Wie wordt niet dagelijks overspoeld door allerlei soorten informatie. Hoe kunt u er nu voor zorgen dat u overzicht houdt en voorkomt dat u gaat lijden aan informatiestress? De kunst is de informatie op te sporen, te organiseren, te filteren en te delen. Dat is waar lifehacking over gaat, over meer doen, in minder tijd op een leukere en slimmere manier. Tijd overhouden om te creëren en u te richten op zaken die u echt belangrijk vindt. Lifehacking wordt daarbij geïnspireerd door het boek ‘Getting Things Done’ van David Allen. Een handige en complete manier om prettig en efficiënt te werken zonder stress.

Voor wie is dit boek bedoeld? Voor iedereen die in zijn werk gebruik maakt van een computer, maar geen idee heeft hoe je met een kleine inspanning een hoop dagelijkse taken veel makkelijker voor elkaar krijgt. Voor iedereen die veel op het web werkt, maar nog nooit van RSS gehoord heeft. En voor mensen die de schoonheid van een slimme vondst kunnen waarderen, en er hun voordeel mee doen.

Op lifehacking.nl schrijft een team lifehackers over deze vondsten, en dragen de lezers bij in onze zoektocht naar slimme hacks in deze wereld.

Om het jullie makkelijk te maken, volgen hier een aantal antwoorden.

Ja, dit is de intro van het nieuwste boek over lifehacking:
150 Lifehackingtips, om slimmer en efficiënter te werken

Ja, het is de update van het vorige boek 100 Lifehackingtips, om prettiger en efficiënter te werken (nog steeds gratis te downloaden)

Ja, Bert Verdonck heeft ook een lifehack in dit boek geschreven.

Ja, Bert schrijft af en toe ook op lifehacking.nl

Ja, je kan het boek “150 Lifehackingtips” ook bij mij bestellen.

Ja, het staat op #1 bij managementboek.nl

Ja, je krijgt dit boek in april 2010 GRATIS bij bestelling van een of meer boeken uit een speciale actie met Van Duuren Management. Meer informatie over deze speciale actie vindt je hier.

A very daring and interesting question! With the help of an eye-tracker, Text 2.0 follows your progress and presents effects just in time.
This means that while reading, music starts to play, new images and animations appear while approaching keywords or elements in your text.

What else can Text 2.0 do?

• Translations appear when you need them.
• Words are explained on the fly (intelligent footnotes).
• Compound words are automatically divided.
• If you are lost, a red arrow guides you back to where you left off.
• You can even ask for the pronunciation of words in your text. How cool is that?

As most of you know, I a big fan of speedreading. So, I kept the best for last :

Imagine Text 2.0 would know when you are skimming through a text and it would fade out irrelevant information to streamline your reading. What would that do to you?

Yes, I am a fan already. I can’t wait to start test-driving Text 2.0 myself! Think about where I’ll be going next time I’m in Kaiserslautern?

Have a look at this YouTube movie yourself and let me know what you think?

Where does this come from?

Ralf Biedert, Georg Buscher, Andreas Dengel and DFKI, the German Center for Artificial Intelligence

Contact Ralf directly if you need more info. Downloading a Text 2.0 paper could help too…

Oh, one more thing, Do you want to know why it is called “Text 2.0” and not “Reading 2.0“? Read it at the FAQ of the Text 2.0 website.

You can write your book in 100 days!

With the right mindset, motivation, guidance and determination to succeed, you will write an excellent book that will help you achieve your goals. “Your Book in 100 Days” is a practical and friendly book and it shows you how to tap into the power of your mind and bring your best ideas to life. You will write your book in much less time than average first-time authors take, and you will have more fun doing it! You will discover the answers to the big questions, such as

• What is your dream, for your life as well as your book?
• Who will benefit most from reading your book?
• How can you structure the book in the best way for your reader?

Follow the advice of two authors who have helped hundreds of people create their books and see your book come to life in just 100 days!

About 1.5 years ago, I wrote a blog on how to publish a book in 1 month (in Dutch, on Lifehacking.nl). When I met Mindy at a Blackstar event (Ecademy), we talked about the possibilities on setting up a partnership by writing a book together. As a bookmidwife, Mindy specializes in delivering people’s books. For me as a lifehacker and life coach,  I am helping people to get clarity on what it is they want to achieve in life (and whether a book fits into that ). On top of that, I suggest different tools and exercises to actually achieve these dreams in less time. So, it was a natural fit for the two of us to create this book. After all, we are two coaches who both believe passionately that if people want to do things in life, they should find a way to do them and they can do them quickly and easily. Did you know that 83% of people interviewed said they dreamed of writing their own book? The problem is that most people never even start, much less finish their book…

So, if you have “a book” in you, it is time to think about how you’d start writing it. Buy this book now at Amazon, Ecademy Press or directly through us and start reading first. Have fun with the exercises and create your own book. We want to hear you shout when your book is in print and we want you to see you reaping all the benefits that a good book can give you!

