Want a more productive menu bar in Windows?

For the past few months now, I’ve gone with the extra thick menu bar at the bottom of my computer.  Since my screen size is so big now (1920×1200), I figured I could spare the extra space.  Here is how I created mine, just in case you might want to try the same.

To get the extra tall menu bar in the first place, you need to right-click on the menu bar down there and unlock it.  Next, just grab the edge of it with your mouse and stretch it up till it is the size you want.

Little Recycle Bin

Next, create a shortcut of your Recycle Bin on your desktop (right-click, create shortcut) and then cut and paste that into your Quick Launch toolbar.

Customized Toolbars

To setup the categorized shortcut icons, you just need to right-click on the menu bar, select “Toolbars” and then “New Toolbar”. Then, select a place you want to hide your toolbar shortcuts (I have mine in My Documents > Toolbars) and create a new folder in that location.

Now you have the toolbar there, but it is empty.  You can either drag and drop items down there, or navigate to the folder’s location and create your shortcuts there.  Here is the inside of my “apps” toolbar folder in Windows.

That’s it.  Now you can choose to customize from this point on to meet your own needs.  You might even mix in a few internet shortcuts (like to Gmail or Google Calendar) to give yourself quicker access to them.

Hope this comes in handy for those of you looking for more productive ways to organize your Windows menu bar/toolbar layout.

With a clean desktop I have more room to work. Now for designers you could see this coming in handy because they would have plenty of place to work on multiple images, files and folders and have them all saved to the desktop.

With my podcast – I do much of the same. I keep all the different segments I have recorded save temporarily to to desktop so that way I have them handy when I need them. That way when I finish my job or project I can just hit Ctrl + A then move them over to a new folder if I need to keep them or hit delete if I want to toss them away.

How about you? How naked is your desktop or have you tried it with a naked desktop? For me it is one of my easy productivity techniques that keep me sane.

Get the Basic Gadgets Out of the Way First

Your first tab should have all of the gadgets on it that you actually get some use out of. I like the weather one along with the Google Reader one the most. You might also put other application based gadgets here so that you can get good use out of them.

Here are a few good “basic” gadgets to get you started:

• Gmail
• Google Reader
• Weather Forecast
• Google Docs & Spreadsheets

Easy Way to Gather Gadgets Based on Topic

Now every tab after that should be based around things the interest you. You can create them very simply by naming the new tab after your interest. For me I would type in “Web Hosting” and then make sure the check mark for “I’m feeling lucky. Automatically add stuff based on the tab name” is selected.

From the suggestions they give you – you can cut out the ones you really don’t like and add a few it might have forgotten.

Should You Create a Popular Tab?

Now there are a lot of social link popularity Web sites out there as well. Digg, Reddit, Delicious and a boat load of others. You might try to gather all the ones you can and put them on their own tab. This way you can see what is the most popular set of links at any given moment.

Need suggestions on which ones you should be tracking? Visit popurls for a long list of these sort of Web sites. Visit each one, grab the RSS link and take it to you own iGoogle start page.

Is That It? Do You Have More to Share?

There you have it. That might have taken a whole five minutes to configure! Now you have a need focused start page that will help you keep up to date with what you need to stay informed with. If you know of any other iGoogle optimization tips feel free to drop in a comment and let me know.

One good way of getting more productive is to make yourself a list.

Now I know some people poo-poo this idea because it sets a goal that you can not reach. Your to do list might be really huge, and looking at it might discourage you from moving forward. For me though, a list is a good way to help me remember what my daily tasks should be and what my weekly tasks should be.

You shouldn’t put things on your list like “brush your teeth” or “take a bath”. Hopefully those are given tasks that you know that you will do by the time the day is over with. Things marked on the lists should not be everyday goals you set out to do. They should be the odd little things that take up your free time.

I want you to create two notes to yourself. One should be what you want to get done in a day (normal day to day tasks that you need to make note of). The other should be things you need to get done by the time the week is over with (these can be bigger tasks or jobs that you do not need to do every single day).

For example, if I know I have to write five articles, I could try to write them all in one day – but then they would probably be a little suckstatic in their quality. Instead, I have five days in the work week, so I can write down on my daily to do list – write an article. This way one job that would take several hours can now be spread out through the week and take only a few minutes.

Now what is a good way to write these notes to yourself? Here are a couple of program that should help you out in that department. Both allow you to put little sticky notes on your desktop to write things down on.

+ StickyPad
+ ATnotes
+ Stickies

The great lesson to be learned is to not overwork yourself. Instead of doing one big job today, make it into several little jobs you can spread out through the week. This way you can have more hours of your day to do other things you need to do.