5 Reasons To Use Checklists

5 Reasons To Use Checklists

Checklists are a great tool for productivity. They can save a lot of time and prevent mistakes, rethinking, and missing steps. Yet many people don't use them. Here are 5 reasons to get checklists into your productivity system today.
blindsides

How To Be Productive When Life Blindsides You

There are times when I feel like I've been run over with the dump truck of life. And then the truck backs over me for good measure.

But life goes on. So as I am metaphorically picking myself up and dusting off the tire tracks, I need to have a plan. I need to figure out how to be productive when life blindsides me.
How To Eliminate Self-Generated Crises

How To Eliminate Self-Generated Crises

How many "emergencies" do you have on a daily or weekly basis that are actually self-generated crises? I'm talking about panic because you can't find something you need right then. Here are tips on the causes of these crises, and how you can stop them in their tracks.
Creating Systems To Support Weaknesses

Creating Systems To Support Weaknesses

None of us are good at everything. Many people say to “focus on your strengths.” But weakness in some areas of our life have more consequences than others, and ignoring them might not be an option. If you are in a situation where avoidance won’t work, you need to create systems to support your weaknesses. This article will help you determine weaknesses that need support, and give some examples of how to create a system.
What To Do About Busy Work?

What To Do About Busy Work?

A reader asked me, "What are your thoughts on 'busy work'? For some whose jobs are based more on time than production, it's easy to get caught up doing some busy work to justify one's existence."

I realized that there are actually two types of busy work: that which we engage in when our time is our own, and that we engage in to fill working hours owed to someone else. But we can turn busy work into productive time with a bit of planning and action.
podcast

Podcast Episode 81: My Weekly Review Questions

The weekly review, made popular by David Allen in Getting Things Done, is supposed to help you look back and assess the week as well as plan the next week. I have done various forms of the weekly review for years, but the “review” part of it always slid away in the face of planning for the next week. Recently I made a list of questions that will allow me to do a look back with intention, so that I can assess what happened in the past week - and more importantly, what is outstanding and why. I’m going to call this Episode 81: My New Weekly Review Questions.
Reclaiming Small Pieces of Time

Reclaiming Small Pieces of Time

A mindset shift and a timer can help us in reclaiming time in small pieces, yet most people will tell themselves that they can’t possibly get anything done of worth and will fritter it away.

A large part of managing time is to use the time that we have. Small chunks of time can be used effectively if we shift our mindsets and use tools to help us stay within the bounds.
My Excel Billing System

My Excel Billing System

I’ve gotten quite a few questions about how I translate my work notebook into my billing. Today I will show you how I use the OneNote notebook and an Excel spreadsheet to do my timecard, billing and status reports.