I recently got the fairly well-deserved nickname “the machine”. If you looked at the output on this blog, you’d be forgiven for thinking i don’t have much else to do. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you look here, you’ll see what 40% of my time is taken up with, before any of this. Like Simon and Marcel, i’m a total productivity junkie. I can’t be too efficient. I can feel it lately too – its taking me less and less time to produce results.

Every so often, a set of ideas will bubble to the surface that take you away from the box you live in and help you to think in a more lateral way.

On Lifehacker, Brian Isaac explains the productivity advice he got from Jerry Seinfield.

He said the way to be a better comic was to create better jokes and the way to create better jokes was to write every day. But his advice was better than that. He had a gem of a leverage technique he used on himself and you can use it to motivate yourself – even when you don’t feel like it. He then revealed a unique calendar system he was using pressure himself to write. Here’s how it worked.

He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. “After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain.”

“Don’t break the chain.” He said again for emphasis.

Over the years I’ve used his technique in many different areas. I’ve used it for exercise, to learn programming, to learn network administration, to build successful websites and build successful businesses. It works because it isn’t the one-shot pushes that get us where we want to go, it is the consistent daily action that builds extraordinary outcomes. You may have heard “inch by inch anything’s a cinch.” Inch by inch does work if you can move an inch every day.

Daily action builds habits. It gives you practice and will make you an expert in a short time. If you don’t break the chain, you’ll start to spot opportunities you otherwise wouldn’t. Small improvements accumulate into large improvements rapidly because daily action provides “compounding interest.”

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The 2nd brilliantly simple concept is similar to the someday/maybe list – the “not todo” list, which is, as the name suggests, the total opposite of a todo list.  “Not-to-do” lists can be just as effective—often more so—than to-do lists for upgrading performance. The reason is simple: what you don’t do determines what you can do.

Tim Ferriss from Web Worker Daily suggests nine stressful and common habits that entrepreneurs and office workers should strive to eliminate. The idea is to focus on one or two at a time, just as you would with high-priority to-do items.

1. Do not answer unrecognized phone calls
2. Do not e-mail first thing in the morning or last thing at night
3. Do not agree to meetings or calls with no clear agenda or end time
4. Do not let people ramble—forget “how’s it going?” and embrace “what’s up?”
5. Do not check e-mail constantly—“batch” and check at set times only
6. Do not over-communicate with low-profit, high-maintenance customers
7. Do not work more to fix overwhelm—prioritize
8. Do not carry a cellphone or Crackberry 24/7, seven days a week—make evenings and/or Saturdays digital leash-free.
9. Do not expect work to fill a void that non-work relationships and activities should

And as he rightly says,  “it’s hip to focus on getting things done, but it’s only possible once we remove the constant static and distraction. If you have trouble deciding what to do, just focus on not doing to re-focus. Different means, same end. Embrace the anti-Nike: Just don’t do it.”