Organize IT

Organize IT recap for 12th September 2008.

• This week I expended my series of productivity tips, discussing the importance of streamlining your system and the hard landscape. I hope you are enjoying this series because in the near future I hope to expand the series and turn it into my next ebook. Keep an eye out for updates.
• The ten worst job tips ever is incredibly insightful. There are all sorts of tips out there involving trying to stand out from the crowd and make an impression of perspective employees. However, as this article proves, most of it is very nieve.
• Tim Ferriss encourages people to basically go on an information diet. While this is great for not filling your head with useless junk (and there is really no denying that the bulk or what we watch and read is junk). However, Nick Cernis makes a very interesting counter-arguament – it leads to you not giving a sh*t about anything. Well worth a read.
• I’ve dismissed several times the belief that rising early will boost your productivity. In fact I believe it’s one of those common self-help myths. Life Evolver makes a very good point about how society wrongly views sleeping in as being lazy, and provides five reasons why sleeping in will actually boost your productivity.

The hard landscape is something I discovered from GTD. It is often used to describe calendars and other time planning tools. The tasks you put them must be unchangeable, or at the very least not susceptible to your whims and moods. If you put down that you need to finish a report on Monday, you better mean it. If it comes to Monday and you decide to push it back a few days, then your calendar becomes unreliable. Your hard landscape starts to turn into a soggy, marshy one.

Your productivity system is an integral part of your workflow. Gone are the days of having a handful of simple tasks that you could keep in your head. Nowadays, work is multifaceted, complicated and even overwhelming. That’s why you need a reliable system to get it all out of your head and get it organized. It can be as simple as scribbling down a to-do list for those with a small workload, to having a complex computer-based system encompassing several tools. Contrary to the general consensus, when it really matters there are only two rules you need to follow for getting a system that won’t let you down.

August saw Organize IT turn two years old and receive a facelift. I hope you approve of the new design, I’m looking for any constructive feedback and suggestions on how it can be approved. As for content, August saw me cover in detail my ideas for prioritizing by needs. In particular I suggest you check out my four ideas that will revolutionize your productivity. I’m going to be writing a LOT more about this in the near future. As always thanks for the support!

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Welcome to the second part of my guide looking at how to deal with obstacles in your life. As discussed in the introductory post, you will come across obstacles on a regular basis. They can be anything from a minor technical problem affecting the performance of your computer, to poor tone of voice holding back your relationships with your friends. Whatever it may be, there are three ways of dealing with it, which are covered below. With some obstacles, all three measures can be used, while with others only one approach is appropriate.