fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Shortcuts, finally
By: Peter Huber
Tags: Minimalism, Android, Efficiency, Homescreen, Shortcuts

Access your favorite content directly from Niagara Launcher

What are shortcuts?

Simply put: timesavers. They help you accessing content like specific websites or chats quicker — directly from Niagara Launcher.

What makes them special in Niagara Launcher: shortcuts behave just like apps. They appear in the app list, you can add them as favorites, change their appearance, all that stuff.

Shortcuts in Niagara Launcher’s app list

How to add shortcuts?

There are multiple ways to add shortcuts. Most shortcuts can be added from Niagara’s shortcut selection screen (Launcher Settings > Features > Add shortcut):

Niagara Launcher’s shortcut selection screen for Google Maps

Websites can be added through your browser:

Lastly, you can also long press any app action shortcut to make them appear in the app list (Accessible by swiping right on supported apps):

I thought this update would make a good Christmas special, it was highly requested and took me months to implement 😅

By the way, you don’t need Niagara Pro for shortcuts, this feature is completely free.

Shortcuts were added in v0.11.0. If this version is not on Google Play (ETA: Dec 29) yet, download it from here:

And here’s my Twitter:

Happy holidays!
How to Make a To-Do List that Doesn’t Suck
By: Chen Qin
Tags: Productivity, Time Management, To Do List, Efficiency, Personal Development

Photo from Pexels

Having a handy to-do list help you stay organized and energized. A daily personal to-do list prepares you for a clear state of mind, better than a cup of coffee. When you are tempted to open your email inbox first thing in the morning or get bombarded by phone calls and meeting requests feeling distracted, a to-do list becomes critical directing you back to the priorities of your day. The satisfaction you get crossing off items one-by-one also adds to a sense of daily accomplishment for most of us.

Highly productive people embrace to-do lists as a simple recipe for success. My friend and mentor Rupinder uses a hand-written bi-weekly to-do list to organize work on multiple projects, office leadership initiatives, and important personal errands. As a senior project architect and manager of a respected firm, his workdays often are fully occupied with high-level management responsibilities. Preparing to-do lists became his way of navigating busy work life with a focused mind.

Below are some strategies to prepare an effective to-do list.
I get the appeal of a quick and dirty way of deciding whether a particular task is worthwhile but…
By: Ned Dodds
Tags: Efficiency, Time Management

I get the appeal of a quick and dirty way of deciding whether a particular task is worthwhile but I’m not sure that it would actually yield much efficiency or a reduction in the time spent on decisions.

As a lawyer, I spent 35 years dividing my time into six minute increments. This made me acutely aware of how much time I was spending on a client matter. It did not, however, give me guidance on which matter I should spend time on or in what order, even though my billing rate was ordinarily the same. This was a matter of judgment.

Tracking ones time for decades has a lot of negative and unexpected consequences; the pressure always be engaged with productive work is only one.

The best option, it seems to me, is to plan ones day and prioritize task and personal activities ahead of time rather than trying to make a calculation on the fly about how time is best spent. And, of course, many life experiences cannot be reduced to the opportunity cost of not doing something else.

In the end, I found that the biggest drain was not on deciding whether something was worthwhile but, rather, how to do things in a worthwhile manner.
Starting my journey towards productivity
By: Raquib Khan Lavani
Tags: Motivation, Productivity, Efficiency, Self Improvement, Peace Of Mind

It is around 8:00 AM. With the hardest will and determination, I wake up. I roll to the side of my bed, in an attempt to get my phone. I don’t find it. I throw a minor fit and move my hands rapidly around the bed to get a feeling of the silicone case of my phone. I panic slightly till I find my phone. Just when I find it, I find comfort again. I pick it up, getting cozy because of the warmth of my blanket, and scroll Reddit, watch a YouTube video, and do anything I can to not wake up.

It is 9:15 AM. With the urge of wanting to go to the washroom, I finally wake up. I still have my phone in my hands. I freshen up, prepare a sloppy breakfast, all while in my phone. Three hours slide away, and I don’t feel it. The day ends in a similar fashion.

I then call my mum, or a friend and complain about time going too fast. How I need some more time to complete a certain task, and how I have ‘too much work’. All while internally I know how the main cause of time waste and inefficiency is just me. It’s a scary thought. So scary that I pick up my phone, yet again, to distract myself from reality.

Is this the way to live? Is this how I am supposed to spend my time? I am not neither efficient, or productive. I go to sleep with full energy because I haven’t expended that energy anywhere. I miss the feeling of working so hard that I get to sleeping within 5 minutes of hitting the bed. I’m tired of this repetitive, recursive, trap of a routine I’m currently stuck in. And I want to change it. I signed up on Medium, and I want to take you all through my journey.

