recommends a method of making progress on your major projects by picking out Most Important Tasks (MITs) to do every day. If you are trying to blast through a list of tasks that have been outstanding too long, I suggest picking out three Procrastination Avoidance Tasks (PATs) every day.

Pick three tasks that you want to get off your list. Do the tasks as soon as possible in the day, ideally first thing in the morning. Within weeks you will have whittled the list down.

But I Still Can’t Get Moving…

If the task is still bugging you, and you can’t seem to get going on it, here are the strategies I use:

Make it ridiculously easy. If you have a paper to write and can’t get started, just do as Mark Forster recommends and tell yourself that all you have to do is get out the folder. Just making a start often gets me moving on the task.

Break it down. Often I will procrastinate if a task seems overwhelming. I apply David Allen’s method of determining what the very next action that needs to be done is. For example, instead of “Plan party” the task would become “Call Angela for caterer recommendations.” And if I didn’t have Angela’s phone number, the next task would be “Look up Angela’s phone number.”

I can’t possibly get enough done in the time I have. I always underestimate how much I can get done in a small chunk of time. FlyLady’s 15 minute rule helps with this. If my task is to clean the dining room, I set a timer for 15 minutes and go at it, with permission to stop when the timer goes off – even if I am not “done”. I usually find that I finish the task within the 15 minutes.

But I don’t WANT TO! When I find myself whining, I give myself a reward for working on the task for a given amount of time. Let’s say I’m reading a technical book and I simply don’t want to. I use the (10+2)*5 method to plan breaks. I work 10 minutes, do whatever for 2, then repeat the whole thing four more times. An hour will have elapsed, and I will have worked 50 minutes of that hour on my task.

These are the ways I get around procrastination. Does anyone have other methods that work for them?

Photo byParadigm

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Yesterday I talked about how to make the overall process of moving easier. But if you have small children in the house, moving can be traumatic. I thought I would take today’s article to give some tips on how to make moving easier on children.

Explain What Will Happen

Children thrive on consistency and routine. Uprooting them from the home space they have known can be difficult and scary. Use terms that they understand, letting them know that they will be keeping their families and their comfort items. Explaining the process of packing and moving can help, too.

As much as possible, explain the reason for the move. Maybe a parent got a new job or was transferred, or you are moving out of a space that was outgrown. If possible, let the child see the new living space from the outside so he can get used to the looks of the new home.

Reassure Them Their Favorites Will Move

Most children have security items. Let them know that these items will be moving with them, and let them pack the items themselves. Dolly may be more comfortable in a box with a blanket than stuffed in with a bunch of other toys.

Allow your child to leave some items out to carry with her in the car. Having a special stuffed friend along to explore the new house can help it seem less scary.

Keep Necessities in a Suitcase

Children seem to gather dirt like magnets, and having necessities all together in one place can make it easier for you to deal with unexpected events. Having a child who made a close acquaintance with a backyard mud puddle is easier to deal with if you know where some clean clothes and soap are.

Set Up Their Rooms As Soon As Possible

The house will be in chaos for a few days. Setting up the child’s room first can give them a sanctuary away from the hustle. Older children can be left to unpack with minimal supervision, but little ones should have some toys unpacked for them.

Having a place to put the child while you are busy will also give you some breathing room.

Have Plenty of Nightlights Available

Even adults can get disoriented in the middle of the night in a strange space. Having plenty of night lights available can make it easier for the child to find their way to the bathroom, or to help them see their surroundings should they wake up in the middle of the night.

Know There Will Be Anxiety

Moving is an anxious time – not just for the child! Remember that everyone will be feeling a bit disturbed and mae plenty of time for cuddles and reassurances.

Do you have any tips for moving with small children? Share below.

Photo by Bears On Patrol

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Wednesdays are simplicity days at SimpleProductivity blog.

A reader is facing a major move in her life, from a small attached house to a free-standing house, this time with a young child in tow. She asked me to write an article on how to simplify moving. So here it is!

