Four out of five people wash their hands regularly, support full-body scanners as a measure of US airport security, don’t look good in black, and would have preferred a tablet rather than a laptop this holiday season.

In addition, four out of five people are said to break their New Year’s resolutions; just a third make it to February.

We’re about three weeks into the year; time to take stock. If your resolutions didn’t last much longer than a proper New Year’s Eve kiss should, here are some productivity tips for you.

Stepcase Lifehack says New Year’s resolutions are for the birds. After all, you created them at an exhausted time of the year: the holiday season had just ended, summer’s unimaginably far away, and the temptation to curl up into a soft nest of complacency is at its highest. But we’re going to argue that better than giving up on your resolutions entirely, a few weeks out from the holidays is time to tease out the flaws in your initial set of goals and rebuild them.

Were your resolutions really just a lofty wish list? For example, if you essentially re-imagined yourself a morning-loving exercise nut who rises at 5:30 a.m. to hit the pavement, but your lifestyle keeps you up til well after midnight, you’ve set yourself up to join that majority of resolution-failers. A tweak: make resolutions that emphasize what you’ve already got going in your life. If you’re enjoying four yoga classes a month, bump it up to six. If you have a circle of great friends you wished you spent more time with, organize a bi-monthly dinner. More on this from a group of people who’ve learned the lessons of a few more New Years than many of us: the AARP.

After checking in with the older generation, make sure your technology is enabling your best effort. The Life Optimizer blog recommends the iPhone app Resolutions Tracker, which has you enter goals and set reminders. You then grade yourself on your efforts within a range of five stars, which takes a pass/fail mentality out of the equation. If your resolutions involve daily habits, check out web-based Joe’s Goals for a low-tech, binary yes/no daily tracker.

We know CLEAR members like finding ways to save time and make life better, more productive, and more relaxed. So we’re guessing the success rate among members might be a bit higher than everyone else! How are your resolutions going – are you still firmly resolved, or were your promises already aircasualties to life as usual?

The digital natives, that is. Going paperless is a great New Year’s resolution to up your productivity in 2012!

Probably, unless you’ve been living under a large file credenza, you’re aware of the benefits of going fully paperless. CLEAR customers are nothing if not interested in better use of their time. The productivity increase you’ll see going paperless is incredible; consider the time wasted alone looking for a lost paper note or file. When you’re paperless, even if you misplace a file in the wrong folder, you can perform a search and find it in an instant. Paperless systems are also very sharable and great for enhancing the work of teams. More benefits of going paperless:

• Better efficiency in basic administration of your work “stuff” means more time for productive, creative, and billable activities
• Done properly, you’ll never lose anything again
• Every single file is portable and at your fingertips
• No files to remember and carry around
• Yay for the environment!
• Secure all your files in one fell swoop
• Once you get going, it’s cheaper

So you’ve got your iPad and you’re ready to ditch the paper notebook you’ve been carrying, just in case, alongside it. Or your office is in the throes – with or without your vigorous resistance – of a movement from paper filing to electronic. Here are the three cardinal rules of going paperless, from least to most complex.

1. Back up, but automatically

Gone are the days when you had to physically plug in and make a digital, static copy of everything that matters. iCloud is here for a very good reason. Enable it for all of your important apps.

2. Have a system and follow it

 The paperless novice is trying out new apps and systems, saving things here one day and on other somewhere else, or loading everything into one unruly mess. Once you go paperless, just about every step of your work routine needs some tweaking. Here’s a great example of how one attorney sets himself up for paper-free success (the legal field is just one profession in which losing documents is a very bad idea).

 3.     Know your toolbox

There are a terrific number of apps available to help in your pursuit of paperlessness. But just like overdelegating to too many assistants, using an overabundance of apps will only make you less productive. Research your options, gather your tools, and stick with them. Here’s the paperless suite, to date, that works for us:

Orchestra. Switching to an electronic to do list is often the first step for the newly paperless. Orchestra beautifully allows you to compile and organize everything you need to get done today, on a specific date, “soon,” or “someday.” Social by nature, it makes a great tool for delegating and task sharing; voice recognition lets you speak your tasks. Best of all, it’s free.

DropBox. Store, manage, and share files with your team. This simple interface has been around for some time, but as it takes new devices easily into stride, it has yet to be beat.

Readdle. Since the iPad by design has no innate file manager or document viewer (other than the ability to view PDFs in iBooks), we recommend Readdle products. ReaddleDocs 3 lets you gather documents from email, the web, your computers, Google Docs, DropBox and other file transfer programs, etc. and organize them efficiently; you can also highlight and annotate directly on PDF files. Readdle’s PDF Expert 3 also lets you highlight and annotate, as well as draw with your finger (useful for recording simple diagrams); it also makes it easy to fill in forms.

