While reading the book by David Allen “Getting Things Done - the Art of Stress-free Productivity“, I couldn’t escape many “a-ha” moments when I realized what David is saying is just pure common sense and most of it I already knew but never cared to put into practice.

One of these “obvious discoveries” I’ve made is the “2-minute rule” which says:

“If an action will take less than two minutes, it should be done at the moment it is defined.” (David Allen)

When I realized how powerful this rule is, I started searching for 2-minute actions during my busy day and found out that there are really many of them! When you know something takes less than two minutes - you just don’t have any excuse for not doing it.

While reading many articles by the productivity bloggers, I jotted down my favorite tips and “hacks” to keep them in mind for the future and maybe later share them with my Nozbe community. Then I realized these small pieces of advice can be presented in a form of a video series.

This is how the idea of the “2-minute Productivity Show” came to life.

I just thought - if I can squeeze some great tips and tricks into a short video that would last only two minutes - my users will watch it. After all, it’s just two minutes!

To date I’ve recorded one introductory video and 5 episodes of the series. Let me briefly introduce them to you:

1 - The Famous 2-minute Rule

In this episode we’re discussing the two-minute rule by David Allen. I’m also showing you how a small two-minute timer can help you determine your two-minute actions.

2 - The INBOX and my inboxes

Here I’m sharing with viewers how many inboxes I have set up and how I’m using them to make sure I capture all the ideas and information worth processing.

3 - How to EMPTY your INBOX

Setting up the inboxes is nice, but in order for them to really work for you, they need to be emptied on a regular basis. In this video I’m showing some basic do’s and don’ts when emptying inboxes.

4 - A life outside of Email

Is Email ruling your life? Are you depending on Email and feel it’s overwhelming you with so many emails coming in? Here are my tips showing you how you can get a life outside of email.

5 - Processing to Zero

Not all the messages need to be responded to, however all the messages need to be processed. What’s the difference? Learn in this video.

Since the interest in the videos is growing, I decided to publish new video every Wednesday on the Nozbe blog. Hope you like them - I’d be happy to receive your comments and feedback.

There are people who are just good. You meet them and you become instant friends. You know you can turn to them if you need anything and they will be there for you. You can chat with them for hours and feel like you’ve known them forever. They support you and motivate you to be a better person… and even if you’ve met them only once, you know you’ll never ever forget them.

Marc Orchant (1957-2007) was like this and I still miss him, so I decided to dedicate the Productive!Magazine to him. If he hadn’t died, he would have co-founded this project with me.

Productive!Magazine is dedicated to the memory of Marc Orchant.

I’d come to know Marc by reading one of his blogs. We shared the same passions: gadgetry and computers (both had Toshiba M200 TabletPCs) and Getting Things Done methodology.

When I launched Nozbe in February 2007 he wrote a great review of my new web app on his ZDnet blog “Office Evolution” and supported me as one of the first users (ID #101).

We kept in touch and when in Summer 2007 I was invited by Ismael Ghalmi to be a panelist/speaker at the Office2.0 Conference he encouraged me to go and we met there.

We had a great time and on the last day of the conference Marc and his wife Sue, along with their friend Oliver Starr invited me and my wife for a dinner at their favorite San Francisco restaurant: “House of Nanking”.

This is a photo I took of Marc and his wife Sue when we were all waiting in line for the restaurant:

We promised to stay in touch and see each other again but he suddenly died of heart attack on 9th December the same year. Read Oliver Starr’s “In Memorium”

Marc was a great blogger, he wrote for:

• Platform Agnostic (his personal blog)
• Office Zealot - Marc’s Outlook on Productivity
• On the Run with TabletPC podcast with James Kendrick
• The TabletPC Web blog
• Office Evolution at ZDnet
• Blognation USA

You can still check out his Twitter channel

He left his lovely wife Sue and his two children: Rebecca and Jason. If you knew Marc, please consider donating to help his family (Oliver Starr handles the donations)

Editor’s Note: This is the introduction to the first issue of the Productive!Magazine. It’s subject to change and final edit before it’s published in the magazine. However as I’m live-blogging about the magazine, I decided to publish it here. Feel free to comment below.

If you’re reading this first, inaugural issue of the Productive!Magazine, chances are you’re just like me - a busy professional who just wants to have a happy, productive and meaningful life.

Being overwhelmed by the amount of stuff I had to do and the streams of information I was receiving on a daily basis, I needed a system to take control of all this. More than a system, I needed a set of practical tips that would help me take control of my life and get more done. Most of this has been delivered by the book I read - “Getting Things Done and the Art of Stress-free Productivity” by David Allen.

The book was still not enough. I needed a tool and some practical tricks and “cheats” that would really make me stay productive every single day. As I didn’t find the right tool on the market, I built one using my company’s resources and called it Nozbe - Simply Get Things Done.

When my application quickly became popular among productivity bloggers, I discovered the wealth of information provided by the GTD (Getting Things Done) blog community. I read and bookmarked many great articles with very useful tips and tricks to help me “hack” my life.

This is when I found out that even though my Nozbe tool was doing a great job at helping people stay productive and focused, my users needed more than just this tool. I began with preparing a “10-step Simply Get Things Done course” which started as a series of articles and ended up as a series of videos viewed totally more than 20,000 times on YouTube. I continued the video path with the “2-minute Productivity Show” video series and people loved it. You’ll find out more about this series at the end of this magazine.

When the idea of a downloadable PDF magazine came up, I realized this would be something many of us busy professionals have been asking for. Although I had written several articles for the GTDtimes blog to date, this time I decided to simply turn to the “social productivity wisdom” and invite the best productivity experts to contribute to the magazine and let them talk to you through their best articles and blog posts. Based on my long history of blog readership I decided to personally invite the people I’ve come to know and respect in the blogosphere and I’m really happy they accepted my invitation.

Thanks to their great contributions, in this first issue of the Productive!Magazine you’ll find 15 great articles about different approaches to getting things done (i.e. “zen to done”), happiness, tips on fighting procrastination, de-cluttering  your life and other useful “cheats” and “hacks” that will definitely help you live a productive and meaningful life.

All the included articles are real gems, but one of them deserves an extra introduction. This first issue of the Productive Magazine will feature an exclusive interview with the author of the “productivity bible”  - David Allen himself - the best-selling author of the “Getting Things Done” book will talk to Oliver Starr, the editor of the GTDtimes blog (official David Allen Company blog) about the whole phenomenon of the GTD method and his new book, “Making it all work” due to be released this December. I met David personally on one of his seminars (see photo) and we had a great chat so I’m really happy he decided to contribute to our magazine.

Without further ado, I encourage you to read the interview with David Allen and all the 15 great articles by their respective contributors. Under each article there is a short biography of each blogger and a link to their blog as well as a the online version of the article so you can add your comments and join the live discussion on their blogs.

Lastly, I’d like to dedicate this entire magazine to the living memory of Marc Orchant - a great blogger, my personal GTD guru and a close friend. At age of 50, Marc passed away after suffering a massive heart attack on 9th December 2007. I wouldn’t have achieved so much in the GTD community without his help. Thanks Marc - our prayers are with you!

Yours sincerely,
Michael Sliwinski
Editor, Productive!Magazine