3 posts tagged “google”

My style has changed over the years. I used to be a pack rat. I still like my stuff, but I'm aggressive about weeding out now, and if I keep something, it's in functional storage. While my overall style still could be classified as somewhat eclectic, I've become an ever increasing fan of clean, minimalist design. IKEA type style. Swedish country home. Danish design. Modern masters. Form, function. strong lines, little bling and no clutter, easy maintenance. I still love Crate and Barrel or Martha Stewart furniture, but pared down.  Soothing color palettes. What does this have to do with gtd, the internet, or better emailing and rss subscription reading? In as much as I like clean, soothing, minimalist functionality in my "real" surroundings, so I too gravitate toward that in the online world as well, leading me to today's recommended Firefox add ons.

I absolutely LOVE the updated Gmail Super Clean Greasemonkey extension for Firefox. It's gorgeous and highly functional. Along with that Greasemonkey extension, I have included several others that integrate with Gmail (and other services) and Google Reader "like butta". These extensions only work with the Firefox browser (I assume you are using Firefox if you are reading this) with the Greasemonkey extension installed, except for Greased Lightbox which also works with Opera. If you don't have Greasemonkey yet, the link is included below.

• Greasemonkey for Firefox - allows for 3rd party scripts to be installed for increased browser functionality and site mods.
  
• Gmail Super Clean - Clean, minimalist script that makes Gmail so much nicer to look at, plus interface tweaks.
  
• text area backup - stop losing your typed text when your browser crashes, auto backs up your work, no more frustration!
  
• Gmail + reader integrator - adds a "feeds" tab on the left of Gmail that allow you to access all of your feeds without having to open up a new tab.
• Greased Lightbox - enhances browsing on websites that link to images such as Google Image Search, Flickr, Wikipedia, Facebook, MySpace, and deviantART by opening up an overlay to view the full sized image.
• Secure-em-All - Secure the Connection on: Excite, Yahoo, Gmail, Microsoft Passport. (Add any site to the Included pages list for it to be automatically switch to secure mode as well).

Many of you probably wonder what the heck is GTD? Go to Dallas? Grip the Dashboard? Get that Dollar? No. Get Things Done. Who doesn't need to, from domestic engineer to CEO? You don't have to be militant or OCD to be organized and productive. Even the most ADD, chaotic, forgetful and haphazard among us can benefit from a little GTD.

Although I do not go out to a formal "job" daily, my days are so full, that even in my home life and moonlighting, I feel like I need to be paid for an 8 hour day plus overtime, as I go from early AM to very late at night. I need to be organized  and efficient to get through my massive "to do" list, make all my appointments and deadlines,  to feel a sense of accomplishment, fit in time for my hobbies and interests and to manage my household. I do, much to the amazement of my family, friends and neighbors without being rigid, anti social or uptight. I still manage to be organized and spontaneous, which is an oxymoron to some.

So how is it done? Some of it is innate, but you can learn. There are many fabulous GTD sites and blogs. Right now, I have recently discovered a few tools that have seriously streamlined my daily grind and help me be productive and enjoy my day. Here are some of those things:

• Netvibes. Switched from Google Personal and MyYahoo! to Netvibes with some careful selection of modules, feeds and podcasts (listen to them right through Netvibes)  and now I have everything I could ever need waiting for me in the morning all from one site including email. I grab my coffee and dig in. My plans for the day are there as well as a virtual custom "newspaper". LifeHacker has a great post on customizing it with the most essential modules, we are trying to streamline our lives, not add bloat, so chosing carefully is key. In the comments section of that post, there is another nice Easter Egg by dep for further tweaks. The best part? If you set up a tab called "Mobile" you can customize a mobile friendly page for those unfortunate times you are away from your computer aka "command central".  I use it along with some well selected feeds in Google Reader mobile. It doesn't get much better than this folks...
• 30 Boxes. Do I love this or what? ?? Slim and functional, this has it all! You start by opening up a wizard which has you put some initial dates to remember in, like birthdays, then you import email addys and a bunch of other stuff. It's an all in one scheduler, social networking tool, reminder, to do list, emailer, will send SMS reminders of your daily activities to your mobile phone/device and has a module that integrates with Netvibes. Best of all, you can set it to "webpage" which is my new Firefox start page and it gives you one column with the days events/to do list, upcoming events then your embedded Netvibes page and a docklet to launch your most important sites and information. The look is clean and I can't say anything more than this RULES.
• Remember The Milk. Another GTD blog/utility which integrates with Netvibes. Right now I think, 30 Boxes is for me, but I am also test driving this as well. Probably more handy for those with structured jobs in a corporate environments, but could be used for anyone.
• Launchy. How did I manage without this? I have StarDock on my computer so I can have my desktop visually pleasing and uncluttered, yet tweaked just the way I like it. I chose for the most part to keep my Windows Task Bar hidden. Now I don't even have to move my mouse to the docklet to activate an app, search or what have you. I installed Launchy freeware, and just by hitting ALT + Spacebar and typing in a couple letters it will launch almost any app intuitively. Not limited to apps, it will find and open photos, documents, mp3's, computer and web searches and is a full function calculator. Everyday time I use my computer, I still marvel at what a gem this is! (Are you using CoolIris? If you're not, you should be using that too!)
  
• LifeHacker, Black Belt Productivity and TheCranking Widgets Blog- daily must reads. Yeah, I'm a geek, you know it...