(last edited on April 29, 2014 at 1:24 am)
One of this month’s goals has been to redesign the Productivity Tools page so it was easier to display both free downloads and items for sale. I’ve been slowly plugging away at it to make the October 15 deadline that I agreed on with my cousin Ben; if there’s an increase in sales, I’m planning on putting 50% of any additional profits into a shared “Expensive Scotch and Cigar Fund”. It’s just a fun way of putting a little extra accountability on myself. I also happened to find Shawn Blanc & Ben Brooks’ B&B Podcast Episode #80, which mentioned the Emergent Task Planner at around +12:45; I listened in horror as the hosts attempted to find the form while “on the air”, only to get stuck. This was quite a kick in the pants, so I was extra-motivated to fix the problems this weekend.
The changes are live now, with plenty of new custom WordPress coding and CSS to make the new layout possible. I now have to revamp the actual content on each page by adding slideshows and (maybe) better custom headers for each page that shows the tool in use. I’ll be switching into Photographer mode next to take a heap o’ pictures.
I think this is a significant improvement. Let me know what you think!
10 Comments
Nice work with this , Dave! Very clear now. The icons look great… they do a good job of giving a quick general idea of each item.
Also, I LOVE the embedded video of you demonstrating how to edit and use Gantt Graph Paper, very nice.. I could easily sit through video walk-through’s of all your products! ;)
As a side note… have you ever thought about creating an e-course on how to use Excel like a Badass? That would be the perfect name for it.
Looking good, but the link to CCAL (productivity-tools/ccal) is sends me to an empty page…Ooops
Love your ETP, allthough I switch a lot between paper and digital. And so I was curious what the CCAL was.
Thanks!
Brad: Thanks! I wonder what kind of Excel badassery I could teach. There are really only a handful of tricks I use.
Lizzy: Thanks for the heads up! Apparently I don’t know how to use my source control solution properly and committed an old version.
I tried to find the downloadable version # of book outlining page and I kept running in circles, with no luck find the version to download???? What am I doing wrong? I really want to try it out, it looks helpful.
Lynn
Lynn: Did you go to the FBO page and look on the right sidebar? The version #s are displayed.
the new layout makes it much easier to find what i want. yea!! and i love the mini views of the sheets. one issue i have run into is that the DGB looks like it has lines to fill in for each day but then when i print it, there is just blank space :-( i’m pretty sure i’ve had this with both A-4 and US letter size but today it was with the US Letter. i’m a messy writer so having the two columns of lines for each day really help me organize myself. I use DGB in combination with Concrete Goals Tracker and would also love to see lines in the “what else is going on” section, but maybe that’s just a me thing. THANKS FOR THESE TOOLS – i don’t know that they make me more productive, but they definitely make me saner and happier as they help me get a handle on my often chaotic feeling life (we travel a lot for work and currently have no home base so these sheets give me a place to land and get centered in terms of what i have to do)
Annette: Over the years I’ve come to realize that just having cool-looking sheets does help with the productivity :-) With regards to the blank lines: If you print from Chrome’s built-in PDF viewer, it isn’t 100% PDF compatible. You need to use Adobe’s Acrobat Reader, which you can download for free from the Adobe website.
That would be the issue – Thanks!
Your amazon link needs to be situated near the product for sale and/or describe what is being sold.
I love the new layout – found things I didn’t know you’d developed – and the icons are great mental reminders when looking for something you’ve used before.
Jenn: Thanks for the feedback. Yes, I agree; I’m working on a better product layout that looks more like a store. Little pictures in boxes, so I can make a little row of selling boxes.