As the amount of information that is potentially important to us continues to grow, it’s now more vital than ever to be able to process and consume it more efficiently. Here are some tactics to help you become more efficient with your time and information processing. RSS and keeping up with headlines If you aren’t an…

My husband and I were walking down a busy street in downtown Chicago.  Suddenly, my husband gasped. “What?” I said. “You didn’t see that?” “No, what are you talking about?” “In front of us.  A bird just swooped down and tried to grab a sandwich out of that woman’s hand.” “No kidding, that’s crazy!” “You’re really not that observant, you…

According to Clay Johnson, the author of the newly published and released book The Information Diet, we as information workers and seekers are bloated on what our televisions and our mainstream media outlets give us as “news” and need to redefine our information consumption as badly as we need to redefine our food…

You’re ruining Christmas. Not for me – how could you ruin it for me? No, you’re ruining it for yourself, for your family and friends, for everyone who loves you and who you love in return. You started in August, when you saw the first little corner of the Mega-Mart decked out with Christmas bows and…

“If life were fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.”– Johnny Carson In Part 1 of this series, I discussed some of the ways that life deals us a bum hand, and some of the ways we can deal with that. In this post, I continue the list, starting with…

“Who ever said life is fair? Where is that written? Life isn’t always fair.” – Grandpa, The Princess Bride Life’s not fair. Our thought processes are controlled by brains that are not always strictly rational. Social and economic forces beyond our control can toss us like plastic bags in the wind. Physical appearances play as large…

The Story of the $800 Jeans I recently watched a presentation given by a journalist (Benjamin Wallace) who had taken an extensive look at the way people shop; what they buy, why they buy, how much they spend and why some people are prepared to part with obscene amounts of money for the supposed ‘top shelf’…

Why choices about what to do with the time and effort you save are more critical One reasonable definition of increased personal productivity is creating the ability to do more with less effort and in a shorter time. Nothing wrong with that — at least until you ask what you will do with the time and…

Today is Blog Action Day, and over 14,000 blogs have agreed to write about the environment. Since I expect there to be hundreds of “how to” articles about making your own household cleaners and cutting your gas consumption, I decided to try something else, to try to address the framework in which we as…

We live in world full of pressures to conform: to believe what others tell us is true, to toe the line, to accept the values of those in positions of power, and to follow conventional, approved paths. That’s the way to get on in life and business, we are told. You need to fit in…

I’m looking at my desk and there’s a book sitting on top of the recent Wired magazine, atop two other magazines. I’m looking at my del.icio.us bookmarking, specifically the stuff I didn’t have time to read at a specific moment and that I intended to go back and read later. My RSS reader (Bloglines) has…