Tools for Thought

It’s been said that in theory, there’s no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is. So I always like to personally test out different ways of working rather than assume that something will or won’t work, especially if I think it won’t. One of my last experiments was switching from the Palm [...]

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Some technologies we resist out of principle. Some we resist out of fear. Sometimes they’re just not that relevant, or we’re too lazy to engage with the perceived learning curve. Every now and then I feel the urge to reflect on the ones I resist as a reality check. I resisted cell phones for years, [...]

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Productivity bashing as a meme is getting boring. Having dabbled in it myself, I know whereof I speak. It’s not uncommon for bloggers to experience an identity crisis after writing extensively on the same topic for months, but that’s no reason to indulge in self-immolation. A more adaptive response is fuller self-examination. The word “productivity” [...]

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“I think there’s sort of a linguistic thing going on.” Hearing the above remark by Clay Collins in a talk with Duff McDuffee about the limits of the word “productivity,” a frustration I’ve harbored for weeks suddenly uncoiled. I’m over productivity. It’s outlived its usefulness as a focal point and framework for meaningful discussion. Through [...]

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Last week, I switched to a paper organizer to manage my calendar and action lists, and found that I got nearly twice as much done as usual. During that week, a couple of computer problems converged to prevent me from using my laptop for writing, forcing me to work around the issue by writing exclusively [...]

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A couple of years ago I tried to pull myself away from the PIM-and-PDA approach to tracking projects and actions. I bought the requisite ruled Moleskine and eagerly transferred my lists and calendar, formatting the latter by hand. The experiment failed. The failure had to do with my work-school situation. I was working 50 hours [...]

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