The blog

For you who pre­fer lis­ten­ing to read­ing, this post is also avail­able as an episode of the ​“Done!” pod­cast:

Stress­ful stops

If you then can­not reach the col­league you need, find the man­u­al or locate the quick ref­er­ence guide, you will most like­ly be annoyed, to say the least. The clock is tick­ing and what you could have been done with quick­ly now takes up much more of your day than you had intend­ed it to.

A code at the office

When I held a lec­ture for the admin­is­tra­tive staff at the Swedish Uni­ver­si­ty for Arts, Crafts and Design, recent­ly, I dis­cov­ered a small but clever detail they use and which I would like to see in more offices and orga­ni­za­tions (my own included).

Out­side of the door to the IT-depart­ment, there was a sign with the head­ing ​”IT-FAQ” with a big QR-code that was impos­si­ble to miss under­neath. The per­son who is in dire need of IT-sup­port and who there­fore heads on down to this very depart­ment could most like­ly find the answer to their ques­tion with­out even step­ping through the door (regard­less of if the sup­port staff are in or not). You scan the QR-code with your smart­phone and will be instant­ly redi­rect­ed to the intranet-page where the solu­tions to the most fre­quent­ly asked ques­tions and prob­lems the employ­ees have are listed.

Is this not a clever solu­tion? It real­ly appeals to me, espe­cial­ly since it is so easy to scan QR-codes nowa­days. If you have an iPhone you just ​”aim” at the code through your cam­era-app and if you use Android and, for instance, the phone Sam­sung Galaxy, you sim­ply open the web brows­er and do the same thing. The dig­i­tal infor­ma­tion you need to have in a cer­tain phys­i­cal loca­tion is then read­i­ly avail­able, just a click away.

Do this

If you want to fol­low this great exam­ple, then

1. Take a moment to think about where in your every­day life you could use hav­ing access to some kind of dig­i­tal infor­ma­tion that is not nat­u­ral­ly or eas­i­ly avail­able in this place or loca­tion. This could, for exam­ple, be:
   
   • A cheat sheet describ­ing how you do some­thing you do not do very often.
   • A doc­u­ment in a cloud-ser­vice into which you need to enter a val­ue after read­ing it from a phys­i­cal gauge, gad­get, or appa­ra­tus that is not locat­ed any­where near your computer.
   • A page on the web where the infor­ma­tion changes so quick­ly that there is no use to print it out or mak­ing a phys­i­cal sign out of it.
2. Cre­ate a QR-code using, for instance, the ser­vice QR Code Gen­er­a­tor.
3. Print it out and paste it wher­ev­er it needs to go.
4. Done!

Find it fast

If you by using QR-codes cre­ate short­cuts through the phys­i­cal space and world to dig­i­tal infor­ma­tion and mate­ri­als, you will nei­ther need to remem­ber nor enter the address, URL, or pass­word to the place where the infor­ma­tion actu­al­ly is located.

Instead of fill­ing your phone with short­cuts, you will have only one short­cut for every place that needs one and it will be locat­ed in the place where it is actu­al­ly need­ed instead of on your phone. You will keep the motion going in what­ev­er you are doing and will find what you need — when and where you need it.

What’s your way?

Have you used QR-codes in some oth­er clever way? If so, feel free to write about your appli­ca­tion or use of this smart solu­tion in the com­ment section. 

(Do you know how to take a short­cut to real­iz­ing your vision?)