Who am I?
That’s me. I’m the one on the left. The human one*.
My name is Laura Earnest.
For many years I have been a student of productivity. I pursued the ways of doing things in the most effective and efficient manner. Because basically I’m lazy and I don’t want to work more than I have to.
I have been blogging about productivity for a really long time, starting with a blog on PDAs in 2007. So that is almost 20 years, which makes me a great-great-grandma in the blogosphere. The productivity journey started with a fascination with PDA apps. Then I realized that all the trendy systems were just too complicated…people spent more time crafting how they worked to fit a system than the other way around…and SimpleProductivityBlog.com was born. In 2015 I wanted to look at productivity in life as a whole and so we all moved to WholeLifeProductivity.com.
But in 2018 something changed.
I realized that I had said all I really wanted to say on productivity, because the methods and tracking and systems weren’t enough. In spite of being organized and having my tracking systems in place, I still felt my days slipping away from me. So I took a hiatus.
While I was on that hiatus, I ran across the concept of “intentional living.” It’s a great sounding phrase, but it’s not enough to have intentions. After all, my systems and plans and lists are all about intentions.
And what’s that phrase about the road to hell?
So rather than looking at intentions, I decided I wanted to be deliberate. Deliberately choosing my activities. Deliberately choosing my projects. Deliberately choosing my actions, attitudes, lifestyle. There is still a healthy dose of productivity, because I don’t want to waste time doing things inefficiently – or doing things that don’t matter.
What LauraEarnest.com Is
Modern life is overly busy. With the fear of missing out (FOMO) lurking around every corner, it becomes a frantic exercise to get everything done.
But life isn’t about doing. It’s about making deliberate choices with the limited time and energy you have so that you can live your life to its fullest.
This blog will show you methods and madness as I work my own journey toward deliberate, productive living. You will get to see the successes – and the failures – as I explore techniques and offer tips.
More Random Facts About Me
- Laura Earnest is a pseudonym. My “real” name is shared by a famous actress. ‘Nuff said. (No. I’m not her. I’m not related to her. Nor am I related to the football player who shares my real last name.) It is a family name, though, and one I feel entitled to use.
- I am female. Wouldn’t think I would have to point that out, given the photos, but I was once accused of being a male chauvinist pig by a reader. Just want to make it clear.
- I work outside the home. I have worked in Information Technology most of my working life. Except for when I had a midlife crisis and decided to give back – leading to a year of teaching high school math and a permanent teaching license. One year was enough and I went back to IT the next fall. For most of my career I have been a consultant, allowing me to see into many different companies and observe how they do things.
- I lead a busy life. I work outside the home. I have a husband and an adult daughter. I sing in a choir and a quartet. I participate in my spiritual community. I maintain a house and do most of the cooking and cleaning. I am pursuing my dream of becoming an author. There is never a moment when I have nothing to do.
- I am a breast cancer survivor. In 2024 a routine mammogram turned up a cancerous tumor. It was successfully removed by operation, and I underwent radiation therapy. Get ’em checked people – men and women. Remember that mine tried to kill me.
- I don’t have a staff. As much as I would like to have an army of minions, wishing hasn’t made it happen. I attend to everything around the blog myself. I do my own cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping and laundry. (Well, not so much on the laundry. My husband is ex-Navy and requires everything folded just so. I can’t be bothered. So he does the majority of the laundry.) I am a normal person with normal concerns.
- I am originally from the frozen tundra. That’s Northern Wisconsin to all you people who have never been there in the winter and felt the liquid in your nose freeze your nostrils together. Actually, it was pretty darn cold when I was there at the end of June a couple of years ago. I moved south of the snow line to get away from the weather. I live in coastal Virginia now, but I do not live “at the beach”.
- I love coffee and chocolate. And really good cheese.
* My daughter decided her enormous panda needed to be in on the photo shoot, and so he has become a staple of one of my blog photos.