• Michael Hyatt • Pat Brans • Chris Edgar • Leo Babauta • Howard Flomberg • Mike Vardy • Michael Sliwinski •

www.ProductiveFirm.com/Magazine #7 (January/Feburary 2011)

magazine

Exclusive
Interview

Michael
Hyatt
on Responsiveness,
Leadership
and Social Media...
4 How to Deal with Procrastination
4 Which Laws and Policies Help Achieve Goals
4 How Breathing and Being Present
Impacts Productivity

Sponsored by

From the Editor
Leadership
and Laws
of Productivity
By Michael Sliwinski, Editor
T
his is issue #7 of your trusty pro-
ductivity magazine. This is the Jan-
uary/Feburary issue and we’re aim-
ing to bring you a fresh new issue of
Productive! Magazine every two months
this year and we’ll see how it goes.
Here’s to great 2011!
Meet Michael Hyatt
I’ve been following Michael for more than
5 years, back in the day when we were
both using Toshiba M200 TabletPCs and
he was already a recognized blogger
with his “Working Smart” blog. Reading
his blogs and accepting his guidance
! Links: Michael on Twitter | Productive! Firm web site | Michael Sliwinski’s Blog: “Internet Business Productivity”

magazine
and advice, he became my role model
– a successful business person (CEO of
one of the biggest publishing compa-
nies in the world), a leader and blogger
(just check out his blog), a family man
and a father (with 5 daughters and lov-
ing wife), a productivity guru and tech-
nology geek (now you tell me we don’t
have a lot in common) and a practicing
Christian (being Catholic I’m a follower
of Christ myself).
You might know Michael for his con-
tributions to this magazine in the past.
This time around he is contributing di-
rectly as the interviewee for this issue of
the magazine. Last November on my
business trip to the USA we finally met
in person over lunch and we had a great
time getting to know each other. I asked
him to do an interview later on and he
agreed. It’s a great read as you’ll learn
from Mike a lot about leadership, pro-
ductivity, work–life balance and how it
all relates to personal health, too.
Laws and rules of Productivity
This issue’s theme is around certain laws
of productivity that we need to obey to
be more productive. Pat Brans teaches
us the law of being present, Chris Ed-
 magazine

gar explains the 3 rules of breathing in

order to keep the body productive, Leo
Babauta breaks down for us the law of
procrastination and what to do about it,
Howard Flomberg analyzes Murphy’s
Law and other rules that impact our pro-
ductivity, Mike Vardy convinces us in his
humorous style that being a “Yes Man”
is a great choice if you don’t want to get
anything done and finally I show you my
way of looking at New Year’s Resolu-
tions.
The site ProductiveFirm.com – home
of the Productive! Magazine and Pro-
ductive! Show is growing and in this is-
sue I share with you my recent short vid-
eo show episodes so that you can enjoy
some additional trips and tricks that work
for me. I encourage you to share this
magazine with as many people as you
can – everyone needs some inspiration-
al pieces of advice for 2011 and beyond
in order to be able to make great things
happen.

Yours productively,

Michael Sliwinski

Editor in Chief
Productive! Magazine


 magazine

Table
of contents
05Michael Sliwinski
Being a Responsive Social Leader
Interview with Michael Hyatt

10
Productive!Magazine
Pat Brans www.ProductiveFirm.com/Magazine
Being Present
Sponsor:
www.Nozbe.com

12

Chris Edgar
Three Ways Your Breathing
Can Help Your Productivity
Your Online tool for Getting Things Done

14
– available in your computer browser,
Leo Babauta mobile phone and on your iPhone.

The Little Book of Procrastination Remedies Chief Editor:

Michael Sliwinski

16 Michael Sliwinski
A New Policy for 2011 is better than a Resolution Technical Editor:
Piotr Wozniak

18 Howard Flomberg
Laws and other Observations
Technical Advisor:
Maciej Budzich

20 Michael Sliwinski Editorial Team:

Lori Anderson
Productive! Show Videos
Clutter–free Home Office, Smartphones and Skiing Delfina Gerbert

21 Mike Vardy
Affirmative Inaction Tribute:
Marc Orchant (1957–2007)
The Productive!Magazine
is dedicated to the memory
of a productivity guru, great
blogger and a very close friend,
Marc Orchant who passed away
on 9th December 2007.

All articles are copyright © by their respective authors.

Productive!Magazine is copyright © by Michael Sliwinski.
Getting Things Done® and GTD® are the registered
trademarks of the David Allen Company.


 magazine

Michael Sliwinski: You are a busy, busy CEO

of a big publishing company – Thomas Nel-
son Publishers, the largest Christian publish-
ing company in the world and the seventh
largest trade book publishing company in
the States. How do you find time for blog-
ging and tweeting and everything?
Michael Hyatt: Well, I think social media
really represents the future. And one of
my primary jobs as CEO is to network
with other people that can help my com-
pany and that can help us get visibility
for our products and some for our mis-
sion. I’ve also found out that social net-
working (in particular blogging) is a fan-
tastic way to do that. Plus it helps me
to sort through my own thinking and
make sure’ that I understand what it is
that I believe about various topics and
my point of view.

