Productivity blogs

Ever since I more or less gave up instant messaging, my biggest waste of online time has been productivity software and productivity blogs. Yesterday I pointed you to some good software, and today I have some blogs for you. Hopefully, the benefit you get from them will outweigh the time you spend reading them. Be sure to check out the last link to "The Top 50 Productivity Blogs".

Zen Habits- Though it has "Zen" in the title, this blog should not interfere with your Christian faith at all. It should help you get more done, stay organized, and maybe even drop a few pounds. I like it.

Unclutterer- "Unclutterer is the blog about getting and staying organized. A place for everything, and everything in its place is our gospel." This quote comes from Unclutterer.com. Personally, I think our gospel is superior, what with the eternal life and stuff...

Life Hacker- "Tips and downloads for getting things done."

These are three of my favorites, but to find your own, I suggest you visit Zen Habits' "The Top 50 Productivity Blogs".

Online tools for getting things done

D*I*Y Planner- Printable templates for planning. Includes useful things like blank calendars, project planning forms and to-do lists.

Airset- A disgustingly customizable online calendar. The absolute best tool I've found for the ability to look at my life in different contexts such as school, church, and Lunch Money. It also manages contacts, to-do lists and other facets of organization, but the calendar is what really shines. That said, if you'd like something something a little simpler, you can't go wrong with Google Calendar.

Backpackit- Coolest online note and to-do list manager I've found. Super intuitive. For projects where you need to collaborate Basecamp, which is produced by the same company, is incredibly useful.

Jott- So dang cool. You call Jott's number, tell it who to message (frequently yourself) and Jott transcribes your message and sends an email containing the text of your message to the recipient along with a link to an mp3 of the message. How amazing is that? Great for leaving yourself notes while you're in the car.

Just remember, all these tools do not substitute for actual work. Believe me, I know.
Tomorrow: productivity blogs that I enjoy.

Water

[from http://ririanproject.com. I posted this on my blog, but after tonight's discussion, thought it might be appropriate here as a quick reference as well.]

I know you’ve heard this many times - “Drink more water!”. Yet, 99% of the people don’t heed this advice. Maybe if water was more expensive, people would pay more attention to consume enough of it on a daily basis. We are living in a dehydrated world of carbonated beverages, caffeine and alcohol.

I bet you don’t know how important is water for your health, figure and well-being. But drinking water is not just a trend, it’s essential! Everything your body does it does better with a healthy supply of water, every system in your body depends on water.

So here are 10 reasons why drinking water is good for you and why you should make drinking water part of your daily routine:

1. Get Healthy Skin

Nothing will improve the appearance of your skin better than consuming enough water. It’s a pity women spend so much money on skin products, while neglecting the cheapest and most effective one - water. Water is the single most important element for cellular integrity. Drinking water moisturizes your skin from the inside out. Water is also essential to maintaining elasticity and suppleness and helps prevent dryness. The real fountain of youth can be found in a glass of water.

2. Flush Toxins

Water helps remove toxins from the body, in particular from the digestive tract. Our kidney system is unique in its filtering capabilities and totally dependent upon water in order for it to work. Daily fluid intake is essential to its efficient operation, particularly because there is some decrease in function with age. Water helps get rid of excess nitrogen, urea, and ketones, so it is particularly important when following a high protein diet. You need even more water to help your kidneys do their work if you’re eating big to gain weight.

3. Reduce Your Risk Of Heart Attack

Researchers at Loma Linda University in California studied more than 20,000 healthy men and women and found that people who drink more than five glasses of water a day were less likely to die from a heart attack or heart disease than those who drank fewer than two glasses a day.

4. Cushion And Lube Your Joints And Muscles

Water makes up a large part of the fluid that lubricates and cushions your joints and muscles. And although not the only element associated with muscle cramps, athletes have long recognized that even mild dehydration can produce cramps. So drinking water before, during and after exercise can also help reduce muscle cramping and premature fatigue.

