What new innovations are out there to improve your daily life? Check out the thumb thing… Haha!

When I was a teenager I remember reading a science-fiction story which predicted that by the 21st century, information would be piped directly into the brain. In the story, a character encountered that most archaic object, an old-fashioned book, and felt appalled that people in the 20th century had been forced to endure so much physical discomfort, holding books and turning their pages manually–or trying to prevent the pages from turning if there was a breeze.

Is there finally going to be a good online calendar? What Is 30Boxes? :

“They showed me their early early alpha, and it is safe to say 30 Boxes will be to calendars what GMail was to Email.”

Follow a clean desk policy, even if you don’t fall into the average category, it will no doubt help you be more productive.

Studies have shown that a person working with a messy desk will spend, on average, one and a half hours per day either being distracted by things in their view or looking for things. That’s seven and a half hours per week.

From 43Folders the idea to just get rid of all your unread email right now - delete them! - and start fresh:

“You’re saying “Okay, starting this minute I quit letting ‘being behind’ stop me from making good decisions now and going forward.” Hence the “fresh start.” Get it? Tomorrow morning you arrive to a spanking fresh inbox and the chance to start anew.”

PaperNotes on the wonderful impact of usig handwritten notes as another tool in your communications arsenal:

“It only takes a minute and handwritten notes are appreciated, as so few are written anymore. I get great satisfaction from taking a few minutes and writing to friends and colleagues as those before us did - with pen and paper.”

Here is another example of a super simple plan for achieving goals in 2006:

I’m enacting the following Simple Plan for 2006:

• Get up at 7am each day.
• Don’t check my email before 12pm (noon).

The beauty of keeping your goals to only 2 or one thing of course is that it gives you focus and clarity. The downside could be that you cant work on only one thing continuously anyways so you might benefit more from a time-splitting model.

The yearly tradition of opening the Moleskine diary

The Ripple Effect on why you should limit your new years list to only one goal:

“Rather than do a wish list of all the things you want to change or achieve, why not start off with a moderate but attainable list of ONE thing you want bad enough to actually work your tail off to achieve it. Write it down, print it out, put it on the bottom of your mirror so you see it every morning, put a copy in your billfold, put one on your dashboard and on your desk at work

This was the year of the leap second:

“At the precise moment the display reads 6:59 p.m. (EST), start the stopwatch. When the display changes to 7:00, stop the watch. It should read 61 seconds.”