Hi, I’m Peter from Amsterdam. I’ll help you get organized and be more productive. Every Sunday, I send a productivity-themed newsletter to 10,000 people. Join us!
Are you making this classic mistake?
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What’s the difference between an amateur and a professional? An amateur messes around. He doesn’t take things seriously. He doesn’t have an objective in mind. He’s just playing. That’s fine when we’re building a model railroad or learning to bake our own bread or playing tennis with friends. The stakes are low. Who cares if the end result sucks? But your personal productivity is too important to take this approach. We’re talking about your career, here. We’re talking about your life! Don’t approach your life like an amateur. Be a professional. The professional clarifies her goals. She breaks them down into bite-sized steps. She makes a plan. In other words, the professional has a strategy. When she has to choose, she asks: which option best serves my strategy? Then she executes on that. If you don’t have a plan, you’re letting others dictate the game. That’s fine when you’re playing tennis with your friends, but it’s not fine when we’re talking about the only life you’ll ever have. |
Peter Akkies
Hi, I’m Peter from Amsterdam. I’ll help you get organized and be more productive. Every Sunday, I send a productivity-themed newsletter to 10,000 people. Join us!
If you’re ambitious, you need a personal productivity system. Or a personal assistant—but not everyone likes someone hovering around them all day long. So what should your personal productivity system consist of? At least these 3 apps: First, a task manager to capture to-dos and organize them. It’s your central source of truth of what you need to do. The task manager helps you to be proactive about what receives your attention. It lets you prioritize day to day. And it makes sure you don’t...
Many of us are great at adding tasks to our to-do lists. But when it comes to actually working through them… that’s the challenge. Let me share 7 tips that will help. #1: Prioritize at a high level. When you’re looking at your task list, you shouldn’t have to think hard about what to do next. Your next task should be obvious. If you’re not sure what your priority should be, you need to take a little time to update your list of goals and settle on the action steps you’ll take in the next 3...
Some people love to talk about “deep work”. Focus on your core work, that which requires the most focus, and which adds the most value. Do that and your productivity will skyrocket. Right? Not always. Yes, measured over months or a year, you’ve got to do your deep work. But some of the biggest chance I’ve seen in people’s productivity have come when they’ve given themselves permission to do the opposite: to tackle their shallow work for a while. Always behind on taxes? Give yourself a week to...