According to the American College of Sports Medicine, adequate fluid replacement helps to maintain hydration therefore optimizing and enhancing performance of those participating in regular exercise. They suggest flavored waters to promote hydration and to increase palatability. Products such as Gatorade’s Propel Fitness Water are, therefore, terrific substitutes for plain water to increase fluid intake and meet the optimum consumption of water per day, thus enhancing performance and lessening the possibility of dehydration.

5. Get Energized And Be Alert

On average, most adults lose about 10 cups of fluid a day through sweating, exhaling, urinating, and bowel movements. Even minor dehydration can cause impaired concentration, headaches, irritability and fatigue.

Water is also essential for proper circulation in the body. The levels of oxygen in the bloodstream are greater when the body is well hydrated. The more oxygen the body has readily available the more fat it will burn for energy without the presence of oxygen the body cannot utilize stored fat for energy efficiently. Not only will the body burn more fat when well hydrated but because there are increased oxygen levels you will also have more energy.

Drinking more water everyday will help your think more clearly. Research has repeatedly shown that staying hydrated is necessary for the human brain, which is 85 percent water, to function at optimal levels. That is why many school systems throughout the country now encourage students to keep a bottle of water at their desks and to drink it throughout the day.

6. Stay Regular

Water helps prevent constipation by adding fluid to the colon and bulk to stools. Something as simple as fluid plays a major role in preventing constipation. Not only does the liquid encourage bowel movement, but it also softens the stools.

Water is essential for proper digestion, nutrient absorption and chemical reactions. The carbohydrates and proteins that our bodies use as food are metabolized and transported by water in the bloodstream. But no less important is the ability of water to transport waste material out of our bodies.

7. Reduce Your Risk Of Disease And Infection

Consistent failure to drink enough water can lead to Chronic Cellular Dehydration. This condition where the body’s cell are never quite hydrated enough leave them in a weakened state, vulnerable to attack from disease. It weakens the body’s overall immune system and leads to chemical, nutritional and pH imbalances that can cause a host of diseases.

When you don’t have enough water in your body, your cells start to draw water from the bloodstream. Your heart has to work harder because your blood gets sludgy, and your body starts to redirect blood away from less vital areas. Dehydration can set in even before you start to feel thirsty. This is a great strain on the body because it impairs the kidneys in their vital function of purifying the blood and helping the body get rid of toxins.

Also Michaud and coworkers found that the incidence of cancer in the urinary bladder was reduced significantly by a high fluid intake in a ten-year study involving nearly 48,000 men. The top 20% of subjects who participated in the study drank 2500 ml per day or more, while the bottom 20% drank 1200 ml or less. The authors concluded that within this range, the risk of bladder cancer decreased by 7% for every 240 ml of fluid added.

8. Regulate Your Body Temperature

Water regulates the body’s cooling system. Sports drinks are useful when consumed after or during vigorous and prolonged exercise in high heat. But most experts agree that water works better than carbohydrates or sugared beverages for moderate exercise. For instance, if you drink 12 ounces of plain water, your body will absorb 8 ounces of it within 15 minutes. If you drink 12 ounces of a 10% sugar solution, less than 1 ounce will be absorbed in the same period. The typical soft drink is a 10 to 12% sugar solution.

Water is the nutrient your body needs the most. Between 55 and 75 percent of adult body weight is water, and it is critical in regulating all body organs and temperature.

9. Burn More Fat And Build More Muscle

It has been shown that dehydration decreases protein synthesis. Protein synthesis is what builds muscle. It is an energy costly process. When you suppress protein synthesis, fewer calories end up building proteins and more calories end up in your fat stores. It’s elementary: calories have two possible fates - they either get burned, or they get stored. When more of the calories you eat get burned, less will get stored.

Increased water consumption can help you control weight by preventing you from confusing hunger with thirst. Water will also keep your body systems, including metabolism and digestion, working properly and give you the energy (and hydration) necessary for exercise.

