I recently went on a trip to San Diego. My wonderful girlfriend was a speaker at a law of attraction cruise ship seminar and I went to help sell her new book “Already Rich“.

When I travel I use almost the same setup as when I’m home. This greatly helps in getting things done while on the road.

I use my laptop primarily, I’m currently on Windows but eyeing a Mac. I love web applications as I can share data with people and the data isn’t even on my computer. So on this trip and everyday I use Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Reader. I also did some work while in San Diego and I use Freshbooks to track time and invoices. I got some new clients while on the trip and used Highrise to record them in my contact management system. I store my passwords securely in keepass. I use JungleDisk to keep some of the files I need but won’t fit on my computers harddrive. Plus I use Mozy to create backups of what is on my computer. I use Skype to receive calls and to call out. Works anywhere that I can get on the Internet. Makes life easy. I forward Skype to my mobile if I’m traveling. I set it to forward after 10 seconds. Then on my mobile I have Google Voice handling the voice mail and it sends me a text message of the voice mail translation.

Now getting wifi while traveling can be interesting. Some people have a mobile phone hookup to their computer to get online. I always find wifi, free wifi is Wefi. It maps the nearest places to you of known wifi. Pretty handy.

If you are like me and have a big iTunes library of music you have to put it on an external hard drive as it won’t fit on your laptop’s hard drive. If you use Hamachi and a home computer you can still have your home network drive that has your music on it show up on your laptop while traveling. You can use iTunes just like at home, however syching your iPod can take several hours instead of a couple of minutes. If I’m traveling for longer than a week or two I set this up otherwise I just go with my iPod nano and wait to synch it when I get home.

P.S. See my personal post about my trip.

I really do hate voice mail. Someone calls you while you’re on the phone or bathroom (hint, don’t answer the phone while in the bathroom, it’s disgusting) and they leave a voice mail. Now I have to call my voice mail and listen to a way too long recording and then they don’t leave their phone number.

It’s enough to make me not want to check voice mail and just call the number back and ask what they wanted. It’s quicker.

Well, now I’m liking voice mail again because of Google Voice. Google Voice can take over your mobile phone voice mail system which is an increadible good thing because it will transcribe the voice mail and send it to you via email and/or text message to your phone. I love being productive and this GTD (Getting Things Done) productivity tip has saved me a lot of time.

This has been helpful when people just leave me a message informing of status and don’t need a return call. I can see it on my email and delete the message 5 seconds later. This saves a lot of time and it’s so convientant.

I love voice mail now and don’t mind if people go to voice mail and leave a message anymore. It saves me a ton of time.

Google Voice is free. You can get a Google Voice phone number and/or just have it take over your mobile phone voice mail system. Check it out.

I just moved to Austin Texas.  I’ve moved a lot and the stress of moving used to be almost to much for me.  I hated the actual moving.  I loved the new place feeling and getting rid of old stuff I didn’t need anymore.

Having said that this move was the most stress one I’ve had.  I’ll explain how I will change that next time.

1.  Get rid of the old stuff.  Get rid of the items you don’t use.  If it’s in a box from your last move you don’t use it and should get rid of it.  There are a few things I will never get rid of like photos but that’s about it for me.

I used Craigslist.org to list free stuff and sold the good stuff I didn’t need anymore.  Here is the free stuff ad I used on Craigslist.

We are cleaning out our garage today only (Saturday January 31st) and we want to get rid of some of this stuff quick quick, kinda like a garage sale but it’s free. We are moving Monday so we are getting rid of a lot of stuff. Everything next to the road is free. We also have some other items on Craiglist that are for sale so ask us if you are interested

Come on by and take some great items. Please come by and get some free stuff. Good stuff too.

Update: Sunday 6:30pm – Today is our last day to pack, we move tomorrow (Monday 2nd February). Still lots of stuff, come on by and great some great items for free. Way more now than the pictures show. Everything gets thrown away mid day Monday.

Address with link to Google Map <- Google Map of our place.

We had a lot of people come by and pick up our free stuff in the front yard.  At one point someone honked their car horn wondering where all the stuff was.  Someone before them took it all in their truck.  So I deleted the listing until we had some more free stuff.

