All Posts by Date
Entries by Title
Click on an entry title below to view the full text of that entry.
- Notes From a Conversation With Political Activist Josh Silver (Represent.us)
- Brief report: Boston Python User Group: Favorite Libraries Meetup
- An Arduino Relaxation Tool Using Two Cell Phone Motors
- A simple Fabric.js-based web app for annotating SVG files
- Proposal: An online skeptical toolbox
- Available! Versatile Software Engineer, 20+ Years Experience, Object-Oriented & Extreme Programming
- Smith College Guest Lecture, "How to build a simple production web site in Python"
- Loving the wonderful book Code Complete 2
- A few ideas around citizen involvement and government/media oversight
- The Intrinsic Poverty of Thumbs Up/Down Popularity Voting on the Web
- Using word clouds to get a birds eye view of a large professional programmer's notebook
- Announcing PeepWeather.com! The at-a-glance weather forecast for outdoor enthusiasts.
- An RC Weather site update, plus a micro visual language
- Using Grails to Make a Simple RC Weather App
- Returning to my IdeaMatt Roots
- Hey - I'm published! Check out "Mindhacker: 60 Tips, Tricks, and Games to Take Your Mind to the Next Level"
- Keeping motivated in your self-tracking
- What makes a successful personal experiment?
- The best worst hobby
- Personal Development, Self-Experiments, and the Future of Search
- Still alive :-)
- 2011-04-20: They did WHAT?
- "This isn't working"
- Micro Experiments
- Famous Examples of Self-Experimentation [Guest Post]
- Productivity Group Experiment: The 96 Minute Rule
- "lots of time you don't know what interests you most till you start talking about something that doesn't interest you most"
- Are you a worrywort? Make some experiments and get a free book!
- A big congratulations to Chris Crouch on his new book, Getting More Done
- Quantified Self Boston Meetup #5, The Science of Sleep: Recap
- "One of my goals is to catalyze an army of good self-experimenters"
- Is The Great American Experiment really one, and how do we measure it?
- New Edison Feature: Ongoing Group Experiments
- How I wasted two years on Twitter, all because I wasn't tracking
- "I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing..."
- How contagious is courtesy? An informal experiment
- Just do it? But HOW? 24 productivity experiments I tried, plus a QS time management recap
- 2011-03-11: They did WHAT?
- "Tell me, Betty. Has your husband always been..."
- How to get your Edison updates to go to Twitter
- How to Bottle Up Good Feelings (Group Experiment)
- Announcing Edison 2, with Group Experiments and Quantitative Data!
- The Big Bucket Personal Informatics Data Model
- "Constraints force creativity"
- How self-tracking and experimenting can generate wisdom
- 12 Myths about Self-Tracking
- "I can always make myself better."
- What group experiment would you most love to see performed?
- Making citizen scientists
- How to experiment: Guidelines from Stewart Friedman's "Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life"
- "Productive stupidity means being ignorant by choice."
- Designing good experiments: Some mistakes and lessons
- 2011-01-22: They did WHAT?
- A hearty congratulations to my Ruzuku friends on their release!
- What is your best advice to people who seek to develop themselves?
- Your life in data: Is it all about events and properties?
- Seth Roberts and Self-Experimenting: Thoughts on his excerpt in 'The 4-Hour Body'
- "An experiment is a question which science poses to Nature."
- 2011-01-04: They did WHAT?
- Tackling Life at the Heart of Complexity [Guest Post]
- What is the relationship between uncertainty and success?
- "Above all, think of life as a prototype."
- Insights, stories, and surprises from Edison, December, 2010
- What will you track over the holidays?
- A brief interview with Gretchen Rubin, experimenter extraordinaire and author of The Happiness Project
- "Beauty is a dynamic event that occurs between you and something else."
- 2010-12-17: They did WHAT?
- Is There a Self-Experimentation Gender Gap?
- Is success a function of the number of experiments you try?
- Announcing Edison 2010-12: Privately-shared experiments, Facebook Connect, and more!
- Discuss: The Quantified Worker
- "Love your experiments as you would an ugly child."
- 2010-12-06: They did WHAT?
- "To be respectable, it is necessary to spend your leisure time..."
- Five ways to generate data
- Scientists don't get to pick and choose the data and results...