Bear in mind, I haven’t moved in 8 years, but the last time I moved, my husband and I did it with the help of three other adults, and I had a 10 month old baby and 2 cats running around underfoot. The move was successful: everything ended up in the right place, and I had the kitchen in such order that by the second day after the move I made brownies. From scratch. (Yes, it can be done)

Plan Where Things Will Go

You know where things are now, and you know what the new layout of the house will be. Make a list of rooms in the new house, and decide where things will go from the old house.

When we moved from the condo to the house, items from various rooms were dispersed. We used to store extra blankets in the master bedroom; these were delegated to the new guest room. One and a half baths were put into two and a half; the extra storage for pantry items was moved from a closed bookshelf into the kitchen.

With a little thinking about where things will go, you will spend less time unpacking.

Have Materials On Hand

It is almost impossible to pack if you don’t have the right materials to do so. Make sure you have plenty of boxes, bubble wrap, paper (preferably the non-printed leftover newsprint paper), and lots of strong tape, in a dispenser.

We bought boxes for our last move: many packages of bankers boxes for heavy objects like books, wardrobe boxes to hold our hanging clothes without having to fold, compartment boxes for glasses and dishes, and bigger moving boxes for lighter items.

It is well worth it to pay for these boxes. You will have clean, strong boxes to work with, and suited to what you are packing. Uniformly sized boxes can help with packing a moving truck as well. If you absolutely have to go for free boxes, check with your local Freecycle to see if anyone has moving boxes they can give you. When you are done, Freecycle any boxes you don’t need.

Bubble wrap is essential to cushion breakable items. You can use things like towels, but towels don’t give the protection of bubble wrap.

Buy or borrow a packing tape dispenser that will not have you swearing. Nothing is worse than being ready to seal a box, and having to pick the ends of the tape off the roll.

With proper supplies on hand, the actual act of packing will go much quicker.

Label Each Box

After you are done packing and sealing each box, label on the top and one side the general contents of the box, and where it will go in the new house. This will allow the movers to put the boxes in the correct locations as they unload, and will allow you to find what box you may need to look in, as well as what order you may need to unpack things.

For example, we had books in our office that were going in two places: our new office upstairs and the built-in shelves in the living room. The books were split into boxes accordingly, and each box labeled with “books” and the location they needed to end up in. This also applied to my kitchen: I put all of the items I needed for feeding my daughter (bottles, spoons, bowls, baby food) in a box and labeled it “kitchen” and “baby food”. That way I found the box right away after we moved and unpacked it before littler used items like the blender.

Purge As You Go

As much as possible, get rid of anything you don’t need as you are packing. Old magazines, unused books, outgrown clothing should all be gotten rid of appropriately. Some charities will even send trucks to pick up discarded items, and the more you get rid of, the less you have to pack, move and unpack.

Cycle Through The House Multiple Times

Although it might feel like a great idea to fully pack each room at a time, you will still be living in the house as the packing is going on. Pack the least used items in each room, then cycle back through the various rooms as the moving gets closer to pack other items.

For instance, the first round of packing included the holiday decorations, the winter clothes, the clothes my daughter had yet to grow into, books not in use, and rarely used kitchen appliances. This went on, until the last week all that was left to pack was a skeleton kitchen setup (we were using paper plates at that point), my daughter’s necessities, a week of clothes for all of us, the cat food and the litter box.

Organize for the New House

As much as possibly, plan for where things will go specifically in the new house. This is really great if you can do this in the kitchen. Figure out where the silverware, glasses and plates will go. Decide what will be stored in the kitchen, and what will be stored elsewhere. Plan your pantry.

This may seem like a lot of effort, but it will make unpacking the kitchen a snap (and it was how I was able to bake the day after moving!)

Resist the Urge to Dump

At some point you will have the urge to run your arm over horizontal surfaces and dump everything in a box. Try to resist this as much as possible. It will only create chaos and confusion as you are unpacking.

Leave Other People’s Messes Until the End

If you live with another able-bodied adult who has packrat tendencies, leave his or her own mess alone. The urge to declutter will be great, and will not be well-received. This also applies to things that the person may value but for which you see no worth (such as a beer can collection or a large chunk of metal from an engine used as a toe-stubber doorstop).

