Reading Time: < 1 min In an ideal world, you have some big tasks to focus on each day. In the real world, you have a lot of distractions that will pop up to take you off track, and fighting through those is a key to really getting things done. I came across a great quote in the book “The […]
Productivity
Plan the trip, but follow your headlights
Reading Time: < 1 min Setting goals can be a great way to improve over time. Whether it’s goals for your business, fitness, relationships, or something else, having a goal is a great way to focus your attention. Generally, though, you can’t just attack the goal; it needs to be broken into pieces. For example, if your goal is “lose […]
Reading versus studying
Reading Time: 2 min A little over a year ago I shared my shortcut of using Blinkist to read book summaries in about 20 minutes versus the hours it takes to read a full book. There are advantages both ways, but I’m finding that Blinkist helps meet the Pareto Principle — I’m getting 80% of the value of the […]
If you can’t describe it, you don’t know it well enough
Reading Time: 2 min A key to understanding how well you know a subject is how easily you’re able to explain it to others. As I shared last year in “Explain it to me like I’m five“, being able to distill a complex subject down is a great skill to develop. In the case of that post from last […]
Time-shifting your effort
Reading Time: 2 min Time-shifting can be a wonderful thing. I talked last year about how time-shifting is so helpful for entertainment and communication, which is why I suspected Clubhouse might have trouble staying relevant. There’s another angle to be considered, and that’s time-shifting your effort. Effort Part of this is pretty obvious, when you schedule your work around […]
Expand your mind with Heyday
Reading Time: 2 min While I use the native browser bookmarking tools a little bit, for years I’ve used various external tools to help keep sites organized. Right now I’m using Raindrop.io (which I first talked about a few years ago), and it does a pretty good job. It has a browser plugin to make it easy to add […]
Uber everywhere you go
Reading Time: 2 min I talked a few months ago about how we don’t all really have the same amount of time in the day, and I thought I’d share one of my favorite tips (albeit one I’ve not used lately due to COVID) — take an Uber or Lyft to your next meeting. When I’m out and about […]
Which is the right tool?
Reading Time: < 1 min I talk a good bit about various digital tools on here, like my recent post about Pipedrive. At times I probably play with tools more than I should (testing tools instead of doing work), but in a lot of cases it can really pay off. For example, I posted 12 years ago about Gmail’s “Send […]
The Weekly Sweep
Reading Time: 2 min One of my favorite productivity habits is the “weekly preview”. I started doing it when I used the Full Focus Planner a couple of years ago, and I’ve done it every week since then. Some weeks are deeper than others, depending on how busy I am that day, but I never miss it. The timing […]
Back to Pipedrive
Reading Time: 3 min When it comes to business, having a proper CRM and pipeline is crucial. Knowing who your current leads are, what stage they’re in, and when to respond is vitally important. Many people track that kind of info in something like an Excel spreadsheet, and that’s really not bad. Simply having a place for that data […]