Articles from metaphor
Making Your Work Visible with Personal Kanban
The cliché "out of sight, out of mind" is used to convey the idea that we quickly forget people, problems and things that are no longer visible. This post explores the benefits of making work and workflows visible.
The Beautiful Side of Constraints
Mental models are lenses—they help you see, discover, and understand. But like real optical lenses, sometimes they can be flipped to reveal completely opposite perspectives. The concept of constraints is a perfect example.
Songs from Home
There’s been a lot written about the challenges of working from home: staying organized, prioritizing, work-life balance, dealing with interruptions and more... This article is about something else: how our homes shape our creative lives and work.
Reviving Your Productivity System
It’s going to happen: no matter how disciplined you’ve been about maintaining your productivity system (aka “second brain”), you’re going to hit a stretch where you just can’t keep up. Don’t despair! You can bounce back and so can your second brain. Here’s my five-step action plan for reviving your productivity system.
How to Build Your Toolkit of Mental Models
Mental models help you understand complex problems and make better decisions. They can also limit you: there’s no single model that perfectly explains everything in the universe. You need a toolbox of mental models. This article introduces my Mental Models Workbook as well as some of my favorite websites and books on mental models.
Debug Your Productivity with Systems Thinking
This post introduces “systems thinking” and applies the concept to personal productivity in order to help us develop a better understand two common productivity system issues: a growing backlog of tasks and diminishing output.
Using Mental Models to Improve Your Creative Thinking
This is the first installment in a series on mental models—one of humankind’s most powerful problem solving and thinking tools—and how to use mental models to improve your creative thinking and productivity.