Declaring war on stupid typing

In many jobs, you have to type something again and again, whether each day or multiple times a week. And not just one thing, but many different things. Again and again.

In our book, that’s stupid. It’s soulless work. Where’s the juice, the passion, the excitement in that?!

Human beings shouldn’t do stupid repetitive things. That’s what we have technology for.

FastPaste can do the stupid typing for you, so you can have more time for learning, creativity, real contribution, your family, friends, hobbies, fun and relaxation.

Did you know that 10 minutes saved daily is 60 hours in a year? That’s equivalent of one and half of work-week! In that time, you could learn a new language, launch a new project, go on several wonderful trips, get fit – or anything else that you love doing.

And that’s just in 1 year. If you can save 60 hours each year, the extra life you will get stacks up rapidly.

FastPaste is here to give you YOUR time back

How it works?

Example: Pressing Ctrl+1 can insert my name (“Jiri Novotny”) into any application.

FastPaste allows you to insert text with hotkeys. There are 30 clips (fields). Each has a customizable hotkey. The first clip has default hotkey Control+1, the second Control+2, and so on.

When you press the hotkey, FastPaste will automatically insert the text in that particular clip (field).

FastPaste can paste plain text, rich text (RTF), images.

Keyboard scripts

You can also create keyboard scripts, to send key sequences and/or combinations.

You can use the scripts to do many cool things, like filling various forms with just a single hotkey.

Here is an example of a FastPaste script:

John
{TAB}
hawai777
{CONTROL}{ENTER}

The script above will type “John”, then send the Tab key, then type “hawai777″, and then send Control + Enter combination.

What’s new in FastPaste 3

Because the new version is a complete rewrite, there is nothing left unimproved.

The new features include:

• Keyboard scripts that you can use to fill forms, send key sequences and key combinations and much more. It can emulate not just typing, but a press of any key or key combination.
• Encryption to protect your clips and data from unauthorized access
• Portable – can be deployed to USB thumb-drive
• New beautiful look and feel
• Resizable window
• Docking support, so you can dock FastPaste into sidebar
• Display clips in 1 column, 2 columns, or 3 columns
• 10 quick projects with global hotkeys; access over 300 clips with keyboard
• Unicode support
• Support for various screen DPIs
• Better handling of global hotkeys, only hotkeys for used clips are registered
• Smart detection of conflicting hotkeys
• Nicer HTML export of hotkeys overview
• Ability to paste images with transparency
• Preview images directly in the main Fast Paste window
• Ability to contact us directly from the program (using menu Help – Contact)

Download fully functional 30-day trial of FastPaste

If you would like to give FastPaste a go, you can download a fully functional 30-day trial of FastPaste. The only limitation in the trial is that it can’t deployed to USB thumb-drive.

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• Swift To-Do List 10 with scheduling calendar released!
• Meta Productivity released! “Dramatically Increase Your Productivity”
• The Key To Higher Productivity
• 3 easy techniques to instantly stop procrastinating
• What are you not going to do?
• One Minute To-Do List

Declaring war on stupid typing with FastPaste 3 is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

The practices that promote productivity and GTD are somewhat akin to fractals – if you keep looking closer and closer, the same patterns inevitably recur. At a macro level, GTD requires managing your commitments and tasks through organization and clarification. And at a micro level, GTD requires managing the actions, or steps, each task requires.

Horizontal task management is the macro level. Vertical management is the micro level.

Managing actions helps to further the process of converting the overwhelming mass of your commitments into a coherent, organized and, most importantly, workable set of steps you need to take. Managing actions gives you a clear plan of attack, a manageable group of goals and an improved perspective. And, because breaking things down as far as possible helps make things easier, we’re going to divide your actions into two categories: horizontal and vertical.

Horizontal Action Management

Horizontal action management may sound like a complicated fitness move, but it is simply a means by which you can accomplish actions relating to a number of tasks efficiently. You can think of it as your ‘two birds, one stone’ system, because horizontal action management looks at all of the tasks you have and identifies a common action or actions that moves multiple tasks toward completion.

For example, if your tasks include washing your dog and taking a shower, securing towels is an action that will help you move toward completing each task. Instead of getting one towel when you need it, a horizontal action management system would have you get both towels at once so they are ready when you need them.

If horizontal action management sounds difficult, you can use Swift To-Do List to simplify matters. The program allows you to attach notes and documents to tasks on your list, which is perfectly suited to action management. I like to create bulleted lists of actions for each task in the notes area so I know what steps I need to take to complete a given task. To perform horizontal action management, I look at the bulleted list for each task and identify actions common to multiple tasks. Then, I create a sub-list and enter these actions as my priority/efficiency actions – the steps I can take to make progress on multiple assignments at once.

