Our levels of productivity, creativity, and inspiration have an intimate, hard-to-articulate connection to our environments. And we all have different predilections — quiet vs. noisy, calm vs. bustling, light vs. dark. Each quality creates a climate that pulls something different out of us.
Our surroundings shape how we work, yet we also have the power to choose and to mold them ourselves.
Our environments heavily impact what we do in them. But we have the ability to engineer our environments, and therefore, our habits and behavior.
“Choice architecture” means architecting our surroundings to coax the habits we want.
'Nibble and your appetite will grow.'
When we say we don't have time, often it's because we can't (or don't want to) spare the attention.
We've got to rethink how we use recurring meetings.
The latest episode of Tools and Craft, Devon Zuegel talks with Andy Matuschak.
Add a command bar to any app with Raycast.
A new and interesting macOS utility for app switching.
Being busy, ticking boxes, and moving things across the kanban board don't imply positive outcomes.
On getting out of your normal work environment to spur creative thinking.
Using Roam Research for task management and weekly productivity planning.
Developing a writing habit that led to a 2-year blogging streak.
Kahlil Corazo reviews a plethora of techniques and thinking frameworks for going from ideas to reality with your work.
A review of Readwise and how it'll help you get more out of the books you read.
Thinking about productivity and optimization of systems with a two-dimensional model of scale-to-throughput.
Adam Elkus on the current state of culture, Devon Zuegel on using calendars, and Robin Hanson on skepticism.
A deep look at how the Zettelkasten note-taking system works.
Shawn Blanc on his morning writing routine.
How should the state respond to the coronacrisis?, mapping the future of work, and Stephen Wolfram's deep dive on his productivity systems.
Marty Cagan's SVPG has a good series on team objectives covering a broad range of topics related to product team goal-setting and execution.
Time management, calendars, and improvising with your time.
George Packer on writing, wealth, and Superhuman as a nexus for productivity services.
Virtue signaling, busyness as a proxy for productivity, and Bret Victor's analysis of information design.
Kevin Kwok's thoughts on the state of team collaboration and productivity.
A review of Andy Grove's 'High Output Management', the most useful business book.
Making the distinction between forming habits and setting goals.
Interesting post from Jason Fried on Basecamp working in 6 week 'cycles'.
Basecamp's Ryan Singer on the concept of hill charts.
Apple releases a dedicated iOS version, optimized for iPad.
Shane Parrish's archive of mental models, visualizing git history, and page templates for Notion.
Stepping through my annual security review process with 1Password.
A handbook of quick reminders of what gets in the way of productivity.
“An overview of my workflow using Todoist the last couple of years.”
“Using the Shortcuts app to queue up links in Ulysses.”
CGP Grey on dialing down the noise and distraction.
Diagramming Sven Fechner's fresh contexts.
With the latest iOS update, OmniFocus is now not only a tool that follows a GTD workflow, but one that actually leads you into better GTD practice.
I use Dropbox as the nerve center for all of my digital goods, keeping data, configurations, histories, log files, and anything else I need access to centralized and available from my Mac or iOS devices. Here are a few of my daily tools or information trails I want to keep synced up, so anything here can be a few clicks or a search away.
A quick review of one of my favorite iOS apps, Drafts.
Getting back into GTD systems.