The first eastern national park, Acadia’s rugged coast has beckoned visitors for ages. Today people from all over the world come to Acadia National Park in Maine to hike granite peaks, bike historic carriage roads, or relax and enjoy the scenery. Photo of the Bubbles from Jordan Pond by Kristi Rugg, National Park Service.
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If you’re trying to find ways on how to be more efficient, you’ve probably considered getting a few tools to help you out. However, with so many options to choose from, picking the best one can take time, effort and even money. As not all productivity and time management tools are created the same, you have to make sure you only get the best ones that can help you get more work done.
Here are 7 of the must-try tools you need to check out:
If you often feel that you are spending your time on irrelevant things and can’t organize your day, you should definitely check out MyLifeOrganized. It comes in two versions – standard and professional version.
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The standard version offers all the tools that are necessary to optimize your productivity and work. The professional version, on the other hand, provides Cloud services as well as many other options to completely customize your work environment and set everything up just the way you like.
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The thing with passwords is that they can easily be forgotten. And if you’ve experienced having to go through password recovery, you know how tedious the process is, particularly the series of security questions.
This tool, however, eliminates all those concerns by storing your passwords and usernames in a huge database that is securely encrypted. The only thing that you really need to remember when using this tool is one master password that will unlock your access to all your other passwords and data stored in the Universal Password Manager database.
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Pocket is not, by definition, a time management tool, but it has some characteristics of it. It can be installed on any device and once you save something in it, you’ll be able to access the file whenever and wherever you want.
Pocket is free for use, but there is an option to upgrade to a Premium plan. Once you upgrade, you’ll be able to enjoy an ad-free use of the tool, advanced search options and additional tools for organizing saved content.
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Toggl measures the time it takes for you to finish a single task or multiple projects. It’s particularly useful if you’re working with a team since you’ll be able to see which assignments are taking too much time to get done.
Toggl offers several plans for its users. Its free plan provides the basic time tracking tool for an unlimited number of projects for individuals and teams of up to 5 people. It comes with charts and reports to help you understand your productivity and efficiency level, too.
The paid plans, meanwhile, come in three options – Pro, Pro Plus and Business. Each of these plans has extra features to help you manage your time and projects better.
See Also: Top 5 Time Management Hacks To Get You Ahead
Listastic is one of the best list-making tools there is on the internet. It’s suitable for making any kind of list, from a simple shopping list to a complex list of to-do things for your work. The ability to share them with your friends and colleagues is what makes this tool extra unique.
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Unfortunately, however, Listastic is only available for Apple products. If you are not a Mac, iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch user, you can skip this one.
When it comes to internet and computer use, most of us have short attention span. The people who created Focus@Will found a solution to this problem using neuroscience and coding.
Although it’s not a time management tool, Focus@Will can help you perform better with your current tasks. It plays music that has been scientifically proven to improve focus. The website claims that it can increase your concentration by up to 400%.
See Also: 6 Tools to Increase Your Self-Employed Productivity
Dropbox can save you a lot of time when it comes to data storage. It is basically a Cloud service that can save all your files while allowing access sharing with other people. It’s easy to use since it creates a folder on your computer which automatically uploads everything that you save in it.
Time never stands still and if you’re not going to take charge of how you use your time, there’s a good chance you won’t be able to do something productive at the end of the day. The tools listed in this article can help you not only with time management but your productivity as well.
How do you manage your time? What tools do you use to boost your productivity?
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This single-family house is located on the highest and most horizontal area of a rustic land.
This plot, which presents a significant slope and it is divided into terraces by existing dry stone walls, once formed part of a larger agricultural land and today is covered with native vegetation, mainly pine forest.
The project seeks to make the most out of the house location in its geographical and natural environment in order to exploit its interaction with it. That way, it takes advantage of all possible relationships between interior spaces and, specially, between indoor and outdoor spaces, offering family members the Balearic climate’s so desired “outdoor life”.
The construction is configured as a single prismatic volume of about 29x8x3.5m oriented southeast to maximise views of its own land. The main floor is divided into four functional units successively arranged: entrance-kitchen / terrace-living room / library-bedrooms / guest bedroom or home office. The volume presents two points of interruption. One gives place to the double orientation living room, which becomes the house’s central area and whose boundaries extend beyond the enclosure by integrating the entrance courtyard and the rear terrace. It becomes an interior or exterior space depending on the time of year, bringing all the surrounding nature closer to the house occupants during warm seasons. The second gap separates the family sleeping area from the guests area-home office through a glazed space and a sunken courtyard that illuminates the social area located in the basement, where the installation facilities and auxiliary spaces for the orchard are also located.
