productivity
What is the main characteristic distinguishing top performers from the regulars? Is it talent or effort? That’s the question that Angela Duckworth set up to answer with her book, Grit. Here are some key ideas.
Read MoreThe quest for the perfect note-taking application: A never-ending saga full of excitement over the new shiny app followed by disappointment when the new-found love fails to meet a need I just realized I have to solve. I really tried them all. But they all ended up sucking in one way or the other. But as I putting down some of my thoughts around jobs-to-be-done, I realized that note taking is in fact a solution to a multitude of problems. There are many cases when taking some notes is the the answer, but understanding the question can help one in choosing between one approach and the other.
That led me to thinking about my own set of jobs for note-taking. This is not meant to be a guide on note taking, but as a personal example on how a simple tool (in this case notes) can serve a lot of jobs. Here we go:
Read MoreWe all deal with priorities and goal setting in our personal or professional life. And I recently realized that if you have problems in picking and sticking with a list of priorities you don't have a priorities or a goal-setting problem. Most probably you have a strategy problem. Strategy details how a team will use the power available to the them to exercise control over sets of circumstances to achieve certain objectives. Once that is decided the priorities become pretty clear.
Read MoreIf Evernote feels like a drag to use, but you can't explain why (especially when everyone around you is raving about it) it might be because you have a different goal for note-taking. You might be using the wrong tool for the job.
Evernote wants to act like your second brain. But storage of data has no intrinsic value by itself. Even saving itself is devoid of any goal. In my case the secondary brain is a wonderful analogy but my main interest is in saving information in my primary brain. I want to remember the things I am saving, not burry them in a database. My goal, in that sense, is to record and organize the information I collect so I can create my own repository of knowledge. That is what I am going after and note-taking is just a tool, not a goal in itself.
Read MoreHow good are you at task management? Not so good eh! Have you tried the latest iPhone app? Some people claim it to be two times better than the app you used last month. How about keeping your task on a paper? I heard that Tim Ferris swears by that method. Still nothing? Listen, it may be the process … have you heard of GTD? It's based on this book by David Allen. Still no improvement?
That was my life since I started my quest to increase my productivity. I used pen and paper. Many, many apps. Nothing worked. Until now ...
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