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

12 Reasons Why Meetings Waste Time

Dis­claimer: I hate meet­ings, all of them. I posted a while back about how 90% of meet­ings are a waste of time, here are some of my thoughts on why they are a huge waste. 1. No One Comes Pre­pared: What are we meet­ing about? If a meet­ing starts with any­one ask­ing that ques­tion it is guar­an­teed that the meet­ing is a waste of time. The con­fused party is either in the major­ity, or will waste the majori­ties time try­ing to fig­ure out just what is... Read More

Why Dropbox Rocks

I have briefly touched on Drop­box a few times, but I wanted to take time to explain what makes Drop­box great. I know a lot of peo­ple that don’t ‘get’ Drop­box are usu­ally peo­ple with only one com­puter, they see Drop­box as a way to syn­chro­nize files across mul­ti­ple com­put­ers and noth­ing more. Drop­box though is much more than just a syn­chro­niza­tion tool and, if you use a com­puter at all, you should be using Drop­box. Here are the... Read More

Why Task Management Apps Still Suck

Not a day goes by where I don’t use my task man­age­ment apps in some form. For that rea­son there is not a day that I am not let down by those very apps. The Prob­lem The cur­rent slate of task man­age­ment apps are not what we, the users, need. They are loaded with fea­tures that look great on web­sites, in pro­mo­tional videos and var­i­ous other mar­ket­ing tools, but are utterly use­less in real life usage. (It is impor­tant to note that I am talk­ing... Read More

Background Zen

As I write this I have two fold­ers on my com­puter that con­tain desk­top back­grounds (wall­pa­pers) that I have col­lected from var­i­ous places online, total­ing 165 dif­fer­ent back­grounds to choose from. So what do I do? I have been talk­ing a lot on this blog about some­thing I call Desk­top Zen. Cre­at­ing a com­put­ing envi­ron­ment that is relax­ing and con­ducive to cre­ativ­ity and work­ing. Of those 165 back­ground pic­tures (some... Read More

Clutter Distracts. A Blank Page Inspires.

The same is true with a clut­ter free desk. I have on occa­sion writ­ten about clean­li­ness, clear desks, desk­top zen and your envi­ron­ment in gen­eral and how it can effect your pro­duc­tiv­ity. I have shared what my desk looks like a few times now, and each time you can see that I strive to keep it mostly empty. I have had com­ments from peo­ple who just don’t under­stand make com­ments about the way my desk and office appear. They often joke that I must... Read More

Alone Time

We are all more pro­duc­tive alone then when oth­ers are around us, focus on how we can lever­age that to become more pro­duc­tive is key. I want to first touch on what I mean by around us when I am refer­ring to people. I do not mean ran­dom strangers in a cof­fee shop, or other peo­ple in the room. I am refer­ring to indi­vid­u­als that you may have to inter­act with at some point. More specif­i­cally those around you that will need or want to inter­act with you. Look... Read More

The Unfocused Life

Do you ever have those days when you are hyper focused on every­thing you do and things get done with no prob­lems? Those days are the rea­son that I cre­ated this blog. I cre­ated this blog because I am often unfocused. A year ago, before this blog, I would have told you that I lacked moti­va­tion and had excel­lent focus and the rea­son that I did not get things done was out of not want­ing to get those things done. After a year of look­ing at pro­duc­tiv­ity,... Read More

Does Failure Inspire?

We have all heard the say­ing: If at first you don’t suc­ceed try, try again. We have all seen the sto­ries that fail­ing often and early is the best, and that you can’t suc­ceed unless you fail. These are all great sto­ries and say­ings, but they always leave me won­der­ing the same thing: is it true, and if so why? The Truth The truth is that no one knows for sure if we must fail before we suc­ceed. There have been plenty of peo­ple who have failed and then... Read More

Quote: On Work

“Think 8 hours, work 2 hours.” –Mirko Ilic  Read More