Productivity-Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Great post from 'a million monkeys typing.' I don't know about you, but I regularly tweak with my productivity system. I've pretty much settled down to Outlook, Onenote and a Moleskine journal (plus my Sony Clie for mobile work. But the relationship between Outlook and Onenote has huge potential that can always be massaged. Plus, in Outlook you can always change the screen fonts, filters, categories to get things just "right." The moleskine I use regularly when I'm out visiting with people in villages, or homes here in town, or drinking coffee in a café. It doesn't pay to be too highly visible as a gear hound.

I think I'm a confirmed Tinker/Spy. What about you?

a million monkeys typing » Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Posted January 4th, 2006 at 12:35pm

I’ve lately been coming to grips about why so many people (myself included) spend so much time constantly tweaking their productivity systems. This is an evolving thought, so bear with me while I let my brain leak for a bit.

While the most apparent reason, of course, is procrastination –tweaking our systems makes us feel like we’re somehow accomplishing something while simultaneously avoiding any real work– I’ve noticed that there are four chief archetypes of people that obsess about their systems (although I doubt that anyone of us is wholly one or the other). I’m calling them Tinker, Tailor, Soldier and Spy.