The average person is exposed to over 34GB of information and around 100,000 words per 24-hour period. The typical breakdown can be found in the graph below:
This amount of information is impossible to deal with without the help of proper tools, workflow, and discipline. Even the most productivity people in the world are no match for the amount of information we are exposed to in a typical day. No workflow or tools I or anyone can teach you will solve this problem. That does not mean you can't make it a lot more manageable, retain, and have access to far more information than the average person.
There is a great saying from Edgar Dale that I like to use when talking to people about productivity. As a parent, this comes in handy with my son as well.
10% of what we read
20% of what we hear
30% of what we see
50% of what we see and hear
70% of what we discuss with others
80% of what we personally experience
95% of what we teach others
-Edgar Dale
It was my computer science teacher that first taught me this. I always had a way with technology. In high school, I already had a computer company building computers for friends and family. This was back when you could make $200-$500+ selling a computer, unlike today where it is like $5-$10. My computer science teacher caught on to this really quickly and told me my grade would be determined not by taking the class, but by going around helping other students in class and fixing equipment around the school. This is when I first experienced first hand the difference in retention levels.
I want to start a series talking about tools I use on a daily basis to streamline my day across my desktop, laptop, iPad and most importantly my iPhone. If this is something you are interested, leave a comment. You don't have to upvote if you don't want to, but I would like to see if there is an interest as I would like to go in depth on how I use these tools and what problems they solve. Most of these tools are cross platform and allow me to work from my iPhone almost as efficiently (and sometimes more) as my desktop.
I want to make this an interactive series if you have questions about any of the services, speak up in the comments and let me know. If there isn't a lot of demand, I'll just continue posting about Game of Thrones, Cryptocurrency, security, machine learning, and whatever I find interesting at the time. Likely a lot of West World when it comes back on.
If you wonder why you should care what I have to say, I have been using a lot of these tools for years many since the day they came out. I have read and practiced techniques and methodology from many of the great productivity gurus like David Allen, Brian Tracy, Tim Ferris, and Stephen Covey. I've used to maintain a popular productivity blog and community, and it has always been a passion of mine.
I will guarantee throughout the series you will learn something that will save you time every day and streamline your day to day activities.
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