- 2010-11-29: They did WHAT?
- New blog series: They did WHAT? Experiments and Ideas from the World Wide Lab
- "Self-correction is a sign of intelligent behavior."
- Wandering minds, self-tracking, and citizen science
- "Knowledge makes everything simpler."
- Step 1: Just measuring, not judging
- A roundup of my Quantified Self posts
- TTL thinking in action: A case study of installing steam pipe insulation
- Experiment Ideas 2010-11: Silence, class!, Web apps only, Social irritation, and the Labeling hack
- What are the origins of change in our world?
- A New Edison Feature: Categories!
- Michel de Montaigne and The Experiment-Driven Life
- What's a Good Experimental Design to Test "Oil Pulling"?
- Insights, stories, and surprises from Edison, October, 2010
- What's your favorite little philosophy book?
- Why experimenters are luckier...
- Look for me at the Quantified Self!
- Past experiments you didn't know about? You bet!
- The Experiment-Driven Life Universe v0.1: What do you think?
- Towards a calculus of happiness
- A Self-Tracking Operating System for Your Brain?
- Are you experimenting with email? Should you?
- Things that sit around and invite delight
- Welcome to The Experiment-Driven Life blog
- Misery, pain, happiness, and brains - Thoughts on Hacker News comments about TTL
- Check Out My 12 Minute Slidecast, The Experiment-Driven Life
- Some thoughts on Peter Bregman's HBR post "Live Life as an Experiment"
- Variables
- Reader special: A chance to play with the home productivity tool WeGeo before it's released
- Why collect data about yourself? To be happy!
- How Will You Measure Your Life?
- A big congratulations to Laura Stack on her new book "SuperCompetent"!
- An interview with Alexandra Carmichael, co-founder of CureTogether and Director of The Quantified Self
- Announcing Edison v1.2!
- The Experiment-Driven Life
- Can listening to ambient sounds make you more productive? Experiment with a Productivity501 giveaway!
- Review my childish draft of "Think, Try, Learn: A scientific method for discovering happiness"
- 33 Great Sci-Fi Movies
- My interview at AccessRx Health Blog is up
- An IdeaMatt Update 2010-05, The IT Crowd, TTL, and a Call For Help switching to Tumblr
- Temporary hiatus, plus Struggle, and the Quest to Determine What Matters
- Question for you: How do you organize a book?
- Please let know if your comments aren't getting through
- 47 Ways to Kill Your Curiosity
- The 20 top time wasters, stealers, nibblers, and how to nab them
- Is Think, Try, Learn for Christians?
- When your lists undergo radical surgery (or should!)
- Are you too hard to impress?
- When is it best *not* to be curious or observant?
- Are you still human when you're under general anesthesia?
- What caught your attention? Some recent WOWs
- Life, Death, and Questions
- Help me celebrate a little success!
- How OK are you with what you did today?
- Anyone using Getting To Yes for Negotiations?
- Anyone using Disqus for blog comments?
- The Word is "Waste"
- Not Doing Rudux: Check Out the Latest Success Magazine
- Another Mother Dies, Plus a 2005 Blog Round-Up
- Are you having trouble commenting ("email not valid")?
- A Huge Congratulations to Jason Womack on his new book "The Promise Doctrine"
- Thanks for a great 2009, plus, for 2010, The Word is... Open!
- Simulating the Future to be in the Present
- Lessons Learned for 2009. Unfinished Business, Only the Best, and You Never Know
- Announcing Edison v1.0 - The Think, Try, Learn Experimenter's Workbook!
- Madelon Young, 1928-2009
- Not blogging for a few weeks
- Resistance is Data
- Lessons for Work and Living from Julia Child and the Movie "Julie & Julia"
- Incremental vs. Batch Processing: Examples, Dos, and Don'ts
- Blast from the Past: Academic, GTD Tidbits, Change, Hats, Math, and Bitstreams
- Indecisiveness is a bi-product of thinking [IdeaMatt Reader Series]
- You Know You're Experimenting When...
- When you don't want to decide
- MUS - Trusting and Tracking What Catches Your Fancy
- Two Second Poll: How do you like my new blogging style?
- Time, Space, Objects, and Interrelationships. Plus: FastCompany.TV Goodies
- Share Your Inbox Delights!
