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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

Peripheral vision | A reading inbox to capture possibly-useful references | Beware automatic import into the reading inbox
notes.andymatuschak.org

Interesting colection of notes from Andy Matuschak:Peripheral vision: "My physical workspace is full of subtle cues... together give me a kind of “peripheral vision”: when I’m doing one thing, it’s easy for me to fluidly notice other nearby things... Software systems, by contrast, often lack this kind of peripheral vision.". I started he…

Implementing network learning
jarche.com
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Jarche's network learning model encompasses 3 zones (social networks, communities of practice and work teams), with each activity involving both working out loud and personal knowledge management.There are several facets, each looking different depending on the zone - for ex:you share your work freely with your work teams (you are, after all,…

Designing a Workflow For Thinking
adjacentpossible.substack.com

Introductory Adjacent Possible essay on "building the most effective creative workflow", starting with a good definition of "“tools for thought”: using the computer not just to compose your thoughts... but instead as a tool for having more interesting thoughts in the first place... software that helps you generate ideas, remix them …

07/11/2021
morning writing practice | daily routine | Daily log | Note Taxonomy
notes.andymatuschak.org

Andy Matuschak's daily routine and content strategy appear similar, but much more complex, than my own. It starts with something we share: "When my days don’t go well, it’s often because something derailed me in the morning, and I never really got back on track", and manages his day so that he spends the first two hours of the day f…

Evergreen notes, outlines and executable writing strategy | Andy Matuschak
notes.andymatuschak.org

Having fun using Andy Matuschak's wonderful site to explore his innovative ideas on note-taking, zettelkasten, writing, etc. This link opens a number of his interrelated notes, displayed horizontally using his innovative 'stacked notes' information architecture.Key ideas from this stack:the importance of 'task division' in…

Coda's vision for the future of documents
www.protocol.com
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the world runs on docs, not apps.

The Garden and the Stream: A Technopastoral | Hapgood
hapgood.us

I suspect this will be a canonical text for me moving forward with myhub.ai.Mike Caulfield in 2015, when my first hub was only about 2 years old, had also "been experimenting with another form of social media called federated wiki... instead of blogging and tweeting your experience you wiki’d it. And over time the wiki became a representation…

Knowledge gardening is recursive - by Gordon Brander - Subconscious
subconscious.substack.com

Here's a good question: "If we carefully closed the right feedback loops, could we construct a creative flywheel that generates finished works?... knowledge gardening. You collect and plant idea seeds, returning periodically to water and weed... As a kind of self-organizing system, it can’t happen without some kind of feedback loop... …

Building a Second Subconscious
subconscious.substack.com

Subconscious is "a creative oracle that helps provoke ideas. It also captures those ideas, and remixes and resurfaces them, provoking more ideas... in a feedback loop that powers a flywheel of divergent creative thinking."Whereas spaced repetition tools like Anki "close feedback loops to help memorize facts", Subconscious will …

Platforms, Creative Communities, and the Need for a Radical Reimagining - The Reboot
thereboot.com
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Great piece on the implications for creators of the shift to algorithmically managed content platforms."Vine was an entirely new cultural platform ... Twitter had unwittingly enabled the creation of a true subculture... [but] didn’t know how to make money from it... in contrast... TikTok has prospered because it generally seems to understa…

Asana vs. ClickUp: The Best Project Management Tools for Remote Work
bossbabe.com
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"I am an Asana Certified Pro ... recently moved my team from Asana to Clickup [so]... highlight the pros and cons of both"Both based on lists, both provide Boards. For team communication they're "pretty on par". But views are better on Clickup - you can embed views from other apps - it's cheaper and it has Goals: &quo;…

Post-Alpha Feature: AI-supported MyHub authoring toolkit
mathewlowry.myhub.ai
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An innovative writing toolkit will further extend the productivity tools offered to MyHub editors.

From Beginner to Superuser: A Complete Roam Research Tutorial Course
www.youtube.com
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Watched the entirety over the last week of 2020. Highly recommended series for getting to grips with Roam, covering everything from the basic of how Roam works through to detailed HowTos on project & goal management, zettelkasten, etc. Having said that, I won't be migrating my tasks out of a dedicated task mgt tool, or pasting bibliograph…

ClusterBall
www.chrisharrison.net
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Approach to visualising Wikipedia category pages and their interconnections.

Post-Alpha Feature: Simplifying Zettelkasten by working out loud
mathewlowry.medium.com
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What did I learn about learning as I explored using Zettelkasten idea and knowledge management to write five newsletters about disinformation in the 2020 US elections?