You may end up packing some of these things in the end, but I recommend leaving other people’s messes for their own packing.

With just a bit of effort, you can streamline your packing and make your move go smoothly.

Do you have any tips for the reader? Share below.

Photo by haydnseek

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Fridays are tip days at SimpleProductivity blog.

Have you ever saved a file on your hard drive only to discover it isn’t where you thought it was? Or saved a file as the wrong type?

Recently, I realized that all the new music my husband had ripped for his phone hadn’t made it into the backup directory. The reason was that he had accepted the Windows Media player default, and all the music came in as WMA rather than MP3. (I only back up the MP3). But he couldn’t tell me how much music had been done that way, or even the names of the albums.

What’s a PC user to do? We resort to DOS commands.

No, don’t be scared. It’s really easy.

This sort of thing comes second nature to me, since I’ve been using the powerhouse DOS stuff since the 80s. But it occurred to me (mainly from my husband’s ‘Wow, you can do that?’) that it might be good to share this with the readers here.

DIR to the Rescue

To accomplish this, we are going to use the old DIR command.

1. Open a command window. In XP, go to the start menu, click on run, then type in CMD. In Windows 7 open the start menu and type CMD in the “search programs and files” menu.
2. Type in

   DIR {partial file name}*.{extension}* /s

   Don’t use the quotes, and substitute your partial file name and extension. If you are looking for a file named ‘fred’ something, you would put in

   DIR fred*.* /s

   If you knew that it was an Excel file with the name account, you would look for

   DIR account*.xls /s

   The more specific you can be, the better. In my case, I was looking for WMA files, so the command would be

   DIR *.wma /s

3. Press enter to run the command.

This will give you a listing of all the files you are looking for.

Deconstructing the DIR Command

Here is what you are putting in:

• DIR is the name of the command, short for directory.
• {partial file name}*.{extension}* gives it some parameters to limit the search.
• /s tells it to search all sub-directories of where you are.

Bonus Tip: Listing to a File

I know the results probably flashed onto the screen pretty fast. There is a way that you can send the results to a file located in the root of the C drive named “results.txt” and look at it in a text editor like Notepad. The command becomes:

DIR {partial file name}*.{extension}* /s > c:\results.txt

In my case this becomes:

DIR *.wma /s>c:\results.txt

Bonus Tip: Getting Help

With any DOS command, you can get help by typing the command, then /? and pressing enter. For the DIR command this becomes:

DIR /?

This returns a listing of all the available options for the command. (You can also send the results of this to a file using the > construct from above).

I hope this tip will save you some time if you ever have to look for a file.

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Fridays are tip days at SimpleProductivity blog.

Normally stuff that I come across during my daily blog reading, if I think it would interest the readers here, ends up in the the Open Loops. But sometimes something comes along that I think needs singular attention.

It is far too rare to see actual innovations in productivity and time management. Far too often it is just a new take on the same old stuff. But in “The Daily Rind”, a Better Way to Plan the Day, Adam King gives a really new take on time management and planning.

He was inspired by the MUJI Chronography notebook, but decided to make a custom fit and approach to the system.

In a nutshell, Adam had a circle with various time marks, around which he makes initial plans, then adjusts as the day goes on. He adds another circle for the evening. As he says,

While the Daily Rind is about productivity, planning and tracking mostly in the positive sense, the Evening Rind, for me, is largely a trick to create more mindfulness through the day. If I don’t consciously and holistically consider all the demands my life — not just my work — make on my time, and make sure to juxtapose those life demands with the work I need to get done on a given day, something will simply slip through the cracks. Mapping it out at least forces me to make a conscious choice ahead of time, so that if something needs to slip, it can be something that’s less important to me than, say, getting to read my daughter her bedtime story.

I think this might be a good method for those who don’t think linearly – creative and artist types. What do you think? Let me know.

Photo byNovumOpus (c) 2011. Image used with permission of the artist.

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