Productivity
95 articles
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Learned Extroversion
Is it possible for an introvert to learn the skills, actions and behaviours to become a learned extrovert? Of course it is. Here's how.
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Time Management for Consultants, Freelancers, and Solopreneurs
What's the best way for solo consultants, freelancers, solopreneurs and small business owners to manage their time? This is the way.
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Next-Level Productivity
What do productivity masters do when they've maxed out their productivity? These 5 techniques.
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Strategic Planning for Couples
Introducing the unholy coupling of business consulting and relationship advice — strategic planning for couples. What could possibly go wrong?
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How to Implement Habits
Here's the best way to implement habits.
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How to Design Your Own Morning Ritual [VIDEO]
Here's how you design your own morning ritual, step-by-step to include both the basics, and the nice-to-haves to make your mornings amazing!
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Morning and Evening Rituals [VIDEO]
Here are the most frequently asked questions (and answers!) about morning and evening rituals.
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How to Design Your Own Evening Ritual [VIDEO]
Here's how to design your own evening ritual, starting with the basics and the advanced steps you can do to get a great night of sleep.
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Locus of Control
Your locus of control describes how strongly you believe you have control over your life. It is also known as "earthly luck". Here's how you improve it.
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Recovery Time
Here's how you can build recovery time into your routine and systems, so that you can remain productive without burning out.
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The Virtues of Willpower and Volition
Willpower and volition are the abilities to do things, on-demand, as you need to. Here's how you can systematically increase your willpower reserve and use it.
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Daily Reviews
Daily reviews consist of your morning review and evening review, where you remind yourself of the big picture, and how you are going to get there.
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Setting Up Ongoing Processes
Ongoing processes are the areas or parts of your life that aren't in your immediate focus. They are the bare minimum standards you have to keep your life running.
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Pick Three
Can you have it all in life? Not really. If you want extraordinary results, you have to limit yourself and pick three things.
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True Life Hacks
True life hacks act as force multipliers, save you real resources and are obtainable. Here are five true life hacks that completely change the way we live and work.
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Systems, Goals and How They Relate
Systems are not better than goals. In fact, systems are part of goals, making them one and the same thing. Here's how they both work.
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The Virtue of Silence
Silence seems like a strange concept in a time whentalk and chit-chat are common place, but the benefits are numerous. Find out more here.
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Active Reading, Learning and Implementation
Some people read books just to say that they've read them. But what about if we actually want to actively read, learn and implement books? Here's how we can do that.
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The Virtue System
Ever try to be bold, independent, humble, cooperative, proactive, patient and assertive at the same time? We're often told to aspire to contradictory things, but what we really need is a system for living them all. That system is the virtue system.
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Aaron's Comprehensive Annual Review Guide
Here's my in-depth, step-by-step guide to performing a comprehensive annual review. Review your goals, areas of life, takeaways and more.
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Hard Work and Industriousness
Hard work and industriousness don't seem like a lot of fun, but they are essential virtues that help you get things done. Here's how you can set them up and live by them.
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How to Use Voice Memos
Voice memos are a quick and easy way to capture your thoughts and information when you're on the go. Here's how you record them, and what you do with them afterwards.
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Agility and Iterations
Agility is a virtue and describes the ability to work in iterations. It is the ability to move quickly, to pivot, and to change direction when needed.
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Right Tool, Right Purpose
A simple productivity concept is to use the right tool for the right purpose. This applies to our apps, all-in-ones and devices.
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The Virtues of Boldness and Courage
Boldness and courage are the virtues that help us overcome our fears, and do what we have to do anyway. They help us take the shot, or flip the stone.
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How to Write 5,000 Words a Day
Writing can be hard, but it doesn't have to be. What you need is a writing system — and here's one that produces 5,000 quality words every single day.
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Awareness and Self-Awareness
Awareness is knowledge combined with perception. Self-awareness is knowledge and perception of ourselves. Here's how we can develop both in our own lives.
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Play
Play, downtime and breaks are the flip side of being productive. They act as a way for us to be fun, silly, playful and to enjoy life a little when we need a break.
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Push-Pull Notifications and Communications
Push notifications are when you get an alert every time someone contacts you. Pull communications are when you check for items on your own schedule. Here's why pull is better.
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Standards
Personal standards are the bare minimum acceptable set of behaviours and habits in our lives. Here's how you create them and use them daily.
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Waking Up Early
Consistently waking up early is the result of four factors in your life: your family, your sleep time, your rituals and everything else. Here's how you set it up.
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Motivation
A guide to everything you wanted to know about motivation but were afraid to ask: hacks, vision boards, principles, dichotomies and more.
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Personal Ops Documents
Your personal ops documents are a set of documents that describes how your life works at a high level. They include your purpose, values and reasons why.
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Your Complete Guide to Cascading Timeframes
Cascading timeframes is a model for looking at life as a continuum of timeframes and having the ability to plan based on those timeframes. Here's how it works.
