Articles on Productivity

How do you spend money to save time?

It's a — pardon the expression — timeless saying: "You can always make more money, but you can't make more time." The staunch followup to that tends to be that you can make better

Beat the Nirvana fallacy: why doing something is better than nothing

The problem with the Nirvana fallacy is simple: there's NEVER a perfect solution, only shades of decisions that are better than others, and mistakes you make and can hopefully lear

How To Make Your Own Soda, Tidy A Room In Three Minutes, Cure A Hangover And Become A Movie Extra. Phew!

I’m a big fan of Howcast. Their website is a treasure trove of information, and you can also find their videos on popular sites like Metacafe and YouTube. Sometimes their advice is

That "What if you knew you were going to die" question

You've no doubt seen the question in many different forms. Sometimes it's, "What would you do if you learned you were going to die tomorrow?" Other times it's "What would you do

Get In Gear For The New Year: 5 Tips For Making Resolutions

The New Year is infamous when it comes to resolutions — not because most people manage to turn over a new leaf but because we declare big goals, work towards them for a few months

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Speed Reading: A Book Review

For many, time is money, and so it shouldn’t surprise me that there is now an official guide on how to read more in less time. I had always been curious about the science of speed

Book Review: Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth

Some books draw you in with mystery and suspense. Others keep you hooked with drama or intrigue. And then there are some that just manage to really hit home and make you say "Ah-ha

A Little Light in Dark Financial Times

I have more vehicle repairs to make than I have days in a year. My sink is clogged, and I’m bailing out water with buckets. Diapers just went up another 15% in my area. (And gue

One genius little button that's saving me a whole bunch of time

How many times do you click on a link to an article, video, image or anything else of interest and want to visit the homepage of that site? It happens to me all the time. Sometimes

Our Productivity Obsession

I spent a few weeks being extremely productive. And by productive I mean that I worked many more hours than usual. I was consumed by work. I was focused, efficient, and produced go

Three Quirky Search Tools to Help You Get Results

Has Google left you wanting? Do you dig fresh search results? Looking for a unique interface to interact with? Maybe one of my three new favorite search tools can give you a lif

Guest post at Get Rich Slowly

J.D. over at Get Rich Slowly asked me for a guest post on personal finance. What it turned out I wanted to talk about next, though, was productivity--and in particular, my evolvin

Too many online accounts? You need an aggregator.

From Twitter to Digg, emails to IM and let's not forget all those social networking sites, its easy to get bogged down just by logging on. Fortunately, you can keep your online

Being routinely creative

It might seem like creativity would flourish best in the absence of any constraining routine. In fact, the opposite is true: Having a routine is very useful for protecting your c

Need To Lose Some Weight? Put Some Money On It!

Recently I wrote about the incentive my husband gave me to lose some weight . Basically he is willing to forgo half of his entertainment budget if I lose the fat I gained post co

Outsourcing Your Life, and Creating New Businesses

How much is your time worth? What if you could find a way to have more quality time, less work, and possibly a higher income? Or - what if you need a new business idea, but don'

A One Touch Approach To Managing Household Finances

Over the years I've implemented elaborate tickler systems, email reminders and various other ways to remind myself not to forget to pay a few paper bills. At some point they all f

Wanna Put Away Some Cash? Take A Vacation!

A cruise to the Bahamas or a trip to that luxury spa aren’t going to get you ahead financially. However, if you’re looking to sock away a coupl

Don't Have A Sven? Sandy Might Be the Next Best Thing

If you've seen AT&T's latest smartphone commerical , then you know just how handy having a &quo

An Easier Way to Manage Your To-Do's

Shopping lists, grocery lists, wish lists.... maybe we need a list for our lists? If you're looking for a a better way to manage all your to-do's, there's plenty of onl