- Check Out the Productivity501 "Where Did My Day Go" Daily Planning Contest!
- What gets better with age?
- Introducing: The Nothing Store!
- Beware Binary Success Measures, or, Why "All or Nothing" Stinks
- Stories from Edison: Lucid Dreaming, Dropping Twitter, Sleep, and Personal Medical Experiments
- Training My Wife to Use My Inbox - And It's Working!
- Track Your Multitasking and Be Surprised
- Do You Need a Don't-Care-o-Meter?
- Expectations
- Time Management and Surprise: When You Want It & When You Don't
- Are We Too Linear? (The Case for Curves)
- How else can you see this? Perspective and the Value of a Tool Change
- iPhone + RedLaser + Where's George = Cultural Enlightenment?
- Why Doing Research and Collecting Information Can Unstick Your Tasks
- The Definitive Guide To Superhero Novels
- The Definitive Guide To Superhero Novels
- Why Doing Research and Collecting Information Can Unstick Your Tasks
- test post - please ignore
- Coffee, Booze, and Sex: Is it the journey or the destination?
- National (or any) news driving you nuts? Here's one way to talk yourself down.
- New! Matt's Guides: Where the !@#% did my day go? The ultimate guide to making every day a great workday
- The word is ... "Law"
- Control your email addiction by ... checking more often!
- A Big Congratulations to Chris Brogan on his new book "Trust Agents"
- Could you outsource painting your life? Or, Would Mick Fleetwood do GTD?
- A Huge Congratulations to Bob Walsh on his new Web Startup Success Guide
- Share your Daily Planning Tips and Win a $199 WinAutomation copy!
- My Four-part Interview at Another Step Forward is up!
- These are the inboxes of our lives
- Mini-Review: DYMO LabelWriter 450 Twin Turbo Label Printer
- 18 Ways to Enjoy the Ride at Work, or, Why "Don't worry, be happy" Isn't Computable
- GTD is like GPS for Time Management
- Attention Data Hounds: What Personal Data Are You Tracking?
- Did, Doing, To Do: Why your Past, Present, and Future Selves Need to Chat
- The Beginner's Mind Operationalized: Cut-Throat!
- IdeaLab: Risky performance, kill your Netflix, and don't be so certain
- Testing the classics: A Time Management Experiment: Time Blocking
- I know about you! (I think)
- New! Matt's Guides: You Did WHAT? 99 Playful experiments to live healthier and happier
- ExperimentLab follow-up: That's not MY garbage. Or is it?
- Sometimes laser, sometimes blind: How natural converge/diverge cycles explain progress
- Make this blog ROCK: Take a quick survey. You could win a prize!
- ExperimentLab: That's not MY garbage. Or is it?
- Update: Still alive, busy. Plus some Twitter tidbits
- Productivity? Are you SERIOUS? (A selection of Time Management Humor)
- 100 books from the IdeaMatt Anti-Library
- My @Context Interview Podcast Is Up!
- On Keeping an Umberto Eco-like Anti-Library
- The word is... "Stick*" Notes, Girth, Laziness, and Pasta
- Surviving a Job You Hate
- Reading Redux, plus a 501 Productivity Roundup
- Spotlight + Data Detectors + AdSense: Champagne PIM on an OS Budget
- The World's Simplest Productivity Method, with Bonus Mini-Processing Examples
- How to Approach Solving Procrastination (Hint: Think Magnifying Glass, Not Tips & Tricks)
- Join my new IdeaLab newsletter! "Productive tools for the curious intellect"
- What's your office/productivity set-up like? Mine's up at The Weekly Review
- Do, Don't Do, Stop Doing
- Micro-Experiments
- How to GTD-ify fuzzy emails, plus a subject line hacking primer
- Bugs, Tickets, and Projects: Integrating GTD and Specialized Systems
- Personal Lessons Learned in 2008 - The Intersection of Past, Present, and Future
- Projects, on-going activities, and areas of responsibility
- IdeaLab 0105: Top 15 posts according to PostRank
- Reboot Your Work productivity seminar, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina
- Happy holidays 2008
- My Happiness Of Science podcast with Jason Womack is up
- The Personal Productivity Encyclopedia of Superhero Powers
- Use these 5W/1H Questions to Test Your Productivity Chops
- How do you treat life as an experiment?