10. Get Well

The traditional prescription to ‛drink plenty of fluids‛ when you’re sick still holds strong. Water can help control a fever, replace lost fluids, and thin out mucus. Water plays a vital role in nearly every bodily function. Lack of water is the #1 trigger of daytime fatigue. A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on the computer screen or on a printed page.

Water is the substance of life. Life can not exist without water. We must constantly be adding fresh water to our body in order to keep it properly hydrated. Water can be a miracle cure for many common ailments such as headaches, fatigue, joint pain, and much more.

Be sure to drink even more fluid whenever you increase your physical activity, when eating a high fiber diet, during hot weather, at high altitudes, in low humidity locations, and when you’re sick, especially if you have a fever, vomiting, or diarrhea. The best way to figure out if you’re drinking enough water is to look at your urine. It should be a very light shade of yellow. Drink up if it’s darker. Let your thirst guide you, also. You might not need eight glasses to feel hydrated on a mild day. You could crave nine or 10 if it’s hot or you’re exercising. Bottom line? Your body is 70 percent water and needs it for digestion, healthy skin, blood circulation, temperature control and lots of other reasons.

Getting Things Done: Week 2 Redux

Getting Things Done: Week 2- Purpose and overview of the system of Getting Things Done

Purpose: Life, one may imagine, used to be simpler. In the past, one's activities were dictated to a large degree by time and location. If you had work to do, it was probably on the farm or in the factory and it had to be done either during daylight or else during your shift. Very few of us now, however, have jobs that fit so neatly into a 9 to 5 model where we can leave our labor behind at the end of the day. Rather, we have projects and obligations which could absorb our attention indefinitely without ever coming to a state of perfection. One thing this means is that we have a lot on our minds. Not just work, mind you, but all our obligations. In GTD, David Allen describes work as "anything that you want or need to be different than it currently is." This is a useful definition, in that it reminds us that if we're hungry, we're going to have to do work to change that. If we're not as close as we'd like to be with our friends or family, we're going to have to do work. Anything we want to change is going to require some degree of work. But as our lives become more complicated, with more and more demands being placed upon us, how do we keep up?
Getting Things Done is based on two objectives:

1. Capture everything that you need to get done in a “trusted system” outside of your head.

2. Create “next actions” for every single input in your life.

The reason we must capture everything in a "trusted system" is in order to keep us from having to think about it. Allen uses the metaphor of RAM in a computer. The more programs you have running, the more RAM is used up in order to keep everything functioning. We all also know the other thing that happens when you have too many programs running--the computer begins to function very slowly and things may ultimately start to crash. In the same way, if we allow our minds to become filled with ideas and obligations, our minds will cease to function as quickly and efficiently as we'd like them to. If you're busy remembering the four errands you have to run today, your attention cannot truly be focused on the task at hand or the person sitting right in front of you.
The "trusted system" described by Allen in GTD allows you to accept input (whether that's phone calls, emails, conversations, grocery lists, or whatever) without wasting brain power on those things. They go into the system where you know they're safely recorded and so you can forget about them and be fully present in whatever you're doing.

The reason for creating "next actions" is, quite simply" to make sure that if we're going to do something we actually know what it is that we have to do. It's amazing how much easier it is to complete a task when you know what it is. You might consider the example of planning a friend's surprise party. "Plan surprise party" is not an action, it's a project, or series of interrelated actions. Where on earth would you begin? Well, for this example, writing down a list of people to invite might be the "next action" for the party, or contacting your friend to find out what nights he or she is free. It's worth noting that next actions are always physical actions. Simply thinking about something is not a next action, but writing down a list of ideas is.

Overview: The system outlined in Getting Things Done will teach us how to get the many things cluttering our minds out of our heads and into a system where we can feel confident that the most important things all get done. This will leave us free to devote our full attention and effort to the things in our lives that really matter.

I'm going to put the homework and a few notes on tonight's discussion in the comments section to keep everything nice and orderly, so be sure to check them out.