Archive for August, 2010

Save Time, Be More Successful in Your Career

I’m an advocate of “work smarter, not harder,” which I’m sure most of us have heard before. We hear this phrase, but sometimes it’s more difficult than we think to implement it in our careers and our lives. I work full-time as an engineer, so time management is a must. Just like everyone else, I always seem to have too much to do with too little time....

Continue Reading
No One Told Picasso He Had to Work on a Schedule

No One Told Picasso He Had to Work on a Schedule

In our creative endeavors, it’s hard to believe that we absolutely need a schedule or some sort of system to do our best work. After all, Pablo Picasso got to work on his own schedule and he did just fine. The Myth of the Freewheeling Artist Okay, so Picasso didn’t really sit on Paris river banks, drinking wine, while he waited for inspiration to...

Continue Reading
Intrinsic Motivation Matters: Are You Killing Your Creativity?

Intrinsic Motivation Matters: Are You Killing Your Creativity?

All work requires motivation. Whenever you do something, you’ve got a reason – whether or not you’ve thought that through. And while you can probably do a decent job of cleaning the kitchen sink even when you’re thoroughly fed up, when it comes to creative work, being motivated (for the right reasons) can really boost your results. Learning...

Continue Reading
How to Fit Your Life in a Suitcase

How to Fit Your Life in a Suitcase

Three days ago, I realized I needed to pack and move out of my place, not sure how many different places I would move into over the coming months. Having lived practically all my life in one place, I couldn’t for the love of Christ figure out how I would ever fit my entire world into one suitcase and a piece of hand luggage. 23Kg seemed ruthlessly unfair...

Continue Reading
Thoughtful Productivity: Four Considerations

Thoughtful Productivity: Four Considerations

The idea of thoughtful consumption has been front and center for me lately. It’s popped up in many things I’ve read, both obviously and more subtly. It’s come up in plenty of discussions — although not in ways you might expect. It’s started to impact how I think about topics that aren’t directly related to consumption. Productivity...

Continue Reading
How to Use The Pressure of The Clock to Create Massive Inspiration

How to Use The Pressure of The Clock to Create Massive Inspiration

Pressure works wonders. Anyone who has ever been rapidly approaching a deadline knows that things like procrastination and writer’s block go out the window when it’s crunch time and your job’s on the line. Fortunately, you don’t have to be under a deadline imposed by your employer to reap the many benefits it offers. Instead, you can create your own...

Continue Reading
Deadlines: Creative Friend or Foe?

Deadlines: Creative Friend or Foe?

Deadlines. Some people can’t work without them. Others find them paralysing stressful.  Either way, they have a definite effect on our ability to be creative – for good or for bad. If you’re in the pro-deadline camp, you probably find that you need a sense of time-pressure in order to knuckle down and create. Perhaps you doodle a bit, but you never...

Continue Reading
The Horrific Things I’ve Done to My Task Management Software

The Horrific Things I’ve Done to My Task Management Software

I use a much abused copy of a task management software to keep track of the tasks necessary to get various projects done. Despite using broad tasks — “Write a 500-word article” — my piece of software is particularly overworked. I’m not naming the specific software I use because I’m pretty sure the support team there could identify...

Continue Reading
10 Easy Ways To Save 10 Minutes

10 Easy Ways To Save 10 Minutes

Wouldn’t it be just wonderful if there were 25 hours in the day instead of 24? I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure I could get everything done on my list if I had just one more hour. I find that I’m just getting into that fantastic sense of flow when I have to jump up and go to work, or when I suddenly realize that it’s 9pm and if I don’t...

Continue Reading

What We Don’t Know About Creative Productivity

Most of the productivity tools and resources on the market are geared towards projects you can get done in a concrete amount of time: Picking up your laundry takes fifteen minutes. Completing a purchase order takes about the same amount of time. Handling a routine project takes a set number of hours. But when we start talking about creative work, those numbers...

Continue Reading
 Page 1 of 2  1  2 »
16291048-1