The house is provided with a wide variety of linked spaces capable of hosting all the different activities and relationships so they can occur in a fluid way. Transversely, the inward prolongation of the outside terraces, configures the living room which extends longitudinally on one end to the kitchen (where the two-sided fireplace is the link) and on the opposite to the library (a space where daily activities can be conducted in the company of other members of the family)
Without succumbing to local folk but in full compliance with local regulations, a link with the traditional architectural language has been established with typical materials found on the cottages of the island: white load bearing walls, ceramic and stone floors, and wood window and door frames. The openings in the facade, all of different proportions and sizes, appear laid out on a “disordered” pattern when observed from the exterior but they are actually looking for the “internal adjustment”, also taking aligned positions in opposite facades to facilitate adequate ventilation and allowing exterior-exterior cross views. Besides, they are protected from sunlight by concrete frames painted in blue, similar to the colour on the windows of the original building of the farm, framing the views and enhancing the plasticity of the facade. The front yard and the pool also refer to the vernacular architecture. The latter, placed on the prolongation of one of the aforementioned stone walls, takes the colour of the ponds found everywhere in the island and is separated from the house by a space that will be colonized again by native vegetation which will be changing with the seasons.
With a short career of only thirteen years, Italian architect Giuseppe Terragni (1904-1943) left an important legacy of built works that are now used as classic references of modern and rationalist architecture.
We traveled to Como and Milan to visit Terragni’s emblematic works that clearly reflect his style. These projects are based on the organized configuration of architectural elements that individually appear clean, pure, and expressive, but together also form a harmonious whole.
These are: Novocomum, Casa Rustici, Asilo Sant’Elia, Casa Giuliani Frigerio and Casa Lavezzari.
History tells us that back in the 20s Terragni was commissioned to design a housing project with a classical facade, to fit in with how most residential projects were designed at the time. Terragni followed the rules and presented to the municipality a traditional building which was quickly approved. However, he had another idea in mind. During the construction period, his drawings took the form of an avant-garde building, the one that today is an icon of rationalist architecture in Italy.
Initially, Terragni’s work was considered for demolition however, Novocomun became one of the most popular buildings in the city. This was thanks to the unprecedented design comprising a clean, orthogonal volume of reinforced concrete broken at the corners by cylindrical shapes and curves. Over these large openings is suspended the mass of the top floor.
Designed by Terragni in collaboration with Pietro Lingeri and located on the main avenue Corso Sempione in Milan, this apartment building was conceived at first as two separate volumes, arranged perpendicular to the street.
Using a never before seen style for those years, the architect decided to unify the two units through a third architectural element: the balcony. Thanks to long-terraces oriented to the parks in the avenue, he managed to generate a facade without much effort, which better integrated the neighboring buildings. This ‘permeable’ facade marks the entrance and creates an inner courtyard for circulation and common areas. Highlighted through the use of white marble is the grid of pillars and walls of the structure.
Two volumes and a unifying element. Terragni reuses this conceptual plan diagram to develop this kindergarten project. One of the volumes contains four classrooms, while the other contains the dining room and the bathrooms. In this case, the central element is the access, sharing a unique space with a main hall and reception protruding from the facade and rising above the ground. All this is part of an imaginary square about 40 meters on each side, forming a ‘U’ hugging an interior playground.
Its arrangement seems ‘turned’ in relation to the way it responds to solar orientation, but it is actually a play on the relationship of the building to the other houses in the neighborhood. Again, the grids of pillars are explicit in the design and the geometric process of the proposal.
This is the last building designed by Terragni before leaving for the war, forcing him to complete the design through letters with his friend and collaborator Luigi Zuccoli. The interesting thing about this building is the dismantling of its different levels in section, which is expressed in different facades exposed to the street on its three sides.
They appear as staggered rooms in between floors and apartments with different spatial configurations, plus flexible enclosures connected by movable panels. The facades reflect this through a set of sliding windows, balconies, and expressive linear metallic elements.
Clearly, this last project is not one of Terragni’s emblematic works, but it is a building that summarizes several of the styles he developed throughout his career. Located in a trapezoid shaped corner lot, Terragni solves this complexity through the same diagram used before; two volumes that rotate and fused at the narrowest point of the site, conjuring access and circulations.