MS: And people in your company? What do

Interview with Michael Hyatt,
they think about you being so open?
MH: I think they like it. I have been do-
ing it for several years now. I’ve been
blogging for about a decade and in ear-
nest since I’ve became the president and
a CEO back in 2003. So I really have
been doing it for a while and really been
encouraging people in my company to
do it. I showed it on twitter about two
and a half years ago and I really tried to
encourage my people, my employees,
to engage there as well as on Facebook.
And I think they like it – they get direct
access to me.

CEO of Thomas Nelson. MS: This magazine is about productivity

Being a Responsive
so please tell me how do you make time
for all this?
MH: I don’t really think it takes that much

Social Leader
time. If you just take the Twitter, and I’ve
run numbers on it, in fact at my blog I’ve
got an article called “how long does the
twittering actually take?”. And basical-

On Leadership, Getting Things Done, ly I spend 20 or 30 minutes a day. Usu-

ally in the morning or later on in the af-
Work–life balance, Health and Social Media. ternoon, as I’m reading through RSS



When you’re responsive, people think of you: “Man, he must be really smart,
really sharp and really on top of his business and must really be organized”.
feeds or other articles and I find some-
thing that I think will be helpful I tweet it
out, or I schedule it to be twittered out
later on during the day.
Blogging is a little bit more time inten-
sive, but I usually do that in the evenings
or more particularly on the weekends.
But again I don’t think you can find the
time for it if you see it as additional task.
But if you see it as inter–goal to what
you are supposed to be doing in your
job, like for me as a CEO getting visibil-
ity for my company and networking, then
it is easy to make time for it.
MS: Mike, it took you years to get the to the
position where you are right now (career–
wise). Can you name at least 3 key factors
that helped you achieve your success as a blog-
ger and CEO of a big company?
MH: I would say a couple of things. One
is, I think, just being humble and trying
to learn from other people. I’ve experi-
enced in addition to some early success
some stupendous failures which kept
me humble along the way. I tell people
I have basically failed my way forward,
but I think the willingness to continue to
learn helped me succeed. I think also
responsiveness is something that can
really separate you from everybody else
in today’s culture. So many people are
overwhelmed with email and with other
inbox chores that it takes them forever
to respond. And just by responding
quickly, and I really believe in David Al-
len’s “2 minute rule”, if you can respond
quickly it can differentiate you and make
you stand out from the crowd. Other
then that, just the usual things and try-
ing to be diligent, work hard, surround
yourself with smart people, the usual
things that you hear.

magazine
MS: I was counting on you to mention:
“responsiveness”. This is the advice you wrote
back in the day of your old “working smart”
blog. You said that it was your key. It got
stuck in my mind, so whenever I have a back-
log of emails I just schedule 2–3 hours to get
back to 0.
MH: Yeah, it is really hugely important
to do that. I get people all the time that
get back to me and write “i can’t believe
you got back to me so quickly”. And
then I have a few people, that frankly are
friends of mine, that are still way better
than me. One of them is a board mem-
ber and he responds almost instantly
and it’s always impressive to me. I know
I can always count on him and it makes
me imputing him other qualities like “man
you must be really smart, really sharp
and really on top of his business and
must really be organized”. This kind of
summarizes someone being so respon-
sive.
MS: Tell me about Getting Things Done. You
have written about Getting Things Done,
you are using GTD apps. So tell me what are
the key characteristics or key features of GTD,
apart from the 2–minute rule, that you use
everyday? And that you think are always
there?
MH: I think, and I have written about this
before, it’s really important to use a to–
do list manager as your command cen-
ter. So to begin and end the day with
what it is you are setting out to accom-
plish. One of the things that I love about
Nozbe is that it is so seamless in my
work flow now. And, as I have told you,
I’ve converted from another Mac pro-
gram primarily because it wasn’t in
a cloud. The thing I like about Nozbe is
that wherever I am, if I have any kind of
a device with me... whether it is an
iPhone or an iPad or my Macbook Air,
I’ve got my to–do list. And this is how
I really have to work. I cannot be away
from my desktop and leave my to–do
list behind. So I think that’s is the big se-
cret. People have to find the right soft-
ware and something that is going to fol-
low them around everywhere, and that
is what is so great about the software
you’ve created, is that it does just that.
MS: Publishing. You are a big publisher and
you have published books about security in
the past. Now you have a new book in the
pipeline. How is it coming along?
MH: Yes. I’m actually working on a book
about leadership right now, which has
really become the focus of my blog over
time. I do lead a team here at Thomas
Nelson of about 500 people, and I have
the opportunity everyday to make mis-
takes and to have a few occasional suc-
cesses along the way. So I try to share
what I’m learning with people, but I’m
doing a book on leadership. It’s tenta-
tively titled “Shift”, because I think es-
sentially that is what the leader’s job is
– to shift people, people’s ideas, peo-
ple’s perceptions, it’s all about change
management. And so that’s a project I’m
working on, but I probably have about
10% of the book left to write. It’s always
the last 10% that is the hardest
though.
MS: We’ll keep our fingers crossed then! Now,
changing the subject to your personal life –
How do you combine your personal life with
your busy, busy business life? You have 5
daughters, you have a wife and I know from
your blog that they are very important to you.
So how do you make these things connect?
 magazine

