The Whys of Productivity: Writing Things Down

The Whys of Productivity: Writing Things Down

It doesn't matter which system you look at: Daytimer, Filofax, 7 Habits, GTD, Do It Tomorrow, Bullet Journal...every system insists that you write things down. Each system differs on how and where you should write them down, but they all want you to get it down on paper (or electrons).
The Whys of Productivity: Minimizing Capture Locations

The Whys of Productivity: Minimizing Capture Locations

Every system out there, particularly those that are dependent on a specific format and/or planner, advocate putting everything in one place. Some systems insist that the only place to put things is in their product; GTD advocates a more realistic approach: minimizing how many places you put stuff.

Looking at this from a practical standpoint, it makes sense that the fewer places you put things, the fewer places you have to keep track of.
The Cons of Batch Processing

The Cons of Batch Processing

Recently I looked at the pros of batching, where you lump activities that require the same tools together to do at the same time. Today I will look at the disadvantages of batching.
The Whys of Productivity: Gathering

The Whys of Productivity: Gathering

The secret to any organizational system is that like items should be stored together, be it by type or by purpose. But in order to see what needs to be organized, you have to know what you have.

Gathering is simply a fancy way of getting information into one place so it can be stored together.
The Pros of Batch Processing

The Pros of Batch Processing

One of the concepts that has shown up in quite a few productivity methods is to "batch" activities. This means that you do all like activities on your list at once.

There are pros and cons to this batching technique. In this article, I will present the pros.
The Whys Of Productivity

The Whys Of Productivity

Throughout all the years that I have been writing about productivity and researching productivity, I see a lot of articles on the "how". But knowing how to do something isn't enough if you want to expand on it. As a math teacher, I know it isn't enough to have students memorize formulas. They have to be able to understand why a formula works if they are to be able to apply it.

As I was considering this, I decided to revamp and expand a series on the "Whys of Productivity". Over the next few weeks, I will look at the similar basics to several productivity systems and dig down into the "whys" behind each method.
Tips: Highlight Alternate Rows In Excel…By Formula

Tips: Highlight Alternate Rows In Excel…By Formula

I work in IT. As a function of my job, I know a lot of little tips and tricks for many programs. Excel is one of my go-to programs, but I rarely use it for numbers - I generate code and do a lot of data work with it instead.

I recently had a long list of information to print out as reference material. It contained several columns, and I wanted a quick way to follow the information across the printed row without having to use an external guide.
Why I Keep My Work And Life In Separate Notebooks

Why I Keep My Work And Life In Separate Notebooks

There are a lot of productivity systems out there that insist that you have to keep everything in one place. There is a solid logic behind this stance: one place means you never have to decide where to put things, and you never have to figure out where to look. One life, one system.

But there is another side too. There are just as good reasons to maintain separate systems for work and non-work parts of your life. Today I will go over my reasons for maintaining two separate systems.
What is Done?

What is Done?

How do you know you are done traveling if you don't know where you're going? None of us would start a journey without some destination, or even just an idea of what you want to accomplish. Imagine running errands without any idea of what you needed to do!

Of course it makes sense when I put it like that, but how many of us know what we are trying to accomplish with our projects? Few of us actually stop and think about what Done looks like. We may have a vague idea, but most of us just plunge into the project without considering the end.