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Ever had the feeling that the meetings you attend are a complete waste of time? No agenda, no organizer, just some incoherent emotional rambling about stuff that bothers you and the others. Well, check out these six ways to hold a tight meeting. Just as they do at Google HQ. # Set a firm agenda # Assign a note-taker # Carve out micro-meetings # Hold office hours # Discourage politics, use data # Stick to the clock For an indepth look at those six ways, check out this article from BusinessWeek.

[[image:172651123_798af692b8_m.jpg::left:0]] Today I received a very interesting link in my feedreader. The dutch PR Firm for Mindjet is giving away free copies of the excellent program Mindmanager for bloggers. If you like to brainstorm, think through processes and generaly get things of your mind, Mindmanager can be a wonderful tool for you. As they say for themself (translated from dutch):

The number of blogs, both personal and professional, are growing. The give a new way of knowledge sharing and information flows. Mindjet plays a big role in that area. For that reason we would like to support bloggers with their creativity and offer MindManager for free. With this software they can order their data in a better way and updating your blog becomes easier

I have already received my copy and will definitely write a showdown the coming weeks here on my blog. I think mindmapping is a very very powerful tool for your brain. Anyway, you could try to email them at blog@mindjet.nl and see if you can get a copy. Once again, I am not sure if this action is eligible outside The Netherlands. (picture courtesy of VaXzine @ Flickr.com)

From the Ready For Anything reading group I found this link to an old Fast Company interview with The Dave. Great stuff. With one very true and very beautiful quote

You can do anything — but not everything.

Print it on a tile, hang it on your monitor. Very true! 

In the fourth installment of Sunday Shortcuts (yes I know it’s monday…) I would like to put the spotlight on one of the best Firefox extensions I have seen. The Gmail Macros make it very very easy for you to manage your email in Gmail. The script is Firefox only and you will need the Greasemonkey Extension. If you don’t know what Greasemonkey is, check out this website which explains it in good detail. Ofcourse you will need a GMail account to work with the Gmail Macros (GM) GM gives your Gmail a shell like the Apple’s Quicksilver. You can select, move and delete mail with just your keyboard. Gmail comes with a predefined set of keyboard shortcuts but GM extends these. Especially the possibility to label email with your keyboard. How does it work? Well, really simple actually. When you have installed the script, go to Gmail. type “g” and you will see a display. Start typing the name of one of your labels and you will see it popup in the display and you go there automatically. [[image:gmail-macros.png::center:0]] In your Inbox you can move through your email with the letters “j” and “k”. With “x” you can select individual emails and with “e” you archive them. “t” Trashes the email. But type “l” (lowercase L) and you will see the display again. Type your label and the selected emails are labelled at once! Whoea! Neat! You can also use “s” to star a message and use “?” to bring up a window with all the shortcuts you can use in GM. [[image:gmail-key-commands-small.png::center:0]] Now, I have to say, the script can act a little shaky sometimes. For instance, the ?-key doesn’t work anymore for me and I don’t know why really. But then again, I use the label and goto shortcut most of the time. Also e and t for archive and trash are my favorites. Check out the Gmail Macros, for instance in conjunction with GTDGmail. With those two together, you sure can get a lot of stuff processed and organized. You still need to review and actually do the things yourself… While I was preparing this article I was thinking what other programs I use that have shortcuts and I use to work efficiently. But actually, there aren’t any left but one and that is Firefox. So I will cover the browser next week in the final and fifth episode of Sunday Shortcuts. Untill then, happy typing and remember it is not bad to sometimes leave things undone… Earlier editions Windows XP shortcuts Winamp shortcuts Outlook shortcuts

Do you use your mobile smartphone a lot for capturing ideas or checking tasks? Do you have Outlook as your primary GTD system? Than perhaps SmarterTasks might be an interesting option for you. I haven’t had the chance to try it out myself but the screenshots and key features look promising [[image:screenshots-anim.gif::center:0]] # Designed for GTD methodology # Fast switching between contexts and projects # Edit contexts and projects directly on your Smartphone # Supports landscape and portrait # Quick entry bar for fast entry of new tasks # SmartText insertion for frequently used phrases # SmartActions to automate dialing You can try it for 30 days and afterwards purchase it for $14,95. If anyone has some experience with this mobile app, please let me know!

“Where are the sunday shortcuts?”, “Where are the new articles?” All valid questions…but I had something far far far more important to do the last couple of weeks. And the coming years. Me and my girlfriend Helie are very happy with our new daughter Tess. Her full name is Tess Moana Meeuwsen. Her middle name Moana is the Maori word for “ocean” or as they say “big blue surface”. We have a weakness for New Zealand and the colour of the ocean back there so that’s why we named here Moana. We also made a website for her. Ofcourse it’s a weblog. It’s all in dutch, but you can check out some of the photos we made of Tess and our new happy family. Right now, Tess is sleeping so I have some time for my own work and check some stuff online. I have 10 days off so plenty of time to get used to my new life as a loving father. I am very pleased to already see some of the GTD principles coming back in the way I take care of Tess. We write stuff down very quick so we don’t forget new diapers, or mailing some government-issue about the birth. Also, I keep a notebook (yes, a Moleskine) to write little stuff down we learn while raising and caring Tess. I hope I find the will and the time to keep this up and bring on some of the thoughts and principles of GTD to little Tess. Makes a well-cleaned house I hope :-)