The Fizz! Blog

New toy!

I just bought a Fujitsu ScanSnap 510:

It's absolutely brilliant - every office should have one, seriously.  Basically, it scans documents to PDF.  It can do some other things (like scanning to Excel or Word, both of which it does pretty well based on my experimentation so far) but its main use for me is going to be scanning to PDF, as this is a largely paperless office.

Until now, I've been doing that with an old-fashioned flatbed scanner, but that takes ages, particularly with, say, a set of accounts or a tax return.  The ScanSnap has a sheetfeeder that sucks documents in, and scans at 18 pages per minute.  That's right, 18.  Not only that, but it can scan both sides of a sheet simultaneously.  So if the document is double sided it will scan 36 pages a minute!  Unbelievable.

Get one.  Even though it's about £300 plus VAT, it will pay for itself in no time.  If you're fairly paperless at the moment, it will cut down on the time you spend scanning, and if you're not, it will save you loads of time and space if your records are electronic documents rather paper.

www.fizzhq.com

Are you using RSS?

If not, you should be.  It's a fantastic way to make your use of the web more efficient.

There are lots of websites that I look at on a regular basis (insert your own joke here!).  A year ago, I used to  check each of them maybe every day, or every week, or every month, depending on how important it was to me or how much time I had.  If I forgot to check one of "my" sites then I'd miss any new content.

RSS (which stands for Really Simple Syndication) does the checking for you.  A program called a feed reader checks all your favourite websites for updates.  The sites have to be set up to use RSS, but many sites are these days - perhaps most of the sites that you'll want to monitor.  If the site has an RSS feed, it'll have a little orange icon somewhere on it that you can click on.  The feed reader I use is Google Reader, but there are tons of free readers available.

When I start up my web browser (Firefox rather than Internet Explorer, but I'll leave the reasons for that to another article), my homepage is Google Reader.  I've told Reader what sites I want it monitor (some accounting/tax sites, along with a tranche of other sites dealing with various other interests).  Reader shows me how many unread new articles there are on each of the sites I've told it to monitor, like this:

So, rather than checking the HM Revenue & Customs site periodically for updates to its internal manuals, which I used to do to stay abreast of the guidance its Inspectors were being given on thorny issues, Google Reader now alerts me when something is added to relevant section of the HMRC site.  It saves all sorts of time.  Initially you go through an enthusiastic burst of use where you add so many sites' feeds that you can't possibly read them all, but once you've pared it back down to the sites you really want (I've got about 50 sites in my list now), it's brilliant.  Try it, I guarantee you won't look back.

www.fizzhq.com

How to Shave Ten Hours Off Your Work Week

Link: From Where I Sit: How to Shave Ten Hours Off Your Work Week.

A good article advising ways of saving time on pointless tasks.  In particular, this one strikes a chord with me:

Not every project you start is worth finishing. Sometimes we get into it and realize, “This is a waste of time.” Fine, then give yourself permission to quit. I do this all the time with reading. It’s why I am able to read so many articles and books. Here’s publishing’s dirty little secret: most books are not worth finishing.

I finish every book I start, pretty much.  I can't help myself, even if I am constantly complaining to those around me about how boring it is.  A straw poll of my friends indicate they are as bad.  I will try to take this advice in future!

7 rules for communicating clearly and concisely in emails

There's a good article here about efficient emailing.  In particular, I agree completely with the idea that any email should only require one specific response or action from the recipient.  If you ask for three things, there is a fair chance that you won't get a response until all three things have been done.  If you ask for one thing, you'll probably get a response a lot quicker.  If you need three things, send three emails.  That way the easy responses can be made straight away.