Ian's Messy Desk » Links http://www.ismckenzie.com Helping you get the most out of the 24 hours in your day. Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:15:48 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Top 5 Posts for June 2008 http://www.ismckenzie.com/top-5-posts-for-june-2008/ http://www.ismckenzie.com/top-5-posts-for-june-2008/#comments Sun, 06 Jul 2008 16:57:35 +0000 Ian McKenzie http://www.ismckenzie.com/07/06/top-5-posts-for-june-2008/ These were the five most visited posts from June 2008 at Ian’s Messy Desk:

  1. 4 Tips for Improving Interpersonal Communication – You ability to communicate with others is one of the most important skills you can develop. Here are four ways to improve you communication skill.
  2. Exercises to Improve the Quality of Your Voice – Who would you rather sound like when you speak, Elmo or James Earl Jones? If you chose the latter, here are some regular exercises to improve the sound of your speaking voice.
  3. How to Set Goals – Some thoughts on goal setting.
  4. 4 Ways to Stimulate Your Creativity – Creativity doesn’t just happen, in needs to be developed. Here are four things you can do to get your creativity skills moving.
  5. 10 Organizing Tasks You Can Do In Two Minutes – We tend to think of getting organized as a large project requiring large chunks of time. These ten tasks can be completed any time you have a couple of minutes to spare.

Recommended: Zen to Done Productivity eBook The Ultimate Simple Productivity System

]]> http://www.ismckenzie.com/top-5-posts-for-june-2008/feed/ 0 Personal Development Links – June 29 http://www.ismckenzie.com/personal-development-links-june-29/ http://www.ismckenzie.com/personal-development-links-june-29/#comments Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:17:59 +0000 Ian McKenzie http://www.ismckenzie.com/?p=1894
  • Your Guide to Getting Productive with Gmail: Managing the Flow – part of Joel Falconer’s series of posts on using Gmail as a productivity tool. This article looks at managing the messages flowing into your inbox so that you can act on it quickly and/or find it easily in the future.
  • Gootodo – Gootodo is a Web-based todo list to help boost your productivity.
  • Merlin Mann on “Attention Sinks and Time Burglars” –
  • 50 Simple Ways To Stay Productive – Although we all have different ways of being productive, sometimes the simplest things can make us more productive than ever. Here are 50 simple ways to stay on top of our productivity game.
  • 8 Free Online Resources For Learning A New Language – A good phrasebook is the first step to mastering a new language. However, An organized set of study materials can make a lot of difference between stumbling though a few disjointed phrases and clearly expressing ideas and opinions. Fortunately, there are a number of excellent internet sites devoted to language study, most of them free.

    • Recommended: Zen to Done Productivity eBook The Ultimate Simple Productivity System

    ]]>     http://www.ismckenzie.com/personal-development-links-june-29/feed/ 1     Top 5 Posts for May 2008 http://www.ismckenzie.com/top-5-posts-for-may-2008/ http://www.ismckenzie.com/top-5-posts-for-may-2008/#comments Sun, 22 Jun 2008 11:41:27 +0000 Ian McKenzie http://www.ismckenzie.com/06/21/top-5-posts-for-may-2008/ Somewhere in the hustle of the beginning of June, I missed my monthly top-five post. These were the five most visited posts for April 2008 at Ian’s Messy Desk:

    1. 10 Time-Management Problem Areas – Ten behaviours that are most likely to create time-management problems for people.
    2. 39 Phrases Everyone Should Know and Use – Please, Thank You and 37 other expressions that are an important part of strong interpersonal-communication skills.
    3. 10 Time-Management Tips – Want to overcome the above time-management problem areas? Here are ten basic tips to get you started.
    4. 10 Things My Mother Taught Me – An old humour piece that has been around the web and beyond for a long time.
    5. 5 Advantages of a To-Do List – We talk about the importance of having a to-do list. Here are five reasons why.

