Cal Newport is working on his next book titled The Deep Life. As a fan of Deep Work, I look forward to this next book. His podcast occasionally covers ideas he is working on for the book and one of those is below. Five Laws of Less by Cal Newport Accomplishment is not...
Friday, the blog post talked about why estimating our work week could be a good planning tool. Today we’ll shift to look at 5 steps we can use to create that weekly estimate. Step 1 – Create a List: The process starts by creating a list of deliverables for the week...
Business is full of estimating. A new project opportunity emerges. The scope of work is written. Hours to achieve that scope are estimated. This determines both the cost and duration of the project. My Perspective I wonder what would happen if we applied an estimating...
There was an interesting discussion on an episode of Adam Grant’s podcast Work Life. Adam spoke with psychologist and author Brian Little about how our projects impact our wellbeing. Brian wrote the books “Me, Myself, and Us” and “Who are You Really?” He...
I came across some research statistics that I struggled to believe were true. The article suggests that 82% of people don’t have a time management system. The average worker spends 51% of every workday on low to no value tasks. Only 20% of employees feel their work is...
When we are overworked and overwhelmed, we don’t know how to slow down. We fear that stopping for even a few minutes will put us even further behind. We rush through work. Rush through evenings. Hold hope that we will catch up on the weekends. We don’t. The cycle...
Time audits are a tool to provide objectivity to where your time goes. We can use them to understand where our time goes. Many use them with the goal of increasing productivity. However, there are many other patterns they can be leveraged to detect. How we feel during...
We’ve likely all heard the quote: “You get what you work for, not what you wish for.” - Howard A. Tullman The concept is simple – achieving your dreams takes work. Wishing is the easy part. We can close our eyes and imagine a future filled with achievements and...
Procrastination and accountability are intertwined concepts that impact our productivity. They influence each other. Once the cycle starts, it can be difficult to break. The causal relationship often begins when there isn’t a sense of accountability. Because we lack...
When you think about a calm weekday, what comes to mind? This is a day when you aren’t on vacation. It’s not the weekend. Just a normal day. A day without overwhelm. You aren’t “crazy busy”. The day is calm. Productive. Full. Fun. Calm. What does this day look like?...
There is a lot written about using Friday afternoon as a time to wrap up tasks for the week and plan for the week ahead. The theory is that this is the time of the week when things are winding down for the weekend and we aren’t at our best for deep work and...
I read a blog post from Cal Newport that referenced an article by Dan Kois in Slate. The article discussed how Gen X and Boomers remember a time when there weren’t laptops, cell phones, and readily available internet enabling us to take our work home with us. In the...
We all have due dates. Many times, we are working right up to the deadline to get things finished. I was listening to a podcast where someone mentioned they schedule both due dates and “do” dates. This intrigued me. My Perspective I’ve had several posts suggesting...
The last few weeks, process and systems have been on my mind. At work, departments often have processes so that the approach to the work is consistent. These processes should also make the work quicker over time because the process to do the task becomes familiar....
There are a lot of sayings about time and money. Time is money. Time is something money can’t buy. The list could go on. Yet, I think one of the biggest points when the comparisons are drawn between the two is that time is finite while money is infinite. You can...
Sometimes in work or life we find ourselves “down a rabbit hole”. What we mean when using this metaphor is that we started on one project or piece of research, got sidetracked with some additional information and then started to explore other connections and related...
A podcast the other day mentioned a James Clear quote from his book Atomic Habits. “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fail to the level of your systems.” James Clear This got me thinking about all the systems we use each day to get our work done. ...
Sometimes our perception of time speeds up and other times it slows down. There has been a lot of research on why this happens. Our emotions, priorities, and age all factor into the equation. Here are a few examples of speeding and slowing time. When we...
In May, Seth Godin had a post on his blog that really struck me titled Chores. There was one statement toward the end that summed up the idea perfectly. “The truth is that if we stop doing chores, we have to do real work instead. The things that aren’t...
There are a lot of benefits to the routines that give our lives structure. They streamline our tasks. Let us navigate responsibilities with ease. Provide calm and stability to our days. Yet, they also lead us to live on autopilot. We go through the motions without...
When we think about our work, there are times for input and times for output. The input moments are the times when you are taking in information. This could be doing research for a project, attending meetings, coordinating with others, or reading a book or...