If you're new here, Welcome! To learn more about what this site is all about click here [link].

I am a small business Conversation Consultant and public speaker that uses the power of the internet to leverage your success. Productivity in Context is a web magazine focused on Productivity and tools for organizing. Make this your headquarters for improving your life and work through increased mindfulness, education, and workflow practices.

Subscribe by E-mail for updates on: Productivity methods, Lifestyle innovation, and the collaborative design of the next-generation personal knowledge management system.

Click Here for an overview of the content. Please take a look at our sponsors. (Hosting isn't free...)
Please contact me via e-mail: stephen @ hdbizblog dot com

I was reminded of this today, as I was reviewing my Twitter stuff:

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
— inaccurately attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson

I believe that (no matter the source) it is a beautiful way of looking at life.

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/5advjc. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen

From Andy Sernovitz’s blog: Damn, I Wish I’d Thought of That!

These are the shortcuts I know:

* Work your ass off
* Try everything. You never know.
* Repeat what works. Stop doing what doesn’t work.
* Make lots and lots of friends. You never know who can help you someday, so help them first.
* Read everything you can get your hands on, from people who aren’t like you.

As long as I’m at it, here is the secret shortcut to losing weight:

* Eat less crap
* Exercise more

I could not agree more.

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/56tt7e. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen

AllTop has dedicated a new category to GTD, with a list of feeds from the top bloggers and writers about Getting Things Done. This blog is listed, twice actually, with one set of feeds for every post and one for just those tagged GTD.

There are a bunch of other great blogs there as well, if you don’t read them, you should. This is a partial list, reflecting my own personal bias (just so you know, I do have some favorites):

• Did I get Things Done?
• Fresh Focus…on Productivity
• GTD Times
• Rock Your Day
• Productivity 501
• The Daily Saint
• Ian’s Messy Desk

Please take a few minutes today to check these out, if you don’t already. And if you don’t subscribe, you should.

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/5ahhav. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen

Craig Harper has some insights into personal development in his new post “Seven Self-Help Pitfalls“. I recommend everyone read this:

While the benefits of working on ‘us’ are seemingly obvious, I believe there are a few challenges, pitfalls and curve balls that the would-be, self-helper needs to be mindful of in his or her search for their best self and best life.

1. Self-Help Selfishness. One of the potential dangers of constantly working on us is that we can inadvertently become self-absorbed, selfish, unaware of the needs of others and disconnected from reality. Some Personal Development devotees are so ’self-focused’ (their world, their issues, their problems, their relationships, their body, their finances) that they struggle to relate to, take an interest in, and connect with people who don’t have the same mindset, values, attitudes or thinking. Sometimes we need to put our own reality, situation, goals, needs and desires on hold for a while and simply and selflessly invest time, energy and love into others with no agenda.

I, too, am a believer in “paying it forward” over looking for what’s in it for me. This outlook has helped me grow myself and my business much more than eyeballing every angle ever did. Go read Craig’s post and leave a comment!

If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/6kopa5. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen