I work in a large company where we “prioritize” everything. In fact, we are so good at priortizing that we have multiple priorities at any given time. And even after that we have long meetings to discuss what priorities are the most important. It feels like we are trying to meet the demands of everyone…

Staring at my lists of tasks during my weekly review (about 285 the last time I checked the count in OmniFocus) my eyes start to glaze over with the thought of just how much monotonous crap there is buried in them. What’s even more daunting is as I look over my system during my…

It is easy, in the onrush of life, to become a reactor – to respond to everything that comes up, the moment it comes up, and give it your undivided attention until the next thing comes up. This is, of course, a recipe for madness. The feeling of loss of control over what you do and…

Too much of today’s personal productivity is stuck in repeating the past A genuine increase in productivity means getting the same, or greater, output with less effort and a smaller use of resources. Yet most personal productivity software still relies on various ways to categorize old-fashioned to-do lists. That focuses on getting more done by improved…

What would an ideal workday look like? While there might not be a single answer across the board, all of us can relate to the fact that many of our workdays are not designed for optimal productivity. We complain about too many meetings, not enough pay, travel that saps your energy and did…

What would an ideal workday look like? While there might not be a single answer across the board, all of us can relate to the fact that many of our workdays are not designed for optimal productivity. We complain about too many meetings, not enough pay, travel that saps your energy and did…

Priorities. While our lives get more chaotic and demanding, we’re constantly trying to remember what our priorities are, and to prioritize time spent on our priorities. But it’s hard. Our calendars are jammed with commitments (many of which we wish we had said “no” to up front), our to-do lists are ever-growing and could fill a…

After the election last week in the United States, change is a hot topic, but it isn’t political change that I have been thinking about recently. It’s how organizations and their leaders cope—or, more often, fail to cope too well—with the need for changes in business practices to promote growth and foster creativity. It’s a truism…

I’ve been thinking and writing quite a lot this week about Hamburger Management: the type of management approach that is based on always doing whatever is quickest, simplest and (above all) cheapest. Hamburger Managers provide the kind of leadership that is best described as: “Never mind the quality, look how fast it goes and how…

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…

The German World War II general Erich von Manstein is said to have categorized his officers into four types. The first type, he said, is lazy and stupid. His advice was to leave them alone because they don’t do any harm. The second type is hard-working and clever. He said that they make great officers…

Despite all of mankind’s technological progress, some patterns seem rooted in human behavior. One of these is the tendency to grab for short-term gains and ignore the longer-term consequences, even when those are almost entirely predictable. This attitude has been illustrated this week by the announcement from the Ford Motor Company of still more lay-offs, plant…

I’ve got it! This came to me on the ride to work this morning. We have systems for executing our tasks. We have Getting Things Done, which tells us to sweep our heads, capture the details, do our work in the right contexts, and keep the flow going. And I always say that what we…