I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Day One. It’s an app I use regularly, yet greatly underutilize. This is partly because I lost my habit of regular journalling a few years back, the act of taking time every day to jot down some thoughts or the events of the day. Most of my Day One usage of late has been the automation of getting items in there from other sources plus tracking my Bible study [https://chrisbowler.com/journal/bible-journalling]. But I could do so much more with it, both with s…
Rian Van Der Merwe gets himself an Amazon Echo and shares his insights into the experience. But more importantly, as a father of two young girls, he shares some thoughts on the difficulties of raising kids with all this new technology available. > “Alexa, are we bad parents?” This is, of course, the big question when it comes to technology. Should we immerse our kids in it or should we shield them from it? We all find our own way when it comes to parenting, and even though we’re still working o…
Medium continues the change to their attempts to remain viable.
I’ve long struggled with putting people first, putting relationships ahead of the projects that are taking up my time and focus. As soon as I started writing online and learning about personal productivity, this theme was playing itself out in my life. Almost 10 years ago [https://chrisbowler.com/journal/tasks-versus-relationships], I was pondering how things were to fit together. > I started thinking again about what it really means to follow the concepts that make up GTD. And how that fits w…
This is a bit of a repeat of late, but one I hope you’ll forgive me for. As I watch my goal for reading books week after week, I’ve been considering how to start a system similar to what Shane Parrish outlines in this article. Not to give myself something else to do, but simply to retain more and take what I’m reading and apply it to my every day life. Related: Shawn Blanc shares his own system for taking notes when reading [https://thefocuscourse.com/build-your-own-alternate-index-of-ideas-and…
Does Todoist's Karma feature turn your productivity into a game, or truly help you move forward?
Related to my focus [https://chrisbowler.com/journal/perfect-week] last week, Shawn Blanc and his team are experimenting with how they structure their work time in 2017. Taking cues from the Basecamp team, they’re trying an 8 week cycle, where focused work happens in weeks 1–6, followed by a buffer week, then finishes up with a week off. It’s an interesting concept with a couple of benefits. One, the team members will take time off. That sounds a bit pedantic, but in environments like Shawn’s,…
Tim Harford takes a good look at what makes for the best productive work environment. Surprise — pristine, design focused spaces are not the answer. He covers some history in this post, including the details of M.I.T.’s infamous Building 20 (also covered in detail in Deep Work) and the Pixar offices under Steve Jobs. Through the piece, Harford is making the case that so many great innovations come from spaces where the worker is in control of the environment. He refers to studies that prove jus…