So how do I plan to start my journey towards removing all this inefficiency? Let’s think logically: There are 24 hours in a day. 8 hours go towards sleep. Let’s assume 8 hours go towards working as well. We have another 8 hours for ..nothing. 8 whole hours to do whatever you’d like to do. That’s a lot of time. So in theory, without distractions, sadness, and a bunch of other negative things, 24 hours a day is plenty for the tasks of this world.

Moving on to the primary challenge of this week. Emotional peace. I want to stop looking at any device which distracts me from reality. I want to make peace with the challenges of real life, and tackle them with full force. Here’s a look at the ‘Screen Time’ app installed in my iPhone:

Screen Time

You see the 3 h 41 min sentence up there? I want to get it to ‘1 hr’ or below. Below the neat visual, do you see the tabe mentioning ‘Total Screen Time’? I want it to be less than half of what it is right now.

Now reducing screen time is going to make me more anxious and panicky. How do I counter that? Well, let me try prayers. I’ll pray or meditate for 30 minutes in the morning. While meditating, I will attempt to have no simulant, like my phone, food, or drink. I want to isolate myself with my thoughts. I want to make peace with them.

I would be lying if I said I haven’t tried this before. But this time, I want it to be one attempt, followed by habit. I’ll keep you posted.
Curse of Busyness!
By: Arush Sharma
Tags: Efficiency, Productivity

A life of leisure was once the aspiration of the upper class. But now, bragging about busyness is how people indicate their status.

Busyness is a powerful social signal, though a somewhat counterintuitive one. At the turn of the 20th century, economists predicted that the ultimate symbol of wealth and success would be leisure — showing others that you were so successful that you could abstain from work. Instead, the opposite occurred. It’s not free time, but busyness, that gestures to a person’s relevance.

Source: Google Images

In 1928, the economist John Maynard Keynes gave a lecture, later published as Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren, in which he foresaw that people in the year 2028 would work only 15 hours a week thanks to a productive economy and technological innovation

Well-off people in the western world are nowhere close to working just three hours a day.

Just as being leisurely around 1900 was a status claim, being unmanageably busy at the turn of this century was a status claim based on the fact that the busiest people also tended to be the richest.

What can we do to be more efficient rather than busy?

Three elements that create an experience of deceleration: embodied deceleration, technological deceleration, and episodic deceleration.

Embodied deceleration is the physical slowing down of your body: walking or riding a bike versus moving your body around in cars, planes, or buses.

Technological deceleration is not giving up technology, but feeling like you have a sense of control over it.

Episodic deceleration is having fewer episodes of action per day — Not feeling like you’re running from meeting to meeting at work, and then you have to run to pick up your kids and drive them to three different activities at the same time as you’re trying to cook dinner.

Emphasizing the pleasure and social benefits of deceleration can help shift attention away from busyness.

Changes in attitudes lead to changes in behavior. And both attitudes and behavioral changes lead to changes in social structures.
Efficiency — Resilience is a positive-sum game
By: Sathish Seshadri
Tags: Resilience, Efficiency, Post Covid 19 Recovery

Photo by Cassie Boca on Unsplash — Windmills manifest great levels of efficiency and resilience!

The COVID 19 crisis has given us the opportunity to reflect upon several age old beliefs. Among these, the importance of resilience has never been more pronounced. Resilience for the individual, for communities and for businesses.

In the context of businesses, this allows us to revisit many of our core management principles. Specifically this WSJ article by William Galston titled Efficiency isn’t the only Economic Virtue, argues for the need to revisit the trade-off between efficiency and resilience. Galston made several important and valid points on how far the pendulum might have swung in the direction of efficiency and short-term profit maximisation, at the cost of reduced degree of resilience. The article also argues that management theories like Just-In-Time Production and Globalization of Value Chains as drivers of efficiency might have rendered us less resilient.

This article also references a seminal HBR article by Roger Martin titled, The High Price of Efficiency.

As Roger Martin puts it, “Resilient systems are typically characterized by the very features — diversity and redundancy or slack — that efficiency seeks to destroy.”

I found both these articles thought-provoking. The timing couldn’t be better to debate the trade-offs between short-term efficiency and long term resilience.

Economic Resilience can be understood to be the ability of an enterprise to withstand the shock from changes to the economic environment and continue to deliver superior performance. Read more here.

The apparent conflict between efficiency and resilience seems to stem from the notion that efficiency removes any slack/cushion and makes the system unable to withstand external shock — supply or demand. The specific references in those articles to Just In Time production (JIT) and globalization of value chains reiterate this notion.

On deeper reflection, I would like to posit that in this Digital age, efficiency and resilience are no longer two ends of a spectrum, and there are ways to simultaneously achieve these twin objectives of efficiency and resilience.

