Keeping up with technology is a lot of work. Luckily, we enjoy wading through the noise just to find the gems of awesomeness sprinkled throughout. Fusion Radar is our gift to you, Current or Potential Client, so that you can enjoy all of the awesome without any of the drudgery. Unwrap it each week, and know that you’re loved by the geeks and pixel-pushers at Agency Fusion.
Productivity
We’re not opposed to switching things up around here, especially when it comes to finding better ways to serve our clients. That’s why, from here on out on our blog, in addition to our traditional list of awesome sites and tools, you’ll also be seeing some of our own opinions, suggestions, and methodology.
Do you ever wonder how the AF team gets so much done so quickly? We queried the team and here's what came out of the discussion.
One thing to keep in mind while discussing productivity is that there is no one system that works for everybody. For example, some of us just use paper and pens to create to-do lists and track our tasks. Others like various task management systems: Asana, 30/30, Trello, and Any.do, to name a few. One person on our team uses a priority pyramid – built with post-it notes stuck to the wall next to his desk.
Another theme that kept coming up was the idea of distractions – little things like notifications on your phone or computer for emails or text messages. Turning those notifications off entirely works for some of us – it enables us to be in control of when and where we get our information. Another option is Inbox Pause, which lets you stop all notifications for a while – say, while you’re really focusing on a project – and then you reactivate your inbox and all your messages come through.
Lastly, here are a few extra links that are great tools for developers and designers:
MailDrop
MailDrop is a web service that saves you from having to send spam to your inbox when you have to give out your email address. Instead of giving out your real address, just make up an email address on MailBox; you don't even have to sign up or create an account. You can just type in your user name and it will pull up any emails you had sent to that address.
Stylify Me
Stylify Me is a great site for designers to look into. Users can just type in the web address of any site, and Stylify Me analyzes it and creates a style guide for it, complete with colors, fonts, and image dimensions.
Sidekiq
Sidekiq is simple, efficient message processing for Ruby (well suited for handling asynchronous, queued tasks). It uses threads to handle many messages at the same time in the same process. As such, it claims to work 20 times faster than other Ruby message processing services like Resque or DelayedJob.