5 years ago, on the cold and grey day of December 15th, 2003, I concluded the lengthy registration process of my company “apivision.com”.

Half a year after my graduation, when most of my friends from the Management Studies went seeking great jobs with great companies to hunt for great salaries….

… I decided to start a great company myself.

I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had some clients in my portfolio already (the ones I was already doing some gigs during the studies) and some ideas for products and services online (actually I had one online service in the preparation already).

Why did I start my own company? (without any prior experience of working for someone else) I had my reasons:

• I did have some work experience, I took a series of internships during the studies, so I had a vague idea of how working in a big company can look like
• My both parents are entrepreneurs - my father is running an advertising agency and my mum had several businesses in her career and currently owns a cafe with gallery. I had great role models… and I was aware of the risks.
• “No risk no fun” - I wanted to give it a try. I knew that if I failed, I’d go and seek a job and will find one fairly quickly, I wasn’t afraid of trying and failing (I was young and bold
• Freedom - I loved the idea of working from anywhere in the world with a laptop - I wrote my thesis about virtual enterprises and teleworking and I just wanted to try it in practice. I knew the theory and wanted to see if the “real thing” matches the hype.
• I wasn’t risking all that much. Although my parents didn’t help me financially in any way with my company, they did support me with their advice and experience… and at the time I was living with them, so they wouldn’t let me starve to death if I failed.

Fast forward five years…

… and I’ve helped many businesses sell their goods and services online. I’ve created several web applications and I’ve given employment to several people… and I’m running a very successful (in my terms) web application called Nozbe.

I’m not all by myself in this endeavor. I have an assistant, developer and a handful of freelancers that work with me on a regular basis… which makes my company a true “virtual enterprise”… just as I’ve described it in my thesis.

And loving it!

I’m enjoying every moment of working for my own company. I have some really great people working with me and we’re working on really great stuff. I could easily quote Guy Kawasaki saying: “My company not only makes money, we make meaning”.

Thousands of people are using Nozbe to help them get things done… and it really works! I know, because they write to me and tell me. What started as a project to help me be more productive, ends up being a productivity solution for everyone!

I’m pursuing my dreams!

With the birth of the Productive Magazine I became a chief editor of it and it’s a lot of fun and great work. With everything my company currently does, I feel I’m developing my own personality even more. I’m learning to work with people, to motivate them, to educate customers… and I’m spending my time doing what I love.

I’m glad I made this decision 5 years ago….

… and started my company. I believe I chose a great path and I’m looking forward to what’s ahead of me. I’m eager to learn more and to accelerate my business even more… and to make more meaning.

I’m happy to announce that we’ve just released the first issue of the Productive Magazine! I’m particularly proud as this is my first attempt as the Editor-in-Chief of a Magazine.

33 Pages, 17 articles, 3 MB FREE PDF download that looks like this:

Before you download…. watch the video of me introducing you to the magazine (only 6 minutes):

To download, just click here!

What’s in the magazine:

• Interview with the David Allen himself - the best-selling author of the Getting Things Done book
• 17 great articles by the most active productivity bloggers in the blogoshpere, make sure to check these out!

Thanks to all the contributors and to everyone who helped me make this happen!

After you’ve downloaded the magazine, please do come back to this web site and post your comments to let me know what you think! Thanks!

- Michael Sliwinski (Editor)

P.S. Productive Magazine is sponsored by Nozbe - Simply Get Things Done tool that keeps you productive when you’re by the computer or with the mobile phone or the iPhone.

Today I’ve announced on the Nozbe blog that we’re currently working on the native iNozbe for the iPhone.

There are many challanges with the project:

• Getting the UI right
• Syncing the app with the Nozbe web service via the Nozbe API
• Hiring a talented iPhone developer to get it done (contact me if you want to help!)

We’re aiming at August/September launch date. I’ll keep you posted.

Yesterday we had an important launch date! Nozbe has been launched in Spanish!

Since I speak Spanish and I spent one year of my life in this country in the beautiful city of Valencia, this language version is particularly dear to me.

It’s the first language version of Nozbe and we’re planning to have more ready by the end of this year: German, Polish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese and Japanese.

Read more about this speical launch on our Nozbe blog >>

Yes! I started my own Internet show - the “2-minute Productivity Show” and here’s the introduction:

Stay tuned for the new episodes!

Today is my birthday and I decided to give you a real treat - my 10-step Simply Get Things Done course.

It was initially performed by me in January, at the 2-weekly Aula Polska meetings (30 min):

Later I decided to split the course into a bunch of short videos, adding a short screencast from Nozbe to each of them. The resulting 9 videos have been added to the course page in Nozbe:

Enjoy!

