I love this video! This is truly cognitive communication at its best. Oh, and the subject matter is truly eye opening as well. Some very interesting research about what motivates people. It’s worth the 10 minutes to watch this.

I had to share this video. I am fast becoming an iPad fan. I hear all the objections…it’s just a giant iPhone, it doesn’t play Flash, it doesn’t have a camera, you can’t combine ATT  3G accounts with your iPhone, etc, etc. But all that aside, this may simply be the most “business-lifestyle-marketing-sales-productivity-daily-task-altering-object-of-desire” the common man has ever seen.  This little video shows iPad’s awesome versatility using an inexpensive velcro strip.

iPad + Velcro from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

I admit I’m a total iPhone Geek. In fact I’ve been an “Anything-Remotely-Related-to-Apple-in-any-Way-Fanatic-Geek”, ever since falling in love with my Mac Plus 23 years ago.

So it should come as no surprise that I have about 60 apps on “my precious” iPhone, some of them fun, several of them totally useless, and a few downright revolutionary.

I’d be happy to tell you about some of my favorite third-party apps in upcoming posts, apps like Things, Evernote, Facebook, Pandora, Amazon, Solebon, Remote, etc., but the most powerful app I’m talking about here is native to the iPhone so no extra cost is involved and I bet it will increase your productivity like no other app available for any cost. So without further ado, I present to you the iPhone Timer! Yes the lowly Timer. I’ve discovered the power of my little iPhone timer app in getting more things done in less time.

For me it all started with my wife Nancy, who is a big FlyLady fan. Through FlyLady, she learned how seemingly big time consuming tasks could be accomplished in little 15 minute increments. She came to really appreciate her little $5 dollar kitchen timer and really became efficient with household chores and little accomplishments. Actually Nancy discovered her timer while raising our 3 children. The timer brought order to chaos, using it to settle disputes over sharing, establishing quiet times, countdown to bedtime, etc. For us, it was miraculous how our kids would argue with us about bedtime, but not with the timer. It in essence became a third party authority figure that was not to be challenged.

It took me a while to catch on to how that power could be transferred to my business life, but now I have seen the light and it’s truly empowering and liberating! Need to post a blog? Set the timer. It’s incredible what you can post in 15 minutes. In fact I’m now considering a 15 minute blog. Instead of 140 characters counting down like Twitter, the post entry box would count down 15 minutes. Great for keeping your flow of great thoughts going without getting bogged down or discouraged over the time commitment. (See if I follow through on that idea…) Need to follow up on a call you’ve been putting off? Set the timer and tell the person you are calling you only have 15 minutes. (Hint) Set your timer buzzer to your phone ring for a few more than 15 minutes, when it goes off, you can say you have to jump and they will understand. I also recommend the timer for tasks you really enjoy like checking in on Twitter. It can save you from blowing 2 hours before realizing it!

Well, you get the idea. Why don’t you take up my challenge and see what you can do in 15 minute increments. BTW, I’m sure Blackberry’s and all other phones and PDA’s have a timer function built in, although the iPhone timer just looks amazing as it ticks off the seconds!

Feel free to comment back and let me know what you are doing in 15 minutes! (Keep it clean:)

OK, I’m a sucker for anything remotely related to improving productivity in any way.  Especially if it involves technology.  Well, I came across an app that may very well become the most useful tool in my productivity arsenal.  It’s called Evernote and  you owe it to yourself to check it out and get to know how it can organize all your information chaos, especially if you a knowledge/information junkie like me.

As described on their website, Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere.

It even allows you to take photos of whiteboards, web pages, notes, business cards, airline tickets, napkin sketches, you name it, and it will actually recognize your text or handwritten scribbles, convert them to searchable text and find them across all the computers and devices you use.

I attached a screen shot of their Mac app, you know what a Mac fanatic I am, but it also has a version for Windows.

This product rocks!  Really!  check it out.

Without a doubt, the single most destructive weapon to my time management, and hence my true productivity, is email. No matter how disciplined I try to be, planning my day the day before, listing and prioritizing my to-do list, allocating my time to each task in advance, one little action of opening my email inbox can instantly derail my best laid plans and intentions.

The psychology behind email management is an interesting study. The best organizers say to never check your email before 10AM, and Timothy Ferris, writer of The 4-Hour Workweek suggests checking it just once a day or less and letting your business associates know that in your email signature. I’m beginning to see the light, realizing I’m an email addict, (the first step in any 12 step program). I recently turned off the automatic function for checking my email, opting instead to manually press the receive button when I’m ready to read email. But I have a long way to go. I catch myself hitting the receive button every several minutes, and realize I am using it as a crutch to subconsciously (or consciously) avoid doing what is really important at the time.

The biggest challenge with email is remaining proactive and operating my day in a purposeful and meaningful way. Email has the mesmorizing power of turning me into a Pavlovic trained canine, responding instinctively to the bell announcing the receipt of email, carrying with it the promise of new opportunities, certainly, I must believe, changing my life for the better.

If our time was just stolen by the sole act of reading our email we might be ok. But the reality is, most emails lead to additional required actions; a quick reply, forwarding to a friend, visiting a website, which leads us to another website, which leads to another…(how many hours has that alone taken from our productive time?)

I believe that our ability to conquer this phenomenon in our business lives will have a great bearing on our ultimate success. Let’s get a handle on this amazingly powerful productivity tool before it has the opposite effect of what we expected, robbing us of time we could be spending with family and friends, and replacing true productivity with a false sense of being busy and getting things done.