Archive - 2007

(A relatively short post, as I'm in recovery.)

Five things that are easier with crutches

I broke a leg bone in half a week ago[1], so I have some tips for you should you need crutches.

• Palm calluses useful for chandelier-swinging.
• Improved ability to re-slip on ice. Advantage: Already have crutches.
• Like some kinds of work (e.g., writing), slow and steady is often more productive than fast and reckless.
• Can use to point and press buttons.
• Hyper-developed right leg more impressive than pre-accident, and draws attention away from shrunken chicken-stick broken leg.
• Increases pan handling donations, esp. when combined with weary slouch.
• And finally, children just love to play with them!

Three things you didn't know about me

A little grab-bag post today.

First, yesterday in Western MA, USA, we had a beautiful, exciting, and hazardous ice storm. The latter I experienced first hand (first foot, actually) when I slipped on a near-frictionless driveway and broke my leg (fibular fracture). This is three months on the heels of a broken thumb, so I feel a bit like warmed-over poo. And yes, there's some self-judgment involved as well.

So this week some short, but hopefully high-value mini entries [1].

One of the great things about my series of interviews with top productivity consultants [1] (along with lots of new ideas) is discovering thinkers I've not previously heard of. I'm pleased to share a short email interview with Nicholas Bate (site, blog), who came to my attention when I received a surprise box of books and playing cards [2] from London, including Being the Best: The A-Z of Personal Success, JfDI!

Over the past year or so I've been collecting job descriptions I think are tres cool, i.e., stimulating to me. I'm sure this started when I was planting the seeds of my career change - when I was actively thinking about finding my "thing," what Dick Richards calls our genius (see Is Your Genius at Work?: 4 Key Questions to Ask Before Your Next Career Move - Dwayne's got a nice article on it here).

Continuing my interview series with the top experts in personal productivity comes another deep and wide-ranging conversation, this time with Sally McGhee, CEO of McGhee Productivity Solutions and author of Take Back Your Life!: Using Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 to Get Organized and Stay Organized.

A light post this week, I wanted to share a few select formulas for productivity and self help I've been collecting. Hopefully some will resonate. Let's hear yours! -- matt

Event + Response = Outcome

From The Success Principles [1]

Flow = Work + Play

From Psychologists now know what makes people happy

Productivity = What x When

From Nicholas Bate On being productive

Effectiveness = Creativity x Order

Continuing my interview series [1] with the top experts in personal productivity, I'm very pleased to share highlights from my conversation with Chris Crouch, creator of the GO System and author of Getting Organized: Learning How to Focus, Organize and Prioritize. Chris's company runs a certification program and sells products like an implementation kit. You can find some of his articles here.

Continuing my interview series [1] with the top experts in personal productivity, I'm very pleased to share highlights from my conversation with Chris Crouch, creator of the GO System and author of Getting Organized: Learning How to Focus, Organize and Prioritize. Chris's company runs a certification program and sells products like an implementation kit. You can find some of his articles here.

Update: There was some confusion about the format for Chris's interview, so I had to pull this older version.

matt

One of the most popular topics here is reading efficiently, including How to read a lot of books in a short time and A reading workflow based on Leveen's "Little Guide". Using Leveen's terminology, I have a candidates library of at least 50 books (i.e., purchased and in my bookcase), and a pre-candidates list of around 600 (kept on Amazon, but it's not perfect). So I really want to read a lot (actually, to learn a lot), but the problem is my eyes are bigger than my stomach, and I've fallen behind. This is in spite of outsourcing voice note transcription [1].