iPod Contest - Review This Site
February 28, 2007
Productivity501 is holding another iPod giveaway contest. This time (taking inspiration from the evil John Chow) we are targeting people who have their own blogs. It works like this, you write a review of Productivity501 and post it to your blog. The best 5 reviews will go into a drawing for a shiny new iPod Shuffle engraved with www.productivity501.com.
The Most for Your Minute
February 27, 2007
I still believe that the most productive people are the ones who only do a few things, but do those things very very well. However, that isn’t a luxury most of us have–especially early on in our lives. In this series of posts, we are going to look at ways to better manager our time and get the best return on investment.
Time is an Investment
Speaking of your return on investment–just thinking of time as an investment can help you become more productive. Changing your mindset about time and seeing it as a currency that you can spend as you choose helps put you in a frame of reference to value time appropriately. When you spend your time you can spend it in areas where there is a high rate of return or in areas where there is a low or negative rate of return.
The Have-Done List
February 26, 2007
A to-do list is what most people see as the pinnacle of personal productivity. You set a plan, work the plan, and the check items off the list. To-do lists can be a great. They help you focus on what is important instead of just what happens to be on your mind.
However there are times when creating a to-do list isn’t the best thing. There are times when you need to be able to freely explore and do whatever comes to mind. Vacations are one example. If you create a to-do list (and I know some people who do) for your vacation it might take away from some of what you need to get out of a vacation.
I also find that there are times where I need to focus on a particular area, but without having a pre-defined set of tasks. For example, if I set aside a day to work on improving this website, I may or may not have a list of things I need to do. Sometimes it might be best for me to just find tasks and do them instead of trying to come up with all the tasks ahead of time.
Your Own Business
February 22, 2007
In a previous post I mentioned that if you are the type of person who focuses on personal productivity, you probably shouldn’t be working for someone else. I wanted to explain why. Many people focus on being highly productive, but no one seems to talk about how to actually benefit from being more productive. Sure you can make your boss really like you, but just because you are helping your employer be more efficient doesn’t mean you are going to see any personal benefit–other than being well liked.
How Businesses Make Money
Businesses make money by selling items or services for more than it costs them to produce those items or services. The dry cleaner may charge you $2.00 per shirt, which is probably at least twice what it costs them to actually clean the shirt. If you are paying for their services then $2.00 must be less than the value of your time to do it yourself.
In most businesses, they make money not because their employees are highly motivated pinnacles of productivity, but because they have a good system in place. The employee that cleans your shirt isn’t necessarily any more productive than you. However, they have access to equipment that you don’t have and have a procedure for cleaning and pressing the shirts that allow them to do it more efficiently than you could yourself. So it isn’t necessarily their personal productivity that allows the business to make money, but the productivity that comes from following the business system using the business tools.
Some businesses make money by having employees that will work for a much smaller amount of pay than what the company can get away with charging. Consider the recent lawyer graduate who works for $75 per hour for a firm that bills them out at $275 per hour. The firm provides assistant and gets clients that the lawyer probably couldn’t get on their own, but when it comes down to it, the work the lawyer does is much more valuable to the client than the amount the lawyer is being paid.
Working from a Suitcase
February 21, 2007
For the past 6 months, my wife and I haven’t had our own place. We’ve been all over the US and Mexico staying with friends, relatives, and in hotels. It has been an interesting experience and I’ve developed a few practices that help me be the most productive while working out of a suitcase.
Obviously you would want to tailor these for your own line of work, but hopefully everyone can find at least a few tips that are helpful.
Why You Need Personal Capital
February 18, 2007
I’ve been exploring several business opportunities recently, so I’ve been thinking a lot about capital. If we want to do X it will take $1500 of capital. If we want to do Y it will take $4000 of capital. Our options in business greatly depend on the amount of capital we control. Capital represents the ability to do something. Better yet, it creates an option for you to choose a particular path. Without enough capital, that particular path is not available to you.
When it comes to our personal performance capital is an important concept. True, we don’t usually call it capital, but if you think in terms of that which gives you options it functions in the same way. You have to build up a reserve of capital in order to accomplish anything significant. As individuals capital may be skill, intelligence, our network of contacts, education, or relationships.
Free Academic Podcast Lectures (Spring 2007)
February 5, 2007
The last two lists of academic podcast lectures were quite popular, so I’ve created an updated list for this semester. Universities are starting to limit podcasts to registered students and some have given up on podcasting. As a result our list is shorter than last semester. However, there are still over 60 classes publishing public RSS feeds–most people should be able to find something interesting for their daily commute.
The list only contains actual courses. Many universities have distinguished speaker podcasts that are intentionally not included in this list.
If you are aware of other podcasts of current courses please add them to the comments. Also if you see a class that looks interesting, be sure to subscribe and download the content. Several people have mentioned that they were unable to finish a lectures series from last semester when access was restricted to enrolled students.
You also might be interested in a previous post where we discussed how to get the most out of podcast lectures.
Nine Ways to Devastate Productivity
February 1, 2007
We talk a lot here about how to increase your productivity, get more done, and be more effective. But what if that isn’t your goal. What if you really just want to completely obliterate the productivity of your co-worker? In this unusual post we are going to look at nine ways to wreak havoc on someone’s ability to get work done.
Of course none of the readers of this blog are that evil (John Chow is that evil, but I don’t think he reads this blog). Anyway for the vast majority of our readers, I figured this list would provide some useful thoughts on how to spot people who are wasting your time. And who knows, it might be useful some day if you decide to let your Dark Side take over for a while.
Here are the nine tips (if you can call them that). If you decide to use them, you do so at your own risk. I take no responsibility for the results.
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