productivity : The Art of Non-Conformity

Work

The Best Time Management Strategy: Don’t Find the Time, Find the Why

Over the past few months, I've been interviewing people for my upcoming book on dream jobs. Many of the people I’ve talked to are really busy—they've found or created their dream job, but they also tend to do a lot of other stuff as well. Some of them have side businesses or run ultramarathons on the weekends. Some of them have active family lives. Some of them do all those things... and more. I don't always ask the same questions of interviewees, but one tends to come up pretty often: "How do you find the time?"

I liked this answer I heard yesterday:

"It's less about how do I find time and more about why do I find time. You'll always find time for things that have a strong enough why."

To Be More Creative, Schedule Your Work at 80% Capacity

I'm fortunate to work with great partners, including a wonderful design studio right in Southeast Portland called Jolby & Friends.

I was recently with the Jolby crew on a site visit, and one of them mentioned something about how they deliberately operate their studio on an "80% capacity" model.

The idea is that they schedule themselves only 80% full in order to be available for last-minute client requests, as well as their own work. I thought this was really interesting!

I wrote to Steven, the studio manager, to ask more about how it works.

Work

A Better Approach to “Never Check Email in the Morning”

You’ve heard the conventional wisdom: never check email in the morning.

That sounds great, unless your job involves communicating with people, or if you happen to care about what people have to say to you. In either of those cases, you very well might want (or need!) to see what's happened overnight just as you sit down to work.

It's also true, though, that it's easy to get sucked into replies and never end up creating or building or just working on something that requires long-term focus, all because you can't get your nose out of the inbox.

Years ago I found a better way that I still use most days of the week. Here's how it works.

Work

Re: “Let’s talk when you’re free”

Productive people are never "free." They don’t have 15 minutes on their lunch break to "have a quick call."

They don’t "kill time"—a terrible phrase. You can always put a window of time to good use if you work for it.

Productive people schedule their priorities—not always their time, but always their priorities. When they don’t have something to do, they find something to do.

By the way, it’s not that productive people don’t make time for friends, family, recovery, and play time. They do. But because they do, and because they have plenty of other things to consider... they’re rarely "free."

Work

How Valuable Were Your Last 40 Minutes?

Q: What are your tricks for time management? “The simple answer is to attempt to avoid, at all costs, situations that waste people’s time.” “Regarding my personal time management, I also try to live by the philosophy that focuses on: ‘What did I do that was productive and beneficial in the last 40 minutes?’ I…

Work

Helpful Email Tip: Always Draw from the Top

I’m pretty good at keeping up with a lot of things, but inevitably I fall behind on some emails. The way it works for me is that I get stuck on a final batch

Work

Thoughts on Working from the Drugstore

The drugstore in my neighborhood has a deliberate policy of wasting every customer’s time. If you arrive to pick up a prescription, you’ll wait a minimum of 20 minutes, guaranteed. It doesn’t matter if you’re just getting a refill. It doesn’t matter if your doctor’s office has called in your prescription. It doesn’t matter if…

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Work

Consider the Dominoes

It's not that you're too busy, or that you're doing too much. You're known for taking on challenges and doing the impossible. You know your metrics. You take pride in your deadlines. You've built your name on striving, and you don't like to let people down.

Work

The Magic of Making Things

I never was much for any kind of mechanical labor. If something breaks, I’m inclined to leave it broken. Give me a hammer and I’ll try to screw in a light bulb. One time I changed a tire and got really excited, until the spare tire nearly fell off as I drove along. Despite my…

Work

Make 2014 Your Year of Writing (Here’s How)

Happy 2014 to all! If you haven’t set goals or a theme for the year yet, it’s not too late. Habits do not create themselves. If you get off track in a habit you’ve committed to, you have to make adjustments to ensure you course correct. Over here I’m getting back to my writing routine,…

Work

The Crunch

You've been here before. The weeks and months have gone by, and now you find yourself at the point where something big is due. The deadline you've been ignoring is now staring you in the face.

Sup, the deadline says. Did you forget about me?

You didn't forget, of course. But you didn't entirely take it seriously either. It was hiding out in the background, and now the background has planted itself directly in front of your desk.

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Work

If It Matters, You’ll Find a Way

This post was written entirely in the air between Seattle and Anchorage the other day.

It was a bad travel hacking morning. For some reason I was assigned a middle seat in peasant class—the torture chamber of the modern traveler. Alas.

I squeezed into 6B and unloaded my stuff. MacBook, notebook, magazine, iPad, book manuscript, cinnamon twist. I tried to arrange things as best as possible, without sitting on the MacBook or the crucial cinnamon twist.

I felt sorry for myself for a moment. And then I realized the obvious: am I going to complain, or am I going to get to work?

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Life

The Goal

To wake in the morning full of life and energy, awaiting the day with anticipation and purpose.

To step out into the world ready to accomplish a significant task.

To engage and initiate instead of merely responding. To take the active choice that you will make something happen.

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Work

The Feeling of the Entire Day Unfolding Around You

In JFK I got on the 16-hour Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong. It was 3pm in the New York afternoon, and 3am in HKG—exactly halfway around the world. The Boeing 777 took off, I had lunch, and I took a short nap. I always set my watch to the destination time when boarding a flight, so it was now sunrise in Hong Kong ... with 13 hours to go. What's next?

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Annual Review

The Art of Radical Exclusion

Here’s the idea: we make time for what’s important to us. If I fail to fulfill a commitment I’ve made in a timely manner, it’s because of a conscious choice I’ve made. If I don’t return the phone call I said I would, it’s because I chose to do something else.

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