After a while, you may notice that your horizontal action management tends to reveal preparatory actions, like gathering supplies or research. If the same actions recur in an organized manner, you can use Swift To-Do List 7 to send you reminder e-mails on a consistent basis. Often, the common actions are “first steps” in completing tasks, and by managing them all at once, you can have a head start on future projects.

Vertical Action Management

Vertical action management doesn’t have as much of a “big picture” scope as horizontal task management, but it is still important. Vertical action management is, as Allen puts it, “’project planning’…focusing in on a single endeavor, situation, or person and fleshing out whatever ideas, details, priorities and sequences of events may be required for you to handle it.”

You can think of vertical action management as a checklist or a to-do list, which makes Swift To-Do List 7 such an effective tool for this technique. For vertical action management, you need to list all of the steps required for completion of a task. It’s important to be as detailed as possible and list even preparatory actions. Breaking down tasks into as many actions as possible is important because it makes them more manageable and allows you to identify common actions in the horizontal action management process.

Discover more about the benefits of “breaking tasks down” in the very popular post called “10 best tricks of fooling myself to work“.

The smaller the actions, the more likely you will be to knock them out during the time you have between meetings, lunch or major task work. If you don’t break down your tasks, they can be overwhelming and you’ll need to set aside large blocks of time to accomplish anything and you’ll miss out on the consolidation of actions offered by horizontal action management. Additionally, having a list of actions enumerated for each task allows you to assess your progress more often.

Putting It All Together

Both horizontal and vertical action management are effective tools, but they are most effective when used together. Typically, beginning with vertical action management can be helpful, because when you finish you’ll be able to see the common actions you need to consolidate in the horizontal action management stage.

While action management is time-consuming initially, it will save you time later and can help keep you focused while working on projects. Breaking tasks into steps will also help you understand what tasks need to be completed and how you should work on them. Finally, action management gives you a better appreciation of the scope of your tasks and how much time will be required for completion. With experience gained while using this approach, both your time estimates and productivity will soar.

Post by Brian J. Willet

Related Posts:

• Getting Things Done (GTD) Tutorial: Commitment Management
• Getting Things Done (GTD) Tutorial: Perspective
• 30-second check: Do you get the maximum from Swift To-Do List?
• Swift Mind Freedom released!
• Getting In The Ready State (To Get Things Done)
• Getting Things Done (GTD) Tutorial: Do I Need to GTD?

Managing Actions Horizontally and Vertically is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

You can now drag & drop emails into the task-view directly from your email program (Outlook, Windows Live Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, Lotus Notes, The Bat! and possibly others). When you do that, magical wonders and miracles happen – the email is automatically converted into a task!

Lots of tasks come to our lives via email. This feature can be a considerable time saver.

But that’s not all! You will be also delighted to know that:

• You can drag & drop multiple emails at once
• Email subjects are used as task names
• Email body is used as task notes
• Email attachments are added as embedded task attachments
• The email itself is added as an embedded task attachment, so you can easily open the email again, and reply to it from your email program
• When dragging from Outlook, the notes will keep the HTML formatting, otherwise, the plain-text variant is used
• You can also drag & drop .eml, .msg and .mim files directly into the task-view. This can be useful if your email client doesn’t support external drag & drop – simply export the messages to files, then drag & drop the files into Swift To-Do List.
• When dragging from Outlook, you can drag & drop not just emails, but also Outlook tasks, and Outlook appointments
• The original messages are left intact, of course. Swift To-Do List works with a copy.

When drag & dropping a single email, Add Task window will open, enabling you to tweak the task as needed before adding it. When drag & dropping multiple emails, they are added immediately. You can edit them with the Batch Edit feature via the right-click context menu.

Quick video demonstration

What if my email client isn’t supported?

Some email clients, like Pocomail or Evolution don’t support external drag & drop. However, despair not, as there is a remedy! You can simply export the email(s) from your email client to a .eml or .msg file. Then, drag & drop these files into Swift To-Do List.

What if I use web-mail only?

You can either start using a desktop email client, like Mozilla Thunderbird, or, if your web-mail supports export to .eml or .msg, you can save the emails to your HDD, then drag & drop the files into Swift To-Do List.

Feedback welcome

If you have any questions, suggestions or comments regarding this new feature, post them below.

Related Posts:

• How to attach emails from Outlook to tasks (Video)
• Swift To-Do List 7.10 released: Embedded file attachments, attach emails to tasks, and more
• What’s New in 7.25: Import Wizard, better Batch Edit, more
• 30-second check: Do you get the maximum from Swift To-Do List?
• Is your to-do list impossible to finish?
• How to use Due Dates in your to-do list correctly

Turn emails into tasks – just drag & drop them into Swift To-Do List! is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog