Category Archives: productivity

How to achieving something

You have dreams right? Things you want to do, stuff you want to create or complete? We all do. But then life gets in the way. Maybe we’re finding it hard to find the time? Maybe we keep getting interrupted? Maybe we’re just to afraid to act.

The truth is that’s all bullshit. The reason you haven’t achieved what you’re dreaming about is that is requires growth, and growth hurts. Specifically it hurts your ego. In this fantastic article, Amy Hoy pokes you right in the ego and tells it like it is.

“If you want to make something of your skills, yourself, your life…the worst truth is better than the best lie. Reality is your friend. Your ego, on the other hand, is your worst enemy. When you fail to give your ego what it wants, it throws a tantrum and makes you hurt. That’s the only way the ego knows to communicate: caresses…and punches.”

— Amy Hoy

…So what’s your dream again?

Notebooks and bullet journals

I’ve had a love for notebooks since I was a kid. I’ve always doodled, sketched and written on paper with relish. But since collage the habit has waned because it’s just not efficient enough.

Bullet Journaling is a trendy todo list idea that is getting people back on paper. And I love it. Check out this amazing journal, and my current favourite notebooks.

Now I just need to figure out if writing on paper is worth the lack of search and tags and get journaling, or if I’ll just build a digital tool for the same.

Reading news is pointless and you shouldn’t do it.

I’ve seen studies on this before. But never heard the argument quite so coherently stated as in this post from Farnam Street.

“Being well informed isn’t regurgitating the opinion of some twenty-two-year-old with no life experience telling me what to think or how outraged to be. Your first thought on something is usually not yours but someone else’s. When all you do is consume, you are not only letting someone else hijack and direct your attention; you are also letting them think for you.”

— Farnam Street

Productivity porn

Conferences have interested me less and less over the last five years or so, and I just realized why. It’s because so much of it is inspirational instead of educational.

Inspiration is basically productivity porn. It’s entertaining and feels like you’re leaning, but it’s just another distraction. It’s the “busy work” of learning.

Stuff to keep you busy from doing what you really want to be doing.

You don’t need more inspiration. You need to do the work. Because doing things inspire us.