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: 4 minutesThe Limits of “Time Management” Thinking For years, productivity has been obsessed with time management. In one sense, we must manage our time to ensure that we do the things that are most important to us. Doing anything worthwhile takes time, so some management is necessary. However, this mentality has often led us to see …
Reading Time: 3 minutesA Different Kind of Productivity Book What if your weekly review could be faster, more visual, and more motivating? A simple table I discovered in Anne-Laure Le Cunff’s new book, Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World, changed the way I reflect each week—and I think it might help you too. Although …
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 minutesHow We Usually View Procrastination In productivity circles, we typically view procrastination as a negative force that keeps us from doing what we want to do. We try to devise strategies to help us fight against procrastination. Just a year ago, in June 2024, I published a post titled “How to Overcome Procrastination.” While I …
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: 3 minutesThe Offer I Couldn’t Accept Recently, I was offered a part-time job that I usually would have been excited to accept. However, I had to turn it down because of my previous one-year commitment to being a part-time National Park Service ranger. I was offered a “dream job” opportunity, which I’d have loved. But because …
Reading Time: 4 minutesWhy the “Consumption-Only” View Misses the Mark Recently, I’ve been reading and hearing Apple power users say they only use the iPad for consumption, such as reading, watching movies, or surfing the web. Two weeks ago, I listened to a guest on a podcast who said that he felt it was too difficult to work …