I read Mark’s post about Two Task Lists over at Productivity501, and I wanted to add my thoughts.

As much as some people want to pile all their tasks in one single list (including me sometimes), I have found that this just isn’t the best way to go about it. We all have daily or weekly recurring “habit” type tasks, which are hard to classify on our todo list. Even though emailing [insert name here] might seem more urgent than exercising, exercising is a part of your life. These types of tasks simply don’t mix well in a single list, and can mix all your priorities up quickly.

After looking at the different types of tasks, I believe there are two effective catagories for tasks, “Todo” and “Habit”. Todo would be full of spontaneous tasks that arise, as well as yearly or monthly recurring tasks such as bill paying or income tax. This list is mostly limited to tasks that are not particularly enjoyable, but are things that need to get done.

The second list would be the Habit list, which would include mostly daily or weekly recurring tasks. Unlike the first list, items on your habit list are things that are either enjoyable, responsibilities, or things you want to do (like stretch in the moning, write blog post, exercise).

For me, putting something like exercise on my todo list puts me in a completely wrong mindset. Daily exercise isn’t a chore, or something I just want to get out of the way. I choose to do it, because I enjoy it, and I enjoy the benefits of it. I really think this ties in with my last post about writing too much stuff down. If you start putting enjoyable items like exercise or eat healthy on your todo list, what are you do when you finish your todo list? What if you put your entire life on a list, and rush to complete it? That’s Easy!” you say. You would feel relieved after you finish your todo list, because now you are free to enjoy the living part of your day, such as exerci- wait.. didn’t you already rush through that?

Currently, I use Joe’s Goals as my daily habit tracker. Anything that is easy to forget to do like exercising, writing a blog post, or completing three MITs, I put in my goals tracker. Almost everything on my habits list I enjoy doing, and nothing feels like a chore. They are all habits that I am trying to work into my daily life. I just can’t see the benefit of mixing these into my regular list along with “go get computer fixed” or “order Ikea furniture”.

So I guess you can see that I am pretty satisfied with my current system. What is yours, and are you satisfied?

I discovered Firefox as an alternative browser sometime last year, and I have loved it from day one (you may be able to tell that from the number of Firefox-related posts on Gearfire).

What I like most about it is the user’s ability to customize their experience. From day one I liked how I could move my address bar into the menu bar, and merge my google toolbar with the navigation buttons. The result is much more screen space, and an easier to use interface. Here are a couple extensions that we found to further customize and reduce clutter on Firefox’s interface.

Menu Editor - this is a great extension to help you get rid of those junky functions in your menus. If you take close look, you will find various buttons that you do not use at all, such as “Web search” or “Save Frame as…”. Menu Editor also lets you change what displays on the right click menu, and the tab menu. Oh, and if you REALLY want to trim it down, you can move buttons/functions from menu to menu (you might be able to condense everything you need into 2 menus, instead of 7). Now thats what I call trimming off the fat! Get menu editor here.

Organize Status Bar - The status bar is the bar at the bottom of your firefox window that shows the page loading bar, and various small icons for security. What starts as an innocent small bar at the bottom of your page can soon spiral out of control when you start installing extensions such as Greasemonkey or Adblock which put their own buttons into the status bar. Organize Status Bar allows you to remove buttons you don’t want, and re-arrange the ones you do. Very useful extension. Get it here.

Faviconize Tab - it is easy to get carried away with opening tabs in Firefox, and before you know it you have too many to effectively sort through. If you are like me, you have 3-4 websites that you have open constantly, but take up too much room. Faviconize Tabs lets you shrink the tab to roughly 1/6 of the original size. Now I don’t worry about keeping my essential apps open, but I can still distinguish them by their favicons! Get Faviconize Tab here.

Smart bookmarks bar - secondary websites such as Adsense and Gearfire statistics find their place in my bookmarks tool bar. I never used the tool bar up until a couple weeks ago, when I set it up in an effort to reduce the number of constantly open tabs. If you want to fit more than 8 links on your bar at once, you can use this nifty extension to shrink the whole bookmark down to the size of its favicon, similar to Faviconize Tab. Get it here.

