There is a growing mountain of evidence that would seem to suggest that multitasking is truly EVIL…

In one of the many letters he wrote to his son in the 1740s, Lord Chesterfield offered the following advice: “There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once, but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.” To Chesterfield, singular focus was not merely a practical way to structure one’s time; it was a mark of intelligence. “This steady and undissipated attention to one object, is a sure mark of a superior genius; as hurry, bustle, and agitation, are the never-failing symptoms of a weak and frivolous mind.” (via the new atlantis)

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• Wanna be more productive? stop checking you email all the time!

Even if you just glance at a popup, read the title of a feed or spend a few seconds replying to a Tweet, you are loosing focus and loosing productivity. You don’t just loose the 20 seconds spent away from your task, but also the first few seconds or minutes when you resume working will not be at peak efficiency, therefore you loose some more there too. (via hack your day)

• Don’t know what this has to do with productivity but it sure is fun…

Windows/Mac OS X only: Freeware application Lego Digital Designer is a virtual Lego kit for your Windows or Mac desktop. Once installed, you can either use LDD to build your own masterpiece from scratch or—if you’re lacking patience—you can get a head start by using one of their starter models. With over 763 brick types to choose from, your LDD-design will have reached well beyond the limits of your normal lego kit. Once you’ve built the perfect prototype, you can upload the results to the Lego web site to order a custom kit with every brick you’ll need included! Lego Digital Designer is freeware, Windows and Mac only. (via lifehacker)

• Enter the “mind like water” state via a Moleskine?

My Moleskine comes just about everywhere with me, whether at work or outside of work. While I use my Treo to house my Calendar and Task lists, my Moleskine is a repository for everything. (via productivity in context)

• A vacation from the Internet?

If you really think that you are obsessed with the internet to the point that it is disrupting your normal life and having an adverse effect on your health, then just take a vacation and don’t carry your laptop with you. Now vacations are meant to keep you away from everything, but those who are addicted to the internet, won’t spare their vacations either. Hence you should make sure that there is no way for you to go online during your vacation. (via dumb little man)

• what is the cost of distractions in the work place?

The average knowledge worker switches tasks every three minutes, and, once distracted, a worker takes nearly a half-hour to resume the original task, according to Gloria Mark, a leader in the new field of “interruption science.” (via new york times)

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Daniel of Hack Your Day fame has an excellent rebuttal to my “Is it time for a paradigm shift” post….

I think many people fail to realize what productivity hacks are, or they are poorly defined. First of all, when working online (but it applies to anywhere else), you have to separate tasks into four groups, based purely on how much money they make you, or how much does this get you done directly.

you can read the rest here

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I reached an epiphany about a year ago that it became clear to me that most of my online activity was a colossal waste of time. So away went all of my tech podcast’s, I unsubscribed to nearly all of my RSS feeds and the hours spent wandering around YouTube happily went away. Also with the help of the Lord I was able to extricate myself from the clutches of Twitter. Now I stand a free man ready to be somewhat productive.

With most of the time sucks removed from my life I now find myself able to get some things done and now I’m just plain happier.

Hacks, tweaks, tricks, etc. have emerged from a productivity hobbyist culture, are largely insufficient at solving bigger life problems, and often do not increase productivity. These hacks etc. are vestiges of the largely "techie" demographic of the early (but self-reinforcing) blogosphere. (via the growing life)

I work from my home office with little to no direct supervision so I need to practice some serious self management in order to be effective. I found that removing the mental and physical clutter from my life has greatly increased my personal productivity. Once the digital distractions were reduced to a minimum the quantity and quality of my work increase. Productivity is as much what you don’t do as what you do…

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Right?

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photo by dead squid

GTD blackbelts from around the world are getting together to compare tickler files…

Headlined by the inimitable David Allen, author of “Getting Things Done: the Art of Stress Free Productivity” this first GTD Global Summit, taking place on March 11th to the 13th, 2009,  promises to be a truly once-in-a-lifetime event.

Not only will attendees get the chance to  learn the latest on GTD by the man that created the strategy, David will also be sharing new material from his forthcoming book “Making it All Work: Winning at the Game of Business and Business of Life“.

