More getting-things-done Stories

By
Forest

As things get busier and busier, it’s important to work on what counts within your business. If we’re smart, we do this early on, even before things get busy, but if you’re like me, you prefer learning things the hard way. Read more »

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stopwatch

“Action days” — days where you and some friends agree to check in with one another hourly to keep tabs on each others’ progress — are a great way to motivate yourself and keep yourself accountable. Here are some suggestions as to how you could use them. Read more »

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By
lock

Even if you’re good at getting things on track to stay productive and focused, that doesn’t keep distractions from sneaking their way into your days and wreaking havoc on your plans and intentions. Here are a few ways to help you safeguard your attention. Read more »

By
juggle

Recently, I was talking with a client about how to manage multiple, large-scale projects simultaneously, and still make progress on each of them. While it’s not an easy task, I’ve stumbled on a compartmentalization strategy strategy that is helping me do just that. Read more »

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Mondays aren’t always the most productive days. Busy weekends leave us lagging, and it’s sometimes hard to find the motivation to get things going, so here’s a quick “jump start” to kick off your week and get you moving closer to achieving your goals. Read more »

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I just finished one of several big projects I’ve been working on lately. It was probably one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done, and several times throughout the project, I could easily see why most of us don’t take on big challenges at all. Read more »

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I was recently interviewed by Betsy Talbot of Married With Luggage, who wanted to know how I managed to bring big projects to completion so quickly. Here are the biggest three steps for me in getting things done. Read more »

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It’s not always so obvious when little changes or disruptions in our personal lives start negatively impacting our ability to work productively. Here are just a few of those sneaky disruptions. Read more »

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As an entrepreneur, you have to be very intentional about how you approach your work. If you jump around from fire to fire, you’ll end up feeling spent and accomplishing nothing. Last weekend, I set out a few goals to help me get more done this […] Read more »

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There are times when things are so hectic that 9 am becomes 5 pm, Monday becomes Friday, and the first day of the month becomes the last before you can even turn around. Read more »

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Here in the UK, last night’s Question Time — a BBC show where audience members can ask questions of a panel, usually consisting mainly of politicians — caused uproar as the BBC invited Nick Griffin, the controversial leader of the far right British National Party, to […] Read more »

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I just finished reading Twyla Tharp’s book “The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life.” Although it focuses more on creative types, much of the advice can be applied to solo entrepreneurs and small business owners. One helpful tip was her organizational system: a […] Read more »

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Not a fan of Getting Things Done (GTD)? It might be hard to imagine for some, but it’s not everyone’s favorite productivity methodology. “The Pomodoro Technique” by Francesco Cirillo is another option might be a better fit for your needs. This technique works well for folks […] Read more »

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No matter how good you’re doing on your quest for supreme efficiency, some days you’ll run into the ugly wall of procrastination. For this “Tips from the Trenches” post, I asked some experts and fellow Twitter users to share their tips for battling procrastination and “not-in-the-mood-itis.” […] Read more »

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SimplyGTD is a new, extremely simple to-do list/task management web app. I’ve been playing with it today, and thought I would record a quick screencast showing how it works, and in particular how it compares with Google Tasks, my favorite simple task management app: In summary, […] Read more »

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In your quest for better efficiency, you’ve probably read books like “Getting Things Done” and “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” and tried to implement the strategies contained within them. Yet you know you can do better in managing your day and being more efficient. For […] Read more »

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Ask people what they think of meetings — especially virtual ones — and they’ll tell you that most meetings they attend are a waste of time. Why are they a waste of time? Some reasons meetings go bad include: The right people aren’t there to get […] Read more »

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We love the idea of streaming video over the Internet directly on our television sets. The issue is, when you stream video to your house, you open yourself up to problems you don’t get when you pop a DVD into your player. It doesn’t take Sherlock […] Read more »

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Has it really been eleven months since the HTC Touch Diamond’s first availability? Yup, it has. That’s why the news of it landing in the Verizon Wireless online store and business channels today is sorta ho-hum. Some folks have waited for it however, so this one’s […] Read more »

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YouTube is the reigning king of the online video world, especially in the U.S., and it’s branched out into the search domain to knock off Yahoo as the second-most popular U.S. search engine. Recently, I’ve become convinced that the site could make itself even more useful […] Read more »

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Much has been said about the new iPod shuffle. Its size has been praised, lack of buttons grumbled about, and — as with most new Apple products — has caused a little controversy. I wanted to try the product out for myself as I’ve been needing […] Read more »

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Dish Loses 102,000 Subscribers in Q4; satellite company cautions that its subscriber base could continue to fall as AT&T terminated its reseller agreement to carry the service. (Multichannel News) MeeVee Real-ee Gone; former employees say they haven’t gotten tax forms and the CEO of parent company […] Read more »

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While most of the media attention at TechCrunch’s annual startup showcase in San Francisco was focused on the latest and shiniest startups, I ended up spending most of my day walking the demo pit, quietly checking out what was on display. And after that I checked […] Read more »

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If you’re like me, you have more to do than you could realistically get done in a month. How do you keep up with it all? There are dozens of productivity applications for your Mac, and a few for your iPhone. But there’s one application that’s […] Read more »