Mike Vardy

The Top 8 Apps on My Mac That Fuel My Productivity

I’ve been reviewing my apps on my MacBook Air to get a sense of what apps feed – and fuel – my productivity more than others. Some talk to each other seamlessly, others sync across platforms, some do both of those things, and others simply do things on their own that help in their own […]

Why You Need a Productivity Gestalt

Yesterday I had a great conversation with Matt Medeiros for his site, Matt Report. We went into a number of things (all of which will be revealed when he releases the episode in a couple of weeks), but one of the questions was about the tools I use as part of my productivity practice. I

Duly Sketchnoted

It turns out I’m a “sketchnoter” after all. After listening to the Mac Power Users episode with Mike Rohde, author of The Sketchnote Handbook, I realized that I have been making sketchnotes for some time. Looking in my old Field Notes notebook as I transferred everything to OmniFocus, reviewing my Maruman notebook as I began

Five

Three never seems like enough, does it? Even if they are the three most important things you could be making progress in, when you examine your list at day’s end…you still have a sense that you didn’t do enough. That’s why we get sucked back into checking off more of the lesser stuff. So don’t

Focus on OmniFocus with OmniFocus Premium Posts

I’m tremendously excited for the opportunity to be part of The OmniFocus Setup at the end of this month in San Francisco – and now that fellow Mikes on Mics co-host Michael Schechter will be in on the proceedings as well, it makes the event all the better. But Schechter isn’t the only recent addition

How I Use Notebooks

Despite the fact that I do use several apps in my productivity workflow, I have a tendency to use paper a lot as well. As a matter of fact, paper is often my first method of capture for a variety of reasons, such as: It doesn’t require recharging, so it never runs low on juice.

Achieving Clearance

This week is the first time in a while that I haven’t provided daily posts here. After having a great time at this year’s New Media Expo, I needed to not only recharge the batteries – I needed to achieve clearance. Clearance isn’t the same as clarity. Since I spend January as a month of

Turn Inaction into Action with The Ready Retreat Workbooks

The blog has been dark over the weekend as I traveled and prepared for today’s panel discussion at New Media Expo in Las Vegas. I’m excited to be part of the Productivity Power Panel, featuring Craig Jarrow (Time Management Ninja), Brett Kelly (author of Evernote Essentials), and Leo Widrich (Buffer). Those of you that can’t

Thinking Ahead

I’m watching Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview right now — for the first time. And as I write this he is talking about how the web is going to change things. We’ll be buying things we used to buy in catalogs online instead. He goes on to talk about how the human race builds things