What Does Productivity Look Like?

I got off the productivity pimp train a few years ago when my circumstances started to required that I actually get stuff and not just look busy.

How tightly organized should I be? Enough to pass a white glove test? No. That’s not going to happen, and imposing that ideal on myself is actually counter-productive. So, I stay organized enough to achieve my goals. Today, I achieve what I’m after, stacks and all. I’m OK with it. I have things I love around me, like photos, drawings and Disney Vinylmations. It’s working and, more importantly, I am.

When I was young my grandmother’s house was kept like a museum. It was gorgeous and sterile. My office is a working space. Stuff gets done, and dust is raised. Detritus is strewn about. Like a potter who goes home with clay on his jeans, I get messy when I work.

But the result is beautiful.

The proof of productivity is your work getting done, not maintaining a clean desk. I’ll choose results over style any day.

via 52 tiger

Tips On Cleaning Your Nasty Filthy Office

So this is a blurry picture of my desk and when it is clean and in order I “feel” better about going into my office and actually doing some work. But when it’s dirty and all jacked up I just want to sit around and play video games.

For me environment does effect my level of productivity.

Cluttering up your work area with files, pencil holders, In/Out Baskets, note pads, etc. all fight for space in your consciousness whether you recognize it or not. A clean, organized work area is going to be a necessity if we are to deal with time successfully. “Clutter is death, it leads to thrashing,” reminds Pausch.

A great organizational tool was created by Toyota as a way to make their factories more productive. It’s called the 5S system, and while it was originally designed as a tool to help design and layout manufacturing facilities, some truly great 5S work has been done in the office environment as well.

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Workspace Of The Day 01/21/11

via unclutterer

The Tabobo Rasa What?

So instead of just cleaning up your nasty room…

When uncluttering and organizing a room using the tabula rasa method, you start by moving everything — absolutely everything — that isn’t affixed to the walls, floor, or ceiling out of the room. As you’re pulling out the items, group them together by type on your dining room table or on a tarp covering the ground in your garage or back yard (assuming it’s a day when it’s not expected to rain). Shoes should be piled with other shoes or can openers with other can openers.

Then you take out all the junk sort, label, repair and organize the space then…

Next, head to your stuff that is in piles. Take with you a trash bag, your recycling bin, and two large boxes with one labeled “Donate/Sell” and the other “Special Attention.” Diligently go through each pile of your stuff and sort its contents into: Keep (simply leave it in the pile), Trash (put it straight into the trash bag), Recycle (put it into the recycling bin), Donate/Sell (put items you will donate to charity or sell into this box), and Special Attention (only put items in this box that need you to do something specific with them that doesn’t fall into the other categories).

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via unclutterer

Does Your Desk Reveal The Condition Of Your Soul?

If your desk is a mess is your life a mess?

I think more or less, the way you choose to have your workstation reveals a lot about you and the approach you have in handling task in general. I have friends who can care less about what machine they operate with as long as they have internet connection, a word processor and a cable plugging into a printer.
I’m interested in the same basic commodities but there’s no reason why you can’t do it in style.

via simple desk

 

Productivity Power Links 12-10-09

Ok this is somewhat cool…

You don’t have time to tether yourself to a wall while your cellphone, PSP, DS, or other gadget charges. Next time your portable gear starts running low on juice, strap on gadget manufacturer Brando’s clever wristband battery recharger and keep on keepin’ on.

via lifehacker

Getting to much done?

Too much GTD or too much effectiveness in your life can become annoying at some point. Being highly productive can really help you become some sort of a freak, even if you obviously don’t want that. All those lists, thoughts capturing devices, advanced task processing systems. All those fancy words like “next actions”, “hipster cards” or “mind like water”. All those tasks carefully squeezed into your agenda, well, all that could give you a very hard time in a normal, non-productivity related, social conversation.

via dragos roua

Trying hard not to player hate this guy…

This past summer, for example, I completed my PhD in computer science at MIT. Simultaneous with writing my dissertation I finished the manuscript for my third book, which was handed in a month after my PhD defense and will be published by Random House in the summer of 2010. During this past year, I also managed to maintain my blog, Study Hacks, which enjoys over 50,000 unique visitors a month, and publish over a half-dozen peer-reviewed academic papers.

via i will teach you to be rich

What to eat if you want to be unhealthy…

Cattle evolved to eat grass, not grains. But farmers today feed their animals corn and soybeans, which fatten up the animals faster for slaughter. More money for cattle farmers (and lower prices at the grocery store) means a lot less nutrition for us. A recent comprehensive study conducted by the USDA and researchers from Clemson University found that compared with corn-fed beef, grass-fed beef is higher in beta-carotene, vitamin E, omega-3s, conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), calcium, magnesium, and potassium; lower in inflammatory omega-6s; and lower in saturated fats that have been linked to heart disease. “We need to respect the fact that cows are herbivores, and that does not mean feeding them corn and chicken manure,” says Salatin.

via living healthy

Woo Hoo Quicksilver has been updated…

Quicksilver’s been updated!

Quicksilver is one of those applications that simply genius and once you’ve used it you can’t understand how you survived all these years without it.

Get it here.

via minimal mac

Visual alerts don’t work…really?

Growl notifications, alert add-ons for Firefox and for the desktop, and other tools can all help you keep on top of goings-on in your digital world by displaying visual cues whenever new activity appears on your social networks, email, or other web apps. A new study, however, indicates that these tools might not be helping you at all. In fact, they could be seriously hamstringing your productivity.

via web worker daily

Howdy!

Been busy actually doing stuff…will be back soon with more of the same.

Shalom