Given that the underlying source of the external shock is fluctuations to demand or unexpected disruption to supply (as we have been experiencing in the current environment), what if we can build systems that can respond quickly to the changing dynamics? What if the ability to expand and contract could be made highly elastic?
Simplify And Streamline
By: Intuitive Fish
Tags: Zodiac, Astrology, Efficiency, Dailyastrology, Astrologyupdates

Desk Photo by Ylanite Koppens from Pexels

DAILY ASTRO

Friday, July 2, 2021

Sun in Cancer 10° 55′

10° 55′ Last Quarter Waning Moon in Aries , VOC 4:14am July 3–12:27pm July 3 UTC

, VOC 4:14am July 3–12:27pm July 3 UTC Prominent Planets: Mars

Prominent Mode: Mutable

Prominent Element: Fire

Prominent Aspect: Sextile

Retrogrades : Jupiter Rx, Saturn Rx, Neptune Rx, Pluto Rx, Juno Rx

: Jupiter Rx, Saturn Rx, Neptune Rx, Pluto Rx, Juno Rx Fixed T-Square

Grand Fire Trine

Trine Mars square Uranus (Exact on Sunday)

Uranus (Exact on Sunday) Saturn Rx sextile Chiron

It’s a great day to change something so actions are more efficient in order to reduce stress and enjoy life. Where are you scattering your energy? Open, honest communication works best today, if you have the courage.

Mars in Leo continues its standoff in a Fixed T-square with Saturn Rx and Uranus with Venus trying to join the party. Meanwhile, the waning Moon in Aries sextiles Mercury and squares Pluto Rx today.

Anxiety or pressure may be coming from the tension of trying to drive fast with the brakes on. Thoughts, words, actions, AND emotions may all be racing, and yet nothing seems to really go anywhere… at least not as fast as you would like.

With Saturn in its domicile, usually it would be best to stick to the usual routine. But Saturn is retrograde and Mars and Uranus need something to change.

Facing an issue DIRECTLY and doing something DIFFERENT this time is highly rewarded.

Facing a concern head on is not for the faint of heart, and yet you’ll find it wasn’t as big of a problem as you thought. In fact, you can even use the issue to make your life easier, more relaxed, beautiful, or enjoyable. What honestly feels BEST to you? You can go ahead and do THAT.

RELATIONSHIPS: Some people may need lots of space and no pressure before they feel safe to come out of their shell or open up in vulnerability. Some may feel defensive, or there may be conflict if someone feels constricted. Allowing individuals to be themselves constitutes harmony. People learn best through their own choices and experiences.

Follow the Daily Astrology Forecast at intuitivefish.com for conscious awareness and practical life guidance.
Qavalo: How breakfast can transform your company’s productivity
Tags: Productivity, Technology, Healthcare, Efficiency, Web Application

by Albert Padin, Symph CTO

It all started with breakfast, which I suggest everyone eat daily, but it wasn’t just the food that transformed a company’s productivity.

I had a breakfast meeting with the executive team of Qavalo — Laurice (founder), JP (data scientist), and Carmela (manager). It began with an idea, and as with most things in the idea phase, we were not quite sure of what the end result was going to be. But I was looking forward to taking a look at their processes to see if there was anything that technology can do to help them monitor and increase their productivity.

Qavalo provides medical documentation quality assurance services to home health businesses in the USA. Their team was responsible for ensuring that all their clients’ documentation is filled out correctly and completely. Attention to detail is critical. So I listened to the Qavalo team explain their meticulous QA process. I asked several questions along the way and dug into the details of each step of the process. I was probing and hoping to discover patterns of repetitive steps or tasks. We spotted one not too long into the meeting.

400 hours every month…

The staff had to repetitively copy and paste information on every task into a Google Sheet file so that they can keep a record of the tasks they were working on. Individually, this didn’t take a lot of time, but cumulatively for their team, it quickly added up.

On average, it took 2 minutes for each person to copy and paste all the information for one task. If there were 30 tasks for a person, that would be a total of 60 minutes consumed per day. That’s an hour! If you had a staff of 20, then that’s 20 hours spent on copying and pasting per day! That’s 400 hours every month.
What we do in the shadows (of quarantine)
Tags: Work From Home, Covid 19, Efficiency, Team Building

Hello friends!

The whole world seems to have gone a bit mad about the pandemy and the quarantines it follows. You have probably read a lot of how-tos and whatnots regarding the issue.

Our team has just started working remotely and realized we have a piece of advice to share with you too:

Take it for granted! If you’re reading this, chances are you an enthusiast of your job and usually spend busy days working assiduously in the office. Why not try a change of paradigm? Take it as a chance to celebrate the place you call home, be closer with your family or flatmates, or, if you live alone, celebrate yourself, as Walt Whitman, a singer of outside-of-the world detachment, once wrote. Practice proper hygiene, keep the air fresh and wet, sleep and eat well, but make sure you don’t overindulge.