(via gtd times)

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Have some thoughts or to do list’s that may not be Moleskine worthy? Well here comes the mighty pocket briefcase to your rescue. What is a pocket briefcase you may ask? Well, it’s fancy name for a index card holder. The price range on these bad boys are from 25 cents to almost 50 bucks. This weekend I used mine to take note of my Wife’s incoming flight number and list the stuff I needed to pick up at Costco.

I picked up this leather pocket briefcase at a thrift shop for 25 cents….

I’m trying to figure out a good reason I would drop almost 50 bucks (when you include shipping) for a index card holder…If you can think of a good reason please let me know.

And some productivity geek’s have sucked all the fun out of it by adding a ton of steps to the already majestically simple process…

I’ve been a Getting Things Done junkie since Merlin Mann introduced me to the concept on 43 Folders. (How long ago was that, anyway? I find it hard to remember life before GTD…) Like many of you, I’m an incorrigible GTD tweaker, constantly trying out new methods to eke the last few ounces of productivity out of my day. (Yes, I’m aware that all that tweaking often wastes more time than you’d ever save, but I’ll get to that dilemma in a future post.)

What You’ll Need for Today’s Hack:

• Polder timer
• Levenger Shirt Pocket Briefcase
• 3×5 unruled index cards
• Pilot G2 Mini

read the rest here

• To lazy to read your email? You’ve always been able to email yourself with a phone call through voice-to-text service Jott, but with the introduction of Jott Feeds, Gmail (and Google Apps) users can now have a summary of their messages read to them by phone. The secret sauce lies in Gmail’s RSS feeds and a go-between web site that handles password requirements. I’ll show you how to listen hands-free to your unread mail, or any other messages, after the jump. (via lifehacker)
• The Daily Saint gives us a inside look at his projects list…In this episode I take you behind the scenes to my weekly project list.  This will help you see what an average week throws at me and two simple ways to stay on top of it. (via the daily saint)
• I’m a Mac fanboy and even I  pay wouldn’t 99 bucks for this…With a MobileMe email account, all folders, messages and status indicators look identical whether checking email on iPhone, iPod touch, a Mac or a PC. New email messages are pushed instantly to iPhone over the cellular network or Wi-Fi, removing the need to manually check email and wait for downloads. Push also keeps contacts and calendars continuously up-to-date so changes made on one device are automatically pushed up to the cloud and down to other devices. (via appleinsider)
• 2008 is the clutter free year baby! When my better half and I decided to turn our spare bedroom into a home office, we started by gutting out the room in preparation for new paint. When moving stuff back in, we decided to only keep items that were absolutely necessary for the office to function. The end result was a pile of old gadgets and useless clutter that had no place in our office or home for that matter. If you’re not keen on gutting out your home office, you can simply start with discrete areas like your desk and bookshelves… (via the closet entrepreneur)
• The iPhone 3G is the answer to all of life’s problems… (via engadget)
• Dude, you really need to get some more sleep…But lack of sleep affects a person in one of two ways, Belenky said. First, sleeplessness influences the day-to-day performance of tasks. "The performance effects are seen immediately," he said. "You short-change yourself of sleep, and you see the effects immediately. You can make a bad decision. You can miss something. Have a moment’s inattention, and you’re off the road." The longer-term effects of sleep deprivation involve a person’s health. Doctors have linked lack of sleep to weight gain, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart problems, depression and substance abuse. (via yahoo health)
• Nick Carr reviews the Ciak notebook…Since I started this blog nearly a year ago, I’ve been getting emails about the Ciak line of notebooks. At prices ranging from $15 to $25, the Ciak isn’t exactly a cheap purchase, and a lot of people have wanted to know - is it worth the price? Is the notebook used by V, of V for Vendetta fame, a worthy Moleskine alternative? (via blackcover)

Well here you go…

Here’s a simple utility for Windows-using web workers who have trouble remembering what they were doing when the last few instant messages and emails arrived: NextAction. The idea of NextAction is simple: it gives you a floating, editable window that stays on top of the rest of the clutter on your desktop. Context menus let you control things like font, color, transparency, and floating behavior.

(via web worker daily)