Blogs

Tags > productivity

Open question: What's the point of inbox zero?

I have more than 10,000 unread messages in my inbox, and I think I'm okay with that. But am I missing something by not pursuing "inbox zero"?

A New Era of Post-Productivity Era Computing?

Personal technologies today are prosthetics for our minds. Our opportunity is to create personal technologies that are prosthetics for our beings. Conscious Computing. It’s post-productivity, post-communication era computing. Personal technologies that enhance our lives.

The Productivity Myth: Step Away From the Twitter - Get Back to Work

Ever since I posted a how-to on establishing guidelines for social media in the workplace, the issue that has generated the most energy concerns productivity. Employers it seems are very worried about lost productivity due to social media usage (Facebook, Twitter etc.). I can’t really get my arms around it because I don’t think these tools bring out any really...

Attention, Focus, and The Internet

Distraction is a problem commonly diagnosed in our internet-driven careers in an internet-driven society. The media encourages the conversation, alternately providing tips and tricks on how to increase your productivity while blaming Google for destroying culture or discussing the impossibility of classical genius in a modern time frame. Wading through this frenzy is Sam Anderson, who's recent article "In Defense of Distraction" in New York magazine is one of the most thoughtful approaches to the subject I've read to date. Alternately factual and philosophical, Anderson elevates the dialogue around this conversation into a higher place where something really productive is possible. Merlin Mann and the Dali Lama make guest appearances (though not together.)

Don't Join the "Cult of Done" - Stop Overcommitting

This week some of my co-workers got really excited by the "Done Manifesto." I love a good manifesto, but I disagree with this one for several (good?) reasons and on a very gut-level. Here's why.

Creativity in a Can

For me, what's wrong with Songsmith is not that it's so uncool. It's what's wrong (though maybe not so egregiously) with a lot of music technology: the underlying premise that productivity is an absolute good.

Bat Utility Belt #1: Save Your Ears for $20

Ya gotta love gadgets. As a tech reviewer, I get to check out quite a few, but in this new blog series, I'll highlight some of the gear I've bought — with my own money — that's performed especially well. Following a utility-belt theme, I'll focus on gadgets under $100. The first item in my list, though perhaps too big...

Small Apps, Loosely-Joined Into Contextual Tasks

I spend too much time telling my computer how to do things when I should be able to tell it what I want to do. Perhaps it's time for declarative UIs to replace our procedural UIs.

What I Learned about OmniFocus When I Came Back from Vacation

The week that my family and I spent at the Jersey Shore was rejuvenating for all of us, but I've paid a price since coming back to work. OmniFocus, which was so helpful to me over the first four weeks...

Meet Hazel

Overwhelmed with URLs that friends, family, and co-workers had sent me to, I was shocked to find that my "to be visited" folder had over 150 items, some nearly two years old. So, I called Hazel.

Universal Plain-Text Templates

Using templates is a major time-saver for those of us who need to create the same, or at least highly similar documents over and over again. But what do you do if a specific application does not support templates? As long as you're handling text files, there's a solution that works universally across your Mac.