We listed a great many items for sale and found that having a photo and listing it in the morning greatly increased the amount of calls.  I also didn’t give the option for people to email me and just listed a local phone number that they could call.  This helped because we were in the garage alot and couldn’t check my email and could easily answer the phone and answer questions and directions to our place.

An example of a for sale listing:

Moose Fern $60

<p>Moving sale, our Hanging Moose Fern can’t come with us to our new place.</p>

<p>Call 210-535-8239</p>

and a picture of the item.

Listing everything you want to sell at once also helps a great deal because we had many people come by for one thing and buy something else or many items.  The person that bought Nan’s moose fern didn’t come for it but for some plant pots.  In the end she bought an entire truck bed full of plants and pots.

When anyone came by we told them about everything for sale and upsold them.  It worked really well.  The people that came for the free stuff in the front yard are a much different clientelle from the people coming by for items for sale.  The free people never wanted to spend any money at all and that is why we had the free stuff in the front yard and the good stuff in the garage or back yard.

2.  Start early.  Take months in fact to get ready.  This is where I made a mistake.  I’ve traveled so much that I don’t have a lot of stuff.  I can pack up in a day.  However, and this is a big one, this is my first move with a girlfriend and she has a lot more stuff than I have.  I made a big mistake in thinking how long it would take to sort thru all the boxes and put free stuff in the front yard and list for sale items on Craigslist.  This is where the stress got to me.  The last two days of packing before the movers showed up about killed me.  My girlfriend handled it much better than I did.  In fact, she worked36 hours with only one hour of sleep.  I have no idea how she did it.  We were able to finish packing while the movers were loading the truck.  So start early and ancipate it taking twice as long as you think or in my case 10 times.

3.  Hire movers.  This is the first time I’ve hired movers to move.  I’ve hired help in the past to help stuff a UHaul and I worked with some movers with a friend.  One friend had the movers leave with the truck partially full of her stuff and didn’t come back till the next day.  We found out they wanted to party.  So from now on I put my own lock on the truck and this move I hired a professional moving company.  The hired day workers and amateur movers in the past were just flacky.  The day workers were homeless people that were barely helpful and the amateur movers would rather steal your stuff overnight and party than finish the job.  So professional this time.

The prices from Mayflower was a bit of a shock.  $3000 to move 90 minutes away, yeah right.  I found another company using Google search string Moving company and my zip code.  Nan booked them for only $850.  They were very professional and fast.  I was finishing packing the kitchen and was concerned they were going to finish packing the truck before I finished the kitchen.

Everything didn’t fit in the large truck they brought.  They had to rent a large UHual and we almost filled that also.  And Nan negotiated an additional cost of $500.  We learned that an estimate based on number of bedrooms is very inaccurate.  Basing it on square footage may be better.  Because the mover didn’t come see our place or go thru a detailed estimate actually helped us keep the move costs low because he bid to low.

I learned not to help or start dissassembling anything because they will refuse to assemble at your new place.  Also it helps to monitor where they place stuff.  I stood near the end of the truck and would tell them where items went.  Nan was inside also helping direct them to where exactly to put stuff.  They did an excellent job of unloading quick.  We moved in one day.

4.  Hire a handyman.  We stayed the night at a friend’s place the first night since our bed was not assembled and we were tired.  We both have businesses to run so I hired a handyman to come and help move boxes from the garage, unpack, hang picture frames and our flat panel TV. So I put a listing up on Craigslist for a handyman.  See ad:

Just moved to Austin and need some help moving boxes from the garage up one to two flights of stairs. Lifting and moving and handing pictures.

Need someone between 12pm and 3pm for two hours tomorrow (Wednesday Feb 4th)

Call [my phone #]

I had six people in about 15 minutes call.  I picked who I thought was the best and scheduled him to come over.  Mark came over while I was working with clients so my girlfriend started him moving boxes up and down stairs and whatever else she needed to have done to get the place looking good.  We plan on having him over at least one more time.

5.  Get pleny of sleep.  I took me a few days to catch up with my sleep.  Without enough sleep moving can be painful.  Make sure you get plenty.  Rely on your help.  Don’t go crazy wanting to get thru it fast.  Be consistant in packing and after the move unpacking.  Get enough sleep so you don’t crash.

