It’s probably safe to say we’d all love to get more results from less effort. Productivity is that elusive blend of efficiency and expertise that allows you to tick off to-do list items and hit gargantuan goals at an unthinkable pace. Here’s a collection of our best advice on how to work smarter, not harder.
https://twitter.com/roelveldhuizen/status/333939725159251970 When you get down to it, ideas and problem-solving are the products of people who do knowledge work of any kind. Sure, they may be wrapped up in a more tangible deliverable (shipping code, delivering designs, meeting a word count, closing a deal, etc..), but the real value being passed along is in the […]
The knowledge worker’s dilemma Read More »
Yesterday afternoon, I found myself staring blankly at my screen, occasionally pawing at my keyboard. I just couldn’t stay focused, no matter how hard I tried. I was nursing a migraine from the night before, but I had a bunch of things that needed to get done, and it was almost the weekend, so I
Some days, you’re just not going to get it done (and that’s ok) Read More »
In Cory Doctorow’s science fiction novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, people don’t work for money. Currency, as we know it, has become obsolete as technology has created such abundance that the old models of scarcity fall apart. Instead, paychecks are replaced with a new currency called Whuffie. Whuffie is a measure of
How social feedback loops are changing our workplace (for better and for worse) Read More »
Late last year, after seeing one too many studies and infographics about the dangers of sitting all day, I decided to push back my chair and give a standing desk a try. It was a little rocky at first, but once I got used to it, it actually feels pretty great. I initially tried to
Observations from a few months with a standing desk Read More »
Your email client should support good habits, especially since email itself can lead to so many bad ones. Over the past few months, I’ve been tweaking my Gmail inbox trying to find a configuration that makes it easy to stay focused and productive while I’m using it. Here’s what I’ve come up with. The best part
Show and Tell: My super-productive Gmail inbox Read More »
Last week, we were having a discussion about how to break out of a rut, and several people mentioned that having the right music helped them get focused and productive. So I did some research, and it turns out noises of all kinds can have a big effect on your productivity. Auditory information can enhance
Weekly Productivity Links: How what we hear affects our work Read More »
Everyone’s had that moment… You’ve been working on a project that’s humming along really well, and you’re nearing the point where you can see the end of it… then boom! All of a sudden everything grinds to a halt, and you run smack into a brick wall that keeps you from bringing it across the finish
What’s your productivity hack for powering through the last 10% of a project? Read More »
The RescueTime productivity score is a way of looking at your time based on the productivity level you’ve assigned to the various activities that you’ve logged time for. It’s a way to boil your time down to a single metric, so you can get a quick understanding of how you’re spending it without having to dig
Breaking down the RescueTime productivity score Read More »
For the past week, I’ve been taking an hour or so at the coffee shop near my office to knock out most of my email and communications. Then when I get back to the office, I stay out of email as much as possible. The experiment has made me realize that shaking up my work environment
Consider the following scenario: You’ve been working hard all day, feeling like you’re being productive, and you look up at the clock and see that it’s 5pm. A strange feeling washes over you, as you realize you have no clue how it got so late, and you can’t make sense of where your day went.
Can we talk for a minute about why email sucks so much? Read More »
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