    Recommended: Zen to Done Productivity eBook The Ultimate Simple Productivity System

    ]]>     http://www.ismckenzie.com/top-5-posts-for-may-2008/feed/ 0     Top 5 Posts for April 2008 http://www.ismckenzie.com/top-5-posts-for-april-2008/ http://www.ismckenzie.com/top-5-posts-for-april-2008/#comments Thu, 01 May 2008 20:49:23 +0000 Ian McKenzie http://www.ismckenzie.com/05/01/top-5-posts-for-march-2008-2/ These were the five most visited posts for April 2008 at Ian’s Messy Desk:

    1. The ABC’s of Self-Motivation – 26 ways to keep your personal motivation levels up.
    2. How to Delegate to Save Time – The ideal position to reach as a manager is one where your staff carry out all the routine activities of your team. This leaves you time to plan, think, and improve the efficiency of what you are doing.
    3. 50 Tips for Work-Life Balance – A list of quick and dirty ideas for developing balance between your work life and your personal life.
    4. 5 Do’s and Don’ts to Improve Your Natural Speaking Ability – The easiest place to start improving speaking ability is to enhance and control natural factors such as breath, posture, pitch, resonance and volume.
    5. New On-line Application for Getting Things Done – A quick overview of .

    Recommended: Zen to Done Productivity eBook The Ultimate Simple Productivity System

    ]]>     http://www.ismckenzie.com/top-5-posts-for-april-2008/feed/ 0     Top 5 Posts for February 2008 http://www.ismckenzie.com/top-5-posts-for-february-2008/ http://www.ismckenzie.com/top-5-posts-for-february-2008/#comments Mon, 03 Mar 2008 21:23:42 +0000 Ian McKenzie http://www.ismckenzie.com/03/03/top-5-posts-for-february-2008/ These were the five most visited posts for February 2008 at Ian’s Messy Desk:

    1. Priority Planning Model and Worksheet – A free download of a worksheet that can be used for general goal setting, but will also work well for managing specific projects.
    2. 4 Basic Types of Speeches – Most of the speeches you will ever have to give will fall into one of these four categories.
    3. 13 Annoying Things to Do at Wal-Mart – There’s a lot of readers who want to be annoying at Wal-Mart.
    4.  – Another free download: an outline of fundamental time-management principles.
    5. 17 Affirmations For Building Self-esteem – Overcome negative self-talk with these affirmations.

    Recommended: Zen to Done Productivity eBook The Ultimate Simple Productivity System

    ]]>     http://www.ismckenzie.com/top-5-posts-for-february-2008/feed/ 0     Top 5 Posts for January 2008 http://www.ismckenzie.com/top-5-posts-for-january-2008/ http://www.ismckenzie.com/top-5-posts-for-january-2008/#comments Thu, 31 Jan 2008 22:24:24 +0000 Ian McKenzie http://www.ismckenzie.com/01/31/top-5-posts-for-january-2008/ These were the five most visited posts for January 2008 at Ian’s Messy Desk:

    1. How to Build Cooperation at Home – Some tips, from personal experience, for making household chores a team effort.
    2. How to Clean and Organize Your Desk – National Clean Off Your Desk Day falls in January. What… you didn’t get a card? Links to posts on organizing your desk.
    3. Sample Voice Mail Templates – Five sample voice-mail messages.
    4. 22 Annoying Things to do in an Elevator – #23: Invite the other passengers to sing along with you.
    5. Free Personal Income Tax Software for Canadians – It’s that time of the year.

    Recommended: Zen to Done Productivity eBook The Ultimate Simple Productivity System

    ]]>     http://www.ismckenzie.com/top-5-posts-for-january-2008/feed/ 0     Bits and Pieces – December 28 http://www.ismckenzie.com/bits-and-pieces-december-28/ http://www.ismckenzie.com/bits-and-pieces-december-28/#comments Fri, 28 Dec 2007 21:42:11 +0000 Ian McKenzie http://www.ismckenzie.com/12/28/bits-and-pieces-december-28/
  • Clear Your In-box with Your Context List – Stephen shares how he manages the GTD Context list.
  • Practicing Simplified GTD – Gina outlines her simplified approach to GTD.
  • Is it possible to build a “trusted system” for GTD with Lotus Notes? – Eric Mack addresses the objection that it is near impossible to build a trusted system using Lotus Notes. The “trusted” system is an important concept in GTD.
  • 5 Efficient Ways To Boost Productivity – Lynn Truong covers five ways she boosts her productivity.
  • Mindmapping and creativity resources
  • The 8 best ways to improve your mind maps – Here are eight ways to supercharge the effectiveness of your software-produced mind maps.

