Productivity Portfolio

Ben Worthen of The Wall Street Journal Business Technology blog wrote about how bigger computer monitors equal more productivity. I’m a big believer that good monitors influence productivity. If you work in a desk area that is impractical for large monitors, you might use an old notebook as a second monitor.

Sarah Perez of ReadWriteWeb wrote a nice resource article on data visualization. She provides a breakdown by areas such as social networks, music, Internet, Amazon and others. Each area has links to different visualization sources. One example from about a hundred resources is for visualizing US zip codes. You can use this interactive map that highlights the area as you start to type numbers. Commenters have also added their favorites.

If you want to watch the basketball tournament at work, you may need some signs to advise people the importance of this event. Matt Cutts discovered a company that does online sign building. The tool also works for non-basketball related events in case you need to create a HAZMAT sign to put outside someone’s messy office.

For those of you who have heard about GTD or “Getting Things Done”, but never had the time to read David Allen’s book, BNET has come to your rescue. Robert Landon does a crash course on GTD. I like the recipe format of these crash courses. They break the learning process into a 5 step process with pointers and tips on what else you will need. The article also has a link to a PDF version.

I haven’t looked at one of those charts that list life’s most stressful events in awhile. I’m sure one item they added is losing your cell phone. This problem recently happened to Lifehacker editor Gina Trapani. Fortunately for us, she wrote about her experience and provides some tips if you do lose your cell phone.

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