I’ve been taking some time off (use it or lose it) and evaluating all of the places in my life that are hard, a point for procrastination, have little ROI or are just plain disagreeable.

As part of that, I decided that I am going to close down the podcast. I have been doing it for four years, and it has never gotten easier or more enjoyable. I dread doing the episodes every month.

The files will probably be available on Libsyn (and here on the blog) for a few more months. But if you really want the backlist, you can find all the episodes over at Patreon.

I am by no stretch of any imagination a morning person. In fact, there are many mornings that I roll out of bed at my work starting time and head to my computer in my pajamas. Don’t judge. You’ve probably done it too. So when I recently started going back into the office a couple of days a week, I wondered how I had ever managed to do it every day. I realized quickly that if I was going to get out the door – or at least up before I had to start work – I would need to find a better way. I fell back to a really old way of doing things that I started when my daughter was an infant. This episode, number 87, is about how I did it….establishing nightly habits to set up an easier morning.

You can find all the episodes over at Patreon.

Links from show:

• A Tour of My OneNote Work Productivity System

Support me at Patreon: You can find all the episodes over at Patreon.

When I was a high school math teacher, I used to always ask my students to check if the answer they got made sense. I knew that this world takes advantage of people whose math skills are poor and I wanted to give them some tools to be able to cope. Today I want to talk about how simple math is very useful in life. This is Episode 86: Why It Pays To Math.

Links from show:

• Proof of 1 = 0
• Payment Calculator
• Changing Jobs: Let’s Do The Math
• Math For Grownups by Laura Laing

Support me at Patreon: You can find all the episodes over at Patreon.

A few weeks ago the young adult group at church did the service. The person delivering the message is a Navy veteran, a NASA scientist, and at the start of her civilian career. Her talk on “enough” got me thinking about the concept, and some later events played on it. So this podcast, number 85, will be on “enough”.

Links from show:

• The Earnest Life Episode 84: Tackling the Task List

Support me at Patreon: You can find all the episodes over at Patreon.

My task lists have become a problem. They’ve been growing steadily, and it is now not unusual for me to have 20+ tasks on the list as I start the morning.

It’s not a sustainable approach. Even though I am knocking a good number of tasks off the list each day, it still keeps growing. There are some days I look at the list and I cannot even fathom where to begin.

Today I will talk about my experiment with open, closed and hybrid task lists and the things I am trying to keep myself working. I’m going to call this Episode 84: Tackling the Task List.

Links from show:

• Boyle’s Law
• Getting Things Done* by David Allen
• Zen to Done* by Leo Baubata
• Do It Tomorrow* by Mark Forster
• Mark Forster’s other time management systems
• Oliver Burkeman’s Imperfectionist Email List
• Time And Attention’s Burnout Episode

Support me at Patreon: You can find all the episodes over at Patreon.

Filing papers leads to overwhelmed file drawers unless you purge them regularly. It’s not just papers, though. It’s also all the electronic stuff that you save, both files and emails. It’s easy to tell ourselves it doesn’t matter because of essentially unlimited mailbox and disk drive sizes. However, the more we shove into a cabinet, be it real or virtual, without ever cleaning it out, the easier it becomes to lose things and spend hours trying to find the information. In Episode 83 we will talk about the need for retention policies – and some ideas on how to implement them.

Links from show:

• IRS recommendations on retention
• Consumer Reports recommendations on retention
• Marie Kondo’s recommendations on retention

Support me at Patreon: You can find all the episodes over at Patreon.

My mother had a saying: “Out of sight, out of mind.” In spite of her being a supremely organized person, her belief in out of sight out of mind led to piles of paper on her kitchen counter, desk and other places in her house. I also have a tendency to pile things in order to keep them on the front of my mind. This indicates a breakdown of my systems. And on the flip side, once things are in my trusted system, I have a tendency to ignore them if they are not right in front of my face. . In today’s podcast, Episode 82, I will address both sides of this concept.

Links from show:

• Remember The Milk
• Spark Email
• One-Off Project File (affiliate)
• Paper Processing Folder (affiliate)

Support me at Patreon: You can find all the episodes over at Patreon.

The weekly review, made popular by David Allen in Getting Things Done, is supposed to help you look back and assess the week as well as plan the next week. I have done various forms of the weekly review for years, but the “review” part of it always slid away in the face of planning for the next week. Recently I made a list of questions that will allow me to do a look back with intention, so that I can assess what happened in the past week – and more importantly, what is outstanding and why. I’m going to call this Episode 81: My New Weekly Review Questions

Links from show:

• Get your list of questions

Support me at Patreon: You can find all the episodes over at Patreon.

A reader wrote in, curious as to what podcasts I listen to. She was particularly interested in how many productivity podcasts I follow. Today I talk about the 5 podcasts I never miss…and there is only one productivity podcast on that list!

Links from show:

• iCatcher – podcast player
• Noble Blood
• Time and Attention
• Irish and Celtic Music Podcast
• Science, Quickly
• The Archaeology Channel
• Beyond the ToDo List
• Optimal Living Daily
• The Creative Penn
• Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me

Support me at Patreon: You can find all the episodes over at Patreon.

One form of procrastination that I fight frequently is what I call Newton Procrastination: a body at rest will remain at rest. It’s the main reason I can’t get moving on things. And the key to fighting this is to make the barrier to motion so small that it takes almost no effort to get past it. We’ll talk about this today in Episode 79: Lowering Resistance.

Links from show:

• Newton’s Laws
• Timer Book Light*

Support me at Patreon: You can find all the episodes over at Patreon.