Reading Time: 4 minutesThe Question That Changes Everything About Productivity Productivity advice is everywhere. Tips, tricks, hacks, systems. The goal is always the same: get more done, faster. But here’s the question almost nobody stops to ask: Why? Why be productive in the first place? Science Has Already Figured Out What Drives You In his recent book, Intentional: …
Reading Time: 5 minutesThe Story We Tell Ourselves When I know I have a project coming up (like writing a blog post), I typically start preparing early. At a minimum, I’ll jot down some thoughts about the topic and start a mind map. I’ll do some research and plug that into my mind map. Then I back off …
Reading Time: 5 minutesThe Endless App-Switching Loop You’re a self-proclaimed productivity tech nerd. Your systems are humming along nicely—until the flashy new XYZ app drops. You buy it. You migrate data. You reorganize everything. You spend weeks learning the tool instead of doing the work it’s supposed to support. After a few months, you’re feeling comfortable with the …
Reading Time: 3 minutesThe Trap of Toxic Productivity Have you ever felt uneasy sitting on the couch doing nothing? You’re not alone. Many of us have absorbed the idea that every moment must be productive. A healthy focus on productivity can help us prioritize what matters most in our lives. However, an unhealthy or excessive focus on productivity …
Reading Time: 3 minutesYou’ll Never Finish It All—and That’s Okay Our culture prioritizes productivity and life hacks, allowing us to make every possible minute productive. We work to squeeze results out of every minute. However, as Oliver Burkeman points out in his book, 4,000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, we are, in fact, finite human beings. No matter …
Reading Time: 5 minutesA Role I Valued, but at Too High a Cost Last Spring and Summer, I was a volunteer ranger at the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site near Badlands National Park in South Dakota. In the Fall, I volunteered to work part-time as an NPS ranger. We were short-staffed, and I wanted to experience life as …
Reading Time: 4 minutesYou Are Not What You Produce Many productivity nerds start the day feeling like they owe a productivity debt to the universe. They feel like they have to prove how much they can get done in the day to prove their worth as human beings. Many of us focus on our task managers, which contain …
Reading Time: 3 minutesThe False Promise of Getting Everything Done We typically think the goal of time management is to ensure we finish all our important work. That’s what systems like Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen and most other productivity systems are all about. We think that if we manage our time …
Reading Time: 5 minutesThe Myth of the Universal Productivity App It’s not unusual for us productivity nerds to hear about a highly rated or recommended productivity app or system and assume it will work great for us. We think that because it worked well for the designer or the person recommending it, it will produce the same results …