The Pmarca Guide to Personal Productivity

blog.pmarca.com: The Pmarca Guide to Personal Productivity

The techniques that follow work together as an integrated set for me, but they probably won’t for you. Maybe you’ll get one or two ideas — probably out of the ideas I stole from other people. If so, I have succeeded.

Found this via Merlin. My favorites:

• Structured Procrastination — setting a time for NOT doing something just to get it in your head that you’re specifically not acting on it. Make sure you’re at least being productive with other things while you’re procrastinating that “big thing.” Then, get it over with.
• (slightly modified) Finish each day with a completely empty email inbox. I always strive to end out the day by making sure the next day is ready with a clean slate.
• Only agree to new commitments when both your head and your heart say yes. If you get that little adrenaline spike (in a good way) when you think about it, then your heart is saying yes.

And, if I could add one: Write it all down. Goals, overview of the day/week/month/whatever — I recently pored over my journal from my senior year of high school — and boy do I wish I’d have kept up with that much writing each day to remind me what’s been happening. I write down little things that strike me as inspirational, books to read, great ideas for new businesses or products, etc. in my journal. Some of them make it on here.

That, and a solid weekly review to process everything and keep all the machinery in working order, is most of my system. Still trying to get more “GTD” into my daily schedule… but it’s a process.