Interesting article: “ The Tools I Use To Be Productive”

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I stumbled upon this article. It is a short but good read. I think you will find his comments about the tools he uses, keeping things minimal and as simple as possible, and avoiding switching apps to be a helpful reminder.

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Thanks for sharing. Interesting article.

I align with his approach generally, same tech and similar software needs. However, as I get older I am becoming less fixated on “productivity” but more on “efficiency/purpose” ie paring back my daily tasks to the bare essentials and what generates the most value and/or what provides the meaning beyond simply earning an income.

I find myself hitting the “delete” button on far more work emails if I am a cc addressee, on the possibly flawed assumption; if its important enough for me to know, then I should be in the action addresses.

I have also abandoned my IPad Mini 6. It is a great device but I find is too easy (for me; no will power/intentionality) to start out with the intent of reading novels/literature etc and suddenly find I’ve spent the last few hours watching random videos on YouTube, which whilst entertaining are not necessarily nourishing.

I am no ascetic who lives a pared back lifestyle, and recognise there is a time for both relaxing and learning/nourishment. Yet I am becoming more conscious that technology efficiency/productivity enedavours are actually leading me to spend more time online rather than less.

So, professionally, I take the cited OP approach to email management but avoid doing email triage on my inbox using my phone, and seek to quarantine time online to 2x1 hour periods of email response, planning etc. The challenge is of course working on necessary substantive/rigorous computer (laptop/ipad) work for my professional role (project management consulting) without falling into the void of being online for hours at a time.

My current non-professional reading is now done via paper books/Ipad pro 11, and am resisting the siren song of a kindle paperwhite, on the basis, I am just replacing one type of tech for another. Yet the environmental impact of paper books is also a concern, not so much the printing, rather the energy/distribution supply chains to get books from one side of the world to faraway, down under Australia. There is also the ethical dilemna of the paltry payments that digital books often yield to their authors. Sadly, local libraries have been decimated in both volume and quality of books, and afford access to primarily pulp fiction (no judgement just not my preferred reading). So there in lies a conundrum; stick to the occasional paperback supplemented by my iPad Pro 11/13 or yield to a Kindles siren song?

Any insights/comments on how others remain productive, informed and well-read without losing all of their daily hours in a tech void, are of course welcomed.

Apologies for this meandering and long ramble and thank you in advance if you have waded through it.

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Same here.

To myself, the real productivity is very different from the productivity cargo cult app developers and bloggers try to sell us. The apps are “evil”. The less we depend on them, the better. E.g., to force myself to read books, I don’t need one another app. What I use is Finder and the kanban technique, here are to-read, reading, finished columns. And the “trash” folder above for books turned out to be trash.

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I prefer, “As I get wiser…” :rofl:

Seriously, I resonate with much of what you wrote!

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Thanks. Your finder/kanban approach seems intriguing. May give it a go.

I tried using book summaries/web sites to filter books selections process but they just became another app/file/website to check. Similarly with RSS where I over-enthusiastically add feeds and then spend my days paring the feeds down till frustration takes over and I kill the RSS.

Actually, I found elements of Dave Allen’s GTD useful ie email sorting, and find little that has improved on it. But I found the remainder of his approach way too over-engineered. But thats me. A simple email/task sorting system - bingo in-box zero within 5 mins. I am always flummoxed how people function with an inbox full of hundreds of read/unread/partly actioned/semi-actioned emails. It would drive me insane.

Thanks for your insights and approach. Helpful!

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Thanks for the feedback. Nice to know I am not travelling the path alone!

I pondered using ‘wiser” but my wife reminds that the jury is still out on that judgement… :rofl:

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Well, I don’t use email too much myself, but here are few simple tricks I heard about:

  • to check email only twice a day
  • to not respond immediately. That is, if a letter has been discovered at morning, it should be responded at evening
  • if a letter contains multiple questions, then to answer only the first of them and ignore others
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That’s two of us!! :rofl:

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I agree! I don’t understand how people deal with a full inbox. It would drive me crazy as well–of course, I don’t have far to travel. :joy::crazy_face:

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I really like your dichotomy of more productive vs. more efficient. It helps me explain things better in my own life.

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I like the last one in particular!

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I hear you!! Some one say that puts you on the near side of genius!

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Thanks. It helps me realise that its easy to do a lot of things quickly but often with little to benefit to the desired outcome

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To quote Collin Raye - “That’s My Story and I’m Stickin’ to It” :rofl::wink:

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A recent Substack post entitled “Against Optimization” by Political Scientist Brian Klass tackles a somewhat broader but related issue. His subtitle:

We are bombarded by messages telling us to worship the gods of efficiency and optimization, life hacking our way to prosperity. It’s a trap. Resilience is a smarter, sturdier goal.

It’s a long but interesting read in the context of the fixation on personal productivity.

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Link is broken, here is the correct one: Against Optimization - by Brian Klaas

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Thanks for catching that!

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A very small minority of those “productivity bloggers” are retired from some other field where they were indeed quite productive. But the majority appear to be way too young to have ever had a career other than their current circular-reasoning situation where therir full-time job is teaching others how to be productive in their jobs.

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Exactly what I meant. Sometimes it is a YouTube video and sometimes it is an article. The internet is full of such useless ad-revenued narcissist graphomania, and I suspect — irrespecive to the topic.

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I just learned a new word! I’ve never run across it before.