Productivity

When Do Your Work Best?

September 14, 2010

Do you choose to do all your driving late at night when you are at your most tired? Or do you prefer to go grocery shopping when you are really hungry? What about having important discussions with people when you are in a really bad mood? We rarely do the above, yet we try and [...]

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Interval Training

September 9, 2010

Any of you lot out there done any fitness/gym type stuff? Then you may have heard of interval training. The more modern of you will recognise it as a button on your cross-trainer. Those of you who, like me, prefer to breath fresh air rather than sweat and exercise outdoors will recognise it as a [...]

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All the Gear and No Idea

September 7, 2010

We all know the guy I mean. At the golf club, the gym, or at work. He’s the guy with the brand new set of clubs, the crisply ironed gym kit, and the top of the range PDA. He’s also the guy who can’t hit the ball, can’t operate the weight machine, and whose work [...]

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Minimalism is not Simplicity

August 31, 2010

Minimalism seems to be the new thing-that-was-the-new-thing-before-this-thing. Particular in productivity and personal development. Everyone seems to be getting a bit too amorous with dramatic pictures of an Ikea desks with nothing on them other than a MacBook Pro and an iPhone. “You get more done when there is less around”. Quite. And ever since that [...]

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No, No, No – Why You Should Say “No” to Everything

August 24, 2010

Not a very positive sentiment for a Tuesday morning, but it is raining outside, and we have run out of the nice cereal in the purple packet. Pessimism aside however, those two letters could be one of the most powerful productivity tools you have. No really. Let me demonstrate what I mean with a slightly [...]

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The Four Phases of a Productivity Process

July 20, 2010

Rubbish title I know. But it is important. A productivity process is something we use to help ourselves become more productive. It might be a to do list. It might be the way we arrange our desk. Even the time we get up in the morning and start working. These processes go through a four [...]

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How to be an Expert

July 15, 2010

We live in a world of ‘experts’. The sheer amount of freely available information out there, especially on the ‘interwebs’, mean we are all ‘experts’. In any field we want. All we need to do is read the Wikipedia article and a couple of forum posts and we know all we need to know. There [...]

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When Do You Have Capacity to Work?

July 12, 2010

As human beings we have a finite capacity to get things done. This is limited by time, attention span, motivation, priorities, and a whole heap of less nagging, but equally as disruptive things. Our limited capacity varies through the day – the graph below is utterly fictitious from a numerical point of view, but the [...]

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An Old Hack, a New App, and Why I Got More Done

July 5, 2010

I have a new toy. Courtesy of Minimal Mac I have a new productivity tool on my iPhone – tenplustwo. It is based on an old Merlin Mann productivity hack, which I have be inspired to revisit here. In one of the less original names around, Mann’s (10+2)*5 Hack is a clever way to squeeze [...]

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Consumption vs Creation

June 23, 2010

As human beings, we spend our time either consuming or creating. Consuming experiences, sustenance, and feelings; and creating those things for others and ourselves. Both are important, and both can be enjoyable. There is however a time for one, and a time for another. When we talk about productivity, and ‘being productive’ we are usually [...]

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