Probably the most popular 'time management' book released (and re-released) these last two years, The 4 hour workweek by Timothy Ferriss has acquired its own cult following.
Find out what we really think about this popular book and whether we believe it will change your life or the way you manage your time in our rather honest review here:
Let’s face it, meetings take up far too much time in today’s
modern age. And a real time waster is struggling to type up minutes or
interpret our poorly scrawled notes after the meeting in order to complete our
tasks and projects.
I hate meetings so much that I have decided to make a point
of sharing with you any strategies that I stumble upon that can make meetings more
time efficient and productive.
So some of you are required to take minutes of
meetings, others prefer (or are required) to take your own notes, correct?If you are like me, you end up leaving with hard
to interpret scribbles, doodles and pages of writing and often miss many
important sections of the meeting for the simple reason that a human being is
simply not designed to concentrate for periods longer than forty minutes at a
time.
I stumbled upon this fantastic device that some of my
clients are using and I believe will make just about anyone’s life easier.There are a few options available, but I have
had personal recommendations regarding the Livescribe Echo Intellipen. If you
haven’t heard about this amazing little invention, prepare to be stunned and
amazed!And I promise I have no
financial incentive in sharing this information with you, I have also just been
blown away with the ingenuity and usefulness of this time saving invention.
The version I am familiar with is the top-of-the-range
Livescribe Echo intellipen, but there are a number of more affordable versions available with
various other features.So how can a pen
help you in a meeting? Well firstly, these pens come with a recording device
that records between 200 and 800 hours of audio that can be uploaded to your pc.
Firstly, no need for a Dictaphone in a
meeting.Now this may not sound that
impressive yet, until one realises that the pen comes with functionality to
click on any point within your notes and to play the audio recording from that
exact point of the meeting.Let’s say
for example you feel a certain section is very important (or difficult to
minute), simply make a mark on your ‘Dot-paper’ and the pen will replay the audio
file from that very point.
There is also handwriting to text recognition.So you don’t have to retype your notes.I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the
software in this regard as I have not met anyone who has used this
functionality, but as soon as I get my grubby little paws on one of these pens
I most certainly will try it out and let you know.
The only downside is the notebooks you have to use can be a
bit pricey, and you have to use these notebooks for your pen to playback
correctly.
I think this is a great invention that makes life so much
easier!The Time Clinic recommends this product and according to my research, we have found that it is available from South African stockists such as certain Incredible Connection branches or Digital Planet online. International clients can obtain details of suppliers via their site on www.livescribe.com. Let us know if you get one and how it helps you!