Note: This guest article for GTDtimes has been published yesterday on their blog.

Update 1: Inspired by this article and by the response to the “beta” version of Nozbe’s Family Plan, I went ahead and officially introduced the Family Plan to Nozbe

Update 2: This article made it to Evan Carmichael’s top 10 GTDtimes blog posts list at #10

“Don’t try this at home” (MTV – Music Television)

As I mentioned in my last article, being at the GTD seminar and listening to David Allen inspired me to try out different approaches to GTD.

I decided to actually try GTD at home.

I had a pleasure of talking to other fellow GTD-practitioners about their positive experiences at their homes. This short article will include tips and tricks for implementing GTD at home gathered from my friends’ homes and from my very own.

Although in my case the experiment is an ongoing work-in-progress, I’m really happy with the results. Here’s a small fraction of GTD concept you can introduce in your family to get more done and motivate (and inspire) each other and have a happier home:

Inboxes for everyone!

First step is to prepare inboxes for each and every member of the family. Put the names on each of the inbox and instruct the family members “what is the inbox and why do they need one”. Some practical tips on setting inboxes for family members:

• Don’t put all of the inboxes in the same place – put each inbox in the place the family member will most likely see and pay attention to it. Why? If the inboxes are grouped together – the items will most likely “migrate” from one inbox to the other instead of being processed and done by the family member they belong to. Family members really understand the concepts of “delegating” too well.

• Locate the inbox in a place where the family member will pay attention to it. I initially placed my wife’s inbox in the hallway of our apartment. She would repeatedly ignore it. When I relocated her inbox to a spot near her cabinet with jewelry, the results improved tenfold.

• Motivate your family members to process their inboxes. Initially assist them in processing their inboxes and from time to time remind them about the piled-up inbox that needs to be cleaned to zero. I even heard a tip by one of the fathers who would actually put occasionally a 1-dollar bill or another kind of “pleasure-item” to encourage inbox-processing among his kids. I think this kind of bribery is worth trying out.

Work on the projects together

A family is a team and there are many projects, especially home-related ones, that need to be planned and executed together with several family members. Planning a project like “cleaning up the house”, “redecorating one of the rooms” or “family Sunday dinner” can be planned with a simple to-do list for each of them. In my home one of the places for these kind of to-do lists is on the fridge.

A simple to-do list won’t be enough, though. When planning a project like this, it’s important to pay attention to these two things:

• Clearly point out each other’s responsibilities in the project and delegate the tasks to each of the family members.

• Clearly define Next Actions for each other so that everyone knows what they should do right away.

Encourage the 50,000 feet level thinking

Make sure you talk to your loved ones about the meaning of their lives. About their overall area of responsibility, their goals – both long-term and short.

Try to schedule these kinds of talks to on at least monthly basis and make sure everyone (including yourself) really knows why they are doing what they are doing. Why they participate in their projects and review their priorities and analyze the motives of their actions.

I’ve started this kind of ritual with my wife and found out one of the best moments to do it is Sunday morning, right after our breakfast, when there is no pressure to go somewhere or do something.

Apply the great 2-minute rule at home!

After my last article about the “2-minute rule”, one of my friends told me how he applied the 2-minute rule at home and gave me several examples of daily rituals that could be accomplished within this short period of time, or faster (and I never realized that!):

• Take out trash
• Clean the table after the dinner
• Put the dishes into dishwasher
• Start the dishwasher to actually clean the dishes
• Make the bed
• Turn off lights in the rooms unoccupied by other family members
• Put the shoes into the shoe-drawer
• Grab a beer from the fridge
• Etc.

I’m sure there are many more quick 2-minute tasks at home that you can add to this list. I’d encourage you to identify these quickies with your family members. Once discovered, nobody will have an excuse to procrastinate and leave these tasks off for later.

Tip: To motivate my family members and myself, I’ve actually created a list of these 2—minute “quickies” and posted it on my fridge for others to see.

Do it now – start introducing GTD in your Family.

I’m hoping I’ve encouraged you more than enough to try and start GTD in your family. Creating good habits is very important in a team such as a family that lives under one roof and wants to live in harmony, love and respect for one another.

To foster family-friendly GTD I’ve introduced a “family plan” in my Nozbe web application where you can set up an account for up to 6 family members to manage projects and next actions together and spread more GTD-goodness among your loved ones.

Please post your comments about GTD in your family and share your successes and challenges below – I’d be more than happy to discuss my experiences with you!