Note Taker HD. The app that truly makes your iPad a notepad + tech. Tons of features may overwhelm a little at first, but it’s worth it: Note Taker HD lets you take efficient notes with finger or stylus or type in a text box, reorder pages, delete pages, edit tags, and more. Multiple line thicknesses (a really useful benefit), colors, fonts, and font sizes add customization, and you can import PDFs, annotate them, and insert and crop photos.

Genius Scan. This iPad app helps you take good quality scans of documents, and also does a great job capturing and resizing other text or diagrams you might want to scan, like notes on a whiteboard.

At what stage of going paperless are you: staunch believer in manila and spiral bound, or barely remembering how to sign your own name with a pen in your hand? Share your favorite apps in the comments.

It has been a big week for us here at CLEAR. First, we announced our CLEAR Community Charities winners, and then we confirmed something that you may have suspected, given our list of nomination cities – we are coming back to SFO!

It has been an exciting year for us too, and we can’t wait to tell you about all the awesome things lined up for 2012.

But this season is all about giving back – and we want to share more about the non-profits who won our Community Charities campaign.

These folks work hard to keep their communities safe. Fed. Educated. All the things they do – big and small – make such an impact. We thank them for their hard work!

Please consider making a donation yourself to these worthy charities. Or whatever charity in your community that speaks to you. Every little bit helps!

________________________________________________________________________

DENVER & BOULDER

$2,000 Winner: 

Women’s Bean Project

Since 1989, Women’s Bean Project has been dedicated to helping women break the cycle of poverty and unemployment. They strive stop chronic unemployment and poverty by helping women discover their talents and develop skills by offering job readiness training opportunities.

$250 Runners Up:

Emergency Family Assistance Association

EFAA helps the working poor, the homeless and near-homeless sustain themselves so they can eventually move toward self reliance.  One-time help with rent, utility bills and other necessities is part of a package of services, including important referrals, which are available to be matched with clients’ verified needs.

CLEAR is coming to SFO!

We’ve gotten a lot of excitement and questions from you about SFO…

CLEAR was identified as the successful proposer! We are now working with the airport and will have more details and launch timing after formal approval by their Commission.

We’re working hard to speed our members– including 40,000 in the Bay Area– through as many airports as possible…these discussions can take a while, but we’ve got even more good news coming soon.

Wow. All we can say is wow.

When we asked for suggestions in Denver/Boulder, Orlando and San Francisco as to what non-profits you appreciate the most, we didn’t expect the diversity and amazing stories that came in.

It made us proud of the work being done to help people around the country (and, in some cases, around the world), especially during this season of joy.

It also made it nearly impossible to choose the winner.

So, we chose three from each community. Yes, for each community, there will be one CLEAR Community Charity who receives $2,000 from CLEAR – but also 2 other non-profits who will get $250 each as well – to show our appreciation for their hard work too.

And THANK YOU, to ALL the nominees for what you do all year long to make life better for so many people.

As they say, the winners are…

DENVER & BOULDER

Winner: Women’s Bean Project

Runners Up:

Emergency Family Assistance Association

Winner: Quest

Runners Up:

Rock For Hunger

Poodle and Pooch Rescue of Florida

Winner: San Francisco Food Bank

Runners up:

Help A Mother Out

In the mean time, let’s celebrate!

This season, we want to hear from our friends about who makes a difference in our CLEAR communities. It’s been an exciting year for us, with more exciting news on the way – and we believe the holidays are about giving back.

Starting today, tell us which non-profits deserve a $2,000 donation from us. Here, on this blog post – tell us who works hard in Orlando. In Denver and Boulder. And San Francisco—which we hope to add to our roster of CLEAR cities very soon!

It’s pretty simple.

1. Comment and tell us about your favorite non-profits in:

• Orlando

• Denver and Boulder

• San Francisco

2. Tell us why they deserve our donation, what they do to support the community, who they have affected with their awesome work.

3. Spread the word.

4. Come back on December 21, 2011, to see who wins in each of the three locations.

5. Celebrate!

It’s not about number of comments – it is about compelling stories and hard work. CLEAR will make the final selection, but you tell us who deserves it.

We are giving three awards of $2,000. We can’t wait to see who gets the prizes, and the amazing things they will do.

Happy holidays to our CLEAR members, colleagues, friends …

And all the best to you in 2012.

It seems some people really love spending their time waiting in lines. For them, Black Friday is probably one of the year’s highlights: the opportunity to camp outside for hours or days, with fellow line-standing enthusiasts, doggedly holding their spots among the first to access killer sale prices.

