Productivity & Systems
Building a system you'll actually keep. Task management, planning, and why most methods fall apart.
2022
2021
- Knowing When to Think vs. When to Act 11 Dec
- The More You Think You Don’t Have Time to Plan, the More You Need to Do it 20 Nov
- Which of These Two Approaches to Procrastination Works for You? 9 Nov
- What If an Index Card Could Make You More Productive? 19 Oct
- How to Choose the Right Productivity System For You 10 Oct
- I Built My Own Personal Productivity System Around a 3 x 5″ Index Card 15 Sep
- To Make or to Be Made 28 Aug
- Known Knowns, Unknown Unknowns, and Everything in Between 20 Aug
- The Merits of Never Fully Growing Up 14 Jul
- What Can You Do Without? 13 Jul
- The Profundity of Everyday Things 10 May
- What If I’ve Got This Productivity Thing All Wrong? 25 Apr
- Pleasure, Pride, and Procrastination 19 Apr
- Use ‘Drafting’ to Build New Habits More Easily and Overcome Procrastination 4 Mar
- The 4 Timeless Ideas That Changed the Way I Look at Personal Productivity 26 Feb
- Why Creators Should Give Their Stuff Away for Free 22 Feb
- A Better Way to Manage “Next Actions” in Your Productivity System 11 Feb
- Voluntary Hardships: The Gateway Habit to Mental Toughness 30 Jan
- Two Simple Questions to Help You Tackle Feeling Overwhelmed 22 Jan
- The Best Book on Productivity You’ve (Probably) Never Heard Of 11 Jan
- How to Build Your Own Killer Morning Routine 5 Jan
- Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions This Year By Shrinking Everything 1 Jan
2020
- The 3 Types of Time Blocks You Should Schedule for a Productive Week 27 Dec
- Overcome Learned Helplessness By Wisely Investing Mental Energy 3 Dec
- Creating and Using a Personal Code of Conduct to Enhance Decision-Making 20 Nov
- If It Doesn’t Apply, Let it Fly 16 Nov
- 10 Valuable Life Lessons I’ve Learned the Hard Way 12 Nov
- The Little Things Matter…A Lot 30 Oct
- A Method for Beating Procrastination Once and for All 27 Oct
- 4 Harmful Psychological Habits and 4 Simple Practices to Overcome Them 10 Oct
- Overcoming Defeatist Attitudes in Your Life and Developing a Possibility Mindset 13 Sep
- The Way to Live the Life You Want Is to Outline It 5 Sep
- Gretzky’s 3 Laws: Starting = Sucking Out Loud…For a While 19 Aug
- 3 Small Ways to Make Today 27% Better 16 Aug
- I Used to Hate the Word ‘Spiritual’, Until I Learned What It Really Means 10 Aug
- The Productivity-Killing Bias You’re Probably Not Aware Of, and How to Beat It 30 Jul
- What the “Other Cheek” Approach Is Really About 20 Jul
- When All Else Fails, Be of Service 13 Jul
- Harness the Power of “Synthetic Experience” to Supercharge Your Growth 6 Jul
- A Universal Formula for Doing Big Things 13 May
- The Little Things Are the Big Things 7 May
- Living the Transactional Life vs. the Generous Life 3 May
- On the Magic of Mistakes 1 May
- Using ‘Pattern Interrupts’ to Transform Bad Habits into Good Ones 20 Apr
- How to Get Through Sheltering in Place and Emerge a Better Version of Yourself 8 Apr
- Why I Only Eat One Meal A Day 13 Mar
- The Einstellung Effect and Functional Fixedness: Two Dangerous Cognitive Biases and How to… 23 Feb
- The Most Meaningful Things You Can Do With 2, 5, 15, 30 or 60 Minutes 17 Feb
- The 80/40/10 Method: How to Feel Better, Accomplish More, and Reclaim Your Time 6 Feb
- The 3 x 3 Journal: A Quick & Easy Journaling Method for People Who Don’t Have Time to Journal 24 Jan
2019
- Inbox Infinity 4 Dec
- The Importance of Disagreement in Effective Decision-Making 21 Nov
- The Life-Changing Magic of Realizing There is No “Life-Changing Magic” 15 Nov
- What Those Spammy “Nigerian Prince” e-mails Can Teach Us About Content Creation 20 Sep
- Are You Enlightened or an Escapist? 18 Sep
- The Path is Rarely Direct, and That’s How it Should Be 10 Aug
- The Only Morning Routine You’ll Ever Need 16 Jul
- The Seductive and Destructive Appeal of Productivity Porn 9 Apr
- Where Have all the John Candys Gone? 4 Mar
2018
- Slow is Fast, Small is Big, Soft is Hard 14 Dec
- Harnessing the Power of Concentration 27 Nov
- The Pleasure Trap and How to Escape It 14 Nov
- A Practice to Build Resilience and Learn to Endure Through Difficulty 10 Oct
- What My 1 Year-Old Son Taught Me About Procrastination 4 Sep
