In an attempt to reduce our carbon footprint the IT department (ie. me) has been requested told to make sure all of our PCs are powered off at night – and that we can’t afford to pay for software to do this.

The simplest way I’ve found to do this is using the shutdown command built into XP & Win 7.  Basically, a scheduled task configured with a 10 minute warning that your PC is to be shutdown and that if you want to be abort the shutdown click on a desktop icon labelled “Abort Shutdown”.  The scheduled task and icon are both then deployed from the server using group policy.

Shutdown Abort Icon Link:

C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe -a

Shutdown Scheduled Task:

C:\windows\system32\shutdown.exe /s /t 600 /d P:0:0 /c "Your Computer will be shutdown in 10 minutes to save energy. To cancel this, please double click the abort shutdown message on your desktop"

This task gives a warning of 10 minutes (600 seconds) and records the reason code of the shutdown as Planned, Other in the event log and gives the message in quotes to the user.

Deploying with Group Policy

Head over to your server desktop, open up group policy editor, and navigate to:

Computer Configuration -> Preferences -> Windows Settings -> Shortcuts

Once you’re there create a new shortcut to the command shown above and add it to the All Users Desktop.

I recommend that you wait a couple of days before you deploy the shutdown script to ensure that all your users have the abort shutdown icon and understand what it means before their computers starting turning off magically!

To add the scheduled task, back in Group Policy Editor, navigate to:

Computer Configuration -> Preferences -> Control Panel Settings -> Scheduled Tasks

From here, you can create your new task, and configure the scheduling to your tastes. Our task runs every 30 minutes from 7PM until 5AM daily with the exception of Tuesday evenings to allow for MS updates.  Our office has staff working typically between 9AM and 6PM so this seems to work well.  The reason for continually re-running it is for those who are working late and then leave without turning their machines off.

The Results

Well after a month of this being in place, we’ve seen a 20% reduction in electricity consumption – in an office of 30 users that’s a big saving over a year, in terms of CO2 and cash.

I’ve been through a process of reflection, of my life as it currently stands and how I would like it to be.  To do this, I’ve spent a week away from work, away from London, staying with the folks.  I’ve learnt I can only truly reflect when I’m away from the situations I’m reflecting about.

So here they are, my New Year Resolutions for 2011:

Work

• Work less (less hours at work – not necessarily less work)
• Use all my annual leave – take holidays more regularly

Life (Balance)

• Leave London more often
• Visit family more regularly
• Do more walking again (I’ve just bought Time Out – Country Walks near London which has 30 walks all accessible by train from London)
• Complete all 30 walks in the Time Out book this year.
• Read more – start reading on my commute to work.
• Play sudoku and do crosswords – wake up those brain cells!

This is quite a specific list, so lets wait and see what 2011 brings and if I manage to achieve any of them.  An awful lot of this seems to hinge on being at work less….!

Best wishes to all for 2011!

I’ve been looking at various ways of doing that and the thing that keeps coming up over and over is David Allen’s GTD methodology.

For those who don’t know, GTD is a very simple process:

• Collecting – Write a thought down when you have it (stop trying to remember it), this then needs to be processed.
• Processing – Is a thought actionable? If not is it reference material, for later, or rubbish?
• Do and Review – Do ASAP, delegate to someone else, schedule it for later. If a task is too big, make it a project and break into smaller tasks.

When I came across ThinkingRock this quote on the homepage struck home:

"If you don’t have time to download and use this software then you really need it."

Sounds like me – although I can’t say I actually believed the claim; it sounds far too much like one of those make $1,000 a day for nothing scams.

The screenshot above shows the start screen, all ready to go.  From here you can get to everywhere else very quickly.  What I love about this software is it works on my MacBook Pro, Windows PC and Ubuntu box.  Using dropbox I can sync everything between all my PCs at home and work without even noticing, my tasks, reference and projects follow me everywhere.  Alternatively, you can run the whole thing from a USB drive and take it with you everywhere.  There’s an iPhone version of the program too which I can’t vouch for as I’ve not used it – I’m an Android user and I understand there’s a version for Android coming soon.

ThinkingRock feels very reliable, I’ve never had it crash on me yet – for a system I rely on so heavily this is crucial.  I’ve seen a lot of people complain about it being slow to respond but I’ve not seen a problem personally.

Collect

The collection section of ThinkingRock is a very basic text entry area which allows you to dump thoughts as quickly as you can type.  You can bring up the collect box by pressing F6 which is great if you’re working on something else and need to record the thought quickly without disturbing your workflow.  One of the really neat features here is as you press return to add a thought its ready to add another instantly – no clicking of buttons.

Process

The process section is used to review your thoughts and decide whether they need to be actioned, filed as reference, deferred, delegated or deleted.  Personally, I find that processing all my thoughts from the collect stage every other day is sufficient and ensures that I don’t end up spending all of my time just organising.

In this example, I’ve scheduled myself to pick up some milk at 10AM on Tuesday.  Then all I need to do is click the small green arrow and it will show the next thought to be processed.

Organise Review Do

This is the section where you have your list of actions to do – there’s several tabs here by default which show Do ASAP, Scheduled, Not Scheduled, Delegated (with follow-up date).  You can customise these tabs and add and remove them.  For example, I have tabs for scheduled today, and scheduled this week, to allow me to keep tighter control on what’s coming up soon.

For me, this section gives full control over what I need to do and gives a clear picture of when I need to do it.  You can also export the scheduled items to outlook or iCal so you can always see what you’re meant to be doing when.  For me at work, this is great as it means people don’t schedule meetings with me during the time I’m planning to be working on specific tasks.

Conclusion

There’s so much more to ThinkingRock than I’ve done justice to here – I can only encourage you to try it out for yourself.  I’d be interested to know how much of a difference it makes to you.

My favourite part of ThinkingRock is the reference section.  You can store all that "stuff" you can never remember (online usernames, tax reference numbers, useful telephone numbers, library card numbers and so on) and it’s all there in one place ready to be searched.

From my personal experience with GTD and ThinkingRock I agree with the almost too good to be true quote above.   You can find out more and download from the ThinkingRock website.

I’m not sure what this is going to turn into – if anything at all.  Most likely just random musings but hopefully with a few useful things thrown in along the way.

Let’s see what comes out – hopefully more than just ‘hello world!’