Hide tab bar - allows you to set a shortcut key that hides your tab toolbar. Useful for when you want to temporarily get your tab clutter out of sight, when you don’t want other people to see your inactive tabs, or when you have a large flash animation or picture that requires the extra half inch of screen space. Get Hide Tab Bar here.

UI Tweaker - possibly the holy grail of anti-clutter firefox extensions, UI Tweaker allows you to perform over 50 different tweaks to your browser to help save space. Most notably however, is the tweak that combines your refresh and stop buttons into a single button that changes. (You don’t need to stop pages that are already loaded, and you rarely have to refresh yet to be loaded pages..) Get UI Tweaker here.

Any specific extensions you use that have improved your overall FF experience? Drop us a comment and let us know.

Don’t you hate it when you want to fold away a bag of chips for later, but it keeps coming undone? If you want to seal in the freshness, you usually have to use a piece of scotch tape, or an elastic.

Here is a cool video showing a hack you can apply to any chip bag that is big enough. It is kind of complicated, and personally if I was in my kitchen I would just reach for an elastic, but if you are traveling or don’t have access to tape or elastics, this could save your life chips.

Don't get me wrong, Google Calendar is a great app with a great UI, But there are some situations where you might want to access GCal from your desktop.  There are a couple ways of accessing GCal from your desktop using programs such as Rainlendar or Thundirbird.

GCal in Thunderbird: (works in Mozilla Sunbird as well)

Thunderbird is an outstanding app for handling e-mail but it could be better.  The one thing that Outlook has over Thunderbird is a calendar.  Not any more.  Mozilla has made an extension for Thunderbird called Lightning, which is an integrated calendar. Untill recently, i have been using Google Calendar for all of my calendar needs, but it would be nice to view my mail and calendar together without opening another window.  So, without further ado,

How to sync and edit GCal with Thunderbird:

Always online (most likely desktop computer)

Method 1:

1. Download and install Lightning Extension for Thunderbird
2. Download and install the Provider extension for Thunderbird
3. Go to Your GCal page then find your XML calendar feed (Settings –> calendar –> yourcalendar –> private XML URL) 
4. Open Thunderbird and click on "new" in the calendars tab on the bottom left
5. select "on the network" for calendar location
6. select "Google Calendar" and insert the URL you got in step 2
7. Choose a name and colour (doesn't really matter that much) then press "Finish"
8. Enjoy

Method 2:

1.  Download, install and start GCalDaemon
2. Follow same steps as method 1, except get the iCal URL and select the iCal calendar instead of Google Calendar if you have the provider extension installed, and replace "google.com" with "localhost:9090" in the iCal URL

Not always online/slow connection (laptops/dialup)

1. Download, install and start GCalDaemon
2. Run the password encoder and encode your Google password(located within the install directory in the "bin" folder") keep the window open for the next step
3. Edit the the following values in the gcal-daemon.cfg file (located in the "conf" folder) with your favorite text editor: "file.offline.enabled" from false to true, "file.enabled" from "false" to "true", "file.google.username" to your Google username, "file.google.password" to the encoded password you got in the previous step, "file.private.ical.url" to your calendar's private iCal URL minus the "http://" and "www.google.com" which should result in something like: "calendar/ical/username%40gmail.com/…"
4. In Thunderbird, start a new calendar and select the "on the network" option, press "next"
5. select the "iCalendar"option and input the path to the local iCal file (can be found by starting the standalone-start script - every line should start with "INFO|…"  if not, stop the service or close Thunderbird or both).  Make sure you use the exact file path from the standalone-start script - it will say "start listening to file …" where "…" is the path of the file.
6. Finish the setup process (colour and name - unimportant) and enjoy.

EDIT: (I had the old version installed by accident) Sync with Rainlendar (Windows & Linux only)

 Rainlendar is a nifty skinnable desktop calendar app that does exactly that - show a small calendar on your desktop. It can be configured to use the local iCal file created by GCaDaemon.

