A series of 5-minute posts on applying principles of flow to knowledge work In the previous post, I told the story of how Eliyahu Goldratt proposed time as a new mechanism for limiting work-in-process, using a new method he designed called Drum-Buffer-Rope (DBR). Let’s examine how DBR proposes to fix the situation we left at
A series of 5-minute posts on applying principles of flow to knowledge work In the previous post, I described how many companies’ embrace of local optima leads to overwork and burnout for employees, and reduced throughput and profitability for the bottom line. Before we look at what TOC proposes as a solution, we have to
A series of 5-minute posts on applying principles of flow to knowledge work In the previous post, I argued that many people unknowingly subscribe to a defunct management philosophy: that you can improve the performance of a company as a whole by individually improving the performance of its parts. These isolated improvements are known as
The Theory of Constraints is deceptively simple. It starts out proposing a series of “obvious” statements. Common sense really. And then before you know it, you find yourself questioning the fundamental tenets of modern business and society. Eliyahu Goldratt laid out the theory in his 1984 best-selling book The Goal. It was an unusual book
Nearly every science-fiction novel seems to agree on one thing: in the future, work will be indistinguishable from art. Such wide agreement suggests that work is far more than a means of income generation. Even in a robot servant utopia, with all our practical needs taken care of, human work will still have a purpose.
By Tiago Forte of Forte Labs We’ve been told for years now that what our parents and kindergarten teachers told us is not, in fact, true — we are not each and every one of us special unique snowflakes destined for greatness. In this essay I want to offer a new theory of productivity for those of
This is my review of Cal Newport’s new book Deep Work (affiliate link), in which he makes the case that cultivating a capacity for intense concentration is the key competitive skill in the new knowledge economy. First, this is a well-written, thoughtful book with relevant stories and practical how-to’s for cultivating focus. I’m a fan
I spend 17 minutes per day on email, or 7.43% of my total work time over the past 12 months. The average knowledge worker, in contrast, spends 28% of their time reading, writing, and responding to email — nearly 4 times as much. The key to Inbox Zero, everyone knows, is to “touch each email only once.”