Review: Become a Speed Demon: Productivity tricks to have more time

I'm in the middle of Levi's Udemy course on becoming a super learner and wondered if his productivity course would have any value. 

If you detect a hint of scepticism, it's because I've read a lot of productivity articles and books like the Four Hour Work Week, Getting Things Done, Pomodoro technique etc. It's the obsession of our age - and often helped me keep my head above water during periods of heavy workload.

So rather than get the course, I thought I'd pick up the book and give it a quick skim. Sure enough, the by now old standbys for such a book like the Pareto Principle and Parkinson's law are all present and correct.  And this book is probably stronger on the work side of things than other areas like fitness and food preparation (!) For fitness, the Four Hour Body is probably not a bad place to start.

But I was pleasantly surprised to find a few useful bits and pieces so I'll collect what's new to me here - and give the book the nod as a great introduction to this area.

Unroll.me
Not exactly new as I've been using this for a few weeks now, but can't remember where I found it - but it's covered in Become a Speed Demon so I'll give them the credit.

Unroll.me offers two main features for email users. First, you can bundle several email subscriptions into one daily digest.  Secondly, it'll quickly summarise which email lists you are subscribed to and allow you to unsubscribe with a click.  It's a decent hassle saver and did I mention, free.

Unroll.me

Priority Star
This is a fun exercise for brainstorming and prioritising tasks - especially in a group by highlighting dependancies in a fun way.  I'm not sure if I'll use it, but it was certainly cool. This video is a good introduction:

Wheel of Life multitasking
Again not completely new, but since it's a recent discovery I'll give Levi some credit for his comprehensive explanation.  A wheel of life is a graphical representation of different areas of your life and how satisfied you are with them.

If you want to create your own wheel of life, there are plenty of guides and awesome ways to use one.

Wheel of Life multitasking asks you to consider whether activities and tasks can help with multiple areas of your wheel.

So for example, my upcoming trip to Amsterdam ticks the boxes for Family and friends (because I'll be visiting a friend or two), Romance (the missus is super keen to see the tulips), Personal Growth (learning a few Dutch phrases) and lastly, it's been a while since I went aboard which ticks the fun and adventure box.

Text expansion
I've been using a text expander on my Mac for years (TypeIt4Me), but it never more than vaguely occurred to me that such a thing would exist for my phone.  The iPhone, my preferred platform, even has it built in.

iOS/Android: Create your own time saving keyboard short cuts

Quicksilver
This application allows you to assign keyboard shortcuts to launching of applications and other actions such as opening folders, or running searches.  This was new to me, and I'm not sure how much I'll use it. But I do like my new keyboard shortcut to play my favourite Mozart track while working.

Quicksilver

Avoiding decision fatigue through delegation
I really liked this last one. Instead of deciding on a restaurant or saying "I don't know", simply ask for a recommendation from your friend.


Verdict: Some handy tools and tricks here.