Productivityist

Define Your Days | Filter Your Focus | Make Every Moment Matter

  • Start Here
  • The Blog
  • The Book
  • The Podcast
  • Get The Gift of Time

DEFINE YOUR DAY.
FILTER YOUR FOCUS.
MAKE EVERY MOMENT MATTER.

The Daily Driver will help you do all of that. And it's FREE.

Get The Daily Driver for FREE now!

A Case for Getting Personal with Productivity

by Mike Vardy

Productivity is a very personal topic for me. At times it has gotten too personal, but that has helped me develop such a close understanding with the art and craft of personal productivity. It’s what has helped me become a productivityist. Task management apps have simply helped me along the way.
Now I’ve made no secret about the fact that I’ve used numerous task management apps – I’ve gone through a similar journey as Gabe over at Macdrifter is writing about as of late. I am able to move between them – either by abandoning them or simply testing them and using them for specific purposes – because “what’s good for the goose isn’t always good for the gander”, as they say. Apps like Asana come to mind, along with IQTELL. I’ve used Things and The Hit List, and I pay for and use Flow.

I test apps. I play with them. I even have a workflow set up so that when I do use a new task management app, I can copy and paste the details of that workflow in there so that each one is evaluated on on an even playing field. It took me a while to get the place I’m at now, where I can shift almost seamlessly from app to app. I think that a lot of it has to do with what Cal Newport wrote about this week: I use the apps I’m testing for the shallow work. I use the ones I’ve added to be workflow for the deeper work

So what task management apps allow me to do the deeper work?

For individual task management, I always come back to OmniFocus. I like having a separate app for myself and myself alone. I like how OmniFocus gives me both the time and space I need to create – the things I need to make great work happen. I think that adding a collaborative component would take that much-needed space that I need, which would result in a lack of focus. I’ll leave my collaborative task management to the apps that do those well (such as the aforementioned ones) and let OmniFocus be my productivity safe haven. So my deeper work generally begins with capture and ends with a checkmark in OmniFocus. As for the other apps in my workflow that help me get the deeper work done…I’ve written about them over at The Next Web.

There’s nothing wrong with using multiple tools as long they are being used with the purest of intentions in mind. Going against that mindset will result in failed experimentations (see my Evernote experiment) and friction that simply is there of your own design. I use all of my tools for the reasons I use them. I know what they are to be used for and i use them for that. My goal – to put it in lifehacking terms – is to hack life, not hack the things that hack life. A productivityist’s goal is to be productive…not do productive.

This week on Mikes on Mics, we spoke with Ken Case (CEO of The Omni Group) and the conversation revolved around the current iteration of OmniFocus…and even waded into the waters of what we might be able to expect from Omnifocus 2. You can listen to Episode 47 of the Mikes on Mics podcast here.

Do you want ideas, insights, and information on how to craft your time in just one weekly email?

Then you want ATTN: sent to you.

ATTN: is a weekly digest from Productivityist that delivers a week's worth of content in a nice little package directly to your inbox. Just enter your email to subscribe.

Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription.

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

I will not send you spam and you can unsubscribe at any time. Powered by ConvertKit

About Mike Vardy

Mike Vardy is a writer, speaker, productivity strategist, and founder of Productivityist. He is the author of The Front Nine: How to Start the Year You Want Anytime You Want, The Productivityist Playbook, and TimeCrafting: A Better Way to Get the Right Things Done, coming soon from Mango Publishing.

Categories: Intention and Attention

  • Apps
  • Articles
  • Best of
  • Books
  • Gear
  • Intention and Attention
  • Mode-Based Work
  • Routines
  • The Podcast
  • Time Theming

Categories

Awareness Building Class

Most Popular Posts

How to Make Monday Work for You

3 Things You Should Put On Your Calendar

The One Email Trick That Keeps My Inbox In Shape

Using Energy Levels as Contexts

The One Email You Must Send Before You Go on Vacation

Suggested Book

Please install GeoIP Detection Plugin for best user experience. Ben Macintyre Agent Sonya

Agent Sonya (2020) is the biography of a respectable housewife, who also just happened to be one of Soviet intelligence’s most intrepid and high-ranking spies. The book traces the life of Ursula Kuczynski, code-name Sonya, from her birth in Berlin, through her radicalization as a communist and her career as a spy who both foiled the Nazis and arguably kicked off the Cold War.

Read for free

Freedom - Get More Done

Guidelines Ad-2

As Seen In

As Seen In
  • Start Here
  • The Blog
  • The Book
  • The Podcast
  • Get The Gift of Time

Copyright © 2021 · Expert Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Derivative Works Policy
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube