Tag: personal productivity

  • Simpler tools. Lesser tools.

    If you’ve been following this blog for some time, you know I can get nerd about productivity and tools at ends. It’s an exciting topic that has profoundly affected the way I work and live. Over the years, however, I have also realized that productivity tools, routines, and tips can only take you so far.…

  • I think I’m back to Square One!

    Since October last year, I’ve been struggling to manage my life with the frenetic pace of progress that we’ve achieved at my workplace. There’s just too much going on all the freaking time, which is acceptable given that we’re a marketing agency*. The challenge is that it’s hard to manage your priorities when everything seems…

  • Don’t skip the review

    Our work culture is obsessed with getting things done, which explains why we’ve been inundated with countless productivity tools, tactics, and strategies. There’s nobody to blame here as everyone’s trying their best to succeed and get the most critical work done. From a productivity standpoint, everything gets down to the basics, and the humble to-do…

  • On leading yourself

    If the world’s foremost authorities on leadership were to choose the most challenging aspect of leadership development, it will, undoubtedly, be managing or leading yourself. One can’t hope to lead others if they can’t lead themselves well. Stephen Covey, in his book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” highlighted that private victory precedes public…

  • Your inbox is the enemy of time-management!

    There are two kinds of working professionals: The good old employee The entrepreneur/business owner/freelancer The employee is almost always at the mercy of other people’s agenda. There are tasks to be done, emails to be responded to, and meetings to be had. There’s just no way around it. And then they wonder where the heck…

  • Slipping back into the old ways…

    … of getting things done. I’ve had my share of experiments with having no goals. It’s good and I don’t think an obsessed problem solver (Restorative is my top strength) like me can function without a to-do list. Of course, the purpose of the experiment was to be productive without getting overwhelmed with the list.…

  • Plan your ideal day and stick with it

    One of the year-end challenges that I participated involved creating an ideal day and do my best to live it out. Turns out it’s so much harder to stick with it if you’re super ambitious and have conquering the world and making everyone happy part of your plan. So, I did what appeared to be…

  • The last productivity advice you’ll ever need…

    Okay, not the last one but it’s definitely the most useful discovery I’ve made this year, productivity-wise. I’ll keep it simple — go to bed and awake at the same time everyday. That’s it! You don’t need a productivity system for that. Just make up your damn mind! Yes, it might get difficult (perhaps borderline…

  • Copying a routine wouldn’t magically make you productive

    Some of your know that I’ve come to despise talking about productivity on this blog. We’ve got more than plenty of blogs and forums focusing on this little aspect of life and I don’t wish contribute to another growing statistic. But then the question of “how to be more productive” keeps coming up. Irrespective of…

  • Aggregation of marginal gains

    I’m a fan of James Clear’s work. I read almost every post that he puts out (twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays) and have gifted his latest book Atomic Habits half a dozen times to some of my close friends already.  While going through my YouTube feeds last night, I bumped into this keynote…