Entries from June 2008 ↓

In this segment of “The Whys of Productivity”, we will be looking at the gathering or collecting of information into its proper place.
What Is Gathering?
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 [...]

In this part of “The Whys of Productivity” we will look at a fundamental concept that goes through every system out there: writing things down.
Writing Things Down: Part of Every System
It doesn’t matter which system you look at: Daytimer, Filofax, 7 Habits, GTD, Do It Tomorrow…every system insists that you write things down. Each system [...]

Gas prices are at an all-time high. But you can stretch the mileage you get by changing the way you drive.
I became aware of my poor driving habits after buying a hybrid at the beginning of the year. But what I have learned is applicable to non-hybrid vehicles as well.
10 Ways To Get More [...]

Many years ago, I used UNIX systems. While not particularly user-friendly at the time, there are some UNIX utilities that I have wished for. One of them was Cron.
Cron is a scheduler application for UNIX systems. It runs off of a simple configuration file, and has the ability to run items in a flexible [...]

Not all of my projects are electronic. In fact, most of the things I do outside of work are not. Most of these things are ones that don’t have a particular due date, so I work on them as the fancy strikes me.
Unfortunately, most of these projects also have paper to go with them, [...]

A couple of weeks ago I read two articles that really struck me. I wrote about them in Aids for Genuine Productivity and Simplifying Productivity, and I formed a resolution to focus on the whys and hows of productivity and simplification; in fact, simplification of productivity can itself be considered a “how”!
As I was [...]

I suffer from a nasty case of perfectionism. Learned and strengthened by a number of circumstances growing up, it is a full scale awfulness I fight every day. But I also realize that perfectionism will drive me crazy and suck up major amounts of energy that I simply don’t want to give up.
But perfectionism means [...]

We all get junk mail. One purchase from a catalog or online company, and suddenly you’re receiving catalogs from places you’ve never heard of. Or you give money to one organization and suddenly your mailbox is filled with requests from other organizations. And let’s not even start on the credit card offers…
Looking at how much [...]