Some of my relatives spend $1500 on cable tv a year.  I watch more DVDs than cable tv so spending that much seems crazy.  But, I understand that it’s nice to watch a nice show or movie at times.  I do it also.  I rarely turn on cable tv so much so that I have no idea what’s on and the digital guide isn’t really helpful.  Even with the name of the show or movie and a one sentence description I don’t know if I’ll really like it.

So, I started over time to get my entertainment on the Internet.  It has come to the point that I may get rid of the basic cable tv I have right now and just have the Internet access.  I wanted to share with you the resources I use to get almost everything (legally) that you probably already watch on cable tv or even regular tv.

Music/Podcasts

For music I’m a big iTunes/iPod fan.  With podcasts I can get a ton of great (and not so great) content for free.

A podcast is a series of audio or video digital files which is distributed over the Internet by syndicated download, through Web feeds, to portable players and personal computers.

I love podcasts because you can time shift when you listen/watch them.  When a new podcast from my favorite Space Music podcast comes out it shows up in iTunes and I listen to it.  I can even synch it to my iPod and take it with me.  I’ve been listening to a 1950’s radio program called X minus 1 a great science fiction radio program also.  Great fun.

To stream music over the internet much like listening to radio I also use iTunes but I highly recommend Pandora as it allows you to customize your stations.  Although the built-in stations in Pandora are excellent.  I used Pandora over the holidays to stream holiday music while we were wrapping presents and enjoying the spirit of giving.  We especially liked the Jazz Holidays and Pop Holidays stations as we got enough of the regular Holiday music in the stores.

Side note, you can purchase digital MP3 files from Amazon.com usually for a $1 less than iTunes and they import directly into your iTunes.

University Courses

iTunes also has iTunesU where you can download audio from various university subjects.  Some of them from very well know Universities like University of Cambridge, Cornell University, Carnegie Mellon University, MIT, Yale, etc.  They have audios/videos on language, business, physics, spirtuality, etc.  Some great free courses.  Check out my past blog post iTunes Online Training.

TV Shows and Movies

For tv shows and movies I’ve been enjoying Hulu which is a legal website that puts in 4 little 30 second commercials in a tv program.  You can get the same content on iTunes but it’ll cost you nearly $3 an episode.  A few weeks ago I wanted to relax and watch some science fiction but didn’t have anything.  So I went to Hulu and looked at their science fiction channel and found a show named Fringe.  I’ve watched the first five episodes and can watch the rest anytime I want and with the new query functionality you can keep a list of videos (shows, movies and clips) you want to watch.  Many shows are doing this now.  One of my girlfriend’s daughters loves the Simpsons so last night I told her that Hula has the last four episodes of the current season up all the time.  She promptly watched as many as she could before going to bed.

You can also buy and download tv shows and movies using iTunes.  Plus you can rent movies.  Purchasing tv shows doesn’t make sense to me since I am only going to watch it once and it takes up a ton of space on your hard drive.  I can understand renting a movie because at $4 it’s very close to the price of a traditional video rental store.  If you rent a lot of DVD’s I would suggest NetFlix.com as it’ll cost less for you and they have a download rental option that I hear is very good.

Up on the big screen

You can also use a media center to get your online content up on your big screen tv.  There are many options for having a media center as it is basically a computer with high end video.

• Apple TV redefines what your TV can do.  Rent HD movies. Buy HD TV shows. Listen to your iTunes music. Watch podcasts. Even show off your photos.  Anything on iTunes you can listen or watch on your big screen.
• Another alternative to Apple TV is MythTV.  MythTV is a free Linux application which turns a computer with the necessary hardware into a network streaming digital video recorder, a digital multimedia home entertainment system, or Home Theater Personal Computer. It can be considered as a free and open source alternative to Tivo or Windows Media Center.
• Windows Media Center is the Microsoft version.

I haven’t made the move to a media center yet but I’m looking into it.

With the time shifting and the much better ability to search for content I like getting my entertainment more from the Internet than from cable tv.

Tim Ferris’ latest blog post is awesome.  So much content.  I love that.

