∞ 8 Mac Apps to Embrace Minimalism

I use about 90% of these apps and have tried them all. They are all great, hands down excellent. via Mac.AppStorm.  Read More

∞ 10 More Uncluttering Things to Do Every Day

Sherri for Unclutterer: When you’re done with some­thing, put it away. Right away. Clut­ter arises when we take some­thing out, use it for awhile and neglect to return it to its proper home. Remem­ber the Unclutterer’s gospel, “A place for every­thing, and every­thing in its place.” I can­not tell you how amaz­ing this tip is. I was always in awe when I walked into peo­ples homes and they looked immac­u­late. Sure they could have just straight­ened up before... Read More

Write Off Unproductive Days

There are days when it seems that I can’t get any­thing done, I lack the focus I des­per­ately need. When an unpro­duc­tive day comes along, I choose to write it off. I accept that noth­ing is get­ting done and go do some­thing else. Typ­i­cally I go to the store, run errands, shop online, play games, read news, any­thing that I want — just so long as I am doing some­thing. The still­ness of star­ing at a mon­i­tor, or a blank page is makes me not want to... Read More

∞ the Lost Practice of Resting One Day Each Week

Joshua Becker for Zen Habits: Rabbi Eli­jah of Vilna once said, “What we cre­ate becomes mean­ing­ful to us only once we stop cre­at­ing it and start to think about why we did so.” The impli­ca­tion is clear. We could live lives that pro­duce count­less wid­gets, but we won’t start liv­ing until we stop pro­duc­ing and start enjoy­ing. Cap­ture again the lost prac­tice of rest­ing one day each week and start truly living. via Zen Habits.  Read More

∞ Three Universal Truths for Why Projects Are Not Completed on Time

Erin @ Unclutterer.com: Peo­ple always under­es­ti­mate the amount of time it will take to do some­thing. Even though I have timed myself enough to know how long it actu­ally takes me to do some­thing, I still think I work faster than I do. We all think this way. In our minds, we have speed of pumas. via Unclut­terer.  Read More

∞ How to Choose GTD Software

From the video: The right approach is more impor­tant than the tool. via YouTube.  Read More

∞ Getting Real About Office Hours

Mark Nichols of MetaLab: We trust every­one who works with us, and we know well enough that being over­bear­ing and nosey does absolutely noth­ing for pro­duc­tiv­ity. The irony is that office hours have noth­ing to do with the indi­vid­ual – it’s about the group, the sum of the parts, and hav­ing that group evolve from a bunch of peo­ple who know and work with one another into a team that actu­ally wants to talk. This is in response to how thier office used... Read More

∞ Postbox Adds Things and OmniFocus Support

Brett Terp­stra for TUAW.com: Whichever you pre­fer, if your task man­ager is one of these, you can now turn emails in Post­box directly into tasks (with a link back to the orig­i­nal mes­sage in the notes). It’s not a new con­cept to Mail.app users, but it’s been some­thing that many peo­ple who’ve switched to Post­box (or are think­ing about it) have sorely missed. As state this has always been pos­si­ble with Mail.app, but it is great to see the inte­gra­tion... Read More

∞ Apologies Are a Sign of Strength

Scott Bel­sky: We lose respect for a leader when he or she fails to acknowl­edge a mis­take. What we want to see in our lead­ers is a sense of self-awareness and hon­esty. Per­son­ally, I gain con­fi­dence when one of my col­leagues says, “Gosh, I don’t know what I was think­ing, sorry about [fill in the blank].” It makes me feel like the mis­take or false assump­tion is now fully under­stood and owned. It makes me feel safe. Make no mis­take about it,... Read More

∞ How Rooms and Architecture Affect Mood and Creativity

Ouno Design: In 2007 Joan Meyers-Levy, a pro­fes­sor of mar­ket­ing at the Uni­ver­sity of Min­nesota, reported that the height of a room’s ceil­ing affects how peo­ple think. She ran­domly assigned 100 peo­ple to a room with either an eight– or 10-foot ceil­ing and asked par­tic­i­pants to group sports from a 10-item list into cat­e­gories of their own choice. The peo­ple who com­pleted the task in the room with taller ceil­ings came up with more abstract... Read More