This page contains resources referred to in the book Get-it-Done Guy’s 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More. If you haven’t yet read it, what are you waiting for? Buy a copy (buy 10!) and you’ll discover that you can do things with these resources that you never imagined…
Chapter 1: Living on Purpose
Books
- Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live (Martha Beck): As I discuss in “Live on Purpose”, understanding your fundemental drives is vital in achieving a full life. But how do you actually discover them? Beck’s book is a guide to understanding yourself on a deeper level.
- I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was: How to Discover What You Really Want and How to Get It (Barbara Sher): By the author of ‘Wishcraft, How to Get What You Really Want’, it was written in response to the common question “Sounds great, but I don’t know what I really want!”. Fortunately, I know what I really want: Oreo ice cream cake. Or world domination? Oh shoot, I always forget…
- Stever’s One-man-business life map
- Stever’s home life map
Chapter 2: Stop Procrastinating
Websites
- Andrew Thorn: Andrew Thorn provides behavioral based leadership strategies that focus on behavior-based growth. Focuses on one-on-one, small group, and executive team sessions.
- Marshall Goldsmith: Dr. Marshall Goldsmith is a world authority in helping successful leaders get even better, and has an exceptional amount of material available on his website.
- Free Conferencing.com: Pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Get a conference access code, and invite your friends onto a private line.
- Drop.io: If voice alone isn’t good enough, Drop.io offers an easy to use, online collaboration and file sharing service. In addition to letting you chat, Drop.io lets you share images, video, audio, documents and many other types of digital content.
Miscellaneous
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Chapter 3: Conquer Technology
Websites
- Real VNC: VNC is remote control software which allows you to view and fully interact with your using a simple program (the “VNC viewer”), using another computer- anywhere on the Internet.
- Go To My PC: Requiring no download, GoToMyPC allows you to remotely access your computer from any other Internet-connected computer. Works with almost any operating system and uses a secure, private connection.
- Skype Screen Sharing Instructions for sharing your screen on Mac, PC, or Linux. Skype’s screen sharing is rather primitive compared to some of the others.
- MobileMe, with Back To My Mac: This Mac-specific service lets you share your screen, or even access your computer remotely.
- Time Cave: Send an email to Time Cave to resend it at the future time you specify.
- Letter Me Later: Allows you to send emails to anyone you wish, with the ability to have them sent at any future date and time you choose.
- Reply Later: Simply set up your account, then send an email to a special address ending in @replylater.com
Miscellaneous
- Delayed email: In Outlook, choose Options when composing a message and select ‘Do not Deliver Before’ to send a deferred message. For Thunderbird, you can download the “Send Delayed” add-on here.
- Email Signatures, templates and macros (Apple Mail, Outlook, Thunderbird and Eudora): Download instructions in PDF format here, or read the Get-it-Done Guy article here.
Chapter 4: Stop Distractions to Cultivate Focus
Books
- The Power of a Positive No: How to Say No and Still Get to Yes (William Ury): Ury, author of “Getting To Yes” gives a simple, powerful framework for saying “No” while preserving the integrity of a relationship.
- The Answer to How Is Yes: Acting on What Matters (Peter Block): This book asks you to stop thinking about ‘how’ to do things, and start focusing on ‘why’ you’re doing them. The things that you’ll realize can completely revolutionize the way that you think about your role in your organizations and the world.
- I Need Your Love – Is That True? : How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval, and Appreciation and Start Finding Them Instead (Byron Katie): Katie’s book is a fantastic way of understanding your relationships to others, and how to free yourself from the need for constant approval.
- The Non-Designer’s Design Book: Design and Typographic Principles for the Visual Novice (Robin Williams): A book that will educate you about the fundamentals of good design. It’s simple, well-illustrated, and a real eye-opener when it comes to learning what make something look good.
Websites
- K7: K7 Unified Messaging provides you with a free phone number, which enables you to have your voicemail messages and faxes delivered directly to your computer.
- Voice nation: Voice Nation lets you handle calls as effectively as a much larger organization, with automated attendants and virtual assistants to handle incoming calls.
- Michael Neill’s Genius Catalyst: Michael has great advice on how to deal with distractions and get on with life
- Max email: A fully featured Internet Fax and Voicemail messaging service.
- Away Find: AwayFind is a powerful web application that finds your most important emails. When you receive an urgent message, AwayFind will notify you with a call, SMS, IM, Twitter, or delegate the message to someone you specify.
- ‘The Work’ by Byron Katie: The Work is a way of identifying and questioning the thoughts that cause you fear or hesitation.
- Link to my interview with Byron Katie: Saying an Honest No
- BasecampHQ: Basecamp comes from the legendary web application company 37Signals, which makes simple, easy to understand applications for bringing teams together
- Groove by Microsoft: Groove Virtual Office is software that allows your team to work together as if you were all in the same physical location.
