Joshua Guffey

Posts Tagged ‘Productivity’

If you attempted to use Google Wave when it came out last year, it’s likely that you met with the same fate as I did.  Honestly, I tried it for a bit, found (at least at first) that NO ONE was on the service, and discovered that, worst of all, there were no notifications of any kind when ‘waves’ were updated.  (They also don’t have a practical version for iPhone yet, but I won’t go into that.)  So I dropped it.

Well yesterday Google announced that they have created the option for email alerts when waves are updated.  It’s a bit tricky to find the option to turn it on.  You’ve got to push the arrow to the right of your Wave inbox tab to view the option.

Google hasn’t gotten it perfect yet, as you can see from their psuedo-disclaimer below.  Still, this is a huge leap forward with a feature that, in retrospect, should have been shipped out-of-box for a service that has positioned itself as a tremendous advance in online collaboration.

How do you use Google Wave?

Have you ever tried to complete a project for yourself or a client without a clear sense of where you were headed?

Of course you have.  And I’m willing to bet that nine times out of ten the results were less than stellar.

In my work as a massage therapist, I discovered that if I really wanted to help someone feel better, I had to listen on many levels.  It became vitally important to really grok their intended outcome, often when they hadn’t articulated it yet themselves.  This usually meant pressing on with a line of conversation when the client wasn’t quite sure “where I was going with this”.   It all makes sense in the end.

Sometimes it was somewhat awkward and sometimes the client would rather that I got the session started sooner rather than later.  But with very few exceptions, pressing on just another moment or two, asking that extra question or being capable of being present with the awkwardness of it all, allowed me to ‘get it’ and consequently, to be able to give them exactly the session they needed.

In the end, it was always worth it.  Clients walked away happy, having gotten what they came for, and I had a renewed sense of accomplishment and confidence in my abilities.

Take the time to really grok the outcome.  It’s always worth it in the end.

You know that person that invites you to every app they find on Facebook?  You think you must be their bff on Facebook, right?

How’d you like to just go ahead and block all of their application invites at once?  …I thought so.  Here’s how:

Go to:
http://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=privacy&section=applications&field=ignored_invites

…and start blocking!

This doesn’t block them as friends, only their midnight adventures in Farmville, Best Friend Quiz and whatever else they decide you should be playing.   Ugh!   =P

How do you decide where to go next?  What do you do when you get stuck?

I’d like to write. Daily. But I find that I often blow it up in my mind to a big deal.  One I don’t feel so equipped to handle.  I worry about the type of content, my spelling, what I’ll say.  I wonder if my thoughts fit the direction I’m headed and if I should share them.

As I look at these thought processes, it’s more like I’m hearing someone else describe their trouble writing.  And I move into support role–I think “don’t bother yourself so much with all of those thoughts about what to write.  Just sit down with only one window open and start typing.  The words will come.  And don’t be bashful about sharing your thoughts.  If people don’t like it they won’t read it.  What’s to lose? Ultimately you will define your thoughts more clearly and perhaps find your niche in the process.  And if not, so be it.  At least you are writing.  You are a success as long as you are writing.”

These thoughts help me to feel better about sitting down with the laptop and typing away.

What do you think about writing?  And being stuck?

Ever wonder about RSS feeds?  You hear about them all over the net, but what are they?

This may not be news to all of you, but since a many of my readers are unfamiliar with RSS feeds (what they are and how they actually can be of benefit), I thought that I would share this 1 minute video by Google that explains it a bit.  It’s actually fun to watch ‘cuz Google knows we like that stuff.  =P

Get going with Google Reader at www.google.com/reader

(Incidentally, here’s a link to subscribe to my posts via Google Reader or via any reader)