Jim Eagar Reading Time: 6 minutesAccording to James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, “Genes do not determine your destiny. They determine your areas of opportunity.” We all possess personality traits we were born with, natural areas of strength and weakness. These natural abilities don’t lock us into a defined future but are areas we can consciously build on. “The …
Reading Time: 3 minutesDefinition of an Ideal Week An Ideal Week is what your week would look like if you had 100% control over your time. It’s intended to be a template for how you’d want a typical week to look. It can be very complete and detailed or not. Some people have very complex and busy schedules. …
Reading Time: 4 minutesRecently, I’ve noticed that more blog writers are using AI to write their posts. It’s faster and easier to use AI than writing your own material. But there are also some significant downsides to using AI to do your writing. I Want to Read Creative People, Not Machine-Generated Predictive Text My biggest problem with AI-generated …
Reading Time: 4 minutesI typically do a daily plan each morning as a part of my morning routine. I review my calendar, task manager, and project list and answer three questions in my journaling app. What are my three main tasks today? What is my number one priority today? And what is my plan for today? Based on …
Reading Time: 7 minutesDuring the Past Three Years, I’ve Modified My System Recently, I went to a local motel and processed my quarterly review and planning session. For those of you who know David Sparks’ roles-based productivity system, as he discusses in the Productivity Field Guide, the quarterly review and planning session is a crucial part of his …
Reading Time: 4 minutesMinds are like bodies; they must be fed to grow and develop. Animals establish regular hunting trails that they use to seek the food that they need to live. People do the same thing. In my twenties and living in Colorado, I’d periodically go hunting for squirrels. I had one particular area that I would …
Reading Time: 5 minutesFor the past three years, I’ve been conducting quarterly review and planning sessions. These sessions are part of the roles-based intentional living system pioneered by David Sparks, as explained in his Productivity Field Guide. My last session was held the last week of March 2024. Over the years, I’ve made several modifications to my process. …
Reading Time: 4 minutesI started using dictation in my work about two years ago. In March 2022, I watched a deep dive in the McSparky Labs, during which David Sparks explained how he uses dictation in much of his work. When I first started using dictation, I felt very awkward. I felt self-conscious talking to a microphone or …
Reading Time: 6 minutesIn this final post in the “Working through the Productivity Field Guide” series, we will discuss the digital tools you might use to set up and maintain your roles-based productivity system. These tools can help you keep up with your roles and arete statements and streamline quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily review and planning sessions. …
Reading Time: 7 minutesMy wife and I have been reading and buying ebooks since we purchased our first iPads in 2011. It’s our preferred reading method. Recently, it’s become somewhat of a fad in productivity circles for some to advocate a return to reading print books instead of ebooks. They argue that reading print books is more “meaningful.” …