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Raul Colon - photographer, digital marketer & writer living on the beach in Puerto Rico.

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Is Time Your Currency?

November 3, 2011 by Raul Colon

3832712784_bf0c37117d_z Is Time Your Currency?

Two days ago I watched the movie “In Time“. Since Daniela (10 month old daughter) arrived I have not been going to the movies as often as I did previously and the previous movie I watched in a theater was months ago when I went to see Bridesmaids.

I went into the movie not knowing much about it. Other than the interview I saw on Jimmy Fallon’s late night show days ago with Justin Timberlake I had not read or heard much about the movie. I also included the video of the History of Rap 3 Remix/Skit they did.

Great Intro

The start of the movie pretty much lays out key factors, which will help you understand the rest of the movie. The theme of the movie is that Humans stop aging at age 25 and from there on they are given one year of life. The only issue is that time is currency so people can use that one year as they like shortening their time or increasing it by working for more time.

One Year To Live after 25

Justin Timberlake who plays “Will Salas” lives in the Ghetto where time is one of the scarcest resources available. Everyone in the Ghetto has depleted their time or works heavily on a day-by-day basis to make sure they can extend their lives. People can buy more time by spending their time on other tasks that is controlled by those few key players in the time economy.

People with very little time are always running everywhere to make the most of the time they have left. Since time is of essence they make sure they use it as best as possible given the circumstances that are given.  Those living day by day are constantly trying to figure out how to make it to the next.

Time Keepers

The timekeepers are sort of police like characters that are keeping control of where time should be allocated. This is very similar to how police are given enough to make ends meet but usually protect the well being of those that have lots of abundance let it be time or money. Last year here in Puerto Rico we saw how are local government decided to protect the well being of a few by hurting pacific protestors.

This year we see the same all around the U.S. where protestors are getting hurt because they are protesting on how the high level executives of banks play with the economy and don’t seem to get affected. Meanwhile the ones that are risking their lives to keep control of the crowds are those TIme Keepers or policemen how probably live on a day by day basis.

Minutemen

As in every scenario there are always bad guys that keep control of everyone. These are left alone by the Time Keepers and the key players of the economy because they make sure to deplete people’s time while taking advantage of them. When the minutemen take time away from people those individuals are even more committed to do anything to recover the time they lost. We see how in our lives and our worlds there are many individuals that deplete our resources and time but are untouchable.

No matter what they do wrong the governments seem to leave them alone and run rampant to continue to create a sense of not having enough. When people feel they need more they become more vulnerable at doing anything to refresh resources or get new ones? Minutemen lurk around us in many forms and places as bankers, doctors, pharmaceuticals, lawyers, accountants, fast food places and politicians.

Some of them create a need that benefits a select few and since those select few already are very powerful they become untouchable for long periods of time. Minutemen can be very destructive around us but at least in the movie you could easily identify them in the real world they are much more hidden.

Everyone Wants To Have More Time, More Money, More and More of Everything

As human beings many are so committed to having more. I can speak from my experience how I ended up wanting more and more. I consider myself to be a person that wants equality and likes to share but I have to admit that I fell into a place where I wanted neat, new, and expensive things. I bought myself a Luxury Convertible Sports Car, A Bigger than Needed House (although an apartment would have served us well), Country Club Membership, and Gambled more than I should have, and many other things wanting more. I never forgot to take care of those around me but looking back I learned many lessons from making those bad decisions and depleting my resources when there was abundance.

Instead of Wanting More Time I make the Best of Time

Instead of wanting a new car and many other things I try to make the best of my time with my family and friends. I try to live a very simple life keeping costs to a minimum so I am less of a slave to the banks, their loans, and the rest of the key players of the economy. At one moment I was up to my head in debt and I still am. The difference is I have learned to make the best of my time and live with what I have.

I am lot happier and similar to the movie instead of running to get what I need I try to move precisely to get to where I want to be. My priorities are very different to what they where 2, 3, or 5 years ago.

So how much time do you have left?

Everyone in the movie had a watch, which told him or her when their time was expiring unless they had an incident, which made them expire before time. We all don’t know how much longer we will be here. So we need to make the best of our time.