- A Matt Update
- Custom workflows for knowledge workers
- Induced personality disorder, or: I tried it, but I'm not proud of it
- Simple project planning for individuals: A round-up
- A dozen important productivity blog posts that haven't been written yet
- Check out the Men's Health November 2008 issue
- Use gimmicks to get an NPR story, a book tour, and speaking gigs
- How to stay balanced and productive during uncertainty and crisis
- A late adopter's productivity experiment with Twitter, plus some 140 word humor
- My men@pause interview is up, plus an invitation to a four-square-o-rama!
- Add, subtract, multiply, divide: Productivity lessons from basic math
- The real reasons for the modern productivity movement
- Productivity lessons from mountain biking. Or, what sports can teach us about doing
- IdeaLab 0826: Systemic self-repair, over-blogging, faith, and "doing it" productivity style
- A conversation with Ron Hale Evans, author of "Mind Performance Hacks"
- Why Blogruptcy is a great idea but doesn't work, and why SPAM is easy to fix and information overload isn't
- IdeaLab 0729: A little GTD heresy, willpower, jealousy, and straight talk
- Honors, Mac tips, plus (apparently) a iCal-GTD-Quicksilver mini-tutorial
- An interview with Scott Ginsberg, author of "Hello, My Name is Scott"
- The Path of Maximum Productivity: Seven tensions, and how to resolve them
- IdeaLab 0624: Ice Cream, attitude, danger, and dishwashers
- The productivity I/O sweet spot, or Why balance is a bad thing
- Reader request: Feed the IdeaMatt!
- IdeaLab 0604: Giving, horse mouths, allergic cars, and a 2x2 matrix grab-bag
- What are the laws of work?
- What if you...
- A daily planning experiment: two weeks of accountable rigorous action
- IdeaLab 0505: Put pockets, trash bags, Swiss cheese, and faith
- How do you measure personal productivity?
- Tool update: Matt goes digital! Plus a few Mac productivity lessons
- Is life is a series of ... wows? A selection of "made me think" ideas
- 10 GTD "holes" (and how to plug them)
- A conversation with Kerry Gleeson, author of "The Personal Efficiency Program"
- My Academic Productivity post is up
- A heads up: Switching to matthewcornell.org in the near future
- An idea (and question) dump from the big-arse text file
- A Blast from the past & A little shout out
- Three indecisiveness phrases, and when (not) to use them
- What GTD and Weight Watchers have in common
- I promise I will...
- A conversation with Mark Hurst, web usability expert and author of "Bit literacy"
- Extreme GTD: How low can you go (or: Can we 80-20 GTD?)
- How to help people
- A conversation with Marilyn Paul, author of "It's hard to make a difference when you can't find your keys"
- Happy end-of-year, and a short collection of ideas, both serious and trivial
- Bloke redux, the 15 minute emergency office, and a short automation experiment
- A nice surprise: A short email interview with UK productivity expert Nicholas Bate
- Genius, purpose, and cool job descriptions - What are *you* built to do?
- A conversation with Sally McGhee, productivity pioneer and author of "Take Back Your Life"
- Some tasty morsels from the Ideamatt self help formulary
- An interview with Chris Crouch, creator of the GO System
- A discussion with Chris Crouch, creator of the GO System - Part 1
- Reading gone wild! How to read five books a week (or why Scott Ginsberg is my hero)
- Got the email blues? Only three things you can do: Get fewer, Get faster, Get control
- What the heck *is* productivity all about?
- A conversation with Laura Stack, the Productivity Pro
- Where are you going? Use your actions and projects to reverse engineer your goals
- Small steps to big results: Do one High Value Task a day
- So a bloke with a broken thumb walks into a bar...
- What can you learn from the world's best productivity consultants? Let's ask!
- A dozen small ways to get productivity improvements to stick in an organization
- The 4-hour workweek applied: How I spent $100, saved hours, and boosted my reading workflow
- Thanks for making Matt's Idea Blog a top personal productivity site!
- Deep Thoughts on personal productivity by Jack Handey
- What's your feed reading speed?
- How to use the "I'm not going to ____" mind hack
- Four small Gmail tweaks Google could make to increase user productivity
- Some recent GTD how-tos, tips, and tricks
- Does having fewer projects make us more productive?