- The Master and Servant Model: How to Approach Goals and Time Management 24 Aug
- The Daily Habit I Never Knew I Needed 11 Aug
- Taking the Hundred-Year View 26 Jul
- Yes, And: Getting Ahead by Getting Along 13 Jul
- Pride and Productivity 7 Jun
- The Importance of Spare Time and How to Create It 24 May
- 6 Intriguing and Effective Journaling Methods to Help You Make it a Habit 18 May
- Productivity is Dead. Long Live Productivity! 26 Apr
- Satisficing: A Way Out of the Miserable Mindset of Maximizing 29 Mar
- Wu Wei: The Powerful Path of Non-Action 20 Mar
- The Incomparable Power of Mornings 7 Mar
- The Interest Principle 3 Mar
- The Shultz Hour: How 60 Minutes Per Week Can Yield Tremendous Returns 13 Feb
- The 12 Steps for the Rest of Us: General Principles for Becoming a Better You 7 Feb
- How to Run GTD in Google Sheets 25 Jan
- Taking Back Your Time and Attention 23 Jan
- Why Your Comfort Zone Might Be the Secret to Developing Powerful Habits 15 Jan
- 3 Principles for 2018 2 Jan
2017
- A One Word Wish for 2018: Restraint 26 Dec
- The 48 Tomatoes Method for Time Management and Productivity 14 Dec
- What We Talk About When We Talk About Productivity 6 Dec
- Kierkegaard and the 3 Stages of a Full and Happy Life 26 Nov
- 2 Foundational Principles of Personal Productivity, and How to Follow Them 23 Nov
- How to Implement a Killer GTD System in Google Sheets 22 Nov
- The Powerful Mental Benefits of a Daily Morning Run, and How to Start the Habit 1 Nov
- The Prisoner’s Dilemma of Online Content 23 Oct
- The Enriching Effects of Humor as a Habit 17 Oct
- Radical Compassion: A Radically Different Approach to Productivity and Growth 28 Sep
- A Better, Easier Way to Journal 15 Sep
- Productivity and the Placebo Effect 28 Aug
- The Secret Sauce of Incredible Productivity 23 Jul
- The Movement Method: How to Leverage Your Short Attention Span and Little Time to Learn More… 7 Jun
- Have We Become Too Cheap for Our Own Good? 14 May
- The Illusion of “Outside Your Comfort Zone” 3 May
- The Hunger of Our Time 30 Apr
- Youth, the Secret of Life, and Other Alchemy 11 Apr
- A Few Useful Things I’ve Learned — No Fancy Title 9 Apr
- The Benefit of Single-tasking and how to Get Yourself to Do It 3 Apr
- Trains, Cars, and Bicycles 27 Mar
- Leverage the Difference Between “Doing” and “Getting Done” 24 Mar
- How to Cultivate an Effective Gratitude Habit 15 Mar
- The OODA Loop: A Tool for Better Decision-Making 11 Mar
- What Productive People Know that Others Don’t 7 Mar
- 4 Mental Habits to Help You Get the Most Out of Your Mind 1 Mar
- What Has Free Speech Done to Us? 26 Feb
- Less, But Better 20 Feb
- What Most Productivity Advice Misses 14 Feb
- The Unexpected Power of Stillness 20 Jan
- Against the Concept of “Speaking Your Mind” 17 Jan
- The Real Power of “Inbox Zero” 9 Jan
- Slower, Fewer, Less 5 Jan
- 3 Principles for 2017 1 Jan
2016
- Simple, But Not Easy 22 Dec
- 5 Things About Productivity and Success that I Learned from Watching Baseball 6 Dec
- Guard Your Inbox Better 6 Nov
- Seek First to Understand 4 Nov
- In Our Rush to Be Great, Let’s not Forget to Be Good 13 Oct
- What If You Invoiced Yourself for All of Your Time? 12 Oct
- It’s Just Practice 11 Oct
- What Old-School Manufacturing Can Teach New-School Entrepreneurs 10 Oct
- We Forget to Breathe 9 Oct
- The Next Obesity Epidemic 13 Sep
- 15 Years Later, the Goal is Still Peace 11 Sep
- Make Your Procrastination Work for You 6 Sep
- How to Think About Your To Do List 25 Aug
- A.B.L — Always Be Learning 20 Aug
- 10 Aphorisms for You 19 Aug
- A Cool Little GTD Trick I Found 18 Aug
- Is All Our Hard Work Killing Our Future? 15 Aug
- The Real Secret of Productivity 28 Jul
- When is Your Routine Perfect? 25 Jul
- Do You Even List, Bro? 23 Jul
- A Little Hack to Make Your Day Go Better 20 Jul
- Do We Need the News Every Day? 19 Jul
- Let’s Stop Calling it “Racism” and Call It What it Really Is 11 Jul
- I Gave Myself 10 Minutes This Morning 26 May
2015
- When I got home that night, I noticed the smiling jack-o-lantern in my front yard was crushed. 20 Oct
- An Open Letter to this Year’s High School Graduates 26 May
- I have a dark secret: up until I was about 21 (nearly graduating from college, mind you), I was a… 4 Mar
- I’m Really Tired of Union-Bashing 12 Feb