There’s another side to being so “busy”, and that’s when it comes to excuses. There are very few situations where you’re ever “too busy” for something. The only two I can think of are: If you’re in jail. If you’re in the hospital. The rest of the time, your rejection of a request isn’t because […]
Productivity
My list of daily goals
A few weeks back I started tracking a list of daily goals. These are separate from any to-do items I might have, and unrelated to anything on my calendar. They’re simply a list of things I’d like to accomplish every day. As of today, it’s a list of four main goals with five sub-goals in […]
My big reading shortcut
Over the past year I’ve been trying to read a lot more. I’ve succeeded in reading quite a few books, but I’m also “semi-reading” quite a few more. Michael Simmons has coined this as Fractal Reading, and while I don’t follow his practice exactly, it’s pretty close. Full books First, there are some books that […]
Blogging beats journaling
A recent episode of the Focus On This podcast talked about the benefits of writing a daily journal and they were spot on. The three benefits they highlighted were to: Learn from your own life. Train your mind. Cultivate your self-awareness. You can listen to their full episode to dig more deeply into each of […]
Priorities? Priority.
When building websites, we help our clients determine what the main purpose of each page of the site is for. At times, it can be difficult to narrow down to a single goal. At rare times, it gets a out of control and “everything on the page is important”. If everything on a page is […]
Blend It All
There’s a thought that everyone should have a clear “work/life balance” — one part of your life is work, one is personal, and never the two shall cross. While that may be necessary for some of us, for most I think it can be a nice blending of the two. I see three areas where […]
Always Treat Next Week Like Vacation
You know the feeling. It’s Friday afternoon, the big vacation starts in a few hours, and you’re flying around the office getting things done. At the end of the day, you feel great, and you know it’s because vacation is starting. And you’re right — but that’s not the only reason. You also probably feel […]
Calendar containers instead of calendar blocks
For years I’ve mostly understood the value of building “calendar blocks”, but I’ve always resisted. I know some people that use them and use them well, but something just didn’t work for me. However, a few weeks ago Jason Blumer presented them as calendar containers instead instead of calendar blocks, and it all suddenly clicked […]
Handwriting isn’t necessarily better
As I’ve experimented with tools like the Full Focus Planner and the reMarkable tablet, I’ve seen a number of reasons for why “handwriting is better then digital”. The reasons are fairly solid, but I’ve found ways to bring most of the benefits of handwriting to digital. From what I’ve seen, it’s not the act of […]
Getting started with Roam Research
You may have heard about Roam Research as the hot new note-taking app, which it certainly is right now. I’m using it and I love it — but why? Let’s dive in. Structured organization vs fluid information At its core, Roam is yet another note taking app. You type stuff in and it saves it. […]