Productivity & Self Organization

Fast Company
The 26 best new productivity apps for 20218 min read · Jul 12th · These great apps will help you organize your digital life, avoid unwanted distractions, and more.
productivity
digital life
apps
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As an answer to all the cruft that Google’s email service has built up over the past 17 years, Simplify Gmail is a revelation.
Instead of making you sign up for newsletters with a dedicated email address, Meco locates the newsletters you’re already getting in Gmail, then lets you transfer them to its own reader app.
WIRED
Hundreds of Ways to Get S#!+ Done—and We Still Don’t2 min read · Jul 27th · You want to be productive. Software wants to help. But even with a glut of tools claiming to make us all into taskmasters, we almost never master our tasks.
productivity
Fast Company
How journaling reduces stress and increases productivity2 min read · Jul 16th · If you’re caught in a cycle of overthinking and stress, the simple act of writing can be a powerful tool.
productivity
writing
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The idea is to keep a regular journal. When you have a bad experience in your personal or professional life, write about it a few times. When you write about it, describe the event in detail. Write about how it made you feel. Write about what you might do about it in the future. Devote 20-30 minutes to writing about events that really bother you.
the bad things that happen to you create little tears in the fabric of your life story. By writing about those events several times, you craft a story that knits the bad things into the narrative of your life. The more that these events become coherent to you, the less likely that they will be a source of later rumination.
The Atlantic
An Ode to Procrastination2 min read · Jun 18th · The existential exhilaration of playing chicken with Time
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In Phase Two, you get busy. Mountains of energy are suddenly available to you. Straining to avoid one particular thing, dawdling mightily, you can do five others.
And now it’s over. You’ve emerged. You have been a weird little god, playing with Time. You’ve been Max von Sydow, playing chess with Death. And while you haven’t won, exactly, you haven’t lost, either.
Adam Thomas
Organised magic: how my Second Brain made me happierbrain
second brain
note taking
Summary, by the author
In 2020, I adopted two practices that changed my outlook on productivity and happiness.
Firstly, I began journaling. Through the process of writing regularly on what I am feeling, I made sense of stress.
Secondly, I adopted the Second Brain methodology.
The methodology is a three-step process: saving links, summarising ideas, and revisiting notes.
Both practices allowed me to delegate and outsource complex thinking.
Read the full article  (5 min read)
medium.com
Why A Daily Writing Habit Improves Your Life4 min read · From 2018 · One of the most important habits that I’ve formed in my life is daily writing.
medium.com
The Idea-to-Paper Process I Followed to Publish 176 Articles in 13 Months10 min read · Jun 14th · And reach 681,022 readers.
aliabdaal.com
Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon: Summary, Notes & Highlights7 min read · May 14th · It completely changed the way I thought about sharing stuff online, and encouraged me to start my blog in January 2016.
James Clear
The Daily Routines of 12 Famous Writers~12 min read · From 2018 · What to develop better daily routines? Read this article to discover the daily habits of famous writers and how you can use their strategies.
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How many people die with their best work still inside them?
A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.
James Clear
The Habits Guide: How to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones6 min read · From 2017 · How do habits work? How do you change your habits? How do you hold yourself accountable? This complete habits guide contains everything you need to know.
Ness Labs
Is there a perfect productivity system?7 min read · Jul 15th · Let’s cut to the chase: there is no universally perfect productivity system. Instead of wasting time trying to copy-and-paste a system from a self-help book, everyone should intentionally design a…
productivity
learning
education
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It’s sustainable. The more friction and effort, the less likely you are going to stick to your productivity system. How do you feel after a day using a system? If you are exhausted, chances are it’s not working for you.
It works for short-term and long-term goals. If your productivity system is a toolbox, it should contain tools that work for different timelines
Tiago Forte
The Automation of Note-Taking and the Just-In-Time Future of Work8 min read · 2020-07-19 · Cover image “beauty in the brains” by bedelgeuse A student recently asked me, “How do you have the self-discipline to open up your notes app every time you encounter an interesting idea?” Suddenly I…
Tiago Forte
The Ultimate Guide to Summarizing Books: How to Distill Ideas to Accelerate Your Learning~13 min read · 2020-08-10 · In 2016, I read 57 books. I read like I was running out of time. It felt like an achievement, yet by the end of the year, I could scarcely recall even one useful idea from each book. That moment was a…
books
productivity
career
Tiago Forte
The One-Touch Guide to Doing a Weekly Review: How I Go From Chaos to Clarity in 30 Minutes2020-05-19 · There is a secret to radically improving your productivity – it’s called a Weekly Review. It’s not a very secret secret. It’s a secret hiding in plain sight. We’ve all heard countless times that we…
Tiago Forte
Mise-en-Place for Knowledge Workers: 6 Practices for Working Clean~14 min read · Jun 29th · Knowledge work is unique among skilled professions in that we lack a culture of systematic improvement. Other skilled trades – from carpenters to welders to nurses to pilots – have been around long…
productivity
career
productividad
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We spend tens of thousands of dollars on our education, plus thousands of hours learning specialized skills. Yet so little time and effort is spent mastering the most fundamental skill of all: how to manage our work.
Like us, chefs only have so much energy and working memory at their disposal. Chefs use mise-en-place – a philosophy and mindset embodied in a set of practical techniques – as an “external brain.”
Ness Labs
The psychology of revenge bedtime procrastination4 min read · Jun 28th · Have you ever come home after a long day at work, with a narrow window of time to eat, shower, and go to bed, but decided to carve out some leisure time at the expense of your sleep? This is called…
productivity
sleep
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Revenge bedtime procrastination is harmful to your physical and mental health. Staying up a bit later to carve out some leisure time may feel good in the short-term, but will lead to some pretty worrisome negative effects in the long-term. It’s okay if we slip from time to time, but breaking this pernicious habit will result in a healthier, more balanced life.
Bedtime procrastination becomes revenge bedtime procrastination when the decision to delay sleep is in response to a lack of free time earlier in the day
Productivity & Self Organization

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