A decade after trading comedy for the world of personal productivity, I can see how that shift wasn’t about efficiency at all — it was the beginning of learning how to shape a life. Here’s how that passion has matured, and how it continues to guide my work today.
If you’ve ever put your work calendar into your Google Calendar (or equivalent) and you are an iPhone user then Shifts is an app that will allow you to “shift” away from that and enter your work schedule into it instead. Seem redundant or solving a problem that doesn’t need solving? Think again.
Keeping track of everything that might make you more productive can be unending. Add this but not that? Is the newest app the best tool? An easier question to answer is what isn’t making me productive. What can I remove that will have a positive effect. Drawing in research in psychology, we have a few answers.
This week on the podcast, I spend time with Justin Levy. I’ve known Justin for a few years now (although we only first met in person last year), and the story that has unfolded for him in the past few months has been very inspiring. Justin, who works for Citrix as Head of Global Social Media, is a young and active guy. In the late summer of 2014, he suffered a seizure. Then it gets even more unreal.
I used to consider myself reasonably adept when it came to using OmniFocus, a feature-rich to do list and action management application for OS X and iOS, however that opinion was blown out of the water within a few hours of reading this book.
Most people don’t think of their work in terms of context. Instead, we tend to work by project. And breaking the habit of working by project is difficult. But it can be done…with the right contexts.
Bench was built from the desire to help people outsource and automate a commonly tedious task (bookkeeping), so naturally we’re big fans of productivity. If there’s a way for us to be more productive as a team, we’re all for it.
Until now I had never read the Heath brothers, which is a shame. Their books are good. Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard is a mix of business experience, academic research, and productivity tools that anyone can apply.
This episode features a conversation between myself and Francis Wade, author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity. We have a lively discussion about the difference between time management and time demands, the importance of looking inward when trying to improve your productivity, and what to do when you fall off the wagon with your resolutions for the year.
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