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Why You Need to Turn Off All Your Notifications Now
Turning off your notifications and going notification-free lets you focus better on your work and helps reclaim your attention. Here's a step-by-step way to do it.
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Goal Getting: Turn Your Goals Into Systems to Achieve Them
It's one thing to set goals. It's another thing to get them. Here's a goal getting process that helps you break down what you want into how to get it.
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The Law of Diminishing Returns: Sprint, Don't Run Marathons
The Law of Diminishing Returns in productivity means that the more you do, the less productive you are. Here's how you can use sprint and rest to overcome that.
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Essential Time Management Tools and Technology
What essential time management tools and technology do you actually need to be productive? Here are the 4 essential devices and apps you need.
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How to Identify and Use Force Multipliers In Your Life
Force Multipliers are factors in our life that let us accomplish more. Here's a list of personal force multipliers and how to use them.
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Becoming Rock Solid: A Guide to Emotional Stability and Reserve
Becoming rock solid is about building emotional stability and reserve for yourself, so that you can weather stress, worries and anxiety. Here's how.
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How to Eliminate Distractions and Reclaim Your Attention
Technology, habits, ideas and the environment all try to lay claim to your attention. Here's what you can do to fight back and eliminate your distractions.
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Speed and Accuracy
"Speed and accuracy gentlemen, speed and accuracy. That is the secret to mathematics and life."
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Effective Learning Systems, Deconstructed
Learning is hard but it doesn't have to be. With an effective learning system, you can learn new things rapidly and easily. Here's how.
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The Virtue of Momentum
Momentum is the virtue that helps us keep things going in our lives. It is moving with direction and speed and not stalling out when things get tough.
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The Inbox and the Power of Quick Capture
Ever have an amazing idea only to completely forget what it was a minute later? You can capture all those ideas using a tool called an Inbox and a technique called Quick Capture. Here's how.
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How to Work Out and Weaponise Your Personal Core Values
Your core values are the principles and standards that you set for yourself and live by. Here's how you can discover them, change them and weaponise them for practical effect.
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Production vs Consumption
Most people define themselves by what they consume. People who get things done and move themselves and the world forward define themselves by what they produce.
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How Batching Actions Can Save You Hours Every Week
Batching your tasks and actions can save you hours every single week. Here's how and what you can batch to get things done faster.
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A Guide to Systems Thinking
Systems Thinking is the ability to see and think of the world as systems. It lets you look behind the curtain of how life works, and change things to better suit your goals and purpose. Here's how you do it.
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Six Popular Task Prioritisation Techniques Deconstructed
Here is a deconstruction of six popular task prioritisation techniques and why you should (or shouldn't) use each one.
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The Virtue of Taking Right Action
Taking right action is a rare virtue that is hard to find in today's world. Here's why it's important for your life and success and how you can do more of it.
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Talent Stacks and Specific Knowledge
Your talent stack is the combination of talents and specific knowledge that is unique to you. Here's why it's important and how you can discover and improve it.
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How to Systematically Overcome Procrastination
How do you systematically overcome procrastination? By using a simple model to find out why you are procrastinating, and then deploying the right solution to help you get things done.
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Effective Goal Setting Using Why, What and How
Here's how you can set effective goals using a simple model of why, what and how.
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Separating Tasks, Appointments, Information and Trash in Your Business and Personal Life
Most people confuse incoming items in their inboxes and this stops them from being organised. Here's how you can separate incoming tasks, appointments, information and trash in your business and personal life.
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A Guide to Effective Email Management
Effective email management is a system that has been tested, tried and solved for decades now. There's no reason to get stuck on email, so here's how to set it up and manage it properly.
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Different Types of Reality and Using Them to Your Advantage
There are three types of reality - objective, subjective and intersubjective. Here's how they differ and how you can use that to your advantage.
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Purpose: The Biggest Time Management Secret
Purpose is the biggest time management secret. Without purpose, all time management and productivity techniques are pointless. With purpose, anything is possible.
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Neediness
Neediness is a vice, related to pleasure and to poor social skills. Here's how we can systematically overcome it.
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Energy Management and How to Manage Your Energy Levels
Energy Management is having the energy you need to do the things that you want, when you want to do them. Here's how you can build and optimise it step-by-step.
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The Ugly Truth About Time Management
Here's the ugly truth about time management that productivity and business writers won't talk about.
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Boredom: Why We Get Bored and What to Do About It
Boredom is what happens when external stimuli and our attention get together and it all goes wrong. Here's why it happens and what we can do to overcome boredom.
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How to Stop Having WTF Days
Ever get to the end of the day and think - "WTF happened to my day?". Here's why WTF days happen, and what you can do to have productive days instead.
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The Virtues of Austerity and Minimalism
Austerity and Minimalism are a choice in today's world. They are how we can live with less stuff and be happier for it. Here's why they are important.
