Blog
Start the new year with a grateful heart
We need to realize that it’s not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy. If wanting a new year of greater abundance is one of your New Year’s Resolutions, you must first acknowledge and appreciate the abundance you already have. Gratitude is what starts the receiving process. If you are thinking about what you lack, you’ll continue to produce outcomes to match it. To turn this around, you must start thinking and [...]
Weekly Planning is Easy as Pie
The ultimate guide to weekly planning and proper pie eating. When you start your weekly planning by placing yourself at the center, your week becomes the story of who you are, not just what you do. Has this happened to you? Week after week it’s the same thing… You plan, and plan, and plan, and by the end of the week, you feel like you really got nothing done. Nothing that [...]
What time blocking is and why you should totally be doing it
One of the most powerful secret weapons of productivity is time blocking. You might feel that taking time to time block feels like one more thing to do. You might think you’d be better off checking something off your growing to-do list instead. But that’s the wrong way to look at it. What to do when your time under siege. It’s easy to feel like you’ve lost control of your schedule. You’re on [...]
Do you have Plannerfail?
The battle is real. You want to be organized and dependable, you want to have your to-do list and your calendar and even your notes all in one space and feel like you have more control over it. You want that feeling of accomplishment when you cross something off your list—which is not that easy to feel these days. It was supposed to be the planner that would change your life. [...]
How to gain superhero powers by knowing your purpose
What puts the Super and Hero in Superhero? The rules about what makes a superhero are pretty flexible. But at the core, all superheroes are driven by a purpose—and that purpose empowers them to gain control over events (usually caused by bad people) that take place in their life. They use their powers to impose order on a chaotic world. Some are born that way. For example, Wonder Woman—her mission is [...]
Time management is a lie
Time management is a lie we need to stop telling ourselves Time management is an illusion. It’s not real. Out of all the things we can manage in our life, time isn’t one of them. By definition, when we manage something we have control of it, we govern it, we can train it, influence it. You've probably already noticed, we can’t start time or stop it, can’t slow it down or speed it up. We [...]
How Time Tracking Will Change Your Life
Tracking your time, even if just for a few days, makes you aware of whether you’re spending time on what’s actually important to you. Time tracking sounds like a hassle, but it takes less time and attention than you might think. Plus, doing so lets you discover how many hours you really work, gain perspective on the time stories you tell yourself, makes your time feel richer, and may end up being the push [...]
Capacity vs. Throughput: Why Getting Things Done Has Stalled for You
The capacity of your throughput is equal to the capacity of your bottlenecks. Your personal productivity has two aspects: capacity and throughput. You need them both, but they aren’t identical. And when it comes to effective productivity, one is more important than the other. Your capacity Think of capacity and throughput like this: Capacity is how much stuff WILL FIT. Throughput is how much stuff WILL FLOW. For example, a bucket [...]
Is your life feeling out of balance? Your roles are the problem.
When’s the last time you balanced your roles? We live our lives in terms of roles—authentic roles or parts we’ve chosen to fill. Roles represent responsibilities, relationships, and areas of contribution. Much of the pain in life comes from the sense that we’re succeeding in one role at the expense of other, possibly even more important roles. A clear set of roles provides a natural framework to create order and balance. Who [...]
5 steps to determine your roles
1: Start with writing down your roles. To help guide our long-term goals and even our daily choices, we need to put down in ink what roles are most important to us. Writing down our roles keeps them in our awareness and helps us pay attention to all the important dimensions of our life. As you do your weekly planning, you’ll find that you don’t necessarily have to set a goal in every [...]