The promise of most classic productivity books is: “follow my steps and you’ll be able to get more done, faster.” The promise of most recent productivity books is: “follow my steps and you’ll be able to get the right things done, largely by saying ‘no’ to the […]
Category: Productivity
Course Coordination and Control
Weeks 1-5 of the semester: lectures, reading assignments, homework (some of which is collected and graded). Maybe a quiz or two. Week 6 of the semester: TESTS! Every semester is the same thing. Each class arrives at big assignments at the same time: tests always […]
Unconscious Self-Sabotage
It’s 10:00 PM, you’ve got 2 assignments due tomorrow, a quiz the next day, and an exam the day after that. You haven’t eaten dinner yet, and you haven’t started either assignment. You think to yourself, “if I could just clear this to-do list, I […]
Too Much Coverage
As we gear up for a new semester, teachers and students alike hope that this will be the best semester ever. We’ve got some work to do, or we will find ourselves in the same place as last semester: busy working without learning, stressed, firefighting, […]
New Semester Resolutions
Think back to the end of last semester. How did that go for you? How much sleep did you lose preparing for exams? Were you overwhelmed with coursework and study that needed doing? Did you simultaneously have several projects and several exams to prep for? […]
5 Painful Mistakes New Bloggers Make
Blogging can feel like a chore. Writing is heavy mental labor, and we want to see a reward for our efforts. Unfortunately, most new bloggers begin with the same five engagement-limiting mistakes. I’m a long blogger. My friends are long bloggers. My older posts were […]
Success Tactic: Finding Freedom In Routines
In my last post, I commented on a strategy that highly successful people use to free up mental energy for the things that matter. This post continues on that theme, offering up specific tactics that have worked for me. As a full-time academic, my schedule […]
A Key Success Strategy: Establishing a Routine
Have you ever felt out of control? How many small things did you forget yesterday? Do you find yourself slumping into your chair at the start of the workday, already beat from a morning of mayhem? I’ve been there, and it is exhausting! Frantic. I […]
Iterate and Grow
A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week. – George S. Patton We iterate and grow, not prepare and then go. We didn’t forbid you from speaking until you knew fluent, Shakespeare-level English. Learning is a continuum. Not […]