Imagine it’s a game. Remember Life’s beautiful and the story the father made up for a boy to survive in a concentration camp? However exaggerated this comparison might seem, anyway, it’s just a set of rules to follow: the ones who last longer and score the highest points are likely to win:) Carry on working hard! If you’re not used to working remotely, pay more attention to planning your day and having a kind of schedule in front of you. We advise that you dress up for going out (to the office, for example, and minimize the possible distractions. Remember to have rest and walk — try Pomodoto timer in order not to forget to stand up and walk a bit once in an hour. Remember that the best way to keep your mind clean and calm is to have a loved job and accessible goals in front of you, this we know only too well!

Here at Adsbalance we introduced daily sync-up calls to look at each other (literally) and discuss our concerns. We don’t have many all-department meetings in the office, so this format seems to make us feel even closer — seeing all of your colleagues’ faces at Skype at once and realizing you are here for each other and for the shared goals. Hope you have a chance to experience the same:) So cheer up, love what surrounds you and let the things be sorted out naturally.
What do you do quickly?
By: Jess Blackstock
Tags: Time Management, Efficiency, Easy, Life Lessons, Exercise Motivation

“Make pitch decks.”

“Organize projects.”

“Understand what people need.”

What’s the first answer that comes to your head? (You can also substitute quickly for easily if that helps.)

Since I started posing that question here some of the things I’ve heard:

Public speaking

Sales

Networking

Putting together spreadsheets

Editing

Writing

Making playlists

Cooking

Solving problems

Making friends/new connections

Designing

Creating art

Coaching

Creating timelines

Staying calm under pressure

Build spreadsheets

Manage budgets

Teaching

Writing contracts

The original question was posed to me by my friend a few months ago and those first three answers were the things we said about ourselves. My friend who posed the question told me that when she had been told to ask the question “what can you do quickly?” she found herself having no problem writing down a list of skills. This felt very different than the question, “what are you good at?” which would typically quickly conjure up thoughts like “I don’t know if I’m that good at anything” or “I definitely know people who are better than me.”

Good is tricky. Good for me might be average for you. It can be hard to assess your skills when you use terms like good or love. What do you love to do? That question has always stumped me and is right up there with the “what are you passionate about?” question. Ummm…. (Insert stressed emoji face here.)

I’ve always felt like I’ve had inadequate answers to those questions. Words like love and passion and even good are so loaded. But when my friend reframed the question I had tons of answers. I can think of lots of things I can do quickly or easily.

For example, I can manage projects easily. I don’t consider this a super specialized skill, lots of people do this and a lot of people do it better than me. But that isn’t the question, the question is quickly and easily and that I can do. I am also not passionate about managing projects, but what I do care about is taking ideas I deem important and interesting and bringing them to life.

I have a lot of friends who work on and care deeply about local food. Most of them will never be farmers and most of their quick and easy skills are pretty straightforward but those skills are needed to support farmers and increase access to locally grown food. It can be helpful to acknowledge that you might not be passionate about the things you can do quickly and easily but those skills can be used to move forward something you do care about.

So when you are thinking about what value you can bring to a team or a project or even looking for a new job your “quick and easy list” can be very helpful. Because what is quick and easy for you is not quick and easy for someone else.

Sign up for our Sunday newsletters at www.sumandsub.com.
How Can You Structure Your Restaurant Staff to be More Efficient without Losing Quality?
By: Foodbuy Us
Tags: Restaurant, Efficiency, Restaurant Staff, Food Service

Restaurant, foodservice, and hospitality operators are faced with a challenge to determine the most efficient ways to structure their staff without losing quality. Labor is already tight and business owners may not have room in their budget to hire more people. But there are ways to restructure your staff to create efficiencies and streamline processes.

One way operations have become more efficient is by ensuring they have the right labor lined up for the right tasks. For those companies that utilize night crews crews to manage deliveries, operators can maximize their staff’s labor hours by having them prep for the next day. It saves time and allows your next crew to work on other tasks.

At Foodbuy, we work with customers to find solutions to their labor challenges. We’ve compiled a list of ideas your operation can implement to improve efficiencies based on what we’ve seen successful operations practice with their restaurant staff structure.

Create centralized processes to be more efficient

Think about who is doing what and decide whether that’s the most effective way to design the system. Does your staff structure make the workflow more efficient? Or are there ways to make the workflow more centralized?

Operations have found it’s more efficient to designate one line cook to make all of the hot food for stations from a centralized location. This allows chefs to focus on preparing cold products rather than having each station service their own hot food. Another way to centralize processes is to figure out how your staff is going to prep. It often saves time to assign a few employees to prepping, instead of having each chef prep their own station.

Put processes in place to ensure your staff does their assigned level of work

There are going to be times when everyone needs to jump in and help out on various tasks, but generally speaking, employees should stick to their individual roles. After all, employees are hired for their specific skill set.

For instance, it’s not efficient for a baker to cut and wrap each item after they finish baking a large volume of brownies. Instead, a cashier or hostess should package each item in between other tasks. A baker can continue to bake more products to sell, optimizing everyone’s time.