    • Recommended: Zen to Done Productivity eBook The Ultimate Simple Productivity System

    ]]>     http://www.ismckenzie.com/bits-and-pieces-december-28/feed/ 1     Bits and Pieces – December 14 http://www.ismckenzie.com/bits-and-pieces-december-14/ http://www.ismckenzie.com/bits-and-pieces-december-14/#comments Fri, 14 Dec 2007 17:44:54 +0000 Ian McKenzie http://www.ismckenzie.com/12/14/bits-and-pieces-december-14/
  • 15 Can’t-Miss Ways to Declutter Your Mind – You can declutter your mind with simple actions, virtually guaranteed to have a positive effect: little things that can make a big difference.
  • Email and the environment – A simple tagline to add to your outgoing messages to encourage people to think before printing. “Please consider the environment before printing this email.”
  • 6 Simple Steps to Achieve Laser-Like Focus – With sensory input coming from so many sources, it can be hard to keep focused on the task at hand. Here are some tips to help maintain focus.
  • Time Management for Creative People – Download a free pdf e-book.
  • 7 Mistakes to Avoid for the GTD Beginner – As you develop a personal approach to GTD, these are some of the mistakes to look-out for.

    • Recommended: Zen to Done Productivity eBook The Ultimate Simple Productivity System

    ]]>     http://www.ismckenzie.com/bits-and-pieces-december-14/feed/ 0     Bits and Pieces – December 7 http://www.ismckenzie.com/bits-and-pieces-december-7/ http://www.ismckenzie.com/bits-and-pieces-december-7/#comments Fri, 07 Dec 2007 22:10:44 +0000 Ian McKenzie http://www.ismckenzie.com/12/07/bits-and-pieces-december-7/
  • Getting Things Done for College Students: The Full System – A variation of GTD, optimized for college students. You don’t need to familar in GTD to follow what’s described.
  • The Top 4 Misapplications of the 80/20 Rule – The worst attempts at applying the 80/20 Rule.
  • 10 Free Productivity Apps – The challenge was:
    • Write a computer program (or web service) which helps people be more productive with their time.
    • Highest honors go to creativity and uniqueness.
    • This must be program that was not released before Nov. 1st, 2007
  • Minimize Your Inboxes – Services and tools to consolidate your inboxes and collection buckets, from email to voicemail and even paper and snail mail boxes.

    • Recommended: Zen to Done Productivity eBook The Ultimate Simple Productivity System

    ]]>     http://www.ismckenzie.com/bits-and-pieces-december-7/feed/ 1     Top 5 Posts for November 2007 http://www.ismckenzie.com/top-5-posts-for-november-2007/ http://www.ismckenzie.com/top-5-posts-for-november-2007/#comments Wed, 05 Dec 2007 20:54:01 +0000 Ian McKenzie http://www.ismckenzie.com/12/05/top-5-posts-for-november-2007/ The following were the most visited posts for November 2007:

    1. 10 Simple and Inexpensive Christmas Gift Ideas – You don’t have to spend a lot of money on gifts for the teacher, babysitter, hockey coach, or for the hosts of your holiday parties.
    2. Slow Down and Pay Attention – A short fable on the dangers of rushing through life.
    3. 10 Steps for Getting into the Christmas Spirit – The holidays got you feeling a little Grinch-y? Some simple ways to kindle the holiday spirit.
    4. Free Christmas Decorations – Some seasonal door hangers to download and print.
    5. Remembrance Day 2007

    Recommended: Zen to Done Productivity eBook The Ultimate Simple Productivity System

    ]]>     http://www.ismckenzie.com/top-5-posts-for-november-2007/feed/ 0