Dot Connector Blog

Note from Regis: One of my goals for Dot Connector is to connect you with a variety of people we can all learn from: from best-selling authors to successful entrepreneurs, and everyone in between!  This is a guest post from entrepreneur, friend, and colleague, Dave Rigotti.

Being in college, on the executive board for multiple student organizations, and running my own online business, I’ve developed a knack for personal productivity and efficiency.  As I became more and more active, I found myself going to bed later and waking up earlier – usually only getting 4 hours of sleep a night.  I couldn’t keep that up.

Here are my tips for getting that job done and freeing up a few extra minutes in your life.

1.    Get a planner.

You know, the kind you had in school.  They are extremely effective at planning your day and can help find inefficiencies.

2.    Download and use RescueTime.

RescueTime is a fantastic application that tracks your computer usage and reports how efficient and productive you are.  It’s free to use and quite easy to set up.

3.    Watch your TV shows online.

I watch most of them at Hulu.com, which has approximately 5-10 minutes less advertisements than if I watched it on the television.  Additionally, you can pause and come back and also watch it at your convenience (on the bus, doctors office, or even on the John).

4.    Stay focused online.

Using RescueTime or FireFox plugins, monitor you unproductive site usage, such as Facebook or Myspace and other sites that do not contribute to you accomplishing your tasks and goals.

5.    Set goals.

I’m surprised hoe many people do not set any goals, even if they are simple as “I’ll write 500 words of this paper by 5pm today.”  Goals formalize your work and for me at least, I hate not accomplishing a goal I’ve set for myself.  Just make sure they are SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely.

Bonus: Find where you work best.

I can’t work at home – it’s too distracting – so I go to the local coffee shop that has free wifi.  In fact, I’m writing this article from one.  I suggest you find where you work best.

What are your tricks for staying on track?  Let me know in the comments!

This post was guest blogged by Dave Rigotti, owner of Career Fire.

(Source: miss karen)

In my previous post, 5 Useful Blackberry Tips and Tricks to Boost Your Productivity, I covered some of my favorite overall tips. In this, and future posts, I will be going deeper into different Blackberry tips that can help you.

Did you know you can use the keyboard to read Blackberry email? Here are my favorite keyboard shortcuts, a great way to speed up your email management system:

#1 – “T” – pressing the letter T when reading an email, jumps to the top of the email.

• Have you ever started reading an email, and then wondered who’s copied on the email? Just hit “T” to jump to the top of the email to see information like who is on the CC list, when it was sent, etc.

#2 – “B” – pressing the letter B when reading an email, jumps to the bottom of the email.

• This is really helpful when you are reading a reply and want to see the earlier message. By jumping to the bottom of the email, you can read the previous emails first, and read from the bottom-up to read the entire email trail.

#3 – “Space” – pressing the Spacebar jumps down one screen in the email.

• This is especially useful when you need to quickly scan emails you will read again later. By using this technique, you can scan email reports, long email chains, etc. quickly and effectively.

#4 – “Shift + Space” – pressing Shift and Space jumps up one screen in the email.

• This is especially useful after you hit “B” (outlined above), since you can use it to scan up an email more quickly than with the wheel.

#5 – “N” – pressing the letter N jumps to the next email.

• You can use this technique (combined with the others above) to quickly read Blackberry email with one hand. To use this technique, just hit the letter N when you are reading an email. You will jump to the next email in your inbox.

#6 – “P” – pressing the letter P jumps to previous email.

• Similar to the N tip above, pressing P will jump you to the previous email in your inbox. Both N and P are a great way to scan your email quickly, instead of just looking at the inbox view.

(Source: edans)

If you have a Blackberry, chances are you picked it up, and started emailing right away. If you have a personal email management system, your Blackberry can be a real asset to your productivity.

Did you know, there are several time-saving features built in, and several tricks you can do to make your Blackberry even more useful? Here are 5 of my favorites…

#1: Master the Keyboard Shortcuts

Just like on a computer, the keyboard on a Blackberry is full of time-saving shortcuts. Here are my favorites:

• “I” - Hit the letter “I” when looking at email in your “inbox view,” or when reading an actual email to file it. If you’re already using my plan for getting control of your email, then you know the importance of filing email to achieving an empty inbox.
• “0″ - Hold down the “0″ (i.e. zero) button and then use the thumbwheel to select multiple emails when in your “inbox view.”
• “Del” – Use this to delete email you don’t need after highlighting it in “inbox view” – to speed this up even more, you can also remove the delete confirmation.
• “C” - Hit the letter “C” when looking at your email in your “inbox view” to compose a new message.

Be sure to check out my “6 Blackberry Tips for Reading Emails” post with additional keyboard shortcuts too!

#2: Setup Your Blackberry to Work Well with Voicemail

• In my 10 Tips to Improve Your Voicemails post, I discussed setting up speed dial hot keys (Tip #6), making logging into voicemail easier (Tip #7) and forwarding your voicemail (Tip #8) to one voicemail box.
• If you use your Blackberry as a phone, be sure to put all of these to work for you!

#3: Get Google Maps for Mobile

• One of the most useful apps you can download for your Blackberry is Google Maps.
• With a simple search (i.e. “breweries in Duluth, MN”), you will get results on a map, turn-by-turn directions, and one-click to call the business you looked up.
• If you do any business travel at all, it’s an absolute must. I’m sure it will quickly become one of your favorite apps!

#4: Reorder Your Apps in Order of Most Popular

• If you hold down the “Alt” key (below “a”) when clicking on an app, a pulldown menu will appear where you can select “Move Application.”
• Then, you can order the apps in any way you want! I put my most used apps right next to each other to minimize scrolling.

#5: Update Your Blackberry Email Signature

• Your email signature is a valuable “one stop shop” of contact info so people can get a hold of you.
• Make sure you always use the same signature on your Blackberry that you do in your main email (usually MS Outlook).
• That way, readers of your email are less likely to pre-judge your message (“Oh, she’s stuck in an airport and dumping ideas again!”), and they are less likely to know where/how you sent it.
• It’s also a great idea to remove all “Sorry if this is misspelled, I’m on a Blackberry” messages. That’s like a website having an “under construction” page – it’s just not necessary. Plus, it makes you look like you can’t spell.

Bonus Tip!  #6 – How to Dial “Letter-Based” Phone Numbers on Your Blackberry

Ever want to call one of those alpha-numeric phone numbers, like 800-QUICKEN, but can’t find a “land line” dial pad to figure out what numbers to hit?  Fear not!  Thanks to Ron O’Connor, at Quicken Loans, you now have the answer: use the “alt” key + the letter to dial the numerical equivalent of the letter!  For example, to dial the letter Q, just hit “alt-Q” and your Blackberry will show you the Q, but enter a 7.

I hope these tips and tricks prove useful for you. If you’re reading this and thinking, “but he didn’t mention…” then please, leave a comment!