Streamline workflows across multiple locations

Find ways to reduce overlap in tasks across all of your locations. Is it possible for one person to pull products for all of your restaurants? Can you create requisitions for ordering products to reduce the likelihood of different employees doing the same job? Streamlining processes can save a significant amount of time, enabling your staff to use their time in other ways.

While it may be challenging to reduce the number of labor hours needed to successfully run your operation, finding areas to increase efficiencies could free up your staff and allow them to be more productive in other areas.
Productivity Agenda of a Midnight Owl
By: Vaishali Anand
Tags: Night Owl, Productivity, Efficiency, Flexible Work

Plan ahead. Once we come to terms with the fact that we simply aren’t one of those early risers, there’s only one thing left to do. Seize the day! I mean what’s left of it :) Listing out your tasks for the day, works wonders. It helps in creating both, a visual path for your day, as well as a sense of satisfaction, when everything has been crossed off at the end of a productive day. Since you tend to work late in the night, creating a list of questions for your peers, or sending out emails which others will get to, first thing in the morning, is a huge advantage.

Coffee sure helps! Not sure how I would survive, if this miracle didn’t exist. However much I would like my office to start at around 2 in the afternoon, it doesn’t. So the 4 hours that I spend in zombie mode, are fuelled by coffee. Instantly wakes me up, and protects people around me by taking care of my morning crankiness!

Un-clutter. A clean and organised work space helps in increasing your productivity. It also acts as a reflection of the state of your mind. If your desk is cluttered, your mind is more prone to wander. The messier your work setting, the less time you would want to spend there. So get cleaning, and set yourself down to get work done.
Optimization or Simplicity?
By: Mike Ridler
Tags: Optimization, Systems Thinking, Efficiency, Project Management

What’s the difference?

Optimization is doing multiple things at once with good timing. Getting one step started then beginning another step with the intention of revisiting the first step. Sometimes you’ll have three or four steps happening at once. It saves time but a failure or delay on any step can throw the whole system into chaos. You’ll have multiple failure points and more stress.

Simplicity is doing one thing at a time. Getting one step finished before moving on to another step. It takes extra time but a failure or delay will not cause other steps to fail. You’ll have fewer failure points at any given time and less stress.

Basically, when you’re optimizing and multi-tasking you’re leaving simplicity in the dust.

When will they work best?

Since your first time will be your worst time it’s probably best to start with simplicity. As you gain experience and confidence you can begin looking for ways to optimize and save time.

Working as an individual you’ll likely have success optimizing systems to match your skills. You’ll be aware of the details of each step and have some ability to slow down or speed up steps as needed.

As you add people to the group you may need to re-simplify the system and allow timing to be more flexible. They may not have the same skills and experience that you have. Allow them the time to gain confidence and then look for optimizations you may not have seen.

What about large, complex projects?

Of course these are tricky because they need to be completed by multiple people in a timely manner. This is where a project manager comes into play.

The project manager can optimize the timing of a series of simple steps that are delegated to the group. Think about it like building a house where each of the sub-trades only need to know about their tasks without focusing on the overall house.

You can probably see that a project manager needs to be more adept at planning and communications than the actual skills of completing the tasks.

Which way should you go?

Most of us have a bias towards either optimization or simplicity, whether we know it or not. Every project is different so be aware of your bias, experience, and skill set as you start out.

Whether you prefer simplicity or optimization it’s a good idea to leave some buffer room for errors and delays. They will happen.

Efficiency demands a level of optimization however simplicity can be more foolproof. It’s a basic risk and reward decision.
FWW Novel Submission Style Inspire Writer
By: Inspire App
Tags: Markdown, Efficiency, Writing, Novel

Howdy, all! Happy Valentine’s eve! 😉

It’s been quite some time since we talked, how’s it hanging?

If you’re already falling behind with your writing plan, don’t fret, it’s not the end of the world. And we’re here to help you pick up the pace.

A big thumb-up to those who are well on schedule, or even ahead of the schedule. You’re admirable rare species you know. Still, we have something that can make you feel even better about yourself.

Doubt if that’s even possible? Well, how would you say to a novel submission style that won’t require you to adjust the format setting yourself? Surely it’ll cut down your time with all the formatting.

Don’t just take our word for it, let’s check it out in Inspire Writer 3.10 (Download it from here or update it directly from within the app) together.

We added FWW Novel Submission style when export to DOCX files

In Inspire Writer 3.10, when you export your sheet to a DOCX file, you can choose the FWW Novel Submission style.

It’s a typical standard for novels:

double spaced

12 point Times New Roman

0.5 inch first line indents

no padding between paragraphs

This is an example of what you will see:

With this new export style, you no longer need to manually change your novel format while keeping all the above-mentioned indexes in mind. All you need to do now is a single click on your mouse and that’s it.

Fire up, novelists! Write your heart out and make the most of the novel submission style.

We also improved all the other styles when export to DOCX files

Apart from the additional FWW Novel Submission style, we have also improved the other style in DOCX — Default, Modern, Formal, Elegant and Traditional, all updated and with better looks.

