I was listening to a friend assess the earlier part of the year the other day, and I felt obliged to stop her. You see, her conversation was peppered with "I should".
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Just having a fancy kitchen doesn't make you a good cook. Likewise just having productivity tools doesn't make you productive. Today we look at ending the quest for the "perfect tool" and using what suits you best.
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Every system out there, particularly those that are dependent on a specific format and/or planner, advocate putting everything in one place. Some systems insist that the only place to put things is in their product; GTD advocates a more realistic approach: minimizing how many places you put stuff. Looking at this from a practical standpoint, it makes sense that the fewer places you put things, the fewer places you have to keep track of.
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Recently I looked at the pros of batching, where you lump activities that require the same tools together to do at the same time. Today I will look at the disadvantages of batching.
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The secret to any organizational system is that like items should be stored together, be it by type or by purpose. But in order to see what needs to be organized, you have to know what you have. Gathering is simply a fancy way of getting information into one place so it can be stored together.
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One of the concepts that has shown up in quite a few productivity methods is to "batch" activities. This means that you do all like activities on your list at once. There are pros and cons to this batching technique. In this article, I will present the pros.
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It's hard to keep using a tool that you no longer trust. Today we talk about what makes a tool untrustworthy, disaster recovery and knowing when to move on.
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Throughout all the years that I have been writing about productivity and researching productivity, I see a lot of articles on the "how". But knowing how to do something isn't enough if you want to expand on it. As a math teacher, I know it isn't enough to have students memorize formulas. They have to be able to understand why a formula works if they are to be able to apply it. As I was considering this, I decided to revamp and expand a series on the "Whys of Productivity". Over the next few weeks, I will look at the similar basics to several productivity systems and dig down into the "whys" behind each method.
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It's time to get back in the saddle again. This episode talks about why I took a break, and how I addressed those issues, along with upcoming changes.
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I love traditional holiday meals. Not necessarily because of the traditions themselves, although they are meaningful, but because no one expects innovation. And no innovation means simple, because I've done it all before. As part of my move to deliberate living I have moved away from complex meals that stress me out to the point where I can't enjoy the holiday. So that means simplicity, repeatability and more enjoyment. With the American Thanksgiving and the winter holidays coming up, I thought I would share with you how I have simplified the big Thanksgiving dinner we have at our house.