In order to help you find stuff quicker, I am sharing a number of Twitter Search Tips with you. How does it work?
You first go to http://search.twitter.com. Of course, if you just want to use the regular search, you can type in your keywords and find anything right-away! Now, it becomes even more interesting if you would use the advanced search. Here is an overview if you want to use advanced search operators:

Operator	Finds tweets…
Genius Shortcut	containing both “Genius” and “Shortcut”. This is the default operator.
“happy hour“	containing the exact phrase “happy hour”.
black OR white	containing either “black” or “white” (or both).
Belgian -beer	containing “Belgian” but not “beer”.
#ff	containing the hashtag “ff” (followfriday, interesting people to follow as indicated by others).
from:bertverdonck	sent from person “bertverdonck”.
to:bertverdonck	sent to person “bertverdonck”.
@bertverdonck	referencing person “bertverdonck”.
“happy hour” near:“London”	containing the exact phrase “happy hour” and sent near “London”.
near:London within:15mi	sent within 15 miles of “London”.
lifehack since:2010-03-26	containing “lifehack” and sent since date “2010-03-26″ (year-month-day).
lifehack until:2010-03-26	containing “lifehack” and sent up to date “2010-03-26″.
movie -twilight	containing “movie”, but not “twilight”, and with a positive attitude.
movie	containing “movie” and with a negative attitude.
fun ?	containing “fun” and asking a question.
fun filter:links	containing “fun” and linking to URLs.
news source:twitterfeed	containing “news” and entered via TwitterFeed

Additional easy Twitter Search Tips:

1. Click on the Advanced Search link and save yourself from typing the operators!
2. If you want to search in a different language, use the language switch in the advanced search : “Written in:” and choose your language in the dropdownbox.
3. If you specifically want to search for retweets or you don’t mind that retweets are shown in the search results, then check the box: Include Retweets.

If you want extra Twitter Search Tips, you know where to find me

Then PocketMod is probably for you!

What is the PocketMod? It is a small book with guides on each page in which you arrange stuff. You combine several templates with a unique folding style, enabling a normal piece of paper to become your ultimate Personal Organizer.

3 Easy steps to create your own PocketMod:

1. Select a page widget from the list (calendars, notes, formulas, contacts, blanks…)
2. Customize each widget and drag it to the right page.
3. Print your PocketMod and fold it according to this style:

If you need more visual aid on how to do it, here is a YouTube video for you:

Slideshare is basically a website where you can upload and share all your Powerpoint presentations. Also pdf files and Word documents. Besides sharing your content and your message with the world you can also keep them private or share them with your innercircle only.

Why should you use it? Well, you can learn a lot from the newly updated presentations. On top of that, I sometimes use it for sharing my slides after a speech or event. People find it easy to go over them again or even download them.

By uploading your documents you will improve your visibility to a bigger audience. If people are researching your topic, they might find it on Slideshare. And did I mention it’s free?

Another benefit is your improved Google rankings. Thanks to Slideshare your presentations will be positioned high(er) in the search results. You only need to define your keywords well…Many people spend fortunes on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and with Slideshare you can profit from their rankings for free. They take your presentation to a new level on Google.

Oh, did I tell you about LinkedIn? You can integrate your presentations through Slideshare into your LinkedIn profile. Have a look at my LinkedIn profile to see an example. It improves your profile and you are sharing some added value to people who might be looking for you…

Next on my list is the possibility to create slidecasts. What’s that? It’s merging one of your presentations with a Podcast. So, you actually create a new document with integrated sound. Very nice to explain to people what they are seeing…

Finally, you can also follow others or be followed (like Twitter) on Slideshare. Very interesting if you want to be on top of things. Follow your favourite topics and people on Slideshare as well. Who knows, you might build a following yourself too!

And to really wrap it up, I am showing you how you can perfectly integrate your Slideshare presentation in your blog.

It’s wintertime. Fun with snow and ice. Yeah! Unless you need to use your car and it is covered in ice and/or snow. Ice scraping!

Of course, when you don’t need stuff, you give it away or sell it or place it somewhere else. I have placed my ice scraper so well, that I don’t recall where it is. Yes, very handy in these winter conditions.

So, I came up with a Genius Shortcut for this situation. What happens if you don’t have an ice scraper? I took out an old cd, which happens to be one of my Windows 95 licenses. I don’t use it anymore, so I started to use it as an ice scraper. I must confess, it worked perfectly well! Of course, I used it upside down, so if it gets scratched, it’s only on the printed side, but it didn’t.

The cd (and you can use any (old) cd or dvd) is still usable if I want to. On top of that, I invented a new word : the ICD Scraper (eye-sea-dee scraper), it’s simply a cd that is being used as an ice scraper.

So, enjoy ice scraping next time with an ICD Scraper instead

image source : http://ow.ly/SA90

- Carl Honoré -

I agree with him we are living in a world of speed. Also with my Genius Shortcuts and lifehacking fun I am speeding up activities, skills and results. This is what most people are looking for, besides a meaning in life, but that’s a different story So, yes, I like speed. Why? Because it creates more time to have fun. More time to relax. If a boring activity takes me 4 hours, why would I be bored for 4 hours? What if I can do it in 1 hour with maintaining the quality of the results? I have 3 hours to slow down or do something else what is important to me. What’s the point in being frustrated for another 3 hours? None!

This also means that I certainly see the value of slowing down. With my focus on simplicity, finding the Genius Shortcuts and improving the fun we have, I know I am speeding up most of  (all?) the time. And I like it, because it brings so much joy and fulfillment. And did I mention the extra time? Right, to do whatever we like with it…This means slowing down tremendously! So, indeed, Carl is right when he talks about the impact of speed. He sees it from the pressure people are putting themselves under to get more and more. The difference is that most people never take time to slow down! Indeed not the right way to go…

Carl also talks about slowing down because of the impact on others and on our own body and mind. When he speedreads a bed-time story to his kids, even skipping a couple of paragraphs, we all agree that the most relaxing part of the day for his kids is hurried up by him. They know the stories inside out and question him about certain details in these stories, like “What happened to Grumpy?” If you only talk about 3 instead of 7 dwarfs in Snow White

You can see how this became a wake-up call for him. And again, he was rushing too much instead of slowing down and take time for this  intimate and tender moment with his kids. So, he decided to change all that. He went on a business trip soon afterward. During that flight the first thing he did was doing nothing. Just sitting there and do nothing. Thinking about it, “wasting” time to reflect. By the time he got of that plane, he decided to take action and do something about it. He came up with 2 questions :

1. How do we get so fast?

2. Is it possible or desirable to slow down?

I’d answer the first question with my Genius Shortcuts.  Finding simple tricks that speed up the process and get the results faster. This means you can choose what to do with that extra time you’ve created. My choice is easy : more fun, more time to slow down and enjoy life. And that answers his second question. For me it is desirable to slow down. In fact it is a prerequisite to enjoy more!

By slowing down at the right moments we eat better, get healthier,  have more fun, are more relaxed and we get things better done. We work better and get better results, in fact a better life. How surprisingly

You see how Carl and I are on the same wavelength here. To give you an even better perspective, have a look at his inspirational talk at TED. Enjoy it and take some time out to watch it fully!

After watching this, what action(s) are you going to take to slow down? Let us know… and take your time

1. Help Your Garden Grow: Bananas are naturally high in potassium and encourages plant growth. Use banana peel or puree entire banana and bury with soil.
2. Shoe Polish: Use the peel to make your kicks nice and shiny.
3. Stop the Itch: Rub the inside of a banana peel on a bug bite helps itch relief.
4. Pain Reliever: The oil in a banana peel will help relieve the pain from (sun)burns and scratches.
5. Wart Removal: Tape a piece of banana peel on a wart, continue until it’s gone.
6. Make Houseplants Gleam: Just like peels can shine shoes, they can also be used to make the leaves of plants shine.
7. Removing Splinters: Similar to wart removal, tape a piece of the peel over the splinter. The enzymes will help dislodge the splinter and heal the wound.

Of course, I did some extra research and found a couple of extra Genius Shortcuts for reusing bananas:

8. Tender Chicken: Bake skinless chicken breast with a banana peel over the top. It replaces the skin and keep your chicken more tender.
9. Teeth Whitener: Rub your teeth with a banana peel for 2 minutes daily.
10. Face mask: Mash up a banana and put it as a mask on your face for 20 minutes. Works even better with yogurt and honey added.

So, now you know everything you need to Go Bananas!

Sources:  re-nest, curbly

Most people rush of to a supermarket or other shop to buy a corkscrew. The good news is, you don’t actually need one!

Have a look at this YouTube clip on how to open a bottle of wine without a corkscrew : with a shoe!

Of course, most shoes will do for this lifehack. Barefoot? Ok, take some clothes instead and create a similar buffer between the bottle and the wall.

Oh, by the way, this Genius Shortcut also works if you are having a picknick in the woods. Just slam the bottle against a tree with a decent bark. Be careful not to break the bottle

And yes, I know, you wouldn’t do this with a Château Pétrus. And of course, this Genius Shortcut is in no way intended to inspire you to drink more than what is good for you. Or to put in the words of JumboJoke.com : The consumption of alcohol may cause you to think you can sing or may lead you to think people are laughing with you.

Cheers! A votre santé! Schol! Jambo! Salud! Prost! Kampai!

(via BoingBoing)