A movie, which I walked in with a bit of curiosity made me walk out refreshing in my mind many lessons I have experienced. In the last few years where I have been struggling with many things I learn every day where to allocate my energy and establish better priorities.

Although I did let go or in cases lose some of the material things this movie helped me realized that I did the right thing in finding time to do what I love and follow my passion. I am finding time to be with my love ones and would spend any resources to make sure I make the best of my time with them.

How are you using your time? If you are reading this you might be “In Time” to make the best of it?

Filed Under: Featured, Professional Development Tagged With: Time Management

7 Reasons to automate some of your tasks

September 27, 2011 by Raul Colon

3875843398_15dff6cfcc_z 7 Reasons to automate some of your tasks

Not only am I a big fan of using software to get things done quicker and more precisely. Software has also given me a way to live for the last decade. From working at AOL when it came into Puerto Rico as a ISP (Internet Service Provider) to now running CIMA IT Solutions, technology has brought me a lot of great things and more importantly a reason to want to learn more and more on a the vast technological world surrounding us.

Why I Automate?

1. I don’t like recreating the wheel

In my case it makes it easier because later on I can probably take something that was already created and tweak it.  Instead of recreating it I can enhance it make it more functional.

2. Learning New Things

I like to look for ways to make myself more effective and efficient. Although sometimes I run into a situation where I probably spent more time than if I would by testing a way to either make me more efficient or look for other options.

3. Having multiple backups

I can have multiple instances stored of whatever I am working on electronically.  When you always have backups and also store a few remotely you end up having a copy of what has been done before. With paper once you lost it is gone. But it also takes a lot of space.

4. The Keyboard is My Friend

I remember in grade school where they always gave me a hard time because of my sloppy handwriting. I think over time it got worst. If you look at my handwriting now you can see that at 7 years old it was more attractive and pleasant. The keyboard has allowed me to communicate via writing so that others don’t have a hard time understanding what I write. I am more than sure that other people can relate to this.

5. Sharing with others at any location

When your process is automated it allows you to share with many others. If you have a team of resources and want to share with them something remotely, having your processes automated or even better yet accessible online can improve productivity amongst teams.

6. It saves time

Sometimes formatting a document or file takes more time than creating it. If you automate a process of data entry for those tasks and documents you re-create over and over again in the long run you will see huge benefits. Sometimes paying for software does bring a return on investment when you become more productive and make those on your team more productive. Think of the people hours consumed by processes that are done manually

7. It keeps the money flowing

I automated my billing to a certain extent with Freshbooks (Affiliate Link). I sit down one time and create a recurring bill that my clients receive every billing period. For a small business like me having software that helps me with billing is a life saving tool.  Freshbooks even sends a reminder to those who have not paid you. If you are using other software where you have to manually input your recurring invoices over and over  Freshbooks is a cost effective option that you can try for free with your first 3 clients.

Freshbooksbrandappearanceupdated 7 Reasons to automate some of your tasks

Overall I see many opportunities for automating many things. The toughest part is dealing with people who are resistant to change and want to continue to do it the old way because they fear of failing when trying something new.

Being the Leader of the Pack

Since I love trying out new things I can clearly say that I am not afraid at failing when using a new technology or tool. Is you resisting change because of fear of failure? What is the worst that can happen you find out that the technology is not the right tool for you?

Fear of Investing In Technology Tools

If you fear losing money make sure you have someone to ask about technology and how it can fit your organization. For many years I have been the vendor agnostic strategist making sure that what my clients implement will bring results.

Make sure you have someone you trust when asking about implementing new technologies. Even if you are hiring them to figure it out it can turn into a healthier implementation.

What things have you automated? What things do you see a purpose in automating?

 

Filed Under: Featured, Random Thoughts Tagged With: Freshbooks, Tasks, Time Management, Tools

Saving Valuable Time on my Mac, iPad, & iPhone with @TextExpander!

May 18, 2011 by Raul Colon

Screen-shot-2011-05-18-at-10.19.11-AM Saving Valuable Time on my Mac, iPad, & iPhone with @TextExpander!

Are you always searching for things to save you time and effort during the day?

