Category: Other

  This month’s experiment is all about mindfulness.  I am meditating alongside my work for a month to see how this affects my happiness, stress and productivity. So far I’ve had mixed results. Last week, every hour or so, I meditated for ten minutes.  I did this just on the floor in my office and…

As well as needing to make more and better decisions, we need to be choosy, processing information to sort the wheat from the chaff and the big opportunities from the even bigger ones. Ruthlessness isn’t just about how we process information, it’s also about our ability to protect our time and attention, focussing only on the things that add the…

A lot of people have an in-built resistance to meditating, including me.  This can be for a number of reasons: it seems a bit hippy-dippy you don’t know where to start you don’t have the time you don’t have the right space or mat, you’re not religious you don’t know how … and so on.…

What if you could find additional pockets of attention where there were previously none? I’m not talking about extending your working hours here, but perhaps using some of the points in your day that you might currently not have considered. Opportunity is everywhere – as long as we’re prepared? Calls and Walking Every day I…

Does your company vision support you to make daily decisions? Do you even know what it is? How does it relate to your decision making authority or approval processes at work? I grappled with these questions for most of March. I work for a UK based personal productivity training company called Think Productive UK. I…

Another month, another extreme productivity experiment.  I am pleased to be leaving behind the constraint of working only 60 minutes a day.  I have a massive list of stuff to catch up with and a bit of a lazy worth ethic that developed last month to snap myself out of, too.  I also learned last…

As Soul II Soul once sang, “back to life, back to reality”… That’s how it feels at the end of my 60 Minutes experiment. I’ve shared quite a few reflections from the month in the previous posts, particularly the thought that perhaps 3 hours could be enough to live sustainably. And without wanting to get all…

“The mind is for having ideas, not for holding them.” – David Allen This is the first in a series of posts defining the Characteristics of a Productivity Ninja…. So you want to be a Productivity Ninja? The first characteristic you need to nurture is Zen-like Calm. Good decision-making comes from the ability to create the time…

Are you drowning in emails? Is Inbox Zero an impossibility right now? In previous posts we asked you to tell us your Email Pet Peeves, looked at improving your email use by introducing better subject lines, and smarter use of TO, CC and BCC. In this post we look at how to keep your emails…

One of the aims of my year of productivity experiments is to play with and experience extremities.  Working an hour a day has certainly been pretty extreme. It’s also only possible right now because we have such a great team handling much of the day-to-day operations of the business – doing this three or four…

One week to go for my “60 Minutes” experiment.  I am still working hard on not working hard.  And I am putting my life and soul into my hour of work.  And I’m really behind on stuff that needs to be done, but that’s for another blog post. Here’s one thing I’ve confirmed this month. …

The key to sending productive emails, is following some basic email etiquette rules. If you’re battling with a bulging inbox, you’ll know how infuriating poor use of CC and BCC can be – so here are a few tips for sending, and receiving, better emails. Make it clear why each person is included on the email.…