The Black Friday line-waiting phenomenon reached new heights this year. Even retailers with mobile apps attempted to capitalize on it by pushing special deals for bored customers to peruse at peak line-waiting hours. At least one person waited in line since November 16 for the sales slated for November 25; some stores worked to keep the line entertained with movies and refreshments; and others made plans to avoid catastrophe in the crush of eager shoppers thronging doors.

For the rest of you, who would much sooner blow past lines in favor of using your time elsewhere, we have a special holiday offer. This season, try out CLEAR for two months free.

CLEAR gives you the gift of time on each flight you take out of a participating airport. Knowing you won’t be stuck in a long security line means saving the time you’d normally allot to unpredictable security line wait times, removing a layer of iffiness from your travel schedule. We know you’ll appreciate the extra hours during the holiday season especially, the busiest travel time of the year, and we’re pretty sure none of the lengthy security lines you’d face without CLEAR are offering free entertainment and refreshments.

Flying with CLEAR can mean time for last minute errands and shopping before arriving at the airport; it could be a little extra time before saying goodbye to loved ones at the end of a holiday visit. What it a guarantees is a stress-free express path through security and to your gate.

Happy holidays from CLEAR! Sign up for your free two-month trial before the end of December by clicking here and entering promotion code CHMNHOL in the promo code box on the payment page if it’s not pre-filled for you.

It costs $179 a year to join, which might sound steep if you’re not a road warrior, but there’s a discount rate of $50; for family members and no charge at all for children 18 and under. It works like this: You sign up online, then present an ID and get your fingerprints taken at one of the enrollment centers where Clear operates. At that point, you get a card that essentially gets you right through security with no wait (you still have go through the metal detector and bag check, of course).

Nice piece by Barbara Peterson on CLEAR in the Daily Traveler on Conde Nast Traveler.

http://www.cntraveler.com/daily-traveler/2011/11/how-to-jump-the-line-at-airport-security

Our favorite holiday offends no one. Everyone receives a gift, but nobody has to give one. Your partner won’t lose it if you forget the date; you don’t have to plan a meal; and traffic isn’t affected. College kids, working professionals, executives, and rockstars alike breathe a sigh of relief when this day rolls around.

Happy “fall back” Daylight Saving Time! It’s tonight!! Today is a 25-hour day, so get a jump on it. After our favorite holiday, the whole workweek seems to flow a little better – meetings are more likely start on time, and the faces and minds of your colleagues are a little bit more refreshed.

CLEAR hereby (self-)proclaims ourselves as Official Sponsor of Daylight Saving Time. It exemplifies what we believe in: slipping an extra hour in your day. Whether you celebrate by tinkering with your favorite pet project, catching up with a loved one, knocking a few items off the to-do list, or sleeping in, we hope you’ll think of us. We’re thinking of you – sign up before the clocks roll back for our 25-Hour Day special offer. Get $25 off annual membership fees (usually $179) following a FREE two-month trial period.

The CLEAR team is working hard to get our service off the ground in new cities, and you’ll find all of our latest news here on this blog. Thanks to all of you who have provided excellent feedback for being part of the process.

And since part of our mission at CLEAR is to help people who travel make the most of every day, in this space we’ve shared, and will continue to share productivity tips and strategies. CLEAR supports relaxed, efficient lifestyles and helping professionals find that sweet spot that allows them to do their best work, access their creativity, and embrace their free time. Beyond giving you that extra hour in your day and an added sense of travel predictability every time you use CLEAR, we’ll tell you about best practices for getting it all done on the go.

Click here to take advantage of the 25-Hour Day special offer. Or enter ExtraHr in the promo code field of the payment page after going to enroll.clearme.com. Look forward to more 25-hour days in your year!

If you’re like us, you’ve had the weekend of fall daylight savings time marked on your calendar for months now, and you’re looking forward to one of the more rested workweeks of your career next week.

But you may have a friend or two who fits into the “oblivious” category — those people you know will be entirely discombobulated come the time change, failing to adjust until at least midweek.

You have two options here. You can sit back and watch as they rush to find themselves an hour early for plans, only to realize they could have slept in or gotten ahead with an extra hour of productivity. Or, you could do the right thing and send them a CLEAR ecard reminder, giving them the greatest gift of all: the gift of time.

Pick one of two Daylight Savings ecards to remind the people in your life who are too preoccupied to remember the free hour waiting for them this weekend.

You just might help them avoid a major Daylight Saving mishap!

Thanks for celebrating our favorite holiday with us as we work to bring you 25-hour days every time you fly with CLEAR!

Don’t forget: just a few hours til we turn the clocks back means time’s almost up for our Daylight Savings enrollment special. Get $25 off a year subscription plus two trial months when you sign up before November 6, 2011 with code EXTRAHR.