The video is excellent on showing how employees can be more productive not just CEO and entreprenuers.  And the worksheet is going out to all my team.

There is a misconception that lifestyle design is just for entrepreneurs or CEOs.

In reality, the principles — borrowed from economics and behavioral psychology — can be applied within organizations and groups with even more dramatic effects.

The Fortune 500 4-Hour Workweek: Multiplying Output in Groups Plus: Downloadable Checklists – The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss

I’ve gone thru simplifying my life. I’ve turned off my mobile phone ringer, muted my computer, put Skype and GTalk on do not disturb a vast majority of the day, filtered my email (newsletter get archived and labeled ‘Read’ for later), unsubscribed from some newsletters that I just don’t have time to read ever and I’ve gotten more done.

Not everyone can do this to the level I have, but you still can.

Employees at Target are allowed to put yellow tape around their office to signal to everyone that they wish not to be disturbed.

You can that or wear a hat that tells everyone not to talk to you.

Some companies in Japan allow employees to wear red sashes that easily let everyone know that they are thinking and being productive.

My partner and I have work usually in the same room when traveling. So, we just tell each other when we are about to go into deep think mode. I also usually put on some think music on my iPod Nano and jack in. Unless the building is on fire I’m out of touch.

So wear a hat or a sash or even yellow tape your office off. Get productive and enjoy your life.

I’ve had a personal, private blog for many years now.  I would blog website, notes, things I’ve learned and anything I want to remember.  Easy to search my blog and find out the answers.

Well, a very nice web applications has come out that may change how I remember things. Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere.

I’ve only used it a few times but I’m impressed.  You can record from your computer, web browser, mobile phone camera, and it is so easy.  Indexing the words off of pictures so they are searchable is really amazing.

Check it out.

What is Evernote? | Evernote Corporation

Here is a great checklist before you send out that email. Here is just a few. Click the link at the bottom for the full articles.

1. Is it going to just one person? (If yes, jump to #10)
2. Since it’s going to a group, have I thought about who is on my list?
3. Are they blind copied?
4. Did every person on the list really and truly opt in? Not like sort of, but really ask for it?
5. So that means that if I didn’t send it to them, they’d complain about not getting it?
6. See #5. If they wouldn’t complain, take them off!

Seth’s Blog: Email checklist

If you don’t get out and socialize and see things then how do you expect to come up with new material?  This excellent article gives you many reasons to get “offline” and in the real world.

One of the benefits of taking up new activities is that they give us new material to work with. This is especially useful for web workers in creative fields such as designers and writers. Being exposed to images, sounds, and people that we don’t encounter on our daily routines can give us a fresh perspective we never would’ve gotten otherwise.

The Importance of Pursuing Offline Interests

I am now publicly offering free 30 minute consultations on website mastering and automation and delegation coaching.

I also am using TimeBridge to help schedule people’s appointment. Stop wasting time scheduling time! Use TimeBridge to schedule your next meeting — it’s fast and easy.

So far I love the service and it is reducing time me or my assistant scheduling appointment times.

Automate first and then delegate out. TimeBridge can help you with the first part.

Ever heard of Parkinson’s Law? The simple statement that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. Joel has an excellent article about Parkinson’s Law and some tips on how to use it to your advantage.

Parkinson’s Law – work expands to fill the time available for its completion – means that if you give yourself a week to complete a two hour task, then (psychologically speaking) the task will increase in complexity and become more daunting so as to fill that week. It may not even fill the extra time with more work, but just stress and tension about having to get it done. By assigning the right amount of time to a task, we gain back more time and the task will reduce in complexity to its natural state.

I once read a response to Parkinson’s Law insinuating that if it were an accurate observation, one would be able to assign a time limit of one minute to a task and the task would become simple enough to complete within that minute. But Parkinson’s Law is exactly that – an observation, not some voodoo magic. It works because people give tasks longer than they really need, sometimes because they want some ‘leg room’ or buffer, but usually because they have an inflated idea of how long the task takes to complete. People don’t become fully aware of how quickly some tasks can be completed until they test this principle.