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How to Set Up Your Personal Task Management System
Personal Task Management is the way that you organise your tasks, projects and to dos for your personal life. Here's how you set it up.
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Most Important Task and Eat That Frog
Your Most Important Task is exactly what it sounds like - getting your most important task done first thing in the day, to kickstart your momentum for the day ahead.
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Why I Stopped Hacking My Sleep and Still Wake up at 5am
After years of experimenting with different sleep schedules, sleep hacks, tech and gadgets, I still sleep 8 hours a night and get up at 5am. Here's why.
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Excess Hedonism
Excess hedonism is when we spend less than half our time working productively towards our goals. We end up with denial, boredom and life grinds to a halt. Here's how you avoid that.
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Aaron Lynn's Journal System
Here's exactly how I've been using my (Aaron's) journal system for close to 10 years to track goals, tasks, notes and everything in-between.
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How to Live the Modern Virtue of 10x
10x is a modern virtue that is about aiming 10x higher in your goals and doing 10x more with your actions. Here's how you live it daily.
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Using Timeslices, Flowtime and the Pomodoro Technique
Timeslices, flowtime and the pomodoro technique are all time management hacks that can help you focus and do more deep work. Here's how you set them up and make them work for you.
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How to Improve Your Inner Game and Mindset
Your inner game is how you think about the world and what you do. It is the sum of your purpose, identity, values, beliefs, skills and environment. Here's how you can improve it.
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Effective Calendar and Schedule Management
Your calendar is one of the most powerful apps at your disposal - if you know how to use it correctly. Here's how you can work your schedule management like a productivity pro.
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Passion for Systems Thinkers and INTJs
"Finding your passion" doesn't work for systems thinkers, builder, mechanic and INTJ-types. Instead, you need to get started and use your momentum. Here's why.
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How to Use Gap Time Effectively
Gap times are the spare moments that you have while commuting, or while waiting for something. Here's how you can line up some ideal activities to use them effectively.
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How to Develop Self-Discipline
Self-Discipline is the virtue that lets you do what you need to do consistently without complaint, and without burning away willpower. Here's how you can develop it.
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How to Get Unstuck in Difficult Personal Situations
Here's a systematic way to get unstuck in difficult personal situations. Whether you're going through a breakup, career change or just a tough time - here's what you need to do.
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Your Guide to Personal Time Tracking
Time tracking is a system for tracking every second and minute of your life, then using your time tracking data to optimise how you are spending your time.
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Why You Don't Get To Be Lazy
You don't get to be lazy. The system is not going to take care of you, and if you want something, you will have to work for it. Here's why.
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How to Develop Resilience and Mental Toughness
Resilience or mental toughness, is the virtue that lets us shrug off difficulties and challenges in life. Take a hit, and walk it off.
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Setting up Morning Rituals and Evening Rituals
Morning Rituals are a simple way to start your day full of energy. Evening Rituals let you wind down and fall asleep easily. Here's how you can do both today.
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The Time Management Stack
The Time Management Stack is a toolkit of systems, mindsets, principles and skills that help you utilise your time more effectively.
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How to Organise Your Information, Knowledge, Notes and Documents
Learn how to manage and maintain your information, knowledge, notes and documents using a bit of technology and some organisational magic.
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The Basic Social Skills Stack
The Basic Social Skills Stack consists of the essential verbal, nonverbal, sensory and contextual social skills you need to survive in today's world.
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Understanding the Areas of Life Mental Model
The areas of your life include your wealth, health, learning and growth, social time, relationships and playtime. Here's how you can optimise those areas.
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How to Create Habits to Support Your Goals
Here is a simple and systematic way to create habits to support your goals.
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How to Deep Work and Single Task
Deep Work is the ability to dive into your work and get the things that really matter done. Single tasking is the ability focus on one thing at a time. Here's how you do both.
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The Productivity Stack and Personal Effectiveness
The Productivity Stack is about how you use your resources and leverage to make the most of your time, attention, willpower and energy.
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Filter On Inputs
When you filter on inputs you choose what you let in, rather than what information you put out. You'll get better quality of thought by filtering on inputs.
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The Instagram Effect
The Instagram Effect is where you think your life sucks because it doesn't match up to the expectations in your mind. Here's what you can do about it.
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Social Atomisation
Social Atomisation is what happens when we live surrounded by people but feel utterly alone most of the time. Here's why it happens and how to stop it.
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Virtues
Virtues are behaviours, qualities or demonstrations of doing the right things. Find out how you can live in alignment with your own virtues.
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How to Handle the Small Stuff
Here's how to systematically and generatively handle all the small stuff (emails, notifications, DMs, everyday errands) that modern life throws at you.
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Eliminating Destructive Snacking and Distractions
Destructive snacking is when we let the little distractions of the modern day get in the way of getting things done. Here's what you can do about it.
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How to Make Your New Year's Resolutions Actually Happen
Here's how you can properly set structured New Year's Resolutions and then use systems and tracking to actually make them happen.