MH: Well they are important. I think it is

very difficult for people to create some
kind of work–life balance, but it is en-
tirely necessary, because if you give all
of your time to your work your family
eventually blows up and it has negative
impact on your work. If on the other
hand, you give all your time to your fam-
ily you don’t work. That’s not so good
for your carrier either and eventually im-
pacts your family life. So somehow we
have to maintain these things in balance.
And I try to give a lot of latitude to my
employees but I try to give hard bound-
aries to myself.
I didn’t often do this well, but for years
now I’ve made a rule where I finish my
work day at 6 o’clock in the evening and
I leave. I leave cause I want to have
a dinner with my family, and I want to
spend the evening with my family. Now
I may get back on the computer later on
in the evening but I always make that
time for them, and then on the week-
ends as well.
You just have to have a sustainable
lifestyle. And it is not sustainable to be
working 120 hours a week, every week
and not give time to your own personal
health, which is very important. I think
your own personal intellectual state, you
know, feeding yourself intellectually and
spiritually and emotionally and then giv-
ing yourself to your family; I think all of
this is necessary in order to have sus-
tainability in all these different aspects
of our lives.
MS: And health. You have mentioned health.
You are a runner and you love running, so
how important was running and fitness to
this as well?
MH: Well it hasn’t always been impor-
tant to me. I think that when I was young
I tell people I have
basically failed my way
forward, but I think
the willingness
to continue to learn
helped me succeed.
I was under the mistaken notion that
I would live forever. You kind of feel im-
mortal. And then I started experiencing
some chest pains in my late forties. As
it turned out it was an indigestion issue
and I got some medication for it. But it
scared me to death and I said “I’ve got
to start taking care of myself – I can’t
take my health for granted” and in fact,
I came to a realization, Michael, that the

! Links: Michael’s e-Books: Writing a Winning Book Proposal (Fiction and Non-Fiction)



decisions I was making today were go-
ing to impact my quality of life later... to-
morrow... maybe years from now.
So I started running. Actually, I start-
ed walking. And as I began to walk
I thought, “maybe I could start jogging
a little bit” and I started reading some
books on running, which really motivat-
ed me... and then I got this crazy notion
that I was going to run a half–marathon
and I made the mistake (which actually
turned out to be a good thing) of an-
nouncing on my blog that I was going
to run the half–marathon and invited
people to run with me. Then I was pinned
into a corner, so to speak; I couldn’t back
out. So I had to run it. I have now done
it for years and currently close to 160 of
my employees run with me, because we
have made being healthy a focus
throughout our whole company.
When I announced on my blog that I was going er list. Hyatt serves as Chairman of the Evan-
to run the half–marathon and invited people to run
with me – I was pinned into a corner, so to speak, ty eight years. They have five daughters and
I couldn’t back out.

magazine
You can’t take
health for granted
– the decisions
you’re making today
are gonna impact
your quality of life
later... tomorrow...
maybe years
from now.
MS: Wow, that’s impressive! with Nike+ system on my iPod and the whole
MH: You know I think there is a direct package is so appealing to me that I just need
correlation between health and produc- to run.
tivity. People that are healthy are more MH: I’m the same way. It’s sad really,
productive, because they have more but it’s true :-)
mental focus, they have more energy,
they have more stamina, they just get MS: OK, Mike. Thank you very much for this
things done more quickly and more pro- great interview. It was great having you.
ductively. So I do think there is a corre- I’m sure our readers will be happy to stop
lation between these two. by your blog and follow you on Twitter.
The secret to running, like so many oth- Thanks Mike! a
er things, is to take that first step. My old-
est daughter says to me “I don’t really try
to focus on running. I just really want to ! Michael Hyatt
get my running shoes on. If I do that ev-
erything else takes care of itself”. So just Michael Hyatt is the
a little baby–step “get my shoes on, ev- President and CEO of
erything else takes care of itself”. Thomas Nelson, the
largest Christian pub-
MS: I think the gadgets help. I’ve bought my- lishing company in the
self new Nike sneakers, a new outfit and I run world and the seventh
largest trade book publishing company in the
U.S. Michael has written four books, one of
which landed on the New York Times bestsell-
gelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA).
He has been married to his wife, Gail, for twen-
two grand daughters and live outside of Nash-
ville, Tennessee.
! Links: Michael on Twitter | Michael’s Blog: “Intentional Leadership”
Productive! Magazine – like Wired Magazine
now also available as a native iPad app!

...just like your favorite

Productivity Application

Nozbe web app syncs with native iPad and iPhone apps... and Evernote!
 magazine
Being Present
“There is a very important point in life that we ought to
maximize – it is this moment. This moment is now gone”.
That’s what Frank Stewart told me when I asked him als, burials, and memorials. This means
for advice on time management. He should know a few
things about maximizing the moment. After all he grew his
company, Stewart Enterprises, from a family business with
fifteen people in the suburbs of New Orleans to a publicly
traded business with more than six thousand employees,
and subsidiaries as far away as New Zealand.
10
©iStockphoto.com/mattjeacock
By Pat Brans
F
rank went on to explain. “The busi-
ness I’m in is quite unusual. I’m in
the death care profession, where
we sell products and services for funer-
I’m in a business in which there is no
way you can ignore the fact that time
does run out. I see it all around me. Ev-
ery one of us will die one day. This is
without question”.
“There are so many things I want to
do”, he said. “I easily fill the day. There
just isn’t enough time to do it all. It’s
because I have so much to do – and
 magazine

Always focus on details, but there is also the emotional

or relationship–building element of all
self emotionally after turning things
down, you can free your mind of some
the task at hand. human exchanges. If people don’t feel
you’re listening to them, you may lose
of this clutter.
Finally, it’s hard to be present when
If you’re with their interest and thereby miss out on you are constantly interrupted. Some-
a potentially valuable relationship. times this is beyond your control, but
somebody Frank said, “When you’re dealing with often it’s not. Make it a habit to block
people, you can’t think of time manage- off time for focused effort. If you can
on the phone, ment in the same way. Give them your get used to thinking about just one thing

do only that. full attention and don’t look at your

because of my profession – that I am
acutely aware of the limited nature of
time. I think about time management
constantly”.
“A key element of time management
is being present”, Frank says. “Always
focus on the task at hand. If you’re with
somebody on the phone, do only that.
Be there in the conversation. If you’re
in a meeting, be present. If you’re do-
ing a task by yourself, focus on that.
If you’re going to sleep, sleep soundly.
Don’t think about all the things you did
during the day, or about what you are
going to do tomorrow. Don’t try to solve
problems. Sleep”.
“It takes some discipline and self con-
fidence to focus just on the task at
hand”, Frank told me. “You have to
reach a point where you know you can
face challenges as they come, so you
don’t have to think about them all at
once”.
When you’re dealing with other peo-
ple, being present is even more impor-
tant. Not only is there an exchange of
information with people that requires
your attention to catch all the important
If people don’t feel you’re listening to them, two books, visiting professor at the Grenoble
watch”.
for an hour or so ever day, you’ll devel-
op your ability to concentrate, and this
What prevents us from being present? new capacity will serve you at other
Most people have dozens of goals at times. a
any given time. Sometimes we think we
have to keep those in mind or we’ll for-
get them. One way to overcome this is
to make it a habit to write down your It’s hard to be
goals and consult your list at regular in-
tervals.
present when
While it’s important to keep your goal you are constantly
in mind, if you start thinking more about
the end state and less about what you interrupted.
need to do to get there, you’re sure to
spin your wheels. Frank advises, “don’t Sometimes this is
celebrate success too early. The same
goes for lamenting failure: don’t sit
beyond your control,
around imagining you’ll fail in the end. but often it’s not.
You should keep your eye on the goal,
but spend most of your time thinking
about what you need to do now in or-
der to get to where you want to be”. ! Pat Brans
Another thing that prevents us from
focusing on the task at hand is we Pat Brans is founder of
sometimes waste mental energy ago- Master The Moment,
nizing over something we didn’t do. This a new approach to
could be something we didn’t finish in time management and
the way we wanted or it could be some- personal effectiveness.
thing we chose not to do. By learning Most of Brans’ corpo-
to make clean stopping points on a giv- rate experience focused on applying technolo-
en activity and learning to detach your- gy to enhance workforce effectiveness. Now he
takes productivity to another level by unveiling
the secrets of high achievers. Brans is author of

you may lose their interest and thereby Graduate School of Business and he consults
and provides enterprise training on time man-
miss out on a potentially valuable relationship. agement and productivity.

! Links: Pat Brans Web site: “Master the Moment” | Pat’s Books: “Master the Moment: Fifty CEO’s Teach You the Secrets of Time Management”

11
 magazine

©iStockphoto.com/Smithore
Three Ways Your Breathing
Can Help Your Productivity
While we’re working, we often get so absorbed in our projects that we forget about
our breathing. When this happens, particularly when we’re under stress, we can lapse
into restricted breathing – inhaling in short gasps, or shallowly into the upper chest.

