Ok, let’s lifehack a famous TV-series…
Why not The Sopranos? Yes, why not? So somebody did…
Have fun with the result 
Of course, you can still view the 7 seasons and enjoy for 77 hours instead of just these 7 minutes
And tell your friends about this too…
Enjoy every day,
Bert Verdonck
Lifehacker
No Comments » | 
Fun | Tagged: 7 minutes, HBO, lifehack, The Sopranos | 
Permalink
Posted by bertverdonck
Vandaag naar de nieuwste Lifehacking Academy in Maarssen geweest. In één woord : FANTASTISCH!
Het is een evenement voor professionals die meer tijd over willen houden voor de dingen die er echt toe doen! Zoals bijvoorbeeld manieren om slimmer samen te werken of om efficiënter te communiceren met Social Media. Uiteraard kon David Allen’s GTD niet ontbreken (meer hier over binnenkort!) en was het Tools en Gadget Hour bijzonder geslaagd!
Ook Taco’s Fingertips heeft me geboeid, binnenkort een aparte blog hierover…
Martijn, Anja, Frank en alle anderen hebben er opnieuw een mooi professioneel event van gemaakt. Ik ben er bij de volgende opnieuw bij! Jij ook?
Enjoy every day,
Bert Verdonck
Lifehacker
No Comments » | 
About Bert, lifehacking | Tagged: GTD, lifehack, Lifehacking Academy | 
Permalink
Posted by bertverdonck
Some entrepreneurs have created a management limited company. They are using this company to invoice their management fee(s) to their operational company (or companies). Especially with several partners in the business, it is a very interesting construction, because everyone invoices their management fee and spends it as they wish through their management company. Even if they agree on the same management fee, some partners will spend more on cars, while others spend more on remuneration, art or literature, etc. It is also very handy if you want to sell one of your operational companies to investors or go public with it.
Why? All your “personal” preferences (and goodies like your car, phone, remuneration, pension fund, second car, real estate, …) are kept private to yourself (not part of the operational company). On top of that, you don’t have the hassle of changing everything when you actually decide to sell and investors start to ask difficult questions like why you are spending so much on your car, etc. You are free to do whatever you like with your management fee! If you haven’t setup your own management company yet, talk to your accountant about it. Annual cost of a management company starts at a very low price…
Now, when I created my own management company, I was thinking about how to make things even a little bit easier for myself. So, I decided to give my management company my name. This facilitates me in exercising my role as a director in companies I invest in (through my management company), because as a representative for my management company, I can sign just with my name, while other have to sign with their name AND the name of their management company. Technically, I have to do the same, but no one writes his name twice under his signature, right?
What else is very handy? If I have expenses that are part of a bigger group, like a training or a seminar with several people, it often is enough for our (Belgian) tax government if my name and my VAT number are on the bill (or invoice). Several friends had their bill rejected, because they operate under a different name (i.e. the name of their management company is different, so the government doesn’t accept it if only your name and not the company’s name is mentioned on the bill or invoice!).
Of course, I have a couple of extra tips, so contact me if you want to learn about them.
Enjoy every day,
Bert Verdonck
Lifehacker
No Comments » | 
About Bert, lifehacking | Tagged: lifehack, management company, same name | 
Permalink
Posted by bertverdonck
Looking for ways to save money? Are you also spending more than you receive? Interested in shortcuts to reduce the spending, without lowering the quality of goods or services?
Then these simple lifehacks are suitable for you!
If you apply these tricks, you can go on an extra citytrip or holiday by the savings you’ve made
Any trics you apply for saving money? I invite you to share them…
Enjoy every day,
Bert Verdonck
Lifehacker
No Comments » | Free stuff, lifehacking | Tagged: lifehack, save money, shortcuts | Permalink
Posted by bertverdonck
Do you also get a lot of people asking you the same questions over and over again? Can you explain me that “techie thingie” once more? How does this stuff work? It all seems so simple, but I don’t have a clue on how to get started. Please explain! Can you give me some examples too?
Do you recognize this? Of course, we all want to help people anytime and everytime, but it sometimes takes a lot of time to suit everybody! So, why do it all yourself? Sure, you can setup your own FAQ, site or blog, but chances are that you attract more people asking similar questions and more work…
I don’t mind helping them out, so I came up with a little lifehack to help all those people out: Redirect them to other people’s website where they explain things. Several websites have exquisite content I could only dream of. They are specializing in explaining things to people. A great website is How Stuff works, where they learn you how everything works! Also Wikipedia, if you are looking for an encyclopedia, is a great source to start. And did you know that by using Google, you can just type “define: ” followed by the term you want a definition of? (e.g. define: rss).
Now, I am taking it a step further, because some people still want more explanation. Ever heard of Common Craft? They make complex ideas easy to understand using short and simple videos. Here is an example where they explain RSS in plain English:
Enjoy every day,
Bert Verdonck
Lifehacker
1 Comment | Free stuff, lifehacking | Tagged: Common Craft, Google, lifehack, Wikipedia | Permalink
Posted by bertverdonck
Do you also have to deal with loads of email? Do you need to answer different questions all the time? Do you wish to save time significantly writing emails? Then this lifehack is for you!
