Something’s Going On. It’s Called Life.
My Christmases have always been quiet. I may spend more time than usual shopping or baking, but I’m able to keep up with everything. Not this year. A perfect storm kept me busy every hour of every day for the past several weeks. I was left breathless. After several wonderful, quiet days at home this […]
How to Become More Aware Of Time
This past week, I’ve been thinking about time. More precisely: awareness of time. Do I know how long I’ve been working on an email? Drinking my afternoon tea? Reading this book in bed? It’s struck me that this is a key to productivity. If I was more aware of time as it goes by, I […]
So What Is A Commitment, Really?
A recent post on the GTD forums started me thinking about commitments. We all have many ongoing projects. But what does “ongoing” really mean? Have we really committed to them? Or did we just put them on a list to remind us to get them done eventually? I’m realizing that a lot of my own […]
What To Do When You Don’t Feel Like Improving Yourself
I write a lot about self-improvement, and the importance thereof. So, what do you do when you just have no energy for self-improvement? When you just don’t feel like improving? Take a break. Really. Stop working at it for a while. Watch some movies, read a few books, and just relax. Don’t rest forever, of […]
Benjamin Franklin’s Self-Improvement System
Just finished reading Frank Bettger’s excellent book How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success in Selling. Bettger was a friend of Andrew Carnegie, who encouraged him to write this book after hearing Bettger’s life story (a former baseball player who applied himself to self-improvement as a salesman until he became incredibly successful). Besides explaining […]
Why I Host a Halloween Party Every Year
I want to explain just why I host a Halloween party. I mean, I do love Halloween. It’s my favorite holiday. It’s one of the few times in the year when fantasy and a belief in unexplained phenomena are socially accepted. It’s a time when we can all believe that the world contains at least […]
The Importance of Review
I wrote recently about the importance of writing things down, and of reviewing them. Today I want to talk about review. By “review,” I don’t mean just looking things over. I mean study. Analysis. Deep thought. For example, when you come across a really good article in a magazine, what do you do with it? […]
Paper In…Then What?
The biggest hole right now in my personal productivity system: processing physical items. A lot of paper comes into our lives. Each item represents a potential commitment — a phone call to make, a reply to send, a book to read. So they all need to be reviewed. Every piece of paper that comes into […]
Happiness
A thought just sprang into my head, unbidden: If I didn’t have a computer, I’d be so much happier. Hmmmmm.
Writing It Down
If you don’t write things down, you’ll forget them. We all know this. We’ve been told this by our parents. We have an idea or we suggest some improvement, and someone says, “You’d better write that down or you’ll forget it.” But most people don’t do it. They nod, and laugh, and they go on […]