Reading Time: < 1 min You may have never heard the term “yak shaving” before, but you’ve likely done it. Joi Ito summarized it well here: You start out deciding to tidy your room and you realize that in order to do that you’ll need some more trash bags, so you need to go to the shops, which will involve […]
Productivity
Everything has a place
Reading Time: 4 min As you may know, I’m a big fan of the “inbox zero” concept. Things come into my email inbox, I deal with them, and I clean it out. I find that when people struggle with keeping their inbox clean, they tend to fall into three groups: People that aren’t at a computer frequently enough during […]
Control your inputs, control your time
Reading Time: 4 min We all have things popping up to distract us all day long, many of them coming from our cell phone. This is a quick look at the “inputs” section of the digital efficiency framework, to help you get those under control. If you can keep your inputs manageable, everything else will tend to flow better. […]
How I plan out my future posts
Reading Time: 2 min Blogging daily is tough. I just passed six months and I’m going strong, but it’ll end at some point. For now, though, here is how I make it happen. Lots of ideas The biggest challenge for me is coming up with ideas. Following the idea of “long periods of thinking, short periods of writing“, actually […]
GTD can help you focus on the present
Reading Time: < 1 min David Allen, author of “Getting Things Done” (and the process the book explains, known simply as “GTD”) put out a very simple tweet recently. He said: If you can’t read the embedded tweet, he said: “GTD = freedom of consciousness to be present with what you’re doing.“ If you practice GTD to a decent degree, […]
How the hierarchy of attention affects deep work
Reading Time: < 1 min I’ve talked about the hierarchy of attention on here a variety of times. When communicating with people, different types of communication imply different types of urgency, with a phone call meaning “I need your attention right this moment“. That’s not always ideal. We all have times during the day when we’re really focused in on […]
Organized browser tabs with Workona
Reading Time: < 1 min I try out a lot of productivity tools over the course of a month, and most come and go pretty quickly. If they stick around in my workflow for at least a few weeks, I like to share them here. That’s the case with Workona. Here’s a quick intro video that they created for it […]
Writing every day vs. publishing every day
Reading Time: < 1 min I’ve been publishing a daily post on here since late October last year — I believe today is number 163 in a row. I’m happy with that. However, I was careful with how I worded that sentence: I “publish” every day, but I don’t “write” every day. There’s a big difference, and it’s something I’d […]
Time-shifting and Clubhouse
Reading Time: 2 min One of the greatest things that technology has created is the concept of time-shifting with much of our entertainment and communication. Back in the day, you had to tune in at a certain time to hear Paul Harvey. Now you can listen to Mike Rowe’s podcast, but listen whenever it’s best for you. Back in […]
Email “thanks” versus a Slack emoji
Reading Time: < 1 min I recently heard an argument that email should continue to fade away in lieu of apps like Slack, which make for much more seamless communication. It’s a good consideration. However, part of his argument related to acknowledging receipt of a message or small task. If you send someone an email with info, they’ll often reply […]