I believe I've seen this article posted before, possibly on HN. In any case, I re-read it today and all the lessons in it are applicable to me - yet again. Though I've made improvements in many areas, I have also fallen deeper into some of these pitfalls.

I was once obsessed with productivity, and for me it came down to an attitude of 'just do it'. This was filtered out into various micro-level attitudes and behaviours, many of which are discussed in this article... However, I now realize that going back to University sapped me of all this yet again: I was in the world where smart guys reign supreme. This is the reason why the smart guy pitfalls exist at all: there are artificial worlds where we can somehow glide by just by being smart.

The real world is real, and it takes real work to stay on top of your shit.

Some things I used to do that I will start doing much more again:

  - Write everything down
  - Make todo lists
  - Try to actually measure productivity (http://www.rescuetime.com)
  - Be realistic and conservative with estimates of how long things can take.
    --Not really knowing how long something will take should be scary.
    --Do a quantifiable percent of a task, time it, extrapolate.
  - Stop borrowing time (and money).