Nir's Software Company

Best Productivity Tips of 2008

Nir Dobovizki — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 09:45:07 GMT

This is the last week of 2008 and according to our web traffic almost nobody cares about productivity right now, so this looks like a good time to pick the five best tips of the year.

This list was selected by me, the web traffic statistics of all the productivity tips are too close to use them to select the best posts.

And one of my favorites from 2007

Productivity Tip 4 – Don't Cheat Your Time Tracking Software

Productivity Tip – Take Vacations

Nir Dobovizki — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 09:10:42 GMT

Most people can’t work all the time, you need some downtime to “recharge” – so take a vacation and enjoy yourself.

A vacation can actually boost your productivity in two ways, the first is the obvious, a nice change of pace and some rest will help you come back mentally recharged and ready to take on new challenges.

The second and even more important impact of a vacation is less obvious.

When you work on something every day you are too close, you are focused on the details and you can’t see the big picture – by leaving for a while you can take a step back and when you return you may see a more efficient way to do your work you just didn’t notice before.

Just whatever you do don’t work when you’re on vacation, this will not only ruin your vacation it will also eliminate any work related advantages of time off.

The Real Cost of Free Ad-Supported Software/Services

Nir Dobovizki — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 15:51:22 GMT

Software is not free, making software takes time and expertise, making good software takes a lot of time and expertise.

Internet servers are also not free, bandwidth cost money, computers cost money, disk drives cost money, renting space in a data center to put your server cost money.

So, we established that making software and running web sites isn’t free, it’s easy to see that a more popular software or service needs more bandwidth and computing power - so the more popular your site is the more money you need to run it.

Now, some sites are run by non-profit organizations or individuals, running a low traffic web site isn’t expensive – but the moment your site becomes popular it takes more and more money to keep it running and someone has to pay the bills – so a you need some way to make money from the site.

Of course some sites are run by individuals as an hobby, running a low traffic web site isn’t expensive – but the moment your site becomes popular it takes more and more money to keep it running and someone has to pay the bills.

There are two ways to make money from a web site: you can get money from the site users directly (by selling software, selling subscriptions or asking for donations) or you can get money from a third party – almost always by selling advertizing.

When you sell advertizing to pay the bills you work for the advertiser not for the site users, in newspapers and television large companies has been affecting the news and TV show content for years by buying (and threatening to stop buying) ads.

Most web sites are run by companies that need the money and don’t even pretend to have journalistic integrity rules – so when they have to choose between what’s best for their users and what’s best for their advertisers what do you think they’re going to choose?

Productivity Tip – Don’t Multitask

Nir Dobovizki — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 12:45:51 GMT

We all think we can do more than one thing at the same time – and we are wrong, we have just one brain and we can concentrate only on one thing at a time.

We can do multiple things at the same time – but not well, when we spread our attention between multiple things they all suffer.

Do one thing at a time and you’ll get more done – because it’s quicker to do two things one after the other then to do them in parallel, that is, if you have to do a good job, it’s quicker to do a really lousy job at two things in the same time.

You will also feel less stressed because trying to keep track of multiple things at the same time is difficult and stressful.

Just try it, you’ll be amazed what you can do when you can actually focus on one thing.

You Are Not Microsoft

Nir Dobovizki — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:34:18 GMT

I wanted to write this back in 2002 but I didn’t have a blog back then so the example in this post is a bit old – but the principle is still valid.

Obviously, if you do work at Microsoft you don’t have to read this post.

Microsoft release Windows XP with an activation mechanism, I think this was the first mass market product in years with a “phone home” anti piracy system – and most of the time it works flawlessly and when it didn’t you can always call a local phone number and get someone that speaks your language who can give you an unlock code.

And obviously, a lot of other software companies released their next software with an activation system, after all if Microsoft did it then why not us?

And less obviously, a lot of those activation systems didn’t work so well (because they didn’t have Microsoft’s budget to invest in testing) and if they malfunctioned on a weekend, during an holiday or for someone that doesn’t speak English there was no one to call (because they didn’t have Microsoft’s 24/7 call centers with people speaking virtually every language in the world).

So, whenever you think you can do something because Microsoft (or any other large company) successfully did it remember – you are not Microsoft, you do not have their budget, you do not have their resources and you do not have their supporting infrastructure.

yaTimer 2.3 Released

Nir Dobovizki — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:09:55 GMT

I’ve just uploaded yaTimer 2.3 to the web site, you can download the new version here or upgrade (for free) from any older version here.

This is a small release with only user interface improvements (I’ll post the complete change log soon) it doesn’t include any of the big exciting features I’ve been working on.

With this version I also completely redesigned the yaTimer home page, I’d love to know what you think about it (as usual you can reach me by leaving a comment on the blog, using the contact form or sending a message to the support e-mail address).

Productivity Tip – There is no one size fits all

Nir Dobovizki — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 15:39:21 GMT

There are a lot of productivity tips out there, some of them contradictory, try to follow them all and you’ll waste so much time arranging, prioritizing, filing and tracking that you won’t have any time left to work.

We are all different, our jobs are different and our psychology is different, so it should be a surprise that we have different whys to be more productive.

Whenever you read productivity advice (including on this blog), you should read it critically, you should ask yourself “how does this make me more productive?”, you should think about the problem the method you are reading about is trying to solve and see if you need to solve this problem and if this solution causes any other problems for you.

Don’t be afraid to experiment, try something for a week or a month to see if it works for you – and don’t be afraid to throw out a productivity methodology that doesn’t work for you.

There’s no one size fits all and only you can choose what’s right for you.

3 differences between 'Small Business' and 'Enterprise'

Nir Dobovizki — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 14:09:37 GMT

3 differences between 'Small Business' and 'Enterprise' on the SecretGeek blog

Post to Twitter

Nir Dobovizki — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:03:55 GMT

I’ve just added a small feature to this blog, every post now has a “Post to Twitter” link at the bottom (near the date and the comment count).

Now every twitter user can tell everyone about any post in this blog with just one mouse click.

This feature was inspired by How to Use Twitter as a Twool by Guy Kawasaki , currently those links are available only on the web-site and not in the RSS feed.

yaTimer 2.3 Release Date

Nir Dobovizki — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:18:13 GMT

I said yaTimer will be released sometime in November and yet today is December 1st and yaTimer 2.3 is still not released.

yaTimer 2.3 is ready but I decided to delay the release another week, just to let me test it better and finish updating the web site for the next version.

If you can’t wait until then send me an e-mail or use the contact form and I’ll send you a link to download the new version.