Old Version: 

1. Download, start and install GCalDaemon
2. See step 3 in previous section
3. Right click on any Rainlendar window and click on "config"
4. Click the "Plugins" Tab, highlight iCalendar plugin then click settings
5. Input the path of the local iCal file (found using the standalone-start script)
6. To see what the events are, right click on any Rainlendar window and make sure that "Visible" is ticked under the "Event list" Menu. (right click –> windows –> event List –> visible)

Current Version

1. Download, start and install GCalDaemon
2. See step 3 in previous section
3. Right click on any Rainlendar window and click on "Options"
4. Click the "Calendars" button in top bar and click "Add"
5. Input the path of the local iCal file (found using the standalone-start script)
6. To see what the events are, right click on any Rainlendar window and make sure that "Event List" is ticked off in the "Windows" menu. (right click –> windows –> event List)

Display with MS Outlook 2007

NOTE: This procedure will only display the contents of your Google Calendar and will not allow you to make changes

1. Open Outlook and go to tools –> account options and click the Internet calendars tab
2. Click "new" and input your GCal's private iCal URL straight from your calendar
3. enter any following information (pretty much unimportant)

IMPORTANT: If you are going to Sync more than one app to your Google Calendar using GCalDaemon, make sure that only one of them has write permissions.  Having more than that will probably have disastrous effects.

More tutorials on the GCalDaemon Usage page

I was surfing the web as I usually do, and came across the name "ReminderFox" and a few positive comments. I installed, and quickly forgot about the extension. About a week ago I was looking for a online to-do list application, Geoff suggested many, but I already have to many organizational websites. I looked in my browser status bar and there was the answer; ReminderFox.

ReminderFox is very clean and simple to use, leaving a list of tasks in the task bar and prompting you a set time before the event. You can use it to remind you to do something or as a to-do list.

It's very useful if you already use FireFox to organize yourself, through websites such as Google Calender or GradeFix.

Screenshots:

Getting Things Done has exploded in popularity recently, and has become a term that almost every worker has heard, usually from one of their stress-free co-workers.  But why is Getting Things Done so effective?  GTD is not for everyone and many if not most people use a modified version of GTD as their personal system. Modifying it is fine, but it is important to understand how and why Getting Things Done as a process works.

Lets take a look at what we are trying to accomplish from GTD.  In its most simplistic form, we are trying to start with a thought, idea, or task, and end with us completing the required action or series of actions.

Item (idea, task, thought)        >    Task Completion

Now let us look at the actual GTD process.  Personally, I believe that there are 5 major steps in this process. For each step, I will try to list a couple useful tools to help you achieve this step.  You may notice that the first and last steps  in the process are exactly what your started with. However the other three steps are what defines GTD, and makes it truly unique.

Item (idea, task, thought)    >    Recorded into temporary storage    >    Transferred to and Archived in Central System    >    Item is effectively recovered when needed    >    Task is Completed

Item (idea, task, thought)

This is pretty self-explanatory. Any idea, task, etc, that requires action in the future. The end of the cycle is completing action on this item.

Tip: See 20 Sure-Fire Ways to Come Up With Great Ideas.

Recorded to temporary storage

David Allen talks a lot about how we should always have an empty mind, and to achieve this by recording all your thoughts and other items onto pieces of paper. These recorded items are then placed in the inbox, for later processing.

Tip: Carry around a pocket notebook, PDA to record your ideas on the go. You could even use your cell phone with Jott, Twitter, or any other technique listed here.

Archived in Central System

Take the items from your inbox, or portable inbox such as a notepad, and file it into your to-do system. Basically, GTD involves filing into Actions, Waiting For, Someday Ticklers, and Reference. GTD is much more complex than this, and one of the reasons is the next step.

Tip: Buy a good stackable inbox/outbox type of paper handler. Use this as your central GTD inbox, where you put everything which you want to process. 

Item Recovered when Needed

After you have successfully filed all of your thoughts and tasks, you will want to easily summon tasks to be done. This is one of the major areas that GTD excels in. The complicated filing based on context, etc in the last step ensures that you can find relevant tasks effectively.

Tip: Paper and pencil is fine, but if you want a web-based GTD system, try Vitalist. I have spent hours searching for the best electronic system, and Vitalist is by far the best I have encountered.  

