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!
A conversation with a busy client
|
The other day, I was chatting with a client. She’s extremely busy, with many responsibilities at work and at home. She values her time very highly. Because she has so much going on, it’s tricky for her to find time to focus on her most important projects. She said: “I’d love to have regular blocks of focused work on my calendar.” “And then, from my master task list, I want to drag tasks into those focus blocks.” Her first question: what’s the right tool for this? I immediately thought of Akiflow. It excels at time blocking and has a “time slots” feature that does this dragging-and-dropping of tasks exquisitely well. Akiflow is also a combined to-do and calendar app, which means you don’t have to figure out how to make two apps work together. That said, another strong option would be combining Todoist and Fantastical. Todoist has been developing incredibly rapidly. In fact, I’ve been testing its “deadline” feature, which is being implemented really intuitively. Can you spot the deadline feature in this screenshot? Of course, talking about apps only gets us so far. Choosing the right app helps. Learning how to use it helps even more. But as I’ll be telling my client, while apps can be a good place to start, they are always only part of the solution. Apps illuminate the choices available to us. Take on this commitment or that one? Spend time on this part of our life—or dive into that other project? The real work is in choosing. The real work is prioritizing, based on our values. Only then, after we’ve prioritized, can we get into the nitty gritty, like where in our week we’ll slot in this particular task. Are you clear on your priorities? |
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!
Earlier today I was on a call with a group of people who enrolled in one of my live programs. We had a fascinating discussion about people who seem to have it all together. And in particular about people who adhere to rigid weekly schedules that make it seem like they have time for absolutely everything. Here’s one example: (And it is just an example. It doesn’t matter whose schedule this is. This person actually has some great ideas.) What matters is that this is productivity porn. When you...
I hope you’re taking the time each day to make a to-do list. If you’re not, your to-do list will arbitrarily assemble itself from incoming emails, meetings others schedule for you, and random thoughts. Instead, make your own to-do list. That way, you’re in charge of what’s a priority. Feeling overwhelmed is one of the great challenges of our time. There’s so much to do and so much to take care of. But overwhelm is a funny thing… It’s possible to accomplish exactly the same amount of work, but...
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...