Thread Helper
threadhelper.com
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"A serendipity engine on the Twitter sidebar".A "second brain" provides easy access to all the resources you've ever Liked or ideas you've ever Thought. @ExGenesis' Threadhelper brings a subset of this (just Tweets) right into the twitter UX - it looks brilliant.Check out the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?…

QAnon shows that the age of alternative facts will not end with Trump - Columbia Journalism Review
www.cjr.org
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With more than a dozen congressional candidates appearing on ballots in November, Qanon is mainstream. While it looks like a lot of other conspiracy theories, this research provides a fascinating look at how the conspiracy's "Bakers" co-create their knowledgescape."QAnon doesn’t simply offer readers insider insight into current…

Don’t just Build a Second Brain: share (part of) it
medium.com
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I’m exploring how MyHub.ai could become a unique hybrid of personal publishing and productivity tools by launching a newsletter powered by Zettelkasten knowledge and idea management, all hosted on my Hub.

How To Take Smart Notes: 10 Principles to Revolutionize Your Note-Taking and Writing - Forte Labs
fortelabs.co
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Books on note-taking... always too vague and boring, full of platitudes ... never an overarching system for turning notes into concrete results ... [but]How To Take Smart Notes ... is by far the most impactful and profound book I’ve ever read on the subject... most books are a few morsels of real insight wrapped in... fluff... I systematically unr…

Powerful analog method to increase productivity
www.fastcompany.com

Zettelkasten—German for “slip box.” Luhmann claimed that his Zettelkasten became a conversational partner, constantly challenging him and prodding him on to greater productivity... original system ... numbered index cards... contained a single and complete idea ... “atomicity”... as short as a simple sentence... had to fit into ... half-sheet of …

Integrating Zettelkasten Pages into MyHub.ai
medium.com
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I needed to review everything I had ever Hubbed relevant to surveillance capitalism, polarisation, social media and society... As I cast around for something interesting to say, I realised a MyHub.ai Service Page could help organise and clarify my thoughts: I would use it to create a Zettelkasten Permanent Note...While not a blog post, it is defin…

Building Blocks of a Zettelkasten
zettelkasten.de
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I am working hard on the “Building Blocks” chapter of the Zettelkasten book ... a birds-eye view of the overarching systems metaphor I’m using ... There’s a thing called “Zettelkasten”, and then there’s you using it. The former is the toolkit, the latter is your application of a method... I recognize... Inbox: the gateway into your knowledge syste…

How to clear your mind and cultivate creativity
www.fastcompany.com

dismantle the mental and emotional barriers to creative expression... companies sometimes design quirky and playful external environments ... However, the source of our creativity lies deep within us... Here are five concepts to consider ...we may struggle to grant ourselves permission to be creative ... Creativity is not... forceful mental proces…

22/06/2020
Browser extensions for Roam Research - Ness Labs
nesslabs.com
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many browser extensions to improve your experience of Roam Research.

Nat Eliason is Living in The Matrix - Superorganizers
superorganizers.substack.com
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how Roam’s first prophet organizes his life... I think of Roam as a low friction database oriented around tying ideas together over time... other note-taking app... work kind of like a filing cabinet... each project I do gets its own page in Roam... at least two tags to it: #Projects... #Active ... I’m actively working on it... automatically …

Praxis is Joining the Everything Bundle - Forte Labs
fortelabs.co

make every minute you spend consuming information much, much more valuable... much ... online content ... awful. Driven by clickbait, optimized for maximum distraction... lowest common denominator, it only added to people’s confusion ... in ... productivity, performance, and personal effectiveness... lots of gems ... buried beneath an avalanche of…

The One-Touch Guide to Doing a Weekly Review: How I Go From Chaos to Clarity in 30 Minutes - Forte Labs
fortelabs.co
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most people... [think] a Weekly Review ... a comprehensive “life review,” requiring hours ... In this guide, I’ll reframe ... to a short, quick, and easy habit that you’ll look forward to completing...productivity is just like your finances: it doesn’t work if it changes too often... should be a quick check-in to give you clarity...: Clear your …

Why We Keep Digging When We're Stuck In A Hole : NPR
www.npr.org
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when something important is missing in your life, your brain can only seem to focus on that missing thing... scarcity... leads you to take certain behaviors that in the short term help... in the long term only make matters worse... robs people of insight... in a hole, we sometimes dig ourselves even deeper...human brain is wired to respond to scar…

Exercising, Eating Right Won’t Prevent Burnout - Bloomberg
www.bloomberg.com
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Juggling full-time responsibilities, family life, and the stress of confinement makes the risk of burnout greater than ever... time to deconstruct the underlying cultural sources of burnout and ... Work less...our relationship to work ... tied to our ... self-worth ... But ... research says ... for knowledge workers to do their best work, they ne…

The most important technology critic in the world was tired of knowledge based on clicks. So he built an antidote - The Correspondent
thecorrespondent.com
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The Syllabus collects the best articles, podcasts and videos about the political, economic and social consequences of the coronavirus pandemic on a daily basis...world’s foremost technology critic... scans 100 pages per minute, 12 books in an hour, 100 in one day... can determine the relevance of every book in the world... all information and know…

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