See for yourself what will the new looks of these exports do to drive your efficiency by downloading Inspire Writer version 3.10 from here: https://www.inspire-writer.com/download.

Feel free to let us know how you feel about it, or what you think we can do more to help with your distraction-free writing — we’re always ready to help.

Stay tuned, we’ll be back before you know it!
Effective vs Efficient. What’s the outstanding difference?
By: Sifon Udonsek
Tags: Efficient, Effective, Efficiency, Effectiveness, Growth

The two words “effective” and “efficient” have a good number of similarities and because of this fact, they are often commonly misused and misinterpreted by a lot of people daily and in application. After this episode, you will know when to use both and maybe, get cleared on why they were used in instances you stumbled upon in a book you read or in someone’s speech.

In simple words, being effective is about reaching or achieving the goal while being efficient is about finding the fastest, easiest and least expensive way to reach a goal.

Being effective is getting to your destination successfully without considering the time and equipment used. Being efficient is putting into consideration the best tools and time management strategy to be used to get to the destination. While it is possible to be effective and efficient at the same time, it is also possible to be effective without being efficient and vice versa.

A rather simple way of explaining the differences between the two would be to consider a scenario where you have a burned out light bulb in your house which will need replacement. You have to pick within an incandescent light bulb and a LED bulb. Either light bulbs would be effective in accomplishing the goal of providing you with light at night but the LED bulb would use less energy and therefore be the more efficient choice.

Now if the bulb was turned on the entire day, then you would be wasting energy. While the bulb is still performing the task of creating light in an efficient manner, it’s performing that task at the wrong time and therefore not effective.

In the business world, you can conclude that efficiency is important for profitability and by increasing efficiency, we save both time and money while on the other hand, effectiveness is important for growth.

Now that you have understood the outstanding difference between effective and efficient, it is best to shoot for being effective first before bringing in efficiency into practice. The process works with whatever you are trying to do. Do it effectively or focus on reaching the goal first. Test and repeat the activity to increase your efficiency in reaching the goal. Try it out, you won’t be disappointed.

LINK TO PODCAST EPISODE
How I Get Things Done, Every Day (And Night)
By: Joseph Olabisi
Tags: Focus, Productivity, Efficiency, Done, Tasks

Waking up every day feeling guilty, disappointed, accusing myself of being lazy because I couldn’t get most of the things I had set to accomplish before the end of the previous day, maybe I’m too hard on myself or maybe I’m just trying to get too many things done, well maybe just maybe.

And so I decided I need to own my time, deliberately cut out time-wasting activities, stop getting work done and also drifting off into Twitter, Instagram or YouTube in the middle of actually getting something done. I wanted to take account of time spent during the day and night, I wanted to get more things done, I wanted to be more productive.

I googled various productivity hacks I could add to my daily routine and watched several videos. After trying different things some worked but I didn’t quite stick to them, some didn’t just work at all but three stood out.

The 1–3–5 rule

The first is the 1–3–5 rule. At the end of each day before going to bed I set one big and important task, three medium tasks and five little tasks to get done before the end of the next day. With this, I prevent myself from getting overwhelmed by tasks because completing them is way more feasible. Sometimes I might not get every single task done, but I don’t make myself feel guilty about it, I just add it to my todo list for the next day.

Time-blocking

The next productivity hack that works for me is time-blocking, with time-blocking I create a distraction-free duration of intense focus for one specific task, for example, “10:00 AM to 1:45 PM, add a particular feature to a codebase”. This has helped me not to multi-task because when I multi-task I come up with chunks of tasks I start but leaving them unfinished.

Sometimes I might complete the task before the time I set, so I reward myself with free time to do whatever I want that is fun, or just get something else done.

Variation of the Pomodoro technique

Time blocking is great but sometimes working on one thing for two hours or more at a stretch could be daunting, so I added a mix of the Pomodoro technique. It’s a well-known technique of setting blocks of 25 minutes countdowns to get work done with breaks of 10 minutes, but 25 minutes was just too short for me to experience flow in whatever task I was working on, so I made a slight change with 45 minutes of focused work and 15 minutes breaks, which is efficient.

Having a mix of these three productivity hacks has been effective in getting things done. This may not work for everyone but I hope someone finds it useful.

Thanks for reading! :)
Pomodoro Technique
By: Uzair Mughal
Tags: Pomodoro Technique, Efficiency, Procrastination, Self Improvement, Goals

Almost all of us suffer from procrastination. We keep delaying and delaying the tasks till the deadline strikes. This is the reason we are unable to work on long term goals as they don’t have a deadline. We like to think that procrastination is an inherent weakness which can’t be dealt with. Well, the good news is, it isn’t. Just like a lot of other things, it is a bad habit which can be countered with deliberate practice of good habits.