I have always been searching for ways to make things more effective with less effort so I can do even more things. At the end of last year as I prepared to become a New Dad I bought the iRobot 330 Scooba Floor-Washing Robotir?t=cis02-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B000GB568O&camp=217145&creative=399349 Saving Valuable Time on my Mac, iPad, & iPhone with @TextExpander!Robotic Vacuums)ir?t=cis02-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B000GB568O&camp=217145&creative=399357 Saving Valuable Time on my Mac, iPad, & iPhone with @TextExpander! which saves me time from mopping and cleaning the floors. Last June I read this post on how to Automate the Easy Stuff written by @chrisbrogan. This introduced me to a piece of software I use everyday on my Mac, iPhone, and iPAD. This software is created in such a way once you get use to it you don’t even realize you are  using it.

What is Text Expander?

TextExpander saves you countless keystrokes with customized abbreviations for your frequently-used text strings and images.

TextExpander Overview from Website

Boilerplate Paragraphs

If you have greetings or templates of paragraphs. Add them to your snippet library and insert them into your emails and contracts by typing a short abbreviation.

Filling Out Forms

Make it easy on yourself by adding your address, email, phone and fax numbers to your snippet library.

Correcting Same Typos

Add common typos as triggers – TextExpander automatically replaces them with the correct spelling! TextExpander also includes the TidBITs AutoCorrect Dictionary. (more info)

Inserting HTML and CSS Code Quickly

Create abbreviations for commonly-used tags! Or use our built-in HTML and CSS snippet groups.

Current Date or Time

TextExpander comes with date and time snippets that you can format the way you want.

Inserting Special Characters or Accented Words

Try our built-in snippet groups to insert special characters and accent marks easily.

See Other Features on the Site


How I use TextExpander!

Accents

I write in spanish and most of the time I forget my accents I have started building a list of the words I normally write without an accent that needs one like my name Raúl and it will automatically populate the correct spelling.

Insert my Affiliate links Code

I am an affiliate for the Genesis Framework (affiliate Link) and Hootsuite which are both products and services I represent because I use them for myself and my clients at CIMA IT Solutions. I also read many books and use example of them adding  Amazon affiliate links when I mention those books in the blog. Instead of me having to go back to the affiliate site to get the link I have various shortcuts I use to just add the code.

Client’s Website Links

Since I have multiple clients where we manage there online presence I make sure I keep there key links to there website with a shortcut. Example every time someone requests the menu for Archipielago Restaurant I type “aMenu” I get the complete link. The same when they ask for the reservations “aRes“.

My Address & Signature

I have my Po Box which I always forget which is also my corporate address. Everytime somebody requests it i enter 5 keystrokes and I have the full address displayed.

Tweetchats

If I am tweeting on a tweetchat or twitter party I might limit the Hashtag to two keystrokes that way I make sure I can continue the conversation and writing the correct hashtag.

Templates of Messages I Customize

I collaborate with various organizations and occasionaly I have to repeat the same message over and over even though it is customized. So instead of sending a template of a message I have some key points written for every message and then I modify accordingly.

Google Ads Snippets

I keep the google Ads Snippets I use for some clients and with a few keystrokes I can add them without having to go to the dashboard to copy and paste them.


List of IOS Applications

Some of the applications that I use on my IOS Devices (iPhone & iPAD) are Twittelator and Things. With a few strokes, I can easily insert tasks that appear every once in while and in twittelator maybe send a quick thank you note for a RT. For a Complete list of TextExpander-enhanced iOS apps. (click here) of other applications where you can use TextExpander on the iPhone and/or IPAD

Hours Saved

Overall I recommend TextExpander as a tool that you can use for many things. Clicking on statistics I have saved approximately a little more than 6 1/2 hours at 60 words per minute. Which at at even the US Federal Minimum Wage would a good $47 dollars which brings a profit to my investment in TextExpander

Screen-shot-2011-05-18-at-10.11.31-AM Saving Valuable Time on my Mac, iPad, & iPhone with @TextExpander!

Where to Find or Download TextExpander

  • Download and try TextExpander with a Free Trial
  • TextExpander Touch for IOS Devices

Can you see any tasks where a tool like TextExpander can help you? Are there other tools you use to save time feel free to share?

Are there things you would like to automate and you have not found an application for that?


 

Filed Under: Featured, Reviews Tagged With: Apple, Applications, Apps, Ipad, Iphone, Mac, New Dad, Time Management

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