Task Completed

This step is mostly reliant on your will power and (hopefully) low levels or procrastination.  GTD has helped you thus far, but the only one who can choose whether you do it or not is you.

GTD is an amazing organization system, but it is not holy. Instead of worshipping it, understand it so that you can use it more effectively, and modify it to suit your unique needs.

eBay is the internet's largest marketplace, where your junk is truly someone else's treasure. I have seen this first hand when a women spent $50 on a toy saxophone that I found at a garage sale for only $2, putting an extra $45 into my pocket after fees. If you consider yourself a pack-rat, or find your self wanting to keep things because you could "use it later", then eBay can be really useful to you. 

1. Assess the availability. You can use eBay to quickly check the availability of an item, to see how common something may be. If you see that the item has a low price, and that many are available, you can convince yourself that if you really need it in the future, you can find another of the same.

2. Determine the item's value, and weigh it against personal attachment. Suddenly that old set of plates that you inherited from your grandparents doesn't seems to sentimental after you find out it is worth $450.

3. Get rid of old boxes and shipping material. eBay is also a way to get rid of your endless pile of product boxes, packing chips, and used bubble wrap. I know that my basement is stacked to the ceiling with boxes of every size. The huge variety of shapes and sizes make for snug, secure, and cheap shipping. It also un-clutters your basement of boxes that you may not want. You can also make use of old used bubble wrap, and foam packing chips. Not only does this help get rid of stuff, but it cuts expenses, as you don't have to purchase any packing or shipping materials.

eBay is a great way to discover new money in your junk. It is funny how most people consider perfectly good items that they do not want, "junk". If it is in good condition, then there is probably someone out there who would like to buy it. Go sign-up today, and make some extra money which organizing your home!

When I find an interesting web app or program in Google Reader, if often just tag it to deal with later. Web apps and software usually take over 20 minutes to try out, and get a feel for.  If I am just reading feeds for a short break though, this takes to long, so I tag it and save it for later.  Yesterday evening I decided to go through some of the apps, etc. I had the pleasure of trying out coComment, which instantly captivated me for the rest of my time.

coComment is a new web service that keeps track of all your comments on other people's blogs. If anyone else comments, you are notified, so you can continue the conversation. This is the type of service that I have been longing for for a long time.

Why is it needed?

Sure, some blogs offer email notification of new comments, but I have always wanted to see the replies to many questions I have posted and then forgot about, or those witty comments on Digg. Besides, constant email notifications clutter up your inbox.

Again, I have seen some people offer comment feeds on the blog. The problem with this is, I don't want to subscribe to ALL your comments, just the one or two after mine, on a single post. The comment feed might work for very small blogs, but it could be major feed clutter with a large blog such as John Chow. Until coComment came along, there didn't seem to be any reasonably sane way to keep track of your online conversations.

Install the Firefox Extension

coComment comes with a Firefox extension, which automagically inserts a small bar onto the bottom of compatible text fields. coComment is smart though, and it has never placed itself on anything other than a comment. If you visit a blog and the comment field does not have the coComment bar, reload the page, and then try again. At first the bar did not appear on Digg for me, but I refreshed and then everything worked fine.

The extension also puts a small icon in your status bar, which notifies you of any new activity on tracked comments.

Viewing your Tracked Conversations

When you visit their website, you can see a neatly organized collection of all your conversations, sorted by blog:article. You can see the total number of comments, and when the latest comment was. You can even browse through the comments in a Gmail-like collapsing tab structure. If you are finished with comments on a certain article, you can simply select "stop tracking this comment", and it will be deleted from your watchlist.

Integration with Technorati

If you are a blog owner, coComment offers integratin of coComment into your blog via Technorati. I am not quite sure how this works though. I tried to set it up, but I kept getting errors at the last step. Has anyone tried this feature yet? It sounds like a cool toy to put in your blog's sidebar or posts to encourage more comments. 

Final Verdict

There is very little not to like about coComment. All it does is save you time, and make your blog life more productive. A must-have application and Firefox extension in my books. I am sure that this will improve any conversations I have with other bloggers, as hopefully with this, neither of us will forget about responding.