One of the simplest yet effective technique to tackle procrastination is Pomodoro technique. You set a timer for 25 minutes and indulge in your work without any distractions. When you know you have a limited time to do something, you develop a sense of urgency. You try your level best to make the most out of it. After each 25 minutes interval, you take a short break for 3–5 minutes to refresh yourself. You take a long break of 15 minutes after four such sessions. It is basically a reward-based system, you do the work and get gifted with leisure time. This makes the whole process extremely efficient.

Sit tight for 25 minutes!

I applied this technique to complete one of my freelancing projects, related to content writing. I had been delaying it for days, so I thought why not give this newly learnt technique a try.

The first time-interval was not easy. I couldn’t concentrate a lot as I haven’t practiced this method before. I was distracted by my phone. For the next session, I got rid of all the potential distractions. Thankfully, things got better from the next sessions. I became deeply indulged in the project. I started enjoying the momentum and the flow of my work. I listened to music and watched short videos in the break. In the end, I was able to complete the project in four 25 minutes sessions. I was stunned at my own efficiency. If I didn’t employ Pomodoro technique, I would have taken at least 4–5 hours to complete this. As the work would have been without focus, and with a lot of distractions. So, it is very safe to say that I accomplished a lot more using this smart technique. Which is why I plan on applying this to every facet of my life. These short 25-minute sessions of pure focus would help me become more efficient. I will suggest everyone to try this technique at least once.
Project Pomodoro
By: Zakriya Gul
Tags: Work Method, Efficiency, Soartwork, Hard Work, Smart Work Vs Hard Work

Pomodoro ! Heard it for the first time, me too. Pomodoro is a device invented by Francesco Cirillo in 1980’s, it’s Italian for tomatoe. The device actually works as a timer and is used to enhance the efficiency of our work, at the same time keeping in mind our time taken to complete the task, the timer here is set for 25 minutes and with each buzzer we can have a rest of 3–5 minutes. It’s a fun activity as at the end of your task you’ll have to treat yourself as well with a Choclate, an Ice-cream or any such thing.

Eat that Frog with a Pomodoro

I’m going to have a little Pomodoro Project for my self today. The task that I’ve selected is to clean my room while putting a timer at 25 minutes.

Did I ate the Frog ?

I’m done with the Pomodoro Project, Finally! I am feeling great as I’ve given myself the reward of a nice cup of coffee, and to answer the question, Yes! I did ate the Frog. I cleaned my room and am feeling pretty well right now.

My Experience

I’ve cleaned my room before as well, HAHA but this time it was different as I used the Pomodoro Technique. For me it turned out to be more efficient as with every buzer I had to rest for a small 2–3 minutes, in this gap I analyzed the room, checked out the places I’ve cleaned and saw the spots that were yet to be cleaned. In other words just setting a target location to get to after the break, and in this way I feel I’ve cleaned about every spot of the room.

Also the part where you reward yourself is great, it’s like tricking your mind that there’s a reward waiting for you after doing this and so your body wants to finish up the job efficiently and in a better way at the same time. We could say its a Trick and Treat.

Why Pomodoro

We all have different stuff to do everyday, different jobs, different activities and so I’ll advice everyone to try and apply this method to your activities and you’ll definitely see more clear results as it gives you time to look back on what youv’e done and think about what you’re going to do ahead, so I’ll simply say, GO POMODORO!
Zero to 1.2 Million Website Users for Technology Efficiency and Transformation
By: Matthew Bulat
Tags: Website Traffic, Energy, Website, Efficiency, Transformation

My experience in information, communication and technology needed another pathway. Initially this was done with a Energy Efficiency eBook covering 60 technologies. This could help people with reduced energy usage, save money and save electricity. This started an unexpected transformation journey.

The eBook failed due to low website traffic. The pivot was to put the whole eBook online and raise revenue with Google Adsense. The content included home efficiency, business efficiency, IT efficiency, alternative energy, transport efficiency and future energy. This content started the gain of website traffic.

To help more people, more content and efficiency calculators were added. Now users could calculate their efficiency savings in advance of changes. New categories were added for solar power, cloud computing, Internet use, smartphones and websites. Over 1000 questions were answered on Yahoo, Answers and Quora. Traffic reached over 5000 visitors per month by the 2nd year.

Roadblocks appeared than almost killed the website. First the website was hacked and required a total rebuild. Second the website SSL certificate lapsed and stopped 90% of the traffic in 1 day. This required moving the website hosting and content to a better and faster provider. Finally the website needed to adapt to Internet best practices to keep current and popular. This included remaking the content fast and responsive for smartphone users which now make up about 2/3 of the traffic.

The website now runs over 100,000 users per month and has 18 categories of content. Content is available in English, Spanish, French and Russian. It is now helping people in over 230 countries every month.

