Dual computer monitors. I’ve had this kind of setup for several years at work and home. It seems to really help, although it does encourage multitasking.
I’ve anecdotally seen this too—I have one monitor of work and one monitor of reference material, and it speeds up my work by a pretty large amount. It doesn’t matter for all kinds of work, though.
In my experience the effect is minimal and tends to be overshadowed by other, stronger effects. For example, at my last office job I had a laptop plus monitor setup at my desk, but unsurprisingly found that I was usually much more productive if I took my laptop to an empty conference room. Of course it’s possible I’m just doing it wrong.
Right now I work at home and sometimes at coffee shops and I find the flexibility of choosing where I work (and in what posture) to be well worth the missing screen real estate. I am strongly considering the purchase of a new “Retina” Macbook Pro, but I don’t anticipate huge productivity gains because of the extra pixels.
Highly, highly recommended. This is the gold standard of organizational advice, and it lives up to its reputation. My productivity has skyrocketed in the five months I’ve been using this system. I attribute maybe half of that improvement to this book.
Allen describes his system in detail, explaining why each piece is useful. The system is modular, and most people who use it have modified it to fit their particular workflow. The book is longer than it needs to be, but still only something like 200-300 pages. Note that organizational advice is different from motivational advice (although bad organization can sap motivation).
Key insights:
—Breaking down projects into small, achievable “next actions” is a key technique for planning effectively and preventing ugh fields.
—Writing down every task in a single list that you will actually check regularly lets you stop worrying about tasks, reduce your cognitive load, and ensure that nothing gets lost.
Worth adding that most people don’t actually need all of GTD, since the system was designed for a particular type of corporate drone. It’s really the attitude about doing things that’s important to take away. For instance, I don’t keep lists of projects or a “tickler” file—for me, the most important things were the weekly strategic reviews, “next actions” idea, and having a very small number of inboxes that I regularly clear out and categorize.
Recommended to me by pjeby, this is the most CfAR-ey personal productivity book that I’ve read. I would recommend it over GTD, as it incorporates many of the same insights into IMO a better overall system.
What about if your workday problems aren’t “I have too many incoming emails and routine tasks to handle, I need to organize and prioritize things somehow” but “I need to design a robust technical system out of nothing and it needs to match our problem and be good enough not to get us into the trouble down the road and I’m having lots of trouble fitting the entire problem and the requirements from the existing system in my head” or “I need to figure out enough about a new technical field in a month that I can incorporate ideas from it into my paper and have it pass peer review and I have no idea what’s going on with it”?
I’ve found it difficult to apply GTD style systems to the sort of problems where most of the initial difficulty is understanding the problem to begin with.
Productivity
Dual computer monitors. I’ve had this kind of setup for several years at work and home. It seems to really help, although it does encourage multitasking.
I’ve anecdotally seen this too—I have one monitor of work and one monitor of reference material, and it speeds up my work by a pretty large amount. It doesn’t matter for all kinds of work, though.
In my experience the effect is minimal and tends to be overshadowed by other, stronger effects. For example, at my last office job I had a laptop plus monitor setup at my desk, but unsurprisingly found that I was usually much more productive if I took my laptop to an empty conference room. Of course it’s possible I’m just doing it wrong.
Right now I work at home and sometimes at coffee shops and I find the flexibility of choosing where I work (and in what posture) to be well worth the missing screen real estate. I am strongly considering the purchase of a new “Retina” Macbook Pro, but I don’t anticipate huge productivity gains because of the extra pixels.
Getting Things Done—David Allen
Highly, highly recommended. This is the gold standard of organizational advice, and it lives up to its reputation. My productivity has skyrocketed in the five months I’ve been using this system. I attribute maybe half of that improvement to this book.
Allen describes his system in detail, explaining why each piece is useful. The system is modular, and most people who use it have modified it to fit their particular workflow. The book is longer than it needs to be, but still only something like 200-300 pages. Note that organizational advice is different from motivational advice (although bad organization can sap motivation).
Key insights:
—Breaking down projects into small, achievable “next actions” is a key technique for planning effectively and preventing ugh fields.
—Writing down every task in a single list that you will actually check regularly lets you stop worrying about tasks, reduce your cognitive load, and ensure that nothing gets lost.
Worth adding that most people don’t actually need all of GTD, since the system was designed for a particular type of corporate drone. It’s really the attitude about doing things that’s important to take away. For instance, I don’t keep lists of projects or a “tickler” file—for me, the most important things were the weekly strategic reviews, “next actions” idea, and having a very small number of inboxes that I regularly clear out and categorize.
The Procrastination Equation. My post How to Beat Procrastination is simply a summary of this book.
Master Your Workday Now! - Michael Linenberger
Recommended to me by pjeby, this is the most CfAR-ey personal productivity book that I’ve read. I would recommend it over GTD, as it incorporates many of the same insights into IMO a better overall system.
What about if your workday problems aren’t “I have too many incoming emails and routine tasks to handle, I need to organize and prioritize things somehow” but “I need to design a robust technical system out of nothing and it needs to match our problem and be good enough not to get us into the trouble down the road and I’m having lots of trouble fitting the entire problem and the requirements from the existing system in my head” or “I need to figure out enough about a new technical field in a month that I can incorporate ideas from it into my paper and have it pass peer review and I have no idea what’s going on with it”?
I’ve found it difficult to apply GTD style systems to the sort of problems where most of the initial difficulty is understanding the problem to begin with.
Speed reading apps. I use Acceleread.