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What makes your more productive?

Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2007 2:08 pm
by Ollie Saunders
Being the new IT bod at my company and trying to come up with ways of improving productivity in the company. I'm going to be doing things like setting up a company account for del.icio.us and then using that to manage the whole company's bookmarks. But also there is simple stuff like maknig sure the mouse speed is set to something sensible and used icons on the desktop/dock are packaged away somewhere.

So what makes your more productive? Be it simple or complex I'm interested. I'm talking about both Mac OS X and Windows XP here, and not just coding, productivity in general like email, file management, image editing etc.

Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2007 2:17 pm
by feyd
Where management gives me space, users aren't complete idiots, and everyone knows your name.. ;)

Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2007 2:19 pm
by Ollie Saunders
feyd wrote:Where management gives me space, users aren't complete idiots, and everyone knows your name.. ;)
Got all those :)

Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2007 3:13 pm
by Nathaniel
Tip One: read Getting Things Done and change your life.

Tip Two: Personally, I use Backpack to organize my various projects. It takes a while for it to "click", but once it does, it's great.

Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2007 3:30 pm
by Ollie Saunders
What about the small setting and apps you have on your computer that you can't live without?

Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2007 3:34 pm
by Chris Corbyn
Working from home. Seriously.

Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2007 6:42 pm
by shiznatix
d11wtq wrote:Working from home. Seriously.
that decreases my productivity by 234234%

What makes me the most productive is knowing that i need to get something done to get my paycheck. but i guess that will make a man work just hard enough to not get fired :). Money I suppose is the best motivator, that and working on something that you yourself are going to use. If I am making my own website I will work much much harder than if I am making someone elses website.

Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2007 11:28 pm
by seodevhead
Man... working from home? Don't get me started. Yea.. u get tons of work done... but too much work is what can kill a man. If I keep working at home for the next 20 years... I'll be lucky if I can live past 50. Give me an office to scramble to in the mornings any day!

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 12:22 am
by Kieran Huggins
Automated drive image + incremental backups.

Saved me days and days and days of headaches.....

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 2:27 am
by AKA Panama Jack
feyd wrote:Where management gives me space, users aren't complete idiots, and everyone knows your name.. ;)
Your well and truely screwed then. :twisted:

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 8:36 am
by neophyte
Ponder those bills sitting at home on you bureau....

:)

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 11:34 am
by Buddha443556
Nathaniel wrote:Tip One: read Getting Things Done and change your life.
That's a good book for everyone, even those already organized will learn something. I've got a copy of the "Process" up on my bulletin board.

I've been playing with SiteBar for bookmarks, you could set this up on your company server. It does integrate with Firefox nicely, very easy to use. [Not sure about this applications security beyond the fact there is a htmlspecialchars and mysql_escape_string in the source code. I'm only using it under localhost, so security isn't a problem for me.]

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 11:48 am
by Ollie Saunders
I think google browser sync beats sitebar.

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 1:46 pm
by Buddha443556
ole wrote:I think google browser sync beats sitebar.
It might be better as I've never used google browser sync. I think the comparison might be one of apple and oranges though. Google browser sync still needs an external account to setup. Sitebar can be install on your own server and the sync extension is optional. Sitebar works with just about any browser and Internet Explorer too.
From Google:

After successfully downloading and installing the extension, then restarting your browser, you'll see a setup wizard. (Please note that you'll need a Google Account to complete the setup process; if you don't already have a Google Account, you can create one now.) The setup wizard will take you through a series of quick and easy steps. You'll need to choose which browser components you'd like to keep synchronized with your other computers (the standard install includes all possible components), and choose a PIN to protect your sensitive information.
Can you tell how bored I am?

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 2:10 pm
by Ollie Saunders
Google browser sync syncs a lot more than just bookmarks. I use it to sync my work pc with my home pc and my laptop, it's flawless and I don't have to set anything up on any server. You can use an existing gmail account by the way.