- Reflections on Alexander Technique and personal productivity
- Reader question: Getting personal productivity changes to stick?
- My Productivity501 contribution is up, FYI
- Consider removing "maybe" from your productivity vocabulary
- Some thoughts from the book "Getting Organized" by Chris Crouch
- Afraid to click? How to efficiently process your RSS feeds
- Why *my* NUTs should not be *your* NUTs!
- One way to enjoy the ride - celebrate surprise!
- The ultimate productivity tip
- Programmers: Get out of your shell and exercise your people muscles - for fun and profit
- Some thoughts from attending Time/Design's trainer certification
- US national priorities are really screwed up
- Deep thoughts on personal growth from designer Bruce Mau
- A key to continuous learning: Keep a decision log
- What a difference a framework can make
- A reading workflow based on Leveen's "Little Guide"
- Report on a little experiment: Daily random entries from my personal log
- My Life Coaches Blog interview is up
- Five secret filing hacks from the masters
- My GTD Masters interview is up on Cranking Widgets
- If not now, when? The importance of being bold
- A call to GTD practitioners: An invitation to share your top questions, tips, and insights
- An invitation to share your top GTD questions, tips, and insights
- A few highlights from "My job went to India"
- Productivity for Programmers, #2: Efficient vs. Effective
- Matt is Back!
- Congratulations to Bob Walsh on the release of his book "Clear Blogging"
- Notes from a conversation with writer and journalist Jaclyn Stevenson
- Playing with LinkedIn's Answers feature - A brief analysis, plus community advice on starting consulting (part 2/2)
- Playing with LinkedIn's Answers feature - Goals, saying no, changing careers (part 2/2)
- Playing with LinkedIn's Answers feature - Time, cutting costs, and the meaning of life (part 1/2)
- Information provenance - the missing link between attention, RSS feeds, and value-based filtering
- Notes on using a digital voice recorder for taking reading notes
- Commitment Time! (Taking the big leap)
- My Collective Genius! article is up, FYI
- Some thoughts from tracking "lessons learned" for a year
- GTD and Faculty Productivity: Notes from a small pilot project
- Best practices for GTD and administrative assistants
- A question for readers: Advice re: Blogger.com beta switch?
- Get out of your "shell" and exercise your people muscles for fun and profit
- Congratulations to Frank (Mr. "What's the next action") on his two year GTD anniversary!
- A conversation with Mark Forster
- Books, value, fees, and major changes in perspective
- A few thoughts on capture
- Some thoughts on "Eat that frog!" by Brian Tracy
- Depressurize your email with a 24 hour response time
- A question for readers: Digital voice recorder for transcription?
- A few thoughts and insights from my "stuff" workshop
- Torture is absolutely not acceptable
- A simple and useful networking gift that anyone can give for free
- My Business Networking Advice article is up, FYI
- Use Gmail's "star" to highlight your good news
- Building a Personal Productivity practice from thin air: An update
- Collection habit infection, routines, and the value of creating space
- Personal productivity, IBMs (not the company), and NUTs: Some surprises about the brain
- Whose job is it? Mine!
- A few thoughts on vacations & GTD, used time management books, a few productivity tips, and heroes - both super *and* real
- Some thoughts on the book "The Instant Productivity Toolkit"
- Great time management ideas from the world of improv wisdom
- Some hopefully humorous reflections after oral surgery
- What are the essential habits of GTD?
- A GTD-er's perspective on Mission Control's "Productivity and Accomplishment" workshop
- GTD Workflow Assessment/Tips Checklist
- Your portable A-Z section - not just for contacts
- Combining a "Really Useful Attitude" + smiling = pleasant surprises!
- A GTD WorkFlow tool: The five stages on a business card cube
- Living in the moment, preventing regret, and appreciating life
- My Black Belt Productivity article is up, FYI
- Personal Productivity Playing Cards!
- Limited posting next ten days, plus a request for readers
- GTD: A tool for *forgetting*?
- Double your income in a year ... by reading!? An update on reading for learning, plus a current list with brief comments
- What does it take to work with flourish?
- The crucible of teaching: Want to learn in a hurry? Teach!
