When I was in high school my favorite history teacher would occasionally tell us to stop taking notes, close our books, and just listen. He’d sit on the edge of his desk and simply tell us a story about a person or event that encapsulated the essence of the time period we were studying. The content of those stories was never on a test. But it definitely helped me get better grades, because it put all the facts and dates that we memorized on the other days into a richer, more personal context. And it revealed the bigger picture of what we were trying to learn.

This month’s feature article does something very similar. In it, Alan Gilbertson digs deep to uncover the roots of efficiency. He doesn’t talk about a lot of specific tools or techniques. Instead, he focuses on the habits that will help you truly maximize your productivity. He shows how to organize, simplify, and automate parts of your workflow so they don’t devour your most precious resources: your time and energy.

We also have a boatload of great how-to content, starting with Ari Weinstein showing how to make vector graphics from pixel-based images using Image Trace in Illustrator.

Terry Sullivan is your guide to getting great results when converting color images to black and white, on desktop or mobile.

Khara Plicanic surveys the world of digital mock-ups. She shows where you can get pre-made ones, as well as how to roll your own.

Chad Chelius’s article on creating accessible PDF forms transforms that task from daunting to doable.

We also have another strong set of articles curated from CreativePro.com, on such topics as combining images from different sources in Photoshop, using Illustrator’s Blob brush, adding frames to an InDesign story, and the controversy behind Pantone libraries leaving Creative Cloud apps.

Enjoy!