Tag: Gsd Tips

Prioritize Your Tasks Using General Eisenhower’s Matrix with Trello

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

Some things in your working life are urgent. Some are important. Some are both urgent and important. And some are neither. The trouble is, it’s easy to get caught up with the busy-ness of each work day and not ‘zoom out’ to see the bigger picture, even if you’re using a task management tool like Trello.

That’s why General Eisenhower came up with a now-famous matrix to prioritize his actions, noting that those that are important — but not urgent — tend to get overlooked.


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Internet went down? Work on Your Google Docs Offline!

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

Before your internet connection goes down, implement this tip so you can use Google Docs offline.

Note: you need to use the Chrome browser for this to work.

At the Google Docs homepage, click on the Menu icon.

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Use PomBot for Slack to Co-ordinate Short Sprints with Your Remote Colleagues

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

Image Source: Michael Mayer on Flickr

The Pomodoro Technique is widely regarded as one of the most effective ways to organize your time and get shift done.

In its simplest formulation, the Pomodoro Technique goes something like this:

  1. Decide what you need to do.
  2. Set a timer for 25 minutes.
  3. Work on your task until the timer goes off.
  4. Take a five minute break, and then start again.
  5. Every four ‘pomodoros’ take a longer break.
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Blog Faster With These Keyboard Shortcuts for the WordPress Visual Editor

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

As user-friendly as WordPress can be, there are ways to blog faster using keyboard shortcuts. These shortcuts enable you to access often-used formatting options and more. Memorize them and you’ll cut precious time off your content creation schedule.

Accessing the Keyboard Shortcuts

To get to the keyboard shortcuts within WordPress, click the question mark at the bottom-right of the editing bar:


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How (and Why) to Save Content for Later in Google Docs

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

Often, we need to use the same photo or block of text for multiple Google Docs. No matter what kind of writing we do, we regularly repeat graphic elements, such as a company logo or or oft-cited trend chart. Here’s a time-saving tip: You can make copying and pasting multiple items an easy task with Google Docs’ own Web Clipboard.

In the example below, we are writing a research piece in Google Docs about the monkeys of Nepal. We want to to copy and paste two photos and a snippet of text that talks about the Money Temple in Kathmandu, and we know we will need them for another article about the Monkeys of Asia.


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How to Use Trello’s Powerful Search to Find Just About Anything

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

Trello is such a powerful way to keep your projects organized, but it can also get a little unwieldy. With Trello’s powerful search features and operators you can quickly find boards and cards, see what’s assigned to you (and others) and even get a quick glance at what’s due, when.

Using Search to Find a Board or Card

That little search box at the top of your Trello window is a powerful thing. Start by clicking in the search box.


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Backup Document Images Automatically from Your Phone to your Dropbox

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

Taking photos of receipts, business cards and documents with your phone can be a great way to make a digital copy without running to a scanner. If you want to make sure that your digital copies are safe however, backing up to Dropbox is a smart idea. Here’s how.

Open the Dropbox app on your phone and click on the Menu icon in the upper left side of the screen.


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Don’t Be a SP*Mmer: How To Upload Your Suppression List to MailChimp

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

If you’re just getting started with MailChimp, you probably have some email addresses that you shouldn’t send to any longer — those that have unsubscribed previously, bounced or reported your list as spam.

Due to the CAN-SPAM laws, you’ll want to make sure you get those off your subscriber list before you send another email out. The good news is, MailChimp has a way for you to add these addresses, quickly, to a suppression list that will essentially remove them from your list.

First, let’s prep the list. Add your email addresses to an Excel file as shown below. Next, we want to export this file as a CSV, so click on the File menu.

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Get More Productive With Evernote’s ‘Email Notes to’ Feature

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks

One of my favorite features of Evernote is the “Email Notes to” function which enables you to add things to your notebooks by sending them to a specific email address.

Note: this is a premium Evernote feature, though the free version does let you play with it in a limited way.

I use this feature to create new project work files that allow me to stay out of my inbox, where it’s easy to get distracted by other messages.

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This FreshBooks Feature Will Cut Your Invoicing Time In Half

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Get Shift Done: Tips and Tricks


Creating custom invoices in FreshBooks can be time-consuming, especially if you sell a wide range of products or services. Fortunately they have a built-in solution that can dramatically reduce the time you spend on future invoices with just a little up-front effort: presets for tasks and items.

Tasks and items (billed hourly and at a fixed price, respectively) are how FreshBooks categorizes line items on its invoices. Adding these manually every time is both time-consuming and irritating, but with presets you can bypass the hassle and get to the good part — getting paid.

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