How to Us Parkinson’s Law to Your Advantage

As I was waiting for my massage therapist get ready today I was looking at a magazine, I don’t remember the name.  But, it was entirely about relaxing and enjoying life.  One article was about a group trying to get the USA to have three week vacations as standard from employers.  I know my friends in Europe think that Americans are nuts working so much.  Americans take less and less vacation every year.  Most tour companies are now having to provide one week tours to meet the demand of short term Americans.

My massage was fantastic and I lazily made my way home blissed out.  Later in the day I went to my gym.  I’m riding a stationary bike and notice that everyone is staring at the bazillion TVs everywhere.  It is hard to not look at them as they are in front of everything.  People are mindlessly working out and starting at TVs.  It was a surreal experience for me to see a bunch of robots not interacting with anyone.  They were totally distracted.

People are distracted throughout life and then wonder what happened.  I find staying in the moment and appreciating everything as life moves keeps me centered.  I’m happy noticing people, saying hi, appreciating nature and having fun.  Life is good.  Life is fun and I notice that more when I got rid of the distractions.

I use to send people a blog link of mine years ago to tell them about my dislike for forwarded emails.  Now people are using whole websites.  Cool.

A recent trend among email-overloaded web developers who don’t want to explain the basics of email etiquette to frequent senders is to set up a web page that does it instead—then reply to senders with a link to the page, or just include it in their signature. Merlin Mann’s Thanks, No turns down unwanted email; Mike Davidson’s five sentences explains why his email messages are so short; and now Brett Kelly’s BCC, please asks that bulk senders use the BCC field to hide his address from everyone else on a big list.

Netiquette

I went a small two day trip. I’ve been trying out Google’s 411 service. Google’s new 411 service is free, fast and easy to use. Give it a try now and see how simple it is to find and connect with local businesses for free.

It’s amazing and I wanted to share it with everyone.

1-800-GOOG-411: Find and connect with local businesses for free from your phone.

Great graphic on perfection vs. efficiency. Their questions to ask yourself are fantastic.

If you achieve perfection without any control of the expense, you will end up with waste. This takes you out of the green excellence zone. If you only focus on keeping your costs down without any focus on perfection, you will produce shoddy work.

Excellence comes from balancing efficiency with perfection. Basically it comes down to doing the best with what you are given. If you are given a million dollar budget for a project, the amount of perfection should reflect the large investment. If you are given $10,000 for a project, you should still be able to stay in the green zone by making the most efficient use of your resources as possible.

Excellence – Perfection vs. Efficiency : Productivity501

My system is a almost like Mark’s. Great advice on how to handle email.

You’ll need one email box for personal friends and family. Give that one out to … you guessed it.

You’ll need one for general business contacts. You give this one out to potential contacts you meet via your business card, your website, etc. (Tip: you should use a contact form or otherwise protect your address from spam-bots.) If you’re like me you’ll have someone else monitor this box for you and only send you stuff that’s important.

You’ll need a third box for “close” business contacts. These are people you work with daily, extremely important contacts, “mission critical” notifications (like the ones you get from Simpleology – hey, when you read us you get more time back than you put in), etc. You can “promote” certain people to this email box as needed.

You’ll need a fourth box that you use to “sign up for free stuff.” Every time you subscribe to a newsletter you’ll use this address.

You’ll need a fifth and final box for making online purchases. You guessed it … Buy stuff – use this address.

Simpleology Blog: Exit Email Hell in 3 Steps

I love Tim Ferriss’ book the 4 Hour Work Week.  Even though I’ve had assistants for certain things I never thought of having a VA for everything.  Thanks Tim for changing my life.

His website quickly became very high in Alexa rating (14,000 something as of today).  He knew who to talk to and who not to waste his time with.  He’s the man for self-promotion and deserves the title from Wired.

OK, Timothy Ferriss: You win. You are the greatest self-promoter in the world.

When Wired.com asked our readers to help pick champion self-promoters, we were completely unprepared for the onslaught of your fans. They not only voted for you, again and again, they also nominated you (along with Tim Farriss, Timothy Ferris, and other variations on your name) literally scores of separate times.

Tim Ferriss Takes Wired.com’s Self-Promotion Prize | Epicenter from Wired.com