July 2012 Archives | Cloud Productivity

Dealing with Too Many Messaging Systems

Do you ever get the feeling there are just too many places to look and listen to get all the information you need, and that’s expected of you? How are we suppose to deal with all these channels of communication and still be productive? It’s definitely a challenge. In a vain attempt to get something done, you end up shutting down your email, closing your web browser, setting your chat client(s) to “Do Not Disturb” and put your phone on silent and in your drawer. Does it work?

At work we depend on communication channels to keep abreast of changes in the workplace, client requests, the competition and everything else. So when email is so prevalent, why do we need to even think about using chat, or forums, or secret departmental mini-apps?

It’s Just More Fun Together! 3 Steps to Getting Things Done as a Team

LivingLeave a comment

Cross posted from DEG Consulting.

Just about everything we read about improving productivity is about the individual, it’s about you. But didn’t your coach ever tell you that “you need to work as a team, and not as individuals” when you needed to accomplish something amazing to take home a win? The coach was right.

Working as individuals, it can be hard (not impossible) to accomplish big goals. If a particular project you’re working on has 100 tasks, then on you’re own that’s 100 discrete tasks that you need to do. And if you think you can multitask, think again. If you even attempt to multitask the project will take even longer.

The only option then, to bring the project in on time, is to get help. Get the team working together. Here’s how.

Wunderbook: Life Organized with Wunderkit – It’s Here!

UncategorizedLeave a comment

It’s here! After months of writing I am extremely happy to announce that Wunderbook: Life Organized with Wunderkit is now available!

When Wunderkit was launched at the beginning of 2012 I noticed there was a lot of confusion about how to use it and when. I put this down to the fact that people were expecting Wunderkit to be “Wunderlist 2.0″. Wunderkit is actually a very different tool and when used correctly, it will definitely help you organise all areas of your life!

Cloud Productivity One Year In

UncategorizedLeave a comment

Today it’s been exactly one year since Cloud Productivity was launched. The site was originally launched under the name “Cloud-Up” and was hosted by Blogspot. But after just a couple of posts, I felt so energised that this blog was going to succeed, that it was going to survive. I had found a topic that I love and I can continue to create content for.

How to Save Anything to Evernote as a PDF

Living3 Comments

Evernote can store anything and everything, and it’s amazing. Not only can you store any text you’d like, but you can also capture audio, photos and PDF files, and have them appear in the note. Not only that, but the images and PDF files you add to Evernote become searchable. When you search using the main search box at the top it not only searches within text, it also searches within those PDF and image files. But what about all those other files you’ve added? How can you search through the Microsoft Word documents, the Powerpoint slide decks or the spreadsheets you’ve dropped into Evernote?

Living in Fear of The Task List

LifeLeave a comment

We all have a mountain of things to do. Some things need to be done right away, some tomorrow and some can be done later, as long as they all get done. But what if they don’t? What happens if the things you were supposed to do today end up slipping through the cracks? Tomorrow’s agenda then grows in size and there’s a bigger chance of even more things slipping out to the next day. After a couple of days, your agenda becomes too big to manage and so it’s discarded. Your life is thrown into chaos as you no longer plan your days and activities.

How to Create a Secure Memorable Password

LivingLeave a comment

In today’s digital age, we are needing more and more passwords to secure out data and our identity. The problem is that there’s just so many to remember and often different systems need different types of passwords – like needing a special character, or a number or something. It’s very true that people, a very high percentage of people, have one password, or variations of one password, for just about everywhere that a password is needed. This has the benefit of only needing to remember one, or maybe a handful, of passwords, but as a massive disadvantage, it makes not only one system insecure, it makes every single system you need a password for insecure. As soon as one of them nasty hackers discovers a password to one system, they can use it, or variations of it, to easily get in to every other system you use. Your banking, your Facebook, your email. Everything.

How to Backup Picasa with Dropbox

Uncategorized5 Comments

There are a lot of different photo cataloging and organising applications out there, but the three main ones that stand out are iPhoto, Photoshop Elements and, Picasa. I have used all three at one time or another. Most recently I’ve been using Picasa, mainly because I can manage my photos locally on my computer and yet still have the important ones (or all of them) backed up to Picasa Web Albums and made available to view from any other computer just through a web browser. But, what happens if my computer suddenly dies one day? I know my photos would be safe, but what about all the tags, faces, location information and albums that I’d setup, the extra information that makes all those photos manageable? Would they be safe and would I be able to synchronise all my photos and data back down from the web to my desktop? I wasn’t going to take any chances.