Jason's Business By Bootstraps

Category: GTD

  • On “Tetrising” your deliverables

    The beginning of the month is a time of reflection for me, as I tally up my hours worked and accomplishments, er, accomplished, like I mentioned yesterday.  As it happens, this past month went pretty well, by the numbers, with a solid gain over the previous month that continues the curve I’m working on, but […]

  • Embracing inbox infinity

    It’s funny to read my thoughts on achieving inbox zero three years ago.  While I generally keep my inbox pretty empty, lately it’s been slipping out of control again.  The thing is though, what was fine back when I was an employee isn’t necessarily the best strategy for an entrepreneur, and I need to be […]

  • Todo lists considered harmful

    The title’s a little misleading, but my comp sci training forces me to invoke Dijkstra whenever possible. Just so we’re clear, I’ve been using a daily todo list for most of this year, and the reasons are very simple: when I start the day with a list, I get more done.  More so if the […]

  • On the highest and best use of time

    The “highest and best use” concept is one that’s been hammered into my head relentlessly over the past year or so by various mentors and coaches.  Maybe it’s been overemphasized because of the years of corporate work that I need to deprogram from my brain (nothing wrong with the work I did, but it occurred […]

  • Data hoarding update: what about “knowing stuff”?

    So the other day @benlucier tweeted “Do you organize email by folders? An IBM study says you’re wasting your time: http://bvl.co/az” [PDF] and I found myself in the middle of a “wait for a thing to happen on my computer” cycle, so I gave way to temptation. After all, I’m still one of those holdouts who […]

  • Hiding from time collectors’ calls

    As a business owner, I sometimes feel a shiver when the phone rings.  But I’m not worried about bill collectors, thankfully.  Even if I was, this category of calls is far, far worse. I fear the time collectors. If only they just wanted money!  Time collectors are people who make those calls that eat up […]

  • Honouring shareholder obligations

    I haven’t used this line yet when turning down a proposal, but I keep it top of mind most days: “I cannot comply with your request without violating my obligations to my shareholders.” You don’t actually need to be a corporation or even have investors for this to be true. The truth is, we all […]

  • Curing data hoarding: an update

    It’s been a month since I recognized that I was a hard code data hoarder, so here’s a quick update on some tricks I’ve developed to cure my data hoarding “condition”: Flipboard is a fantastic iPad app that lets you consume your Google Reader stuff along with curated content and social media feeds in a […]

  • Time tracking overload: the price of good teeth

    A quick followup on time tracking to round out the week – while I track everything I do in a day, my home time is usually chunked into much larger segments – I don’t really want to get into the office earlier in the morning, and evenings are (mostly) for downtime and family, so I’m […]

  • Time tracking takeaways

    Earlier this week I mentioned I track my time pretty closely, and by some coincidence I stumbled across Jurgen Appelo talking about the same topic today. I couldn’t get a comment to post on his blog (Jurgen, if it helps, I’m on Safari 5.1,) so here’s an expanded edition of what I was going to say […]