Category: GTD

  • Time management 202: planning the week in advance

    I’ve written before about how I track my hours on pretty much everything every day (originally in a spreadsheet, later just in a journal) as a means of spotting inefficiencies and opportunities to systemize and/or outsource, but this week I took it a step further.  Or backwards.  Not sure.  Anyway, I tried to log my […]

  • One more day (off)

    A one day break from, well, anything can easily become a two day break, which leads to the few days break, which leads to the “why not make it an even week” break, which quickly and nearly effortlessly can become an indefinite hiatus. It’s true of fitness, habits, and yes, business. One of the challenges […]

  • Marketing or procrastinating?

    I’ve spent a lot of this week working on a new marketing program for January.  This is a good time of year to do that kind of thing, since most people are either on holidays or thinking about them, so getting a decision on a project during this window is like pulling teeth (though I […]

  • Failure by goal achievement

    I think I’ve tapped into another one of those obvious things that need to be spoken aloud before they become obvious. In business, and in life, we know what to do, on at least a basic level, to get the results we’re looking for.  I’m going to use diet for my example on this one […]

  • A Data Hoarder vaccination against TED Talks

    TED Talks have been around a while.  The current intro video says there’s something like 900 available online.  I can’t say for certain which one I watched first, but I was an early adopter, subscribing to the podcast feed, and so on.  In recent years, I fell away from them, mostly because (and I realize […]

  • On the sustainability of personal effort

    Newsflash: nothing you do yourself is sustainable. At least not forever.  Even allowing for some pretty cool medical breakthroughs, whatever you’re doing now isn’t going to be possible for you to do in 150 years.  For other efforts, a time scale is a big help. Because just about everything is sustainable, at least for a […]

  • The power of practice versus the new practice penalty

    Regular practice is a powerful thing. Whether it’s daily exercise, meditation, journaling or blogging, or whatever else you might do on a recurring basis, these habits provide framing for the rest of your day and allow you to exercise discipline in small doses.  They are transformational. And they hurt like hell to implement. I’m talking […]

  • The simple tip that cured my writer’s block forever

    I’ve spent the past several months now posting five times a week here, and I’ve recently started extending that practice to a few other ventures, both blogs and email newsletters.  All told, I probably write between 3000 and 5000 words a week on various topics, which I guess would work out to a decent book’s […]

  • Leverage via automation

    24 hours in a day. Less if you’re selfish enough to sleep. This is the Big Trick, increasing the number of hours you “work” without actually doing them.  I first got a taste of this when I co-founded a podcast for a local non-profit.  Boom, 300 hours of outreach for every hour put into it. […]

  • Nutrition for success

    I’ve been thinking about food and nutrition a lot lately, in part because the takeout options around my office leave a lot to be desired.  There are four grocery stores within a ten minute walk, which in theory is cheaper than prepared food, but without full kitchen facilities it quickly becomes a game of annoying […]