Archive - Mar 2007

The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Many of my subscribers are active readers and book lovers. My post How to read a lot of books in a short time is my most popular, and I've even had the pleasure of receiving surprise copies in the mail!

I want to share the results of a little experiment I did over the last few months using my My Big-Arse Text File. I've been using this semi-structured text file to track my consulting activities for the past two years, and it contains a mixture of things like:

• consulting activities,
• networking connections [1],
• lessons learned (see Some thoughts from tracking "lessons learned" for a year),
• contact information,
• idea capture (see Pickle jars, text files, and creative idea capture),
• book notes (see How to read a lot of books in a short time),
• blog topics,

I'm very pleased that Alvin Soon's email interview with me is up at Life Coaches Blog. The article is 10 Questions With The Productivity Expert: Matt Cornell, and I have to say Alvin asked some great questions.

Stimulated by Frank's article Fileflag could be a good product over at What's the next action I'd like to share some simple filing tips I've picked up from clients and fellow practitioners. They're all low tech but high value hacks that many have found useful. Please share yours as well!

• The "File bookmark" hack
• The "Fold crease" hack
• The "Staple, don't clip" hack
• The "Unfold before you file" hack

My GTD Masters interview is up on Cranking Widgets

Just a quick note that my interview with Brett Kelly over at The Cranking Widgets Blog is up. The article, GTD Masters: Interview with Matt from Matt’s Idea Blog, is part of Brett's GTD Master Series.

Thanks to Brett for the opportunity!

Here's a theme that's come up repeatedly as I continue to build my personal productivity practice: The value of being bold in my decision making.