4 Productivity Hacks That Have Made My Everyday Life Much Easier.

I'm a master of procrastination! In fact, I'm so good at it that I'm level 2196 in Gardenscapes. Because I love distractions, and if a new email or message pops up, I'm the first to drop what I was doing and check it out. But that doesn't work, especially when it's proven to take 20 minutes to get back and refocus on what you were doing. And it definitely doesn't work when you want to appear as a leader who has everything under control. So here are the 4 productivity hacks that help me the most in my otherwise busy daily life.

Email Cleanup - Search for one word!

At one point, I had 8,000 unread emails in my inbox. I had simply lost track, and I received so many emails every day that it was insane. However, I found a simple way to get rid of a significant portion of my unread emails. It dawned on me that the reason I wasn't reading or deleting these emails was that they were newsletters or sales emails from companies. And one thing all these emails have in common is the word "Afmeld" or "unsubscribe" at the bottom of the email. I have now set up a rule in my mailbox that deletes all emails containing either of these two words within 30 days. If I haven't read them within 30 days, they're probably not very important. So simple, yet so effective. There are several videos on YouTube showing how to set up rules depending on the email system you use.

Forgotten Ideas - No, you don't have early dementia!

When are you creative and come up with your best ideas? My best ideas almost always come to me in the morning when I walk the dog and listen to an audiobook. That's when the good ideas flow, but before I'm back home, I've forgotten most of them, and it has frustrated me for a long time. Ideas tend to disappear as quickly as they come if you don't write them down. But jotting down ideas while trying to handle a somewhat unruly and enthusiastic Labrador is almost impossible. However, it turned out I had the solution right at hand. What works really well is the Notes system on my iPhone. Here, I can dictate my ideas and have them automatically archived in relevant folders using the Notes #tag solution. Notes has far more brilliant features than I think most of us realize. So spend 10 minutes of your life watching a YouTube video about the essential functions you need to know to make Notes work best. Here's a link to one that I think explains it quite well: (49) Notes for iPhone can do SO MUCH now! - YouTube

Avoid Password Tyranny

I worked for a company that took IT security very seriously. At one point, they introduced a policy that required all of us to have a password with a minimum of 21 characters, including a special character. Mine became "Maltheowesmebigtimeagain!" Yes, the poor guy who sent out that infamous email was named Malthe. I thought it was RIDICULOUS; who can remember 21-character passwords? But there's a solution for everything, and when I stormed into the IT manager's office to complain like a true office grouch, he looked at me innocently and said... have you ever tried using LastPass? Uhhh, what? And yes, he's absolutely right, for people like me who are exhausted from coming up with passwords and trying to remember them, it's brilliant. Yes, Google has a similar feature, but the experts say it's not nearly as secure. LastPass can remember all your passwords and store them encrypted online, and it's so easy to use, and the basic functions are entirely free. #1 Password Manager & Vault App with Single-Sign On & MFA Solutions - LastPass

Get Your Own Virtual Secretary:

Correct use of present tense and commas is just not my forte when I write, and that's why I always need someone to proofread before I send it out. My employees know it, and often they've ducked when I've asked who had 5 minutes to proofread something I'd written. I've known that it wasn't their favorite task, and I've often been a bit embarrassed that I simply don't master the Danish language well enough. But now I have my own virtual assistant. Her name is ChatGPT. Chat GPT can be used for many things, but for me, it's especially useful for proofreading. I use the following prompt: "I'm writing a blog post in Danish/English. Would you proofread it and correct the commas? The text is as follows: [Insert text here]." And within 10 seconds, I have a corrected text. Don't expect a 100% error-free solution, but it's significantly better than the original.

Maybe one of these ideas could work for you too? Just give it a try.