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Ahhh, Moleskines. When it comes to creatively-minded people, they are viewed right up there with Apple Macs and Starbucks. I’ve been using my own Moleskine (thoughtfully bought for me by my wife to shut me up) for the last couple of months to doodle down thoughts and catch all my random ideas. What makes it so great is that it feels so sturdy and solid, and that makes it ideal for hacking and tweaking (try adding tabs or a pen holder to a normal notepad and it will probably fall apart).

There are a lot of great productivity tips and advice out there. Whether you want to do a weekly review, manage your time better, figure out your life’s purpose or get a grip of your to-do list, it’s all there in books and blogs, at seminars and on CD. It will improve your life in little ways. But I’ve found that there is one big piece of advice that overrides it all, advice that requires a little bit of common-sense to apply it  but is truly life changing. That advice is to find the balance in everything you do.

Last week I wrote a lot about falling off the productivity wagon, asking why it’s considered normal practise. A lot of you argued that it really is a positive thing because it helps you to learn and evolve. While this is certainly true I would also argue that there is a lot to be learned from evaluating how to not fall off so often. Thus I’ve identified the five big reasons why people actually do fall off the wagon.

David Allen claims he falls off the wagon all the time. He loses control and goes loopy (maybe) on a regular basis. His co-workers at his company also fall off the wagon and have regular in-house training just to get back on board. Twitter is full of people falling off the wagon. I used to fall off the wagon regularly too. Used to…

Last week I read a very intriguing post on Zen Habits covering seven productivity tips for people that hate GTD. It was a great read (it’s nice to see these sorts of productivity posts still pop up there) though it garnered a lot of interest for several remarks that were included by the author, Jonathan Mead. It certainly got me thinking about some of the points, so I’ve decided to write my own response piece. I’d be keen to hear your own take on some of the points made.