Librarian of Fortune

Taking a Strategic Retreat

I just posted the latest issue of my Info-Entrepreneur Tip of the Month. This one looks at how to take a strategic retreat and brainstorm through what is frustrating you. Think of this as an invitation to take a fresh start on the year, spend a day creating all the tools you need to get past the painful parts of your work or job.

Seize the Interstitials!

Thanks to insight from my personal Colorado Brain Trust, Marcy Phelps and Kim Dority, I now have a great way to visually remind myself of what I can do if I have a spare 15 or 30 minutes.

Like many of you, Marcy, Kim and I have laptops, docked with a large screen and ergonomic keyboard. Here's what you can do to have your visual reminder. Using Windows' Control Panel, select Display /  Settings /  Display:  [select whichever one lets you check Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor] / check that Extend my Windows.  Now click the [Identify] button. It's assumed that your primary monitor  [1[ is to the left of your secondary monitor [2]. If that's not the case, you can drag the numbers around on the screen to move 1 to the right of 2. Finally, click the OK button until you're done. If you do this correctly, you should have your regular display on your primary screen, and your desktop on your secondary screen.

Now, here's the cool thing, at least for those of us who have to see something to remember it. You can move one window onto your secondary display and have it sitting quietly in the corner, reminding you of something you can work on when you have a little spare time -- the 15 minutes before a conference call, the half an hour before you go to a meeting, the interminable amount of time you are on hold waiting to talk with a customer "service" agent...

To set this up yourself:
Open the window you want to keep open in the Restore Down setting (between Maximize and Minimize), then drag it to the edge of your primary screen and it will appear to slide off your primary and onto your secondary screen.  If, like me, you have a separate keyboard and monitor, you can simply use your laptop keyboard to work with the screen displayed on the laptop, and then move over to your desktop screen and keyboard and continue with your other work.

For some reason, I find that it's easier to resist multi-tasking if I keep my "other" project on a separate monitor and keyboard. I can work on it soon... I know it's there, but I don't have to actually work on it immediately.]