Ten years of tracking website best practices and implementing them is paying off. Adsense creates a passive monthly income sourced from over 100 countries automatically. The website knowledge is being used to teach IT students at university level. My experience is helping people locally and around the world. https://www.matthewb.id.au
The Meeting Notes Template That Will Save Your Project
By: Rachael Voluck
Tags: Project Management, Template, Efficiency, Organization, Meetings

Standardizing your documentation and communication can have incredible benefits. This meeting notes template not only helps keep your process standardized, but can also save your project when conflict arises by documenting when key decisions were made and who owns action items.

The Template

The template is very simple and when used correctly can serve as a major point-of-reference for the project. Your meeting notes should always contain the following:

Meeting Attendees — Record all attendees

— Record all attendees Meeting Notes — Add the agenda items and take notes for each item as the discussion proceeds

— Add the agenda items and take notes for each item as the discussion proceeds Key Decisions — Document any key decisions made in the meeting here

— Document any key decisions made in the meeting here Follow-Up Items — Record follow-up / action items discussed and assign owners

How to Use It

Before the meeting — Prepare the agenda in advance and copy & paste it into the meeting notes section before the meeting. This will not only make make taking notes easier, but will help you facilitate the meeting and ensure you proceed through the agenda. During the meeting — Take notes within each section of the agenda in real-time. Reference the upcoming agenda items during the meeting to help facilitate the meeting and ensure you address all topics. At the end of the meeting — At the end of the meeting verbally summarize key decisions, review follow-ups and assign owners. This is key towards obtaining alignment on what was discussed and ensuring action items are addressed. After the meeting — Quickly review & clean-up the notes and then send the notes out via email immediately after the meeting. Send the notes to all meeting attendees and anyone else that should be informed of the key decisions from the meeting.

How It Will Save Your Project
5 Testimonials That’ll Make You Smile
By: Erin Sandberg
Tags: Prescription Drug Costs, Healthcare, Testimonials, Impact, Prescription Drugs

Who else is as enthusiastic about affordable medications as we are? Our patients!

At Blink Health, we get pretty excited about discount prescription medications. Turns out, our patients do, too! Here are five patient testimonials that capture just how good it feels when you can afford your prescriptions.

1. I could have done cartwheels.

I could have done cartwheels. My script was $190 without Blink, with Blink it was only $34… [Can] you believe that?? I couldn’t be any happier. I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart. — Penny (Facebook)

2. Best freaking thing ever!

Best freaking thing ever! Literally saved me $200 today! Only had to pay $11 for my medication! I’m currently without health [coverage] due to changing jobs. This is a true life-saver and I’ve been telling everyone and their mom about Blink Health! — Evelyn (Android review)

3. And preach it from the mountain tops…

Last month I paid $960 for my meds. With Blink Health I paid $290 for everything. I saved $670 on my medicine this month. …I just can’t express how amazed and happy I am. And I will use Blink forever. And preach it from the mountain tops that Blink Health is unexplainably amazing. — Glenn (Facebook)

4. WHAT KIND OF WIZARDRY IS THIS!?

I just tried it out and it works! 90% cheaper than my [coverage]! WHAT KIND OF WIZARDRY IS THIS!? Seriously though, how do you do this?? — Sarah (Facebook)

5. Now I can focus on getting better…

This morning I went to get a prescription that my [coverage] didn’t cover and [my pharmacy] wanted over $200… I left there embarrassed, almost in tears knowing I couldn’t afford it. I found out about you guys through a quick Google search and I am so glad I did!!! Somehow you guys brought it back down to $8.49!!!! Plus offered me $10 off my first purchase!!! I didn’t have to pay anything!!! NOTHING!!!! I still can’t believe it. Now I can focus on getting better, not on how I am going to afford my medications. — Shirley (Facebook)
Why do we love the word impact?
By: Christine Mcdougall
Tags: Impact Investing, Syntropy, Impact, Syntropic Enterprise, Syntropic World

To impact is to press closely into something. To push into, to drive. To strike against. To strike forcefully against something. To make a forceful impression.

Do we want to make a forceful impression? Do we seek to drive, to push to enable change?

Sometimes this might be an appropriate response. Yet we live in a world where domination, push, drive and force is the world we are seeking to shift from. Are we unconsciously using a word that is resonant with and reinforces the world we seek to change?

Perhaps you might say I am being pedantic. That this overly used word towards change is irrelevant to the larger context of change for a world with a future.

Integrity, to be whole, to hold shape, says not so. To go to the source of the source the root of the root, matters.

It is time we started thinking more deeply about the consequences of our choices and actions. Beginning with the minutia of word choices. To not simply rush into applying a culturally accepted word as the way forward.

To understand its patterns, its origins and the signal it carries within its origins.

Perhaps we might seek Syntropic Investing rather than impact investing. We might seek to influence, or to support, to enable or inspire others rather than make an impact.

Words are powerful. They carry an energetic. They signal intention. Choose with care.

Photo taken March 5th 2021

#worldwithafuture #businessreimagined #syntropicworld #syntropicenterprise #syntropy