Lisa, >From what you have said, one book you might find useful is Essentialism by Greg McKeown. The approach it sets out is one that would seem to address some of the issues you have raised. I do not fully subscribe to everything in the book, but it has helped me to develop an approach to productivity that suits me and has taken the stress out of not getting everything done or even spending some time "doing nothing". I am actually achieving more by doing less.
Regards Stephen J On Tuesday, 4 August 2015 23:50:37 UTC+10, Lisa S wrote: > > Just wanted to chime in on this thread . I think this article title is > misleading as to what the article discusses ( in the opposite way from your > point, John , but both are true). I don't see having to clear all the tasks > in your head out as necessary for the mindful practices that have been > shown to help health and productivity, and I was expecting a different kind > of "do-nothing" than they describe, more along the lines of time resetting > the nervous system out of the constant stress, fight or flight mode that > task management tends to pull me into . > > I am very intrigued by the concept the title itself implies. I do think > that such activities – relaxing in nature, meditation, exercise, morning > pages journaling, a discipline like the one I do, Tai Chi Chih – for me are > having a profound effect on my relationship with my task list and all of > the shoulds. An amazing amount of effort goes into anxiety in our > culture... staggering, really , I'm realizing for myself anyway. I haven't > yet learned to channel that anxiety into productivity, but I am learning to > turn it off and not have my health be impacted by it . > > If anyone knows of books that combine mindful approaches with daily > productivity, I would be interested in hearing about them. ( if you feel > like it, copy your response to [email protected] <javascript:> :). > > The book that is completely changing my life right now, though it might > not be a good fit for many of you :-) Is, "The Life-Changing Magic of > Tidying up " . (People's can poo-poo it all they want, and they do, but > it's going across the world like wildfire, and for a reason :-) > > It's this short, poorly organized and not particularly well-written, > translation of a Japanese book that is ostensibly about deciding what items > in your house you would like to keep because they are joyful/appreciated, > and seems like just another twist on other organizing methods, that instead > has hidden in it a gem of a process that has clarified what's been missing > for me for 25 years in how I deal with my belongings and is now changing > how I see my actions through the day and even my life perspective a > little. (Sidenote:it doesn't seem like it makes a lot of sense, it appeals > more to women than men, and it doesn't work well IMO unless it's embraced > as is rather than being analyzed to death and tweaked, all probably making > it a poor fit for most of this list :-) > > I haven't yet gotten to the point of applying this process to my task > list, but it's going to take a while and probably be quite amazing and > freeing. I have thousands of "aspirational" tasks collected over the years > (just as I've collected aspirational clutter – that stuff that reminds me > of actions I wanted to take but never got to and now have become guilt) > that are sitting in MLO and weighing me down. (many of them captured from > my brain using GTD but then never let go of because I was so running around > trying to do the tasks that I never did a review process consistently , but > also from time management books that encourage keeping of everything in > your system, but never say to let it go - "just move it to a someday list" > :-) . It will be interesting to see what kind of the task management > solution I end up with in MLO when I'm done. I wouldn't be at all surprised > to see a book come out of it but it might be a few years . … > > Lisa, who has pretty much abandoned you all due to health issues but > getting better slowly > On Jul 24, 2015 6:06 AM, "John Smith" <[email protected] <javascript:>> > wrote: > >> Hello >> >> What do you make of this interesting article? >> >> http://elitedaily.com/life/culture/productive-people-do-nothing/1107640/ >> >> Apparently the key to productivity is not blasting through (endless) >> to-do lists flat out, nope - not even nicely prioritized ones. No, >> according to David Allen the trick is to create enough 'space' in your mind >> in order to think clearly. The way to do this can be either to deliberately >> put stuff off or to deliberately not do most of the stuff on your list at >> all. >> >> I think the title is slightly disingenuous - highly productive people >> don't JUST sit around "doing nothing", but nonetheless spending a >> significant amount of time doing nothing is extremely important nonetheless >> to one's overall productivity. >> >> Food for thought, no? >> >> John >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "MyLifeOrganized" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected] <javascript:>. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected] >> <javascript:>. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/mylifeorganized. >> To view this discussion on the web visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mylifeorganized/b15bdd39-4785-421f-8ac3-2a1489c501a1%40googlegroups.com >> >> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mylifeorganized/b15bdd39-4785-421f-8ac3-2a1489c501a1%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >> . >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MyLifeOrganized" group. 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