Thursday, March 22, 2012

Would you like to contact us?

You can contact us on:
relaxedproductivity [ at ] live.com


Mastery - A great book

This post is about the book titled "Mastery". More to come...


What is GTD?

GTD is a productivity system devised and copyrighted by David Allan.


What is minimalism?

In the spirit of the title, minimalism is the art of simplification.


Learn Keyboard Shortcuts in Windows

One of the best things about working with computers is that there is no limit as to how much you can learn.. As long as you think along the lines of life-long learning, you'll be able to easily increase your productivity. One of the simple, yet often overseen aspects of increasing productivity is the utilization of keyboard shortcuts. 
In this post, we'll focus on windows shortcuts. 
Let's start of with an easy one: hold down the Windows key (the key with the windows logo, usually two buttons to the left of the spacebar) , and press the letter "d" (do not release the Windows key before you have also pressed the "d"!).
Voila, you can see your desktop!
In Windows 7, if you press the Windows key, and while holding it, press the tab key, you'll get a cool little feature that shows you all currently active windows, some kind of an active windows slideshow of sorts.
It is truly amazing how much you can increase your productivity by simply learning and implementing these shortcuts. 
Learning and properly using keyboard shortcuts in a variety of apps is almost as high a productivity leap as it is learning how to touch-type. But we'll touch on that one in some other post.


How to Relax

How to relax? One might say, is that a trick question? It's impossible, there's too many things going on at once... Or another person might say, "I know how to relax, that's what I do when I get home after a hard day's work". Well, is it really that simple? And if it is, why are so many people stressed out? The simple truth is this: it is possible to do almost anything if we set our minds to it. It is a cliche, but it became a cliche because it is so true! 
Ok, so if we assume that I'm correct and that it is indeed possible, the next question is, "How to do it?". This is both simple and complicated, and it's an answer that I'm looking for myself. There are too many people who "have all the answers", too many experts and specialists. What I would like to share with you here is a simple truth that I have also discovered, and that is: In many things in life, you don't really need great outbursts of effort, as much as you need time. An apple tree doesn't grow in a day and the Grand Canyon wasn't carved in a few years. Or as a very wise man once told me, "Quiet waters, crumbled mountains". 
To sum up, we need to remember a few things:
1. It is possible to at least reduce your level of stress.
2. You need time to change from where you are to where you'll be. Thinking that it can be done in a hurry will just get you stressed out even more. 
3. Begin by thinking about what makes you frustrated the most. Try to limit your exposure.
4. Think in terms of percentages. If I say that my stress level today is 100%, how can I decrease it to 99% tomorrow? To answer this question, let's say that 1% of time in a day is equal to 864 seconds (86400 seconds in a day divided by 100 gives you 1% of time in any given day, in seconds). 864 seconds is the same as 14.4 minutes. There you have it: 14.4 minutes is one percent of a 24-hour period. So, if you consciously choose to limit your exposure to stress by avoiding a source of stress for mere 14.4 minutes, you have lowered your total stress by a whopping 1% in one day!

Read up on more ways to lower your stress and improve your life in the upcoming posts...


Twitter Delicious Facebook Digg Favorites More