Whakate has sourced over 200 blogs, 40 online publications and 20 discussion groups for the regular eMonitor digests. While this effort covers the entire personal development field – the spiritual, scientific, sober and sensational – we focus our research on thoroughly studied or scientifically verified methods, systems and practices on personal effectiveness, productivity and time management.

Whakate´s Best of Web Award recognises the 30 best personal development and productivity resources the internet has to offer today. The ranking applied places equal weight on both the website’s traffic ranking (courtesy of Alexa.com) and the quality of the articles. This dynamic scoring system will hence give an idea on both the popularity of the site and the value of its content.

The Whakate Best of Web 2008 Award

The top websites in each category are as follows:

Best Online Publication 2008

Scientific American (Whakate Rank: 9 out of 10)

Best Blog 2008 (Career Effectiveness)

All Things Workplace (Whakate Rank: 8 out of 10)

Best Blog 2008 (Personal Effectiveness)

ZenHabits (Whakate Rank: 8 out of 10)

Best Blog 2008 (Personal Productivity)

Stepcase LifeHack (Whakate Rank: 8 out of 10)

Best Discussion Group 2008

Work. Life. Creativity (Whakate Rank: 8 out of 10)

Making Sense of Personal Development and Productivity

The goal of the Whakate eMonitor and the “Best Of Web Award” is to help our readers make sense of the plethora of personal development resources that exist on the web at a glance. Our calculation of the final score incorporates traffic ranking as well as article quality, and because most of our sources boast good traffic rankings, this allows the reader to immediately assess if a source is credible.

For example, scores of 8 and above will immediately inform readers that a source is both well-received and consistently provides high-quality content. A score of 6 implies that a source has occasionally interesting ideas (in rare cases, it may mean that a site has good content, but lacks readership at the moment).

For the scoring to be useful to our readers in the long term, we wanted the scoring methodology to remain relevant in the face of emerging ideas and changing trends in personal development movements, which is not an uncommon occurrence. Hence, this list will always be current and relevant for our readers.

We believe this “Best Of” list of resources to be authoritative voices in career effectiveness, personal effectiveness and personal productivity. As a result, these resources are of utmost value to Whakate’s readers, from the casual browser to personal development professionals such as life coaches, trainers or human resource professionals.

Best of Web 2008 Award Winners by Category

Online Publications

Scientific American (Whakate Rank: 9 of 10)
CNN (Whakate Rank: 9 of 10)
The Huffington Post (Whakate Rank: 9 of 10)
The New York Times (Whakate Rank: 8 of 10)
Time Magazine (Whakate Rank: 8 of 10)
Harvard Business Publishing (Whakate Rank: 8 of 10)
Office Arrow (Whakate Rank: 7 of 10)
Forbes (Whakate Rank: 6 of 10)
The Wall Street Journal (Whakate Rank: 6 of 10)

Career Effectiveness Blogs

All Things Workplace (Whakate Rank: 8 of 10)
Harvard Business Blogs (Whakate Rank: 8 of 10)
Slow Leadership (Whakate Rank: 7 of 10)
BNET Blogs (Whakate Rank: 7 of 10)
Management Issues (Whakate Rank: 6 of 10)

Personal Effectiveness Blogs

ZenHabits (Whakate Rank: 8 of 10)
Dumb Little Man (Whakate Rank: 6 of 10)
The Positivity Blog (Whakate Rank: 6 of 10)
Illuminated Mind (Whakate Rank: 6 of 10)
Alex Shalman (Whakate Rank: 6 of 10)

Personal Productivity Blogs

Stepcase Lifehack (Whakate Rank: 8 of 10)
Pick The Brain (Whakate Rank: 7 of 10)
Lifehacker (Whakate Rank: 7 of 10)
Productivity 501 (Whakate Rank: 6 of 10)
GTD Times (Whakate Rank: 6 of 10)

Discussion Groups

Work. Life. Creativity. (Whakate Rank: 8 of 10)
Steve Pavlina’s Forums (Whakate Rank: 6 of 10)
Stephen R Covey’s Forums (Whakate Rank: 6 of 10)
David Allen’s Forums (Whakate Rank: 4 of 10)
Mark Forster’s Forums (Whakate Rank: 4 of 10)
Getting Things Done Forums (Whakate Rank: 4 of 10)

As we continue to refine this list, we’d like to include a very important contributor: you, our readers. We invite you to share your personal “Best Of” resources you have accumulated during your research, particularly the resources that have made a fundamental impact in your life.

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