- NING: Create your own automated social network and collaboration site.
- Zapproved: Zapproved helps groups make decisions together without a huge amount of administrative back-and-forth.
- Cognitive control in media multitaskers: A study on the effects of multitasking on the brain.
Chapter 5: Stay Organized
Books
- From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (E. L. Konigsburg): When I read this book as a child, I was less excited by the story arc that had to do with kids hiding in the Met, and more excited by the one that had to do with them using filing cabinets. These things start early, I guess.
- The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal (Tony Schwartz and Jim Loehr): This book will help you understand how how your energy level actually drives productivity, presenting research that shows how managing energy is more important than managing time.
Websites
- The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: One of the most highly cited papers in psychology, George Miller’s 1956 work discusses the limits of our short term memory.
- Freecycle: Getting rid of junk in your house can feel so… wasteful. Assuage your conscious by giving it to a fellow community member, and keep our landfills that much more manageable.
- 1-800-GOT-JUNK: Some things, even I wouldn’t take. Fortunately, there are professionals for that, and 1-800-GOT-JUNK is a full-service junk removal option
- Got Books: Make sure that your books, CDs, and other media gets used properly with this organization. They give them to soldiers, teachers, or just sold at a discount to raise money for charitable organizations.
- Otherworld: Otherworld is the funnest weekend you’ll have as an adult or your money back.
Miscellaneous
- Clean Your House Fast: Download the worksheet!
Chapter 6: Stop Wasting Time
Books
- The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Success by Achieving More with Less (Richard Koch): This is a basic concept in personal productivity- often we spend 80% of our time on things that only yield 20% of our total outcome. This book discusses how to identify that magical 20% of your effort that’s responsible for a whole 80% of your outputs.
Websites
- ZOMBIE MARCH: This is an annual event. They have them everywhere. Who knew?
Chapter 7: Optimize
Books
- Strengths Finder 2.0 (Tom Rath): An online strength-finding diagnostic tool that happens to come with a free book. You will realize that aspects about yourself that you’ve always taken for granted are actually strengths to be leveraged.
- Effective Business Writing (Maryann Piotrowski): Learn to write clearly and concisely. Writing effective emails and memos is a perfect example of working less and doing more. You will finish them faster, and recipients will actually read them!
- The Minto Pyramid Principle: Logic in Writing, Thinking, & Problem Solving (Barbara Minto): This book is more than just a way to organize text. Thinkin with the Minto Pyramid Principle will help you organize your thinking for self-expression.
- How to Write Plain English (Rudolph Flesch): Do you ever feel like your extraordinarily extensive expressions enhance everyone’s ennui exorbitantly? Learn how to write clearly, directly, and effectively anywhere.
Websites
- The Feedback Sandwich Is Out To Lunch : This article discusses why the widely used ‘feedback sandwich’ is actually just training people to be suspicious of compliments.
- Elance: Elance is great for all manner of technical and marketing professionals
- eBay: That’s right- you can buy time from virtual assistants on ebay, as well!
- Craigslist: Craigslist is the world’s classified ads, online. You can find great deals for both products and services.
- YourRemote Assistant and Assist U: If you don’t want to try finding someone on your own, these sites can make the process very quick and easy.
Chapter 8: Build Stronger Relationships
Books
- Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You (Sam Gosling): Does that co-worker with a messy office really do everything in a disorganized fashion? This book shows you how to understand people through their material choices.
- Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time (Keith Ferrazzi): Keith’s book is part autobiography, part “how to” manual for networking. Never Eat Alone got me thinking of success as a community sport, not just a lone-wolf endeavor.
- The Go-Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea (Bob Burg and John David Mann): Why giving helps build strong relationships, and how you can put this into practice in your own life.
- Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Robert Cialdini): Social Psychologist Robert Cialdini explains everything from what motivates us to how our mental shortcuts can lead to bad decisions.
Websites
- “The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness: A Procedure and Some Preliminary Findings“: What really brings people together? It’s not small-talk (surprise!)
Miscellaneous
- Interested in creating professional quality recordings at a reasonable price? Download a list of the equipment that I use to record the podcast
Chapter 9: Leverage!
Books
- The Power of Slow (Christine Louise Hohlbaum) : Hohlbaum’s book offers tips for everything from escaping from the deluge of electronic gadgets to understanding when your plate is full.
Websites
- Google Alerts: Google Alerts will keep a continuous eye on the latest changes on the public web, and will send you an email when keywords you select appear in a website, news site, or blog post.
- 360 Reach: Assess your personal brand
- Letter Me Later: Allows you to send emails to anyone you wish, with the ability to have them sent at any future date and time you choose
- Reply Later: Simply set up your account, then send an email to a special address ending in @replylater.com