Category: Productivity

We spent the day prepping for a party in which only half the folks showed. We did have a decent, laid-back conversation with the folks who came.

I’ve been working this weekend to try and figure out how to organize myself in a productive manner. I’m trying not to spend money on anything, as I always think that’s a terrible way to start anything, but evernote’s email to note functionality seems pretty useful. It’s only available on their premium plans, and I’m not sure I’m ready for the $7+ a month commitment. There’s probably something similar I could to in gmail with its labeling, but it would be pretty manual. I’ll sleep on it.

Also, I need to get back to studying for the aws certification test. I will put in at least an hour tomorrow on that.

I need to stop emailing these journal entries to me and just write them on the blog already.

I gap my first productivity session today. It was useful. We went over the idea of providing structure to my personal life in something of the same way we organize work to do. Some things that stood out:

Starting habits is hard. Try easing into a new routine by setting a schedule for something and just showing up. After that start, add one useful activity to those sessions. Keep adding things each week until the sessions are useful. 

Generate task queues that you maintain: now, next, and later. The idea is that you should only deal with a request or piece of info once. Put in in that queue as quickly as possible, and handle it when you get to it. 

The tool you use to organize yourself should be as useful and low maintenance as possible. She values Evernote for its email functionality. I wonder if I could do that directly in my email box. 

When you get to the advanced stage, you can create queues for people (with things you need to address and notes from them) or places and tomes (what to do when on a train).  

It’s a new year and again, it’s totally not time to make a change in your life because you shouldn’t wait for a specific date to make a change, just make the damn change already. And still, I find myself reflecting at the new year and trying to improve myself. At the end of last year, I placed the winning bid in a charity auction for 6 hours of hands-on productivity coaching by a manager at my work. My first half hour of this coaching starts on Friday, and she send me a book to help begin this journey.

I’ve been reluctant to embrace self-help books in the past. There was a period in my early twenties when I read a few, trying to isolate in those pages what I needed to do in my life. Of course, that answer was no where in those books. Still, maybe it’s that I didn’t give their advice as much devotion as they deserved.

I can’t change the past, but I’m pledging to take these current productivity lessons and books seriously. I’ll go in with an open mind, and I’ll be sure to update you on my progress in the coming months.