Productivity Tips For The New Year

As 2021 was coming to an end (at last, some may say) the CyberMagnolia community came together for the last on-line meetup of the year. We discussed our tips & tricks for productivity, and talked through any challenges we’ve been having in this field in the past year. Here’s our compiled list for improved automation and reclaiming our time.

For Work With Code 💻

Looking for ways to turbo charge your experience with your code editor or terminal? Here’s what we love:

• Use live templates or code snippets, like the ones offered by Visual Studio Code
• Learn the basics of vim and use it whenever you need to make a minor update to a file, instead of opening the whole thing in the editor. Much faster!
• Spend some time customizing your shell to fit your needs. Our favorite pick include using Oh My Zsh framework for zsh (which rightfully became Apple’s shell of choice)
• Automate your dotfile configuration and bootstrapping a new machine with Dotfiles and never worry about preserving your .zshrc - search for Dotfiles on GitHub to find some inspiration!

Note Taking 🗒

Our ultimate note taking tip? Choose a single app and stick to it, make sure it works across all your devices. Here’s what we use:

• For our beloved open-source fans we recommend cherrytree
• For those who don’t mind throwing a few dollars at software with beautiful UI, Bear is a solid choice

Time Tracking 🕰

As many of us continue to work from home, tracking our work time and making sure we do what we’ve planned without work overflowing into private time is increasingly important. Few tools to help:

• Using time tracking apps like Clockify for better focus
• Pomodoro technique is always relevant, this time we recommend apps for open-source die-hards using APKPure.com
• For the lovers of pen and paper we suggest the Bullet Journal method

Time Management ⏳

For best ways to reclaim your time our top picks include:

• Letting a virtual assistant like Clockwise play calendar tetris on your behalf
• To avoid the meeting scheduling ping pong share your Calendly link and let the other person choose a slot that fits into your schedule
• For a regular reminder to take a break and clear your mind try Stretchly but beware—it may lock your screen during a meeting
• To improve your internet browsing internet, use Pi Hole for ad-blocking at a DNS level
• Time and task management course provided by Učíme online (Czech only)
• In need of a new time management strategy? Try the 4 Ds Of Time Management

The Ultimate Email Hack ✉️

Tired of spam emails flooding your inbox? You don’t need to pay for Hey Email, just create one more account with your favorite service and provide that when registering for new services like Calendly, Clockwise, e-retail, or anything else.

Spend a weekend updating your email preferences in existing services and only check that inbox from time to time. Have a cupcake for every one thousand unread emails which you never have to deal with 🧁

Podcasts 🎧

Looking for more inspiration? Some of our favorite podcasts include:

• The Building a Second Brain Podcast
• Tim Ferriss Podcast

With all that, may your New Year be full of reclaimed free time. Best wishes from your favorite Women’s Tech Collective 🍾