Posts Categorized: Productivity

Serial Tasking

Instead of Multitasking, I’d like to propose a better method: Serial Tasking. This is a great way to insure you focus on important, high-level tasks.The Serial Tasking Rules Before doing anything else, write down a ‘To Do’ List for the day. Include on this list even small items such as checking voice mail, reading email, etc. […]

Read More

Multitasking is Not Effective

“To do two things at once is to do neither.” – Publilius Syrus Although folk-wisdom for many years has been that doing many things at the same time is good way to tackle a number of tasks, it turns out that this is not true. Let’s look at the problem from both a philosophical (logic) […]

Read More

Seneca Speaks!

A few hundred years ago, every advanced education was a ‘classical’ education where students would read the writings of ancient Greeks and Romans. Although these works were what Jefferson, Washington, Adams, and all the other founding fathers had studied as schoolboys, in modern America, these books are fairly obscure to most people, as they have […]

Read More

The 80-20 Kitchen

Question for the Day: Does one really need two crock-pot slow cookers or multiple blenders? A few days ago, I got a wonderful surprise from a friend: a popover pan! If you are new to joy of popovers I suggest you check out The Perfect Popover site for more background. However, after bringing this gift home, I […]

Read More

Time Wasters

When I was in High School, I knew an old Jesuit who used to call students who wasted time in class ‘Lazy Monkeys’ or, alternatively, he would implore them to not be ‘barnacles on the Wheels of Progress’. Clearly, he had a real knack for colorful metaphors. Nevertheless, I have always tried to avoid being […]

Read More

Choosing Reality

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” – Philip K. Dick “Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be…You have to see the world in the purest, clearest way possible, or you can’t make decisions on a rational basis.” – Jack […]

Read More

The NO TV Challenge

“When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, profit-and-loss sheet […]

Read More

D.R.A.F.T.

If one plans to implement the guideline Only Handle It Once , then the D.R.A.F.T. technique is a very useful method for deciding the next step for paper or digital documents. Delegate: Route the information to appropriate individual. This may include the assignment of a related task and the need for a later follow-up. Read: Immediately […]

Read More

Go O.H.I.O.

OHIO!?! No, you do not you need to travel to the state this year (unless you would like to do so). I am referring to the old acronym for Only Handle It Once. This is still very sound advice for most of items that one encounters during the day. Additionally, O.H.I.O. does not just apply […]

Read More

What, How, Why?

“There is one quality more important than “know-how” and we cannot accuse the United States of any undue amount of it.  This is “know-what” by which we determine not only how to accomplish our purposes, but what our purposes are to be.” – Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings, 1954 I agree with Norbert […]

Read More