Guess what, you don’t have to buy into all the fads to be productive

I was reading Dustin Was on lifehack about the productivity ideas (fads?) that he doesn’t get.  One thing hit me, yep he’s right, some of these things don’t work:

• The 80/20 Rule.
• The power of Brand You.
• Making productivity a habit.
• Visualizing success.

Okay, maybe not for me.  I try a bunch of these things, sometimes, but really what it comes down to is I just need to manage my e-mail, remember to do stuff (I’m not so good at that), read RSS, and write.  Yeah the remembering to do stuff is the tough one.   Maybe I’ll try to use GryoQ more with MindManager…

Anyway, Dustin doesn’t get mind mapping …

Mind mapping. I wanted so badly to believe this one! As an academic, I’m always looking for ways to simplify and strengthen the organization and use of information, tools that would help me to see connections among seemingly disparate ideas. What a disappointment it was to sit down with Tony Buzan’s books and find almost nothing there – a way to make beautiful pictures that seems to offer nothing in the way of actual productivity. I simply can’t see why a handful of colored pencils and an hour of sketching little drawings and cutesy arrows (hey, let’s make this line look like a staircase, because it’s about “moving up” in the world!) should be considered an improvement over ten minutes of list-making. All Buzan offers to support any of this is his insistence that this is how the brain works. And if it isn’t…? Source: Five Productivity Ideas I’m Not Buying (Yet?) – lifehack.org

That’s okay Dustin … as much as I love mind mapping, it isn’t how everyone’s brain works.  Some people just don’t get it.  It doesn’t work for them.

Remember the ultimate work pimp: do what works for you!