How I Work is about the tools and techniques I use to manage my day. It is inspired by Mitch Joel, Steve Rubel, Forbes, Siobhan, and a recent thread at One Degree.
As blogged previously, I use a 17" MacBook Pro, furnished by my employer, Tucows. My work is about being productive while balancing priorities a dynamic environment. My job is communications. I aspire to be a GTD master, but frequently fall off the wagon. Nothing beats those moments of pure "swing" at work.
I maintain three personal email accounts and one professional. For personal email, I’ve got Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, and my original 1997 Hotmail account. My blog stuff feeds into Gmail. Yahoo! Mail is my personal email. I keep the Hotmail account live for interest in the service, old connections and subscriptions. At work, I use Mail (Mac OS X Tiger Mail 2) powered by the Tucows Email Service.
My first pass through my inbox (before I leave for work or once I hit the office) is to make sure there
are no fires. Next, I scan feeds in a folder on Bloglines for work-related key word
feeds from Technorati, Google News, and Ice Rocket. I also take a look
at employee and competitor blogs. I check my voicemail and run back through my inbox doing responses and tagging action items. I check in with my team, take a look at my project list, prioritize and get underway.
Personal surfing, news scanning and industry reading come later in the day in
sprints. I tag stuff into del.icio.us for future reference. I use
popurls as my home page. I cruise the blogs on the Canuck PR toolbar. And
finally, I head back to Bloglines to cruise my other feeds.
Firefox is my browser of choice. Here is the setup:
Sarah recently turned me on to the Pierre
Belvédère executive A5 notebook. I got one with a nice red leather cover for around 20 bucks at Essence du Papier. My pen (a gift from a dear friend and mentor) is a Waterman. I use Circus Ponies’ NoteBook for lists, action items, notes, outlining and to clip stuff online.
I use iCal to organize meetings and manage my schedule. I sync my work and personal calendars on my 30GB 5th gen iPod (black).
Other tools, applications and sites I use on an ongoing basis:
For music at work I use iTunes, Last FM, and Pandora.
On the commute, I listen to music on one of many playlists. If I’m not writing outlines or making lists in my notebook, I read business books. I frequently choose from the Personal MBA reading list. Right now I’m reading Made to Stick.
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This post is dedicated to the bat who drove Alex and Emilie out of our
office/guestroom at 2:20 a.m. this morning. And to the bat (hopefully
the same one) I nailed with a broom in the hallway of our building at
6:35 a.m. this morning.