This is quickly becoming one of my favorite ways to browse and read online articles. It makes things amazingly easy to read and does it all with one easy click. Here is a little background…

Reading anything on the Internet has become a full-on nightmare. As media outlets attempt to eke out as much advertising revenue as possible, we’re left trying to put blinders on to mask away all the insanity that surrounds the content we’re trying to read.

It’s almost like listening to talk radio, except the commercials play during the program in the background. It’s a pretty awful experience. Our friend to date has been the trusty “Print View” button. Click it and all the junk goes away. I click it all the time and rarely print. It’s really become the “Peace & Quiet” button for many.

Readability is a browser bookmarklet (sort of like a bookmark on steroids). You can install Readability by visiting the Readability setup page.

Gina Trapani, the founding editor and lead blogger for Lifehacker, the popular site that offers “tech tricks, tips and downloads for getting things done,” offers her secrets for writing a successful to-do list.

There are lots of ways you can make a to-do list into something that actually gets done. Often when people get to the point when they are writing it, they are doing a brain dump. They just have to just get things down on paper. But to get to the point where you’re checking things off, you want to make it a do-able to-do list. Things need to be as easy for yourself to do as possible. So you have to break things down into tasks. We sabotage ourselves by writing down things like “Plan the anniversary party” or “Learn French.” Those are projects, not tasks and don’t belong on your to-do list.
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Here are a couple thoughts from Jason Fried about things they’ve learned at 37Signals. Very simple but brilliant principles to follow…

Momentum - Has its hands in just about everything and is incredibly important. Esp for morale. Most typical projects are really exciting at the beginning and then people tend to lose interest and fade out. Long projects eat at you and you’re not even looking to do good stuff you just want to finish things and they don’t turn out well. Create a situation where projects are short and there’s excitement and it’s a short 2 week project and it leaves people in excited mode. Break big projects into as many small projects. 2 week rule.

Planning is Vastly Overrated – 37Signals doesn’t do road maps, specs, projections. They have rough ideas internally but these aren’t shared externally. Even internally they’re not set in stone or written down. Think about what’s being done now and maybe what’s next. You set expectations too soon and things changed. Don’t want to be boxed into decisions you made 18 years ago. They don’t do design docs and functional specs ‘artifacts’ that don’t push back enough. A spec doc contains 1000 yes’es. Leads to an illusion of agreement. Everyone can read the same paragraph and think you agree. Don’t do projections like financial projections.

Interruption is the enemy of productivity – when Jason and DHH were across the pond from each other they were super productive and they did work. When DHH moved to Chicago they got a lot less done. Proximity invites collaboration. Interruptions: tap on the shoulder with a question, required meetings, shouting someone’s name, “Hey Check this out”, phones & blackberry’s. Great quote: “Average work day has been traded in for work moments.” Most people get work done in the mornings or late at night. Not that there’s more work today – just that there’s less time in the daytime. Fragmented day is not a productive day. Strategy: on Thursdays nobody talks to each other. Passive collaboration instead of active collaboration. If someone is busy they can put it aside and come to it when they’re ready. Interruption points screw your days up.

Jason Fried – Things We’ve Learned At 37Signals