Productivity Archives - Page 2 of 4

My Process for Intentional Learning

Lately, I’ve been able to carve out dedicated to learning new skills. What I’ve learned has been random, from programming languages to how to build a tiny house. I’ve found a lot of joy in learning new skills, slowly becoming a generalist. Over the last year, I’ve found you can optimize your "learning time" by thinking through the process of learning before you start. In my experience, picking a learning project, and creating a "learning log" for each skill is hugely helpful. Identify a Learning Project Learning in a vacuum doesn’t work for me. I love reading fiction, but reading a topic that I have no immediate need to understand makes it much harder to comprehend…

How to Block Distracting Websites on Your Laptop

"What exactly did I do the last 30 minutes?" I’m sure you’ve been there, asking that same question, staring blankly into your computer screen. I’ve written about how I’m working to minimized distraction. For me, a big component of that is blocking distraction on the device I spend the most time: my laptop. Here’s what I’m looking to do: Automatically block distracting websites, but allow an easy way to temporarily unblock them. Example: I want to block Amazon by default, but sometimes I want to jump on and buy something quickly. I don’t want to have to manage a schedule. Creating exceptions to schedules and then remembering to re-enable the schedule never works well…

How I Broke My Phone Addiction

The launch of Neuralink started a conversation across the web about the “merge”. The day when you can plug your brain into a computer and communicate with it through your thoughts. No keyboard, mouse, or touch screen. Something out of a sci-fi film. I think Sam Altman has an interesting take: I believe the merge has already started, and we are a few years in. Our phones control us and tell us what to do when; social media feeds determine how we feel; search engines decide what we think. This resonated very strongly with me. My phone does control me to a certain extent and I feel uncomfortable if I hop in the car without it. I’ve been on a kick this year of being intentional about how I use technology…

Optimize Your Charitable Giving Using a Donor Advised Fund (DAF)

I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of recurring revenue. Building a business or a portfolio of investments which passively create recurring income has been interesting to me since I got my first paycheck. Over the last year I’ve been thinking: why can’t I (slowly) create a charitable asset that kicks off income each year which can go tax-free to charities? This way, instead of giving to an organization once, you can build a mix of assets that generate enough income to perpetually give to the organizations you carry about? This idea, combined with the recent tax law changes that made it more challenging to get a deduction from charitable donations (10k SALT limitation makes it harder to itemize), got me researching…

3 Email Efficiency Tips

I wanted to share a couple quick email efficiency tips that have been helpful over the last couple weeks. When scheduling a meeting, instead of asking “What time would be good to meet?” suggest a exact time and day with two alternatives that work for you. Also provide a link to your full public calendar with event details hidden (I use ScheduleShare for this). For example: Would 2-2:30pm on Thursday the 12th work for you? If not, would Wednesday at 10:00am or Thursday at 11:00am work?..

Steps to Refocus, Regroup, and Get Productive

After a series of unrelated meetings or going through a full inbox, it’s easy to feel scattered, unfocused, and distracted. This has happened to enough times, that I’ve written out an instruction manual for myself to enable me to quickly get refocused and back on the right track: Record everything in your head. Dump all tasks into your favorite task manager (ToDoist is mine!). Don’t attempt to label, prioritize, or organize tasks. Collect scattered tasks. Get all tasks, ideas, or unorganized bits of information in a centralized location. Run through any written information and transcribe any actionable items. I’d recommend setting up a “paper inbox” to throw all paper, notes, mail, etc so it’s easy to process…

Action Steps for Doubling Morning Productivity

Here’s my system for engineering an incredibly productive distraction-free work block from when you wake up to 12:30pm. Although I don’t follow this routine all of the time, when I do I’ve hugely increased my ability to cut through the urgent and ensure that most important tasks for the day get completed. Download Focus App. Setup a weekly schedule to block all distractions from 4:30am to 12:30pm on all weekdays. If you want to impress your friends, block all distractions everyday. In addition to the stock list of websites, here are some applications I block: Mail. If you use the gmail web interface, download MailPlane so you can easily block it…

Are You Being Deliberate About Long-term Goals?

Recently, I met with a mentor about some of my past and future goals. After listening and understanding my goals, he started to dive into the motivation behind my goals. Why did I want to build that product? Why was I interested in that type of business? What did I want my life outside of work to look like? What type of people do I enjoy working with? Am I working with those people? What type of work did I enjoy? What type of work am I excellent at? What type of lifestyle do I want to live? I had good answers to the first round of questions, but as he kept digging I realized my answers were becoming more and more thin, and I had a lot of thinking to do. I’m a planner by nature…

Get a Dedicated, Free, High Quality Conference Line

Premium services often end up being cheaper. This doesn’t meant that all premium services are expensive. Systems are being disrupted at such a rapid pace you can often find incredible services – like a free virtual fax machine – completely free. One of these services is UberConference. Even if you run a one man shop (like I do!) you should signup for UberConference and use it exclusively for calls. Here’s why: Hangouts is not reliable for phone calls. They have a great dial out feature, but I’ve been on a couple calls where the call connection kept dropping out. It was embarrassing and made me lool sloppy. Calling someone’s cell, or having them call you, often creates a coordination problem…

Why the Right Premium Services are Always Cheaper

By nature, I’m frugal. I love getting a great deal, and getting the most of out of my purchases. When I was fifteen I got a new MacBook Pro for free by working those “get a free MacBook pro” ponzi schemes online: my obsession with a great deal started early. I’ve learned that it’s often worth paying for premium services when your time is at stake. Not only your current time, but time that a premium service could possibly save in the future. Opportunity cost is a real thing: it’s important to consider what you can’t do or time that could be possibly spent on fixing a future problem with the service or product. Here are a couple of failures from recent memory: Low Cost HSAs…

Category: Productivity