Merlins Tower

Jerry Seinfelds Productivity Secret

Posted on December 8th, 2013 by Merlin.
Categories: Anything Else, GTD, Hack.

I just learned today (TIL) about Jerry Seinfeld’s Productivity Secret. It really is quite simple to follow or do. Get a yearly Calendar. Something like this one.  Here is where you can keep track of something you want to change. Say you want to dedicate yourself to exercising, or taking a photo a day, or as Jerry did an hour of writing each day. When you accomplish that for that day you get to cross off that day with a marker. You want to keep the chain of days going and not skip any. This keep you motivated and see your progress. If you want to learn more about this technique. Take a look at Lifehacker’s Article on Jerry Seinfelds Productivity Secret. What a great little tip to get you working towards your goal.

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TIL: About the Chapman Stick » « Portable Drip Coffee – Take anywhere drip system.

Using Cornell Note System in Business

Posted on April 11th, 2009 by Merlin.
Categories: Communication, DIY, Freeware, GTD, Hack, HPDA, Human, Indexcards, Life, Notetaking, Office, Pen.

Yes, I use the Cornell Note System in my daily life. I find it a great way to organize my notes and ideas from Meetings, Conference Calls, and What I did or need to do each day. I also use it when reading a new book that I want to take some notes on. I even draw the dividing lines in my notebooks now to help me organize my thoughts there as well. 

I made a modified version of Note Paper from Cornell-Notes.com to include a time clock to help me track my time and what I need to do and what I have completed and what I have coming up. 

I posted it on Scribd.com for all to use.

To use the clock in the upper left  to shade in the time (Begining to end) and mark a Letter or symbol near it and Use the Letter / symbol to Highlite the notes from that time slice.  I also use this with the Cue Column to track my upcoming meetings and schedule for the day.

How many times have you wondered what you did and have not clue where your day went – Keeping this with me allows me to make notes and annotate what I complete and see why I had to push other things off of my plate for the day. In the notes area I am able to write the tips and note things that I didn’t know and this allows me to update documentation and let others know the little fixes I used. I keeps these daily and use the summaries to help me find info I need from past notes / days.

And I have scheduled time weekly  later in the day Friday (while the week is still fresh in my mind) and look over the past week and see what info was good – I sometimes will highlight portions or copy off data and store it in other notebooks for future reference material. But I also scan the more important pages and put it into my evernote  system as well as that come with me on my iphone and it is easily accessable via their web page.

I also want to note every day I  look over the previous day and get my new notepage prepared for the day. Writing down what I need to do – checking my online calendar and seeing what I have scheduled for myself.  This way I have that info at hand even if I am not at my desk. This is also when I summarize my previous days notes making the weekly summary on Friday’s even easier. This only take me about 10 to 20 mins each morning but it saves alot more time through out the day then what I put into it.

Technorati Tags: Cornell, Notes, Note, paper, Organization, Sytem, business, calendar, schedule, free, organizer

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Happy Easter 2009 » « Virtual Sound – Auditory Illusions and Phase 4 Stereo

Miquelrius Journals – On Sale – Moleskine Replacements

Posted on December 15th, 2007 by Merlin.
Categories: Gadgets, GTD, HPDA, Journaling, Leather, Life, Miquelrius, Moleskine, Notetaking, Office, Web Service.

On sale for the next few day are the Miquelrius Journals that I love an chat about here on Merlins Tower.
I really do use these everyday for my notes and ideas. And Now I can help you save some money on these journals.

To see all the Miquelrius Journals Click Here – NOW! or the link might run and hide from you LOL! Or the Special will run out.

The special is if you order over $35 dollars you will get 25% off and upgraded to 3day shipping at no additional cost over the regular shipping price.

To get this offer Type in this following code 25OFF - But what if you are not ordering over $35 dollars then Use the word 15Off and you will get 15 % off your entire order. Wow nice to same some cash at Christmas Time.

Just thought I would share this with everyone – Enjoy and Happy Holidays from the Tower.

Technorati Tags: Miquelrius, Journals, Moleskine, Journal, notebook, fountain, pen, Fountain+Pen, Leather, Like, Life, Journalling, Notetaking, Notes, Writing

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Theo Jansen – Modern Day DaVinci » « Cool Tool: Authentics Pen Clip for Moleskines and Other Journals

The Hippier Hipster PDA – The Hipster Shuffle

Posted on June 22nd, 2007 by Merlin.
Categories: Communication, Gadgets, GTD, Hack, HPDA, Indexcards, Life, Notetaking, Video.

I really use quite a bit of index cards and carry them around with me in my Levengers International Pocket Briefcase. (Hey, I even spotted another one at work during lunch – Which was cool seeing someone else using the same technology – Way to go Bart)But this is just too cool not to post about – The Hipster Shuffle – Making a cool idea even cooler. Below you will see a video of the Hipster Shuffle in Action.

In case you are not in the know – “The Hipster PDA is a paper-based personal organizerSan Francisco writer Merlin Mann. popularized, if not invented, by ”

Varients of the Hipster PDA which I use is the DIYPlanner complete with templates and directions. The version I use is the DIYPlanner made for HipsterPDA. This was designed especially for the D*I*Y Planner project by Douglas Johnston, the package includes a wide array of cards covering life management, project planning, calendars, notetaking, business development, and creative uses like writing, storyboards, mind mapping, and photography.

Now on to the video:

Technorati Tags: hipster+pda, HPDA, Notecards, Indexcards, Index+cards, 3×5, Organization, Levenger, Wallet, Internation, SPBC, Shirt+Pocket+Briefcase

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Spotted this at Staples – Rolla Notebook » « My Interest in NLP and Video to watch

New Product Found: Index card Holder

Posted on February 27th, 2007 by Merlin.
Categories: Gadgets, GTD, Hack, Notetaking.

I just happened to be browsing for a gift I need to purchase on Amazon and I happened to see this item and thought I would share this with everyone. It is called the Deluxe Hard Wood card Holder – The Current Price is $9.32 – Below is a Photo of the item.

I can see this being used as an inexpensive alternative to the Levenger Index card holder. This seems to have a nice angle and has 4 row that can hold quite a few cards. This can be a nice 3×5 Index card Tickler Device. Simple and Effective to use. And it doesn't look that bad either.

Technorati Tags: Index+cards, GTD, Notecards, Note+cards, 3×5, Cards, Card+holder, Levenger, Levenger+Products, Wooden

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Relax Online for Free » « Hack your Brain – Various Ways to Overclock it

Online Tool: Visuword – Online Visual Dictionary

Posted on February 1st, 2007 by Merlin.
Categories: Communication, Freeware, GTD, Hack, Journaling, Notetaking, Office, Search Engine, Web Service.

Previously I wrote about the Visual Thesaurus and now I found another cool online word tool – VisuWord - They call it the online visual dictionary. I have to agree – I like how it interlinks the words and visually shows you which words are related and which ones are the same and which ones are opposite. This can be a fairly useful tool – Not something I will use everyday but can be quite useful to have in your arsenal of word tools. Like using a mind map but of words and their inter-relationship.

Technorati Tags: visuword, visual, word, words, dictionary, thesaurus, online, tool, online+tool, mind, map, mind+map, gtd, hack

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