Have you heard the term “email bankruptcy?” Here’s how it happens: when my email inbox reaches such a staggering load of messages that I can never hope to deal with them all and I just need a fresh start, I may choose to declare email bankruptcy. I delete everything, then send a message to my…
Category Archives: Productivity
What’s Better Than Perfect? Escaping the Perfectionism Trap
What’s better than perfect? Many years ago, when I applied for my first real career-launching job, I prepared for my round of interviews with practice questions supplied by a university career counselor. I remember one question we were advised to be ready for. It was this: What is your greatest weakness? And I recall my…
Worth Repeating – February posts from New Leaf News
I’m in love with this sample of February posts from years past, and I hope you are, too! It’s a good time to check for “tolerations” – those small annoyances that can get in the way of your progress. Address them now! Here’s how. And speaking of tolerations, are you seeing too much of your…
The Planning Fallacy: Why You Don’t Know How Much You Can Do This Year
Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law. – Douglas Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid As you make your plans for 2011, do you feel that you didn’t do much, or enough, last year? Do you feel that you really want this year…
How Much Time Should Planning Take?
If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable. – Seneca Once in a while a client avoids planning on the ground that it takes too much time. They’d much rather dive right in and spend that time getting some of their work done, instead of reviewing goals, choosing…
The Won't-Do List
Productivity is as much about what we choose not to do as it is about what we do. (Remember the Evil Overlord List? 100 tongue-in-cheek won’t-do entries that begins, “Being an Evil Overlord seems to be a good career choice.”) With this in mind, I’d like to supplement my list of committed tasks…
Worth Repeating – October posts from New Leaf News
I’ve dipped into the New Leaf News archives to share a few posts that still seem as fresh and relevant today as they did in Octobers past. In case you missed them the first time around, here they come again! I’m still using mind-mapping as a technique to organize and view more information than…
Why Tasks Hang On – Three Productivity Traps to Avoid
Take a look at your to-do list. Are there things that have been lurking there for weeks, maybe months? How do you feel when you think of those tenacious tasks? Tired? Discouraged? You can get rid of those “Velcro jobs” faster if you know how they got to be clinging to your days in the…
Update: In-box zero
Back in June I pledged to achieve in-box zero by the first day of autumn, so I owe you, dear readers, an update. How did I do? In a word: busted. I managed to keep up with most everything that came in during the past three months, but the backlog is a mere 10 percent…
Worth Repeating – September posts from New Leaf News
I’ve sorted through the New Leaf archives to choose a few posts from Septembers past. Here’s a sample of what was on our mind during recent years. When no work is getting done, you can’t seem to muster any enthusiasm, and yet you can’t relax either, it’s time to get serious about avoiding burnout. Here…