This post is a continuation of The Elements of Leadership series. To effectively lead people, you have to know who they are. I’m not talking about learning their names and positions. Where […]
Teach Your Team The Three Types of Decisions
This post is part of the Elements of Leadership series. The art of leadership takes years to learn, mainly because knowing how to lead requires knowledge of yourself, knowledge of those you […]
Balancing Freebies and Time Creep When Planning
When planning, should we look at how much time is allotted for the day and try to fill it, or do we look at how many tasks we have planned and cap […]
Open House At Productive Flourishing
One of the best things about blogs is that they evolve through time. One of the worst things about blogs is that they evolve through time. That said, I’ve added some pages […]
Simplicity, Complexity, and Productivity
This one’s going to be a bit rough, but bear with me. Productivity systems inevitably add something to the things you have to do or have- whether it’s learning or unlearning a […]
Mastering the To-Do List
The chief problem many of us face when we make our To-Do lists is that we try to list everything that we’re thinking about doing. The result is that we end up […]
Is Backpack Worth the Time and Money?
The short answer: For most users, Backpack is worth the time and money. Backpack is an online service offered by 37Signals that makes organizing your information incredibly easy. Backpack lets you make […]
Remembering the Fallen on Memorial Day
Today is Memorial Day in the United States. The holiday commemorates those who have fallen in military service for their countries. Many of you already know all of this. These types of […]
What's the Difference Between Offline Friends and Online "Friends"?
This week’s Food for Thought: What’s the difference between offline friends and online “friends”? (If you answered that online friends are ones you made online, you get 10 Smartass points. Proceed directly […]
The Weekly Productivity Planner 1.0: Comments on a Bad Design
UPDATE: The new design for the Weekly Productivity Planner is Out! Hooray! Pick it up here: [download#4] Sometimes the best thing to do as a designer is to recognize and admit that […]
Strategic Withdrawal: Quitting for the Rest of Us
There’s an interesting trend going on in the productivity niche. For the longest time, the focus of productivity has been on how we can get more done. Here recently, the trend is […]
What Makes an Act Courageous?
This last week has been a bit strange on the writing front – I’ve mentally written a lot of posts, but I haven’t actually written them. Now we’ll just have to see […]
Make a Difference: Imagine, Then Act!
We live in a world where tragedy befalls millions on a daily basis. The world may be better than it once was, but that doesn’t mean that it’s were it could be. […]
Give a Mother a Space of Her Own for Mother's Day
In my last post I ran through a list of Big Days that I’ve done a horrible job of honoring. One Big Day that’s not on the list is Mother’s Day. Of […]
How to Avoid Being an Idiot and Show Your Lady You Love Her on a Big Day
Last Wednesday was, hands down, the best day I have ever had in Nebraska. It was my five year anniversary with my lovely wife, Angela, and boy, was it nice. Especially considering […]
The Ship of Theseus and Personal Identity
What makes you you? Such a simple question is surprisingly hard to answer. (Tweet this.) The Ship of Theseus is a classical philosophical puzzle about personal identity. I’ll give the quick version. (Note: […]
Link Travelogue (Vol. 3)
Spring is in the air, and it seems as if the blogosphere has been a bit more quiet than normal. While the quantity of writing is down, the quality seems to be […]
The Weekly Action Planner
Editor’s note: The up-to-date versions of all of our planners are available on the Free Planners page. The Weekly Action Planner is a great aid to use to in conjunction with the […]