- Some common GTD questions, with answers
- Are daily to-do lists and GTD compatible?
- How to process stuff - A comparison of TRAF, the "Four Ds", and GTD's workflow diagram
- On the goal of meeting three new people a week - A ten week retrospective
- Where's the IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for personal information?
- How to read a lot of books in a short time
- Why every problem should be a GTD project
- Another GTD Plus - Moving offices made much easier
- Some GTD warning signs
- Notes from The Personal Productivity Show #021 with Jason Womack (a GTD coach)
- When inputs exceed your workflow system's capacity
- On using Post-It notes for GTD projects, instead of lists
- The thrill of witnessing an "Aha!"
- Is GTD the "Extreme Programming" of Time Management?
- Using "Follow the energy" to refine your personal development experiments
- A geek "gets" networking: The strange magic of connecting with others
- On the power of saying "Thank you"
- Knowing when you're on to something special
- An end-of-the-year idea grab bag: Smelly videos, photo stickers, dissolving staples, and darkening ink for NAs
- Networking surprises - Some recent unexpected (but successful) outcomes
- An idea for 2006: Track completed GTD projects (plus some "greatest hits" for 2005)
- Transitions: A secret ingredient to Getting Things Done?
- A review of "How to make people like you in 90 seconds or less"
- It's not about productivity...
- The joys of renegotiation
- What's your maximum response time?
- Debbie Downer and the Six Thinking Hats
- A review of "Time management for dummies" from a GTD perspective
- Where the rubber meets the road
- What's in a name - GTD project naming conventions
- "Interesting, but not useful," or Does it pass the scribble test?
- My favorite GTD list? Waiting For!
- Pickle jars, text files, and creative idea capture
- We have to remember to...
- Some answers to "Should I keep it?" when filing
- The most important networking question
- Use the STING method to stop procrastinating
- On saying yes - 3 possibilities: Always yes, always no, or only when you really want to
- My GTD collection points - guided tour, with pictures
- Handling worries: keep a list, schedule them, and have a worry place
- Blog subscribers, Bloglines, and geographical locations
- Dealing with multiple/dependent next actions in GTD
- Surprise: David Allen's folders look just like the rest of ours
- 12 Wild Things people are visualizing, in addition to "Success"
- The artifacts of getting organized, and their misleading prosaic nature
- Two little joys and sorrows using my filing system
- When the boss is Getting Things Done ... you'd better too!
- Paper planner guest article up on diyplanner.com
- Limited posting for the next week or so
- E + R = O (Event + Response = Outcome) - dealing appropriately with "cringe" Inbox items
- Some David Allen "twos" - two reasons we procrastinate, and two kinds of problems
- My GTD tally: 70 NAs, 30 PROJs, & 15 AORs
- Hipster BC - My GTD business card, with a surprise on the back
- Getting the most from David Allen's RoadMap seminar?
- Organizing Electronic Documents GTD-Style?
- Dealing with Meeting Notes - GTD to the Rescue!
- A Problem in GTD Blog Land?
- Reading Books The GTD Way
- Applying 'Boss' Blogging to a Research Lab
- Getting Things Done stages - Saints, Prophets, and Evangelists?
- What a day - Buzz, TKD, DIY/hPDA, & GTD
- When you hear that little voice, listen!
- Fare thee well Hipster PDA - I barely knew ye
- Applying GTD to aging gracefully - Improved memory!
- My Big-Arse Text File - a Poor Man's Wiki+Blog+PIM
- Top 10 things people are Getting, in addition to 'Things Done'
- Five life changes that ... uh ... changed my life
- What to do when an excited person person is waving something at you.
- Actually getting things done with Getting Things Done! Surprises and learnings from my implementation.
- Notes on the book "Why Not?" (How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big and Small)
- An XML Clipboard for Semi-Structured Data
- Using Greasemonkey to Re-balance (and Re-write) Journalism
- Photo Blogs, Wikis, and Memories for Life
- Lighted Laptop Keyboard
- Toothbrush With Built-in Toothpaste Squeezer
- Temporal Binoculars
- How to Make The Ultimate Cup of Hot Chocolate
- Camera Phones and Ten Cent Augmented Reality
- Google Satellite Maps - Easter Eggs Gallery!
- Welcome to Matt's Idea Blog!