Tips and Techniques #10

/ Fitness, Productivity, Technology / By
This month think about your physical strength and for those approaching retirement or are already there Don’t Retire – Rewire. Also I’ll comment on apps
 
Strength: where’d it go?  Strength Training is more important than ever as we age. Remember the old saying,“use it or lose it”. This really applies and should not be ignored. Strength, flexibility, balance, and stamina are important to quality of life as time goes on. We should be able to do almost everything we did in our youth but just not as fast or as far. Sometimes there are exceptions. I never ran a marathon until I was 50+. If a gym is not handy, you can use a set of weights, or stretchy bands with handles (https://gofit.net/collections/train)  all of which can do wonders for muscles. No equipment? You can use your own body weight as in yoga. Don’t discount it as just being for females. It varies from gentle stretching and balance poses to very physically challenging especially when you add heat as in Bikram yoga where the studio temperature is about 90 degrees to start. You can begin yoga with nearly all poses allowing for modifications or adaptations to suit your needs. You can start at home on YouTube at sites like this.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDLad2vOHkU  (28 minute session for newbie seniors).  Also, there are numerous studios around the city. Most have drop in rates or community classes to let you have a sample of the program with no commitment for a small fee. Try it, you might be surprised.
 
Mix up your routine with walks, biking, spin cycling, swimming, jogging, tennis or whatever works for you as my favorite yoga instructor likes to say. The point is… keep moving. You’ll be glad you did.
 
 
Don’t Retire – Rewire(by Jeri Sedlar and Rick Miners, 3rd Ed. 2018). This paperback helps to make the transition from retirement to providing meaningful things to do after a career. It might even lead to a new career. The book suggests that one start think about this even well before retirement.
 
  1. See the opportunity: retiring is a going  from, and rewiring is a going to.
  2. Identify your “drivers” (personal motivators such as: sense of accomplishment, belonging, mentoring, energizing, adventuring, accountable, etc., etc.
  3. Link the drivers to the activities that you enjoy and which motivate you.
  4. Create a new rewired vision moving forward.  If a driver or activity is not right for you, drop it and try another.
  5. Develop an action plan so that you are engaged in activities that bring joy and fulfillment to life. This can be the best age of all.
 
The steps can help you find fulfilling work that fuels your passion, suits your personality and fill your pocket. After all, how much golf or fishing do you want to do? This little book helps to continue on in new ways you might have not considered.
 
 
Evernote
 
Sharing Notes or Notebooks is a major strength of Evernote. You can share what you are working on with a client or a friend. You can share an entire Notebook with all the Notes.  Work with your accountant to let them see your monthly invoices and receipts to in your Evernote account so they can create a monthly cash flow report.  Share with a family member to build your family genealogy or history. Share recipes or other things. You can even create a public link and send it to anyone to let them look at Note. They can’t change or edit it only look at it and they don’t even need an Evernote account. The Note is sent as a PDF that anyone can open.
 
Context is something that builds over time. As you place Notes into Notebooks, Evernote begins to understand them. As you look at Notes, you’ll begin to see suggestions for other Notes in your account that relate to the one you are working on. Like an able bodied assistant, Evernote will try to help you pull your materials together. As you search the web with your browser, Evernote will look at results of searches and suggest Notes that are related to your search.
 
Presentations can be made within Evernote.  Select several notes (shift+click) that you want to show a client and a pop-up will appear. Choose Start Presentation and the Notes will appear as a slide show. When you move your cursor it will drag a “tail” to highlight what you are calling attention to on the “slides” as you scroll down through your work.  Press ESC when finished to stop the presentation.
 
Merge several notes to create one document if that makes more sense.  Select the Notes to merge, and a dialog box will appear. Select Merge to combine all the Notes into one. This cannot be undone. If you need to keep them separate for use in the future, just duplicate with a different name before merging.
 
Move Notes to…will let you move multiple notes (which have been selected) all at once to a different Notebook. This option appears as an option in a dialog box as mentioned previously.
 
 
Trello® is a Project manager application for mobile and laptop usage that is very graphical in appearance and is based on a Kanban style of management. Kanban is a workflow management method designed to help you visualize your work, maximize efficiency and be agile.  Think of  notecards you stick to a wall in columnar format. The columns could be: Inbox, To-dos, Doing, Waiting On, Done, and so on.  The app is free and allows up to ten board (projects), any number of “cards/tasks”.  Over the years this app has become increasingly sophisticated for teams with a number of add-ons or “power ups”.  It is especially helpful and powerful when dealing with multiple people on projects with lots of tasks/moving parts.  There is a learning curve, but fortunately, the number of video “how to’s” available make it fun to learn. I have started using it more lately and may replace ToDoist with this as I integrate it with my calendar. It integrates with Slack, Evernote, on-line calendars and other popular programs and has a built-in feature to automate recurring tasks to reduce workload. Find it at www.trello.c
 
 
Pomodoro Technique is a way to break down jobs into small time segments. The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s.[2] The technique uses a timer to break down work into intervals, traditionally 25 minutes in length, separated by short breaks. 
There are six steps in the original technique:
  1. Decide on the task to be done.
  2. Set the pomodoro timer (traditionally to 25 minutes).[2]
  3. Work on the task.
  4. End work when the timer rings and put a checkmark on a piece of paper.[6]
  5. If you have fewer than four checkmarks, take a short break (3–5 minutes), then go to step 2.
  6. After four pomodoros, take a longer break (15–30 minutes), reset your checkmark count to zero, then go to step 1.
 
This technique may help when you have a tough, “I really am resisting this” project.  You just have to complete just a few minutes in a session, take a short break and then do it again.  It may all that’s needed to get you started.
 
 
Productivity experts that take a light hearted approach to an important topic.
 
Michael Hyatt is a Productivity Expert with many podcasts and YouTube videos. Find him at https://michaelhyatt.com/ You can apply his examples to work or personal productivity.
 
Francesco D’Allesio is located in the UK and produces podcasts and YouTube videos also. He reviews technology apps for business and personal use with a straight forward approach and generally limits them to 15-20 minutes. Find him at www.keepproductive.com or type his name in Search in YouTube.
  
Stay well – get up and move more. Take a brisk walk. Be grateful that we all got this far,  considering our youthful choices that seemed like a good idea at the time…