12

By Chris Edgar
W
hat we don’t often realize is that
how we breathe can deeply af-
fect our efficiency and enjoy-
ment in what we do. In this post, I’ll of-
fer three breathing techniques to help
you stay focused and peaceful as you
work.
1. Breathe Through The Urge
Productivity writers often tell us to re-
sist the urge to put off our work, but
they usually don’t offer much practical
advice on how to do that. In my expe-
rience working with people on produc-
tivity issues, we often procrastinate
when an uncomfortable thought or sen-
sation – anxiety or anger, for instance
– comes up as we’re working, and we’d
rather not experience it. We need,
I think, some way to stay centered, even
when faced with those intense thoughts
and feelings.
Hold your attention that, whenever we focus our attention
on what you’re doing,
and take full breaths
until the difficult
sensation passes away.
I’ve found that the best approach in
these moments is to breathe deeply. In-
stead of turning away from your task to
play FreeCell or instant message with
friends, hold your attention on what
you’re doing, and take full breaths un-
til the difficult sensation passes away.
If you start feeling anxious as you’re
magazine
working, for instance, breathe slowly
and deeply until the anxiety dissi-
pates.
When we keep breathing in the face
of discomfort, often the difficult sen-
sations we’re feeling seem more man-
ageable and less threatening. As Dr.
Miriam Adahan puts it in Living With
Difficult People, Including Yourself,
“when you keep breathing calmly or
moving purposefully, your muscles will
teach your brain that there is no real
danger”.
2. Focus On Your Breathing
Zen meditators often concentrate on
their breathing to stay alert, and keep
their minds from drifting into memories
or concerns about the future. What I’ve
found is that this technique isn’t just
useful for meditation – it also works
great whenever we find ourselves get-
ting distracted at work. We can focus
on our breathing to bring our attention
back to this moment, and to what we’re
doing.
Many meditation teachers explain
why this technique works by observing
on what’s happening in our bodies, our
awareness naturally settles into the
present. If I ask you to pay attention to
your breathing, you probably won’t start
daydreaming about the way you used
to breathe five years ago – you’ll focus
on the act and experience of breathing
right now.
When your attention returns to the
present, the memories and worries that
may have been bothering you fade into
the background.
3. Notice How You
Restrict Your Breathing
If you’re feeling tense or uncomfortable
as you’re working, take a moment and
! Links: Christopher on Twitter | Christopher’s Web Site
“Inner Productivity: a Mindful Path to Efficiency and Enjoyment in Your Work”
We can focus on our
breathing to bring our
attention back to this
moment, and to what
we’re doing.
notice how you’re breathing. Are you
breathing shallowly and rapidly, into
your throat or chest? Are you making
breathing difficult by clenching any
muscles? Some people I know check
in with their bodies periodically as
they’re working, and discover they’re
hardly breathing at all.
When we aren’t allowing ourselves
enough air, it’s no surprise that working
feels painful and worrisome. If you no-
tice that you’re breathing in a shallow
or restricted way, see if you can slow
and deepen your breaths, and let go of
any tension that’s cutting off the natu-
ral flow of your respiration. Working be-
comes easier and more fulfilling, I think
you’ll find, when you breathe fully as
you do it. a
! Christopher Edgar
Chris Edgar helps peo-
ple find focus, motiva-
tion and peace in their
work through his writ-
ing, speaking and
workshops. He is the
author of “Inner Productivity: a Mindful Path to
Efficiency and Enjoyment in Your Work”, which
“Getting Things Done” author David Allen calls
“a great read and a useful guidebook for turn-
ing the daily grind into something much more
interesting and engaging”.
13
 magazine

The Little Book

of Procrastination Remedies
Procrastination is one of those topics that, it seems, I can’t write enough about.
There isn’t a person among us who doesn’t procrastinate, and that’s a fact of life.
It’s deep within us. We think we’re going to do something later, or read that classic
novel later, or learn French later. But we always overestimate how much we can
do later, and we overestimate the ability of our later selves to beat procrastination.
By Leo Babauta ten afraid of the unknown, which has worse than we expected, but that doesn’t
more power because we don’t examine stop us from thinking the future will be
this fear – it just lurks in the back of our different yet again. For the same reason,
minds. Dreading or fearing something we think it’s OK to procrastinate, be-

I
f our current self can’t beat procras-
tination, why will our future self do it?
I thought I should cover some of the
best procrastination–beating strategies,
in light of my recent book, ‘focus’ Peo-
ple seem to want ways to beat procras-
tination, so they can actually get down
to focusing. Here’s a quick guide.
Why We Procrastinate
Let’s take a quick look at what makes us
procrastinate. There are several reasons,
which are related in various ways:
1. We want instant gratification. Resting
on the couch is thought of as nicer, right
now, than going on a run. Reading blogs
is easier, right now, than reading a clas-
sic novel. Checking email or Facebook
is easier, now, than doing that project
you’ve been putting off. Eating choco-
late cake is tastier, right now, than eat-
ing veggies.
2. We fear/dread something. We might not
write that chapter in our book because
there are problems with the writing that
we haven’t figured out (often because
we haven’t thought it through). Or we
might be afraid we’re going to fail, or
look ignorant or stupid. We’re most of-
makes us want to put it off, to postpone
even thinking about it, and to do some-
thing easy and safe instead.
3. It’s easy – no negative consequences
right now. When we were in school and
had a teacher looking over our shoul-
ders and scolding us if we didn’t do our
work, we tended to do the work (until
some of us learned that we could tune
out the scolding, that is). But when we
got home, sometimes no one would be
looking over our shoulders… so there
wasn’t any immediate negative conse-
quence to watching TV or playing games
instead. Sure, we’d get a bad grade to-
morrow, but that’s not right now. The
same is true of using the Internet or do-
ing other kinds of procrastination tasks
– we’ll pay for it later, but right now, no
one is getting mad at us.
4. We overestimate our future self. We of-
ten have a long list of things we plan to
do, because we think we can do a lot in
the future. The reality is usually a little
We’re most often afraid of the unknown, which has
more power because we don’t examine this fear.
cause we’re going to do it later, for sure.
Our future self will be incredibly produc-
tive and focused! Except, our future self
is also lazy, and doesn’t do it either.
Damn future self.
Four Powerful Solutions
Now that we know the problems, the so-
lutions aren’t that hard to figure out. Just
don’t put them off, OK?
1. Stop and think. When we allow the
above thoughts to go on without really
being conscious of them, we procrasti-
nate. When we actually pause and think
about those thoughts, we can rational-
ly see that they’re wrong. Instant grati-
fication in the form of goofing off or eat-
ing junk food can lead to problems later.
Fears are overblown and shouldn’t stand
in our way. Not having negative conse-
quences now doesn’t mean there won’t
be consequences later. Our future self
isn’t as bad–ass as we like to think. So
think about what you’re doing, and start

