Over the past year, I’ve seen P.A.R.A. implementations of all shapes and sizes. I’ve seen them from every corner of the globe, in languages
In Part 18, I introduced the idea that our states of mind come and go in “waves of motivation,” and that we should try to use them to our ad
In Part 19, I argued that continuously finding new sources of motivation was the most important challenge for knowledge workers, and that th
In Part 17, I argued that unique states of mind are the most powerful resource available to knowledge workers. But these states are difficul
In Part 16, we refined our understanding of Return on Attention by taking into account our biggest constraint as knowledge workers – not jus
In Part 15, I advocated for multithreading, or weaving together multiple projects to take advantage of unexpected opportunities and synergie
In Part 14, we looked at the potential for massively increasing our bandwidth by creating “personal productivity networks.” These networks a
In Part 13, we looked at the benefits of Component Thinking, which involves thinking of any product we are working on as made up of subcompo
In Part 12, I described the shift from a just-in-case to a just-in-time philosophy of work, using late starts as an example of the benefits
In Part 11, I introduced the concept of a “critical path” of tasks in a project, and the rationale for pushing tasks as late as possible on
In Part 10, I argued that digital knowledge work was fundamentally different than other kinds of work, because its structure, features, and
In Part 9, I explained why it is so important to create placeholders for your work-in-process: to allow you to pursue multiple projects acro
In Part 8, we looked at divergence and convergence as the two fundamental modes of all creative work. Now let’s see what this looks like in
In Part 7, I argued for the importance of interacting with information, instead of just passively consuming it. Interaction results in bette
In Part 6, I recommended treating any deliverable (whether it’s a simple email all the way to a full-fledged product) as a series of evoluti
In Part 5, I introduced The Iron Triangle of Project Management and the idea that any given deliverable can be reduced or expanded in scope
In Part 3, I argued that having a personal knowledge base is the linchpin of success in a creative economy. A knowledge base allows you to r
In Part 4, I introduced the idea of “intermediate packets.” Instead of delivering value in a big project that spans huge amounts of time, we
In Part 2, I described the sublime and powerful experience of flow, which could be considered the “holy grail” of productivity. I argued tha
In Part 1, I introduced Return-on-Attention (ROA) as a way to evaluate how we invest our most precious resource – our attention. But there i
Technology has transformed every aspect of business, from the tools we use to communicate and collaborate, to how products and services are
There have been 3 Eras of Productivity in modern times, each defined by a seminal book: The Values-First Era at the dawn of corporate Ameri
In P.A.R.A Part I, I argued that the Project List was the lynchpin of modern productivity, serving as a dashboard of your current commitment
I recently finished listening to the audiobook of Trekonomics: The Economics of Star Trek (Amazon Affiliate Link), by Manu Saadia. It was pr