Here, Terragni takes advantage of the difficult triangular space by placing the stairs in the same style he used years before in his Novocomun project. Again, balconies appear as pure and independent facade elements, in this case, framed by two large blind walls ranging from the first to the last level.
*Photographs taken by the author in May 2013.
It is wrongly said that we use only 10% of our brain capacity. In fact, we are using it 100%, but our memory can be affected by a lots of factors, like stress. And from time to time we have to refreshen the things we once knew.
We cannot possibly know all the trivia in the world, or can we? Depending on how much attention we have paid to the infos we gathered along our lives, we might now have a super brain.
Take just now this quick and easy quiz and find out if you have a super brain!
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This office block in Rio de Janeiro features a triple-layered facade with a window wall, a screen of plants, and a thick lattice of perforated metal (+ slideshow). (more…)
Architects–if ever there was a profession that paid attention to details, this is it. Every building we walk in, we’re going to notice things. Every little thing. Floor to ceiling, wall to wall… we’ll find the good, the bad, the ugly, and the criminal. It can’t be helped. No matter how hard we might try, no matter how much we imbibe, we can’t just turn off being an architect. It’s a part of who we are. Sometimes, it’s a blessing to be able to travel around and really appreciate the built environment, other times it most definitely a curse. When we go out with friends and family, it’s not uncommon to remark about things like the lack of accessibility, the bizarre choice of light fixtures, the exposed ductwork, and the location of the pull stations. You’ll correct them for using the wrong words for things we know as frieze, clerestory, and muntins.
Maybe that’s why people think we’re all like Ted Mosby.
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“He has the most who is most content with the least” – Diogenes.
Cynicism was an ascetic philosophy school characterized by the renunciation of all comfort, luxury, and pleasure. Its followers believed that one can attain happiness by living a simple life- without wealth and power. When one of its most popular–and radical–member, Diogenes, told Alexander the Great to move out of his sun, Plato defined him as “Socrates gone mad”.
Despite rejecting possessions, fame and fortune, cynics enjoyed more happiness and freedom. To achieve the same state of mind, here are 5 important lessons you can learn from Cynics.
Life is meant to be simple. We only need food, shelter, clothing and relationships to live happily.
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Unfortunately, despite having all of these things , people continue to become less satisfied with what they have. This discontent makes their lives a lot more complicated and stressful.
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For Cynics, however, these things are more than enough for a person to thrive. For them, it’s possible to live a happy life even without all these things.
Diogenes lived in a barrel. He needed few contact with people and all he ever had was a simple robe to cover his body.
See Also: 5 Steps to Do Less in Life
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Cynics didn’t take life too seriously. In fact, they are the best people who can illustrate how a good laugh can keep you healthy. Take for example Diogenes.
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Despite his primitive conditions, Diogenes spent his life worry-free- even with a good dose of humor. His outlook in life is considered to be one of the main reasons behind his long life.
You can find a lot of humorous quotes from Diogenes in the surviving Cynic writings today. One good example is this:
“The proper time for lunch? If a rich man, when you will; if a poor man when you can.”
History suggests that Diogenes masturbated in public. Most of the food he ate were from other people. He lived in barrels and didn’t care about what other people would say about him.
The Cynics is a great source of inspiration in reducing social fears. Their indifference saved them a lot of time, worries, grief, and even jealousy.
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Because Cynics weren’t dependent on any personal possession or power, they weren’t relying on anything for their happiness. Instead, they were happy with just the mere idea of being alive.
Learning from cynics, you must also strip off your desire for material things if you really want to be happy. If you rely your satisfaction on the amount of money you have or how powerful you are, you’ll never feel contented with what you have and your life.
See Also: 10 Secrets To A Happy and Fulfilled Life
Cynics, along with Stoics, knew the futility of pursuing money and social status. They believed that for us to be truly happy, we have to learn how to reject our desire for wealth, fame and power.
Unfortunately, it’s the other way around today. A lot of people work hard to attain wealth and fame in an attempt to cure their discontentment. However, as some millionaires already know, these things aren’t the solution. Although they can help make your life easier, they aren’t going to make you any happier.
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Architect Murray Barker and artist Laith McGregor have designed two outdoor table tennis tables from monolithic concrete slabs (+ slideshow). (more…)
Sig Nordal 