14
 magazine

to do the more rational thing. Use the
strategies below as well, but thinking is
the start.
2. Enjoy the process. When we dread
something, we put it off – but instead,
if we can learn to enjoy it, it won’t be
as hard or dreadful. Put yourself in the
moment, and enjoy every action. For
example, if you want to go out to run,
don’t think about the hard run ahead,
but about putting on your shoes – en-
joy the simplicity of that action. Then
focus on getting out the door – that’s
not hard. Then focus on warming up
with a fast walk or light jog – that can
be nice and enjoyable. Then feel your
legs warm up as you start running a lit-
tle faster, and enjoy the beautiful out-
doors. This process can be done with
anything, from washing dishes to read-
ing to writing. Enjoy yourself in the mo-
ment, without thinking of future things
you dread, and the activity can be very
pleasant and even fun. And if it is, you
won’t put it off.
3. Set up accountability. If no one is look-
ing over our shoulder, we tend to let our-
selves slack off. So set up a procrasti-
nation–proof environment – find people
to hold you accountable. I joined an on-
line fitness challenge this month, for ex-
ample, so that I’d report my workouts to
the forum. I’ve done the same thing for
Not having negative
consequences my procrastination is lower than ever.
now doesn’t mean ing to procrastinate, do other produc-
there won’t be
consequences later.
running, quitting smoking, writing a nov-
el. You can even just use your friends
and family on Facebook or email.
4. Block your future self. Your future self is
just as likely to put things off. So block
that sucker. Use a program like Freedom
to block your Internet access for a prede-
termined amount of time, so your future
self has to actually focus instead of read-
ing blogs. Turn off your cable TV, get rid
of the junk food in your house, cut up your
credit cards... do whatever it takes to make
it really hard for your future self to procras-
tinate or give in to temptation, or at least
force your future self to pause and think
before he does anything dumb.
A Different Mindset
Three other things that must be said
about procrastination:
1. Do what excites you. If you do what
you’re excited about most of the time,
you’ll be less likely to put it off. Focus on
©iStockphoto.com/PeskyMonkey
why it excites you, rather than the dread-
ed aspects of the activity. I do this and
2. Productively procrastinate. If you’re go-
tive things instead. So if you don’t want
to do your project, at least get some
smaller tasks done. Read more.
3. Sometimes, procrastination is OK. I’m
not anti–procrastination, at all. This guide
is for those who want to beat it, but in
my book, lazing around can be a beau-
tiful thing. Reading stuff on the Internet
that I’m interested in isn’t a bad thing.
Sometimes, give in to procrastination.
But other times, you might want to get
off that lazy butt and actually accom-
plish something. a
! Leo Babauta
Leo Babauta lives in
San Francisco and is
married with six kids.
He’s a writer and
a runner and a vege-
tarian and he loves
writing Zen Habits – his blog that, in a couple
of years, became one of the top blogs on the
Internet with 100K+ readers subscribed and
counting. He’s a published author of a bestsell-
ing book „Power of Less”.

! Links: Leo on Twitter | Leo’s Blog: “Zen Habits” | Leo’s Blog: “Minimalist”
“The Power of Less: The 6 Essential Productivity Principles That Will Change Your Life”

15
 magazine

A New Policy By Michael Sliwinski

for 2011 is better What are policies?

Habits defined and agreed upon
Big corporations have these policies on

than a Resolution
dealing with this and that... so we de-
cided to copy that and to make sure we
don’t gain too many unnecessary “ma-
terialistic fat” this year we decided to in-
troduce some new policies in our home
to ensure both my wife and I know how
I don’t like corporate talk and corporate world. to deal with certain things.
Just a few short examples of our “box
I prefer small–business world. But I do like mocking and packaging policy”:
the way corporations work in my daily life. In our struggle ! We don’t keep CD, DVD or BluRay disc
packages
to a “Zen” and “Minimalist” life my wife and I decided to ! When we buy a DVD or BluRay disc,

introduce to our family life something normally practiced we put the disc in the 100–disc box
near our TV set and throw away the
in the big corporations: policies. packaging. Always.