This lifehack works exceptionally well if you have patterns in your emails. What is a pattern? A pattern can be any type of question that returns to you on a regular basis, a piece of text that stays the same or a subject that you write about repeatedly. I advise you to go through your last 30 emails and look for patterns in your emails.
Here are some examples of some of my patterns:
*My address : Bert Verdonck, Oude Terelststraat 60, 2650 Edegem, Antwerp, Belgium. Do you really think I feel like typing this over and over again? No!
*My footer : indeed I use different footers, depending on who is getting the mail.
*My definition of lifehacking : when people ask me what lifehacking stands for or what my personal view is, I’ll give them my definition.
*A meeting place : I use more often the same meeting places in different cities, so I’ve prepared those to be instantly included in my emails.
*My 10 tips on how to start living as a lifehacker : I never retype those anymore…
Ok, these simple examples show you already that you can save time everytime you are including these in one of your emails. I use a handy tool, called Texter (PC) to automatically replace them in any text or application on my computer. So, it not only works in Word or emails, also in my browers, virtually anywhere. For Mac there is an alternative : Text Expander
How does it work? You encode your standard piece of text and give it a code. An example is adr + Tab(key). When I type this sequence, it replaces adr automatically with my address as shown above.
Every week I save about 100,000 characters! Assuming that you can type a 100 characters per minute, you can do the math on how much time I am saving…
Having explained that, what your next steps are:
*Download Texter (PC) or Text Expander on Mac
*Install it
*Run it
*Add chuncks of text and create shortcuts for each
*Write some emails, using the shortcuts
If you have a lot of emails to handle in a personalized way, you can still use a lot of these standard text chunks and focus more on the intro and on the outro by adding personal stuff. The receiver of the email will appreciate you more, because you took some time to write a great answer to his request.
Enjoy every day,
Bert Verdonck
Lifehacker
No Comments » | Free stuff, lifehacking | Tagged: lifehack, texter, custom email, auto replace | Permalink
Posted by bertverdonck
A picture tells more than a thousand words, especially when we talk about damages, insurance cases, expert files, accidents, etc. It would be wise to always have a digital camera at hand or a mobile phone with a built-in camera works just fine too. So, upon arriving at the scene, you can take pictures and use them later on for your case, even if you have to go to court. Unfortunately, those pictures do not have legal value and are not effective against third parties. You can also easily change details and “Photoshop” them to alter the content…
You can solve this very easily with the following lifehack : Shoot & Proof, a system that provides a service to create certified pictures, which are timestamped, georeferenced and send to a secure server. They are archived for 3 years and are only accessible to you. Every picture is authentic, reliable and has legal value.
The possibilities are enormous for:
Shoot & Proof provides the ideal combination of the digital photos’ speed and the reliability of authentic pictures. When you can proof without any doubt that where, when and by who this picture is taken, there is no more room for disputes about the pictures.
At their website you can try 5 photos for free!
Enjoy every day,
Bert Verdonck
Lifehacker
No Comments » | lifehacking | Tagged: lifehack, proof, certified pictures, shoot | Permalink
Posted by bertverdonck
Just a quick update:
And how was your second half of August? Are you in shape for september? 
Enjoy every day,
Bert Verdonck
Lifehacker & life coach
Create, Connect & Contribute
No Comments » | About Bert, General, events | Tagged: create, XL, lifehack, Bert Verdonck, in shape for september, update, Ecademy, book, holidays | Permalink
Posted by bertverdonck
Do you also come across long URLs, which are impossible to remember? Or a friend who shares a brilliant application with a url you can’t recall? What about subdomains with a long path to a certain document?
Exactly, there is a simple lifehack to solve this : TinyURL
3 Easy steps :
That’s it! Simple, fast and free
Enjoy every day,
Bert Verdonck
Lifehacker
No Comments » | Free stuff, lifehacking | Tagged: lifehack, long URL, shor URL, TinyURL | Permalink
Posted by bertverdonck
Are you also having a long todolist? Too many things at the same time? Or do you often come across an interesting book that’s been recommended by friends, but you forget to buy it? What was that title again of that fabulous book? Oops! Or are you just looking for a very simple todolist? And you want to share it (or not)?
Ta-da Lists is probably a great lifehack to solve all this…
Next to creating great lists in a simple way, Ta-da lists lets you share it with the world or with just a couple of friends or colleagues. Of course, you can easily update your list or create a new one for another topic.
How? Just visit Ta-da lists and create an account in 10 seconds. Name your first list. Add items to it. Want to share it? Just click on share. Decide if you want to invite friends and paste their email and custom message or just share it with the world. Hello World
Alright then, have a look at my book wishlist to see a real life example. If you ever want to buy me a book, look here to get ideas And you can subscribe to RSS, just in case…
Enjoy every day,
Bert Verdonck
Lifehacker
PS : Thanks to Martijn Aslander for sharing this lifehack
No Comments » | About Bert, Free stuff, lifehacking | Tagged: book whishlist, lifehack, share, ta-da lists, todolist | Permalink
Posted by bertverdonck
