Tag: PRODUCTIVITY

Share digg_url ='http://www.switched.com/2010/03/25/the-ultimate-guide-to-productivity-get-er-done-with-helpful-ha/?d'; Our mission here at Switched entails more than simply bringing you the latest tech and social networking news. We don't even stop at just helping you to become a smarter, better consumer of technology. We want to make sure that you use the power we bestow to enhance your ...

Share We spend a lot of time discussing the various capabilities of smartphones and the apps available for them, but the truth of the matter is that not everyone has a smartphone. In fact, the vast majority of people don't. Fortunately, though, "dumb phone" owners don't have to miss out on all the fun, thanks to the versatility of SMS. The blog Make Use Of highlights several ways that you ...

Alert notifications have turned the average PC desktop into a collage of digital post-its. Be it Facebook telling us about a new ditty written on our wall or a reminder about an office meeting in 10 minutes, visual alerts exist, in theory, to help us deal with the pandemonium of everyday life. They're supposed to keep us on top of things, up to date, and organized. A new study, however, suggests ...

Large corporate offices make a habit of blocking certain Web sites -- particularly personal e-mail, video sharing, and social networking sites. But, according to a recent survey compiled by Robert Half Technology, it appears that smaller businesses are locking out employees, too. The survey of 1,400 Chief Information Officers (CIOs) from across the U.S. found that 54-percent of companies ...

Evernote What it is: Evernote is a note-taking tool that lets you store information online and quickly reference it from any Web-connected computer or mobile phone. You can clip parts of Web pages, save text, images, or even hand-written notes. It's a place "in the cloud" to store anything you might need to recall at a later date -- be it a to-do list, meeting notes, Web research, a picture ...

Have you ever wondered how much money is being wasted at those lengthy company meetings that never stay on topic? You get ten people in a room to discuss some new project, but spend half the time discussing last night's game or the latest celebrity sex tape. One way to keep everyone on track is to visualize how much money the company is paying for its employees to sit around chatting. The ...

The glut of recent incidents involving employees jeopardizing their jobs due to social networking mishaps may be enough to convince people to keep their online social activities separate from their work activities. Recent research, though, suggests that workers may be better served if they use social networking and instant messaging to remain in close contact with one another. Researchers from ...

Believe it or not, a new study suggests that tweeting and watching YouTube at work can make you more productive. Australian researchers have found that surfing the Internet for fun in the office increases productivity by 9-percent. Dr. Brent Coker, of the University of Melbourne's Department of Management and Marketing, authored the study and suggested that, "People need to zone out for a bit ...

We've heard before that letting employees access personal e-mail and other non-work related Web sites can actually be good for productivity. A new study out of British think-tank Demos takes that a step further and suggests that social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace might actually be good for business. The general thrust of the report's argument is that social networking sites are an ...

Some genius has finally figured out how to take the business of selling pre-written reports to college kids and adapt it for adults. The new site, www.doctorsnotestore.com sells fake medical notes for about $38 that could then be used to excuse yourself from work. The site says that the fake doctor's notes are sold as a novelty and therefore aren't breaking any laws -- they claim they can't do ...

Productivity blog Lifehacker is a great resource online for software downloads, productivity tricks, and great DIY projects. Many readers out there take every endorsement or piece of advice from the blog to heart as words to live by. While we wouldn't go that far, the folks at Lifehacker certainly know a thing or two about using software and tools to be more effective and productive. The editors ...

Launchy What it does Launchy is, at its most basic level, an application launcher similar to the search box built into the Windows Vista start menu. But Launchy is a faster and prettier way to find and start-up your favorite programs, and can do so much more if you take the time to find out. What we like about it First and foremost, Launchy is fast. Hit 'Alt+Space' to bring up the dialog ...

Now that the hang over from New Year's Eve has worn off, it's time to get down to the business of tackling those New Year's resolutions you foolishly made. Of course, the biggest problem with resolutions is finding the motivation and organizational system to make you stick to your guns. Thankfully there are Web sites such as Lifehacker looking out for you. The productivity-focused site has some ...

For a society so obsessed with productivity, we're pretty bad at actually being productive. Sure, services such as Google and Wikipedia have been described as being time hogs, but apparently the real killer is multitasking. 2008 is being dubbed the "year of information overload" by Basex Inc., a research firm. The human brain is not hardwired for paying attention to several things at once or ...

Vanishing staplers aren't the only employee-related phenomena bleeding the corporate world dry. According to a new study by U.K.-based employment law firm Peninsula, roughly £130 million (or about $264 million U.S.) is lost per day by British corporations due to office workers dillydallying on Facebook. That's the equivalent of 233 million employee hours per month. And British companies ...