©iStockphoto.com/dmbaker

16

! When we buy a CD we immediately
rip it using iTunes to put the music to
our iPhones and iPods, throw away
the packaging and put the CD in the
big 100–disc box.
! New policy for 2011: We don’t buy
DVDs. BluRay players got cheaper and
we got a player for our bedroom and
have Playstation 3 in the living room.
No need for DVDs anymore. The HD
quality is a lot better.
! New policy for 2011: We only buy Blu-
Rays we want to watch more than
once. Otherwise we rent movies. We’ve
had too many one–time movies in our
collection. Waste of money.
We don’t keep the original packaging
of stuff we buy past 7 days:
! When we buy stuff (and we try to buy
less of it this year) we keep the origi-
nal packaging only a week. This pol-
icy makes us use the stuff we buy and
try it out and make sure it works. If it
doesn’t we return it to store in origi-
nal packaging. If it does work, we keep
it and throw away the packaging.
The cool thing about
policies is that they are
more than guidelines –
they are the law.
! Although manufacturers claim they
won’t respect warranty without origi-
nal packaging, it’s against the law and
it’s really not true. So why keep the
boxes?
Policies are non–negotiable
The cool thing about policies is that they
are more than guidelines – they are the
law. At least in our house. So if I’m
magazine
Instead of thinking about resolutions,
introduce some good policies for 2011
and make sure they align with your goals.
tempted to keep a BluRay box of a mov-
ie I like, my wife asks me: “Michael,
what’s our policy on the boxes?” and
the box goes away. The same applies
to the boxes of the IT–gear I buy. The
geek in me wants to keep these new
shiny packages of the latest Apple gear
but my wife firmly reminds me of our
policy on the boxes... and of the fact
that I was the one to actually suggest it
in the first place.
Policies could be a cool way
of introducing habits
The problem with habits is that it takes
a lot of time to set a habit in motion.
It takes days, weeks or even months.
When you set up a policy and it’s your
governing law, you don’t need that time.
The policy is there and it keeps you from
going sideways... and if you set it up
with your loved one, they help you keep
them in power and refrain you from go-
ing “against the law” :-)
Policies help you set up automatic
rules for stuff that doesn’t matter
Thanks to our new policies I’m not think-
ing about a lot of stuff I’d normally be
tempted to think and analyze. I know what
the policy is so I act accordingly. I build
a habit with a policy and focus on the larg-
er goal I have in front of me. The policy
thinks for me. It is the law after all :-)
Policies are better than
New Year’s resolutions
Resolutions are... wishful thinking with
a new name. You don’t measure them,
you don’t track them, you just say them
! Links: Michael on Twitter | Productive! Magazine | Productive! Show
Nozbe – Simply Get It Done! | Michael Sliwinski’s Blog: “Internet Business Productivity”
to yourself and hope for the best. So in-
stead of thinking about resolutions, in-
troduce some good policies for 2011 and
make sure they align with your goals.
The policies will help you not to think
about small stuff and focus on your goals
this year and maybe you’ll even get a lit-
tle more done than last year. Who
knows?
Bonus – some other useful policies for
2011 I just introduced at my home–office:
! No checking of email or social net-
works before 11 am – to make sure
I don’t start the day in “reaction mode”
replying to email from other folks... but
I get something useful done before I’m
open to communication.
! Twitter client for Mac or Facebook
page only open when I intend to use
it. After being used, quit.
! 6 pm ends my work day. At the latest.
Then I spend time with my family no
matter what.
What are your policies for 2011?
! Michael Sliwinski
Michael Sliwinski is
your chief editor of the
Productive! Magazine
and a host of the new
Productive! Show. Ev-
ery day he’s trying to
help people get more done with his web appli-
cation Nozbe – now also available as a native
iPhone or iPad app.
17
 magazine

Laws Over the years people

have noticed situations

and other
happening repeatedly.
These observations
have become “Laws”.

Observations Some of these laws

are tongue in cheek;
some of them are quite
serious. Here are three:
Murphy’s Law, Occam’s
Razor and Newton’s law.

By Howard Flomberg

Murphy’s Law
This is the one we all know. If anything
can go wrong, it will. One of the most
popular corollaries is “and at the worst
possible time”. Murphy reportedly was
Air Force Captain Edward A. Murphy.
Murphy was an engineer and he deduced
the law while working on a project. There
are, obviously, many other versions of the
law’s origin. My favorite is a legend on
Captain Murphy’s demise:
One dark evening (in the U.S.), Mur-
phy’s car ran out of gas. As he hitch-
hiked to a gas station, while facing traf-
fic and wearing white, he was struck
from behind by a British tourist who was
driving on the wrong side of the road.
Here you have Murphy’s Law in a nut-
shell.
When I was a technician in the Air
Force, it was universally agreed that Mur-
phy was an optimist.
©iStockphoto.com/alexsl

18

Occam’s Razor
I first came across Occam’s razor while
watching the TV show CSI. Simply stat-
ed: “the simplest explanation is more
likely the correct one” a more accurate,
and needlessly complex, definition might
be: select the competing hypothesis that
makes the fewest new assumptions
when the hypotheses be equal in other
respects.
Occam was William of Ockham
(c. 1288 – c. 1348) was an English Fran-
ciscan friar and philosopher. It is be-
lieved that he was born in Ockham,
a small village in Surrey. He is consid-
ered to be one of the major figures of
medieval thought and was at the cen-
ter of the major intellectual and political
controversies of the fourteenth centu-
ry. Occam’s razor is frequently used to
“shave away” superstitious explanations
for events.
When I was a technician
in the Air Force, it was
universally agreed that
Murphy was an optimist.
In ‘A Brief History of Time’, Stephen
Hawkins wrote:
“We could still imagine that there is
a set of laws that determines events
completely for some supernatural being,
who could observe the present state of
the universe without disturbing it. How-
ever, such models of the universe are
not of much interest to us mortals. It
seems better to employ the principle
known as Occam’s razor and cut out all
the features of the theory that cannot be
observed”.
magazine
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction,
to which I add: and an additional reaction
that is totally unexpected.
I found an elegant example of Occam’s
razor on the web:
A real life example of Occam’s Razor
in practice goes as follows: Crop circles
began to be reported in the 1970s. Two
interpretations were made of the circles
of matted grass. One was that flying sau-
cers made the imprints. The other was
that someone (human) had used some
sort of instruments to push down the
grass. Occam’s Razor would say that giv-
en the lack of evidence for flying sau-
cers and the complexity involved in get-
ting UFOs from distant galaxies to arrive
on earth (unseen and traveling faster than
the speed of light I suppose) the second
interpretation is simplest. The second
explanation could be wrong, but until
further facts present themselves it re-
mains the preferable theory. As it turns
out, Occam’s Razor was right as two
people admitted to making the original
crop figures in the 1990s (and the rest
have apparently been created by copy–
cats). Despite this fact, some people still
ignore Occam’s Razor and instead con-
tinue to believe that crop circles are be-
ing created by flying saucers.
In practice, this might be called the
familiar KISS principle: Keep it Simple,
Stupid.
This law hit me like the proverbial ton
of bricks. It is so obvious and elegant, yet
it had never occurred to me. It’s sort of
an extension of one of Newton’s laws:
Every action has an equal and opposite
reaction, to which I add: and an addition-
al reaction that is totally unexpected. One
might say that this is an addendum to Oc-
cam’s razor, or perhaps the punishment
for ignoring Occam?
Prohibition is an excellent example of
this law. In 1917 the eighteenth amend-
ment was added to the Constitution. This
amendment outlawed the sale, manu-
facture and transportation of alcoholic
products in the United States. It was
generally accepted that this law was ef-
fective. There were many indications that
society had weaned itself off of “demon
rum”. However, as anyone who has
heard the name Elliot Ness can tell you,
there was an unanticipated conse-
quence. Many people still wanted an oc-
casional drink. As nature abhors a vac-
uum, an enterprising subset of society
sprang into action to satisfy this crav-
ing. Of course there was an untended
consequence to this action – the peo-
ple who came to the rescue of the thirsty
were some of the most dangerous crim-
inals that we had ever seen.
Might I say that these three laws
are totally interrelated?
! Howard Flomberg
Howard is a Retired
Systems Analyst, Ad-
junct Professor and
Author. He lives in
Denver, Colorado.
! Links: Howard on Twitter
19
 magazine

Productive! Show Videos

Clutter–free Home Office,
Smartphones and Skiing
As in every issue By Michael Sliwinski

of the magazine
there’s some short My Clutter–free
Home Office Optimized
video time for you for Getting Things Done
(Episode #30)
to enjoy. Here are I recently built my new home office
the recent three from scratch (we moved again) and
I’ve tried to optimize it for produc-
Productive! Show tivity. I hope it inspires you to opti-
videos (each of mize your workplace too.

around 2 minutes).
I hope the tips and
Smartphone vs Laptop
tricks I’m sharing on Weekend Trips
will serve as an (Episode #28)
I’m always taking my laptop with
inspiration to you me on every trip I go... even short
and will make you weekend trips... after all it’s a light
laptop and “you never know” when
more productive too. you need it. After my recent week-
end trip to London (England) I real-
ized I have all the necessary tools
in my iPhone... and it’s a lot small-
er to carry.

Reading Audiobooks
while Skiing (Episode #21)
You can be productive and “read”
stuff even when you’re doing sports!
Here’s my way of “reading” books
while skiing.

! Links: Hope you enjoyed these short productivity videos. Click here to browse all episode archive.

20

Affirmative Inaction
I’m a Yes Man. Not like the ones who fix the world or the kind
that played alongside the eventually famous Rhys Darby to make as many – if any. That means
in the feature film ‘The Yes Man’. I’m not beholden to anyone
to say yes. I just like to.
By Mike Vardy
I
f you’re going to enhance your Even-
tualism skills in the year ahead, you
need to say yes a lot more as well.
Saying yes is always
a positive answer
With a new year in front of you, there’s
a lot of encouragement to have a posi-
tive outlook. This one word will give you
that outlook right away. The word can be
positive in terms of providing a favour-
able response – at first. Eventually the
magazine
word will be attached to so many things
that it will become positively negative. And
that’s a positive thing for you and your
quest to improve as an Eventualist.
You see, you’ll say yes to so much that
you can’t possibly please everyone.
Eventually, all of your
agreements will mean
little, which means you
won’t be required to
make as many – if any.
! Links: Mike on Twitter | Mike’s Blog: “Eventualism”
©iStockphoto.com/pertusinas
You’ll have to pick and choose. You’ll
have so much on your plate that it will
be impossible to fulfill everything. Even-
tually, all of your agreements will mean
little, which means you won’t be required
less responsibility. That means less
work.
Less is more… more or less.
By taking affirmative action at first on
an ongoing basis, you will soon find
yourself being able to have affirmative
inaction. The eventual results of that can
only be positive.
I’m positive about that, yes.
Yes, I sure am. a
! Mike Vardy
Eventually self–pro-
fessed productivity ex-
pert, founder of the
new productivity ide-
ology: Eventualism.
21
Want to write a book?
Learn Michael Hyatt’s insider secrets
of writing a book proposal that works: