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Overview: Personal Productivity

There's so much out there written about personal productivity that it can be difficult to know where to start.

Most is what I call "productivity porn" - content created by and for people more interested in endlessly polishing and tweaking their "productivity stack" than actually using it. Some of the most successful content creators in this space, after obsessively developing highly sophisticated systems based around a particular combination of productivity tools, monetise it in the form of books and courses.

However there's a problem with this approach:

  • each system has been painstakingly honed by the author for the author...
  • ... but you're not the author, and - unfortunately - what works for them won't necessarily work for you
  • moreover, trying to reverse engineer someone else's finely tuned system risks breaking it apart.

Personal Productivity Framework

You're better off developing your own - the question is how. The answer is to use a Framework - a way of thinking about personal productivity that helps each person find their own system, meeting their specific needs and preferences.

A lot of the content curated below went into my own personal productivity system, from which I've distilled a personal productivity framework which divides productivity into three pillars, with each pillar supporting the other two:

  • time management: an “ideal day” ensures you work in synch with your brain’s ability to focus and ringfence your day’s Most Important Task, and carves out time for daily and weekly routines to support ..
  • task management, which borrows liberally from Getting Things Done (GTD) and integrates it with …
  • knowledge management: a content pipeline for managing everything from random thoughts to published content, and ensuring you get the most out of what you read.

I've written a fair bit about this myself (see what I think tagged #productivity), and recently boiled it all down to a short and inexpensive online course: Personal Productivity Framework.

Relevant resources

Prezicast: Taming the Firehose
youtu.be
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2019 update: a short Prezicast video from 2013 on my personal productivity system, since covered on Medium: https://medium.com/better-humans/manage-the-firehose-or-it-will-manage-you-791097bc53e2

The Reply To Email Overload? Prioritize — Or Turn It Off : All Tech Considered : NPR
www.npr.org

"But if these practical tips don't help, remember that overload is a matter of perspective. We could also say when we walk out the front door of where we live, 'Oh my gosh, there's so many blades of grass, I have lawn overload ... [but] Are these things really flying at us, or are we not making the choices we need to make?""

29/08/2013
Do you really read? « The Art of Living
jasonevanish.com
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"I challenge myself to answer the following questions in everything I read: - Has this taught me anything new and valuable? (If not, move on quickly) - How can I apply insights from this article today? (Wait and I’ll forget) - When have I applied the ideas from this post? Where have I not, but could have? (What was the difference?)"

29/08/2013
Keeping up with social media--in 30 minutes a day
www.arikhanson.com
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You have absolutely no time. Yet your boss is asking you to stay on top of all things social media-related. And, you need more information to do your job more effectively–and efficiently. And you want to stay smarter about industry trends. ... In my presentation, I lay out 8 strategies for staying up-to-date on all the changes, new products/tools …

29/08/2013
Trello Project Management
www.tedcurran.net
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"Trello is a to-do list manager and project management webapp that’s based on the metaphor of index cards pinned to a board. The cards each flip over, giving you a workspace where you can discuss the task, create smaller checklists, assign responsibility, or add other notes. To change the status of a task, move it to a different list on your board…

Why We Desire, But Don't Promote, Creative Leaders | Psychology Today
www.psychologytoday.com
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Worth a read, food for thought: "But while we love reading up on how these leaders turned the tide in their industry or organization, recent research suggests that most creative people aren't given the opportunity to lead. We love stories of creative people; we just don't want to be led by them."

27/08/2013
The Unimportance of Practically Everything - Greg McKeown - Harvard Business Review
blogs.hbr.org
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God this applies: the unimportance of almost everything you do.

01/06/2012
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