I use my desktop a lot for storing files I quickly download, extracting wordpress plugins, image captures for my blog, and a host of other things. In about 3 days, my desktop gets cluttered up with things I don’t need, so I just delete everything. Every once and a while though, I delete something I do need and spend hours in the trash searching for it. If this has happened to you, here’s a method which makes your trash can a much more friendly place.

Basically, when I have a load of files to delete off my desktop I don’t highlight them all and drag them to the trash. Instead I create a folder, name it: “Deleted from Desktop on july 26″, I move all my files in there, and delete the folder. This means that I can delete everything and then when I remember I need something, just go back to the relevant folder and resotre it.

You can also use this method to group deleted files by other criteria, lile client the file was for, or the job you  used the file for. Since I develop loads of Wordpress themes and all have index.php files, style.css files and so on, I can just drag all the files for a theme I don’t need anymore into a folder with the name of the theme, and drop that into the trash instead of all the separate files.

Whenever you work, chances are you need to concentrate to get the job done as best as possible. However our minds aren’t really tuned to be able to concentrate on one thing for hours on end, especially if its something monotonous and boring. If you love your job or hate it, use a work - rest rule to make yourself more productive and happier.

I often use a 60 -10 rule, which means is 60 minutes work, and 10 minutes of play or rest. I mainly devised this to keep my head, eyes and back from overstress, but it has a great psychological effect on me as well. I love what I do, but I look forward to the next 10 minute break when I can stroll around, paly a round of solitaire, just lay on the bed, or whatever I want. If you hate your job you will feel better knowing you only have to work through the hour and you can rest a bit, taking something bad an hour at a time is better than a day at a time.

If you work in front of a computer all day this will also have some health benefits, especially if you use the time to get away from your monitor. Stand up, do some exercise, walk around, stretch, do whatever you need to feel better, rest and get ready for the next hour.

I suggest creating your own rule, the one that works best for you, and also, not to be afraid of breaking it sometimes. Often I am very into something, and taking a 10 minute break would mean at least 30 minutes extra work, so it would be more productive to work 120 minutes and rest 20 just that once. You could also use a 90 -25 rule, or even a 90 - 90 rule, depending on how much you need to work, and how much rest you need to feel good.

You can extend this to the day level as well. Perhaps you hate taking breaks and would rather work 8 hours in one go, and having a long rest after that. In this case you could devise a 2 - 1 rule, where after every 2 days of work, you take 1 day off. This is of course only possible for those of you who work at home, but those of you who have an office job can utilize the hour based rule well.

Use OS X style stacks in Windows

This is by far my most popular article for some reason. Take a look inside and you will find that you can use Rocket Dock with a plugin to create stacks just like in OS X. I don’t think you get the settings and flexibility of OS X, but you get a nice way to browse files in a folder, or open some applications that look good on any desktop.

Separating work and play with user identities

This article was even covered by Lifehacker, a way I used to separate some aspects of my life so I can focus better on the matter at hand. If you work a lot at your laptop, but also use it for recreation, this is a great way to deal with distractions and whatnot.

One shortcut collection to rule them all

This post simply describes a great site I found which contains all the shortcuts you will probably ever need. Grouped by application, you will find all shortcuts for apps from Microsoft Word to Adobe Photoshop, with online apps like Gmail and Yahoo Mail included as well!

This may be somewhat of an obvious tip, but since I just thought of this for my personal use, perhaps there are others out there who are missing this productivity tip. I store some documents online, especially on Google Docs and so far I have always navigated to my docs page and then selected the document there.

However, you can link directly to the document in question, which means you can bookmark it as well. This also means that you can create a keyword which lets you jump there in an instant. I am keeping track of my expenses with a detailed sheet and when I type “exp” into the URL bar and press enter, the sheet loads in a jiffy.

In fact, with the nifty extension called Firefly extension you can use Firefox like a file manager and you can create bookmarks to specific folders on your hard drive just like you do on the web, which means you can also navigate there with keywords.

Oh, I almost forgot, you can also use the same method with emails in Gmail. Clicking on an email yields a URL which is static, so you can bookmark it and get to the email fast. I frequently get emails which I check 30 times before I don’t need them any more and this method helps me a lot and saves me a lot of time, making me more productive. One drawback is that URL’s are stored for conversations, which means that if you have a conversation consisting of 50 emails, you are probably better off with the search bar.

Browsing and file management were two things for me that somehow never really came together. However Firefly, a Firefox extension gives you the power of a file manager right inside your browser, let’s take a look if it’s any good.

Once installed you can simply type a path like “c:” to get to the root of the drive to view files. They will be shown as a list and you will be able to perform simple file management tasks via the Firefl toolbar, drag and drop, or keyboard shortcuts.

You won’t find the power of Windows Commander or XYplorer, but for everyday basic needs its great, and gives you a lot of productivity by saving you the time it takes to switch between apps. You basically just get the interface to do cutting, pasting, copying, renaming, and some more basic tasks, but that’s really all I need. One unique option is that you can switch the number of viewing pane, horizontal and vertical alike. Creating 8 views might seem like chaos, but it may save a lot of time in some cases.

What I find most useful is the way you can navigate around using Firefox and Firefly combined. Since we are in a browser, we can use the versatility of bookmarks to navigate all around our computer. If you access a remote directory often, just create a bookmark with the keyword “dir” for example and whenever you type dir into the address bar you will be swooped there. With a few of these bookmarks and the ease of use of Firefly, you will be performing file actions much more productively than before.

Firefly fills a space which is rarely catered for by the software industry and it really can make you more productive, but I will still not use it probably. I don’t really know why, I just don’t like third party file browsers, I use the simple old Windows interface, so sue me.

I have been mucking around with some social media aggregation sites and my most recent venture is FriendFeed, which I’ve seen around the web and have known about it for a while, but never really got around to trying it. Well, I managed to get there, and here’s what I found.

What’s most striking about FriendFeed is the design, and perhaps this is why I might choose it above others (plus it supports the most sites). FriendFeed has no style. I don’t mean it is distasteful, but it has no style as in it has a header and then you just get a list on a white background. This is a refreshing design, catering to the puritan needs in us. I see this as an absolute positive aspect of the site, I very much enjoy the clean form, allowing me to concentrate on content instead.

Sites supported are also wide and varied, from obvious ones like Youtube and StumbleUpon to smaller sites like Furl and Tipjoy. There is also a lot of variation, for example Library Thing is supported, which is a social Book catalog and discovery tool, but you can also add music sites like Last.fm, and many others, totaling up to 41 great services.

Bloggers will love FriendFeed because it not only allows you to add your blog, but other blogs where you write. You can specify blogs with multiple authors and only show the stories you wrote. Since I do most of my writing on other sites this is a great way for me to showcase this, previously I could only achieve this with a complicated but of php.

You can also create rooms for specific topics, groups and so on, creating and sharing content only relevant to that room. This is awesome for bloggers too to promote the topic of their blog, but also study groups, friends, and so on.

Overall I like FriendFeed a lot. I haven’t made my decision on the best one, but FriendFeed is currently at number 1. Simplicity and number of features make this service one of the easiest ones to use and with the ways you can display it on your blog, possible the most productive too.