Calendar: Authorized Events Only
Posted Thursday, April 24th, 2008 8:48 am by Dave Moyer
You’ve got lots to do, and you want to get it done. So, you put it down on your calendar in a neat little schedule, so you can block out what you’ll get done, when, and you can sleep well knowing that everything will get done. Great! Well, if you’re like me, and many others like me, more often than not you don’t get everything done on the schedule, if you even try! While you work during the day, in the back of your mind you know that the schedule you’ve set for yourself is unnecessary. It doesn’t really have to get done now. We want to get it done on that day, but we don’t. We do these things when they make more sense to do during the day, often letting the things that we need to do slip away as well.
What’s the easy solution? Don’t put the things you want to do on the calendar. Keep the calendar for things that must be done on that day or at that time, or not at all. “Clean off credenza” most likely doesn’t absolutely have to get done on April 25, 2008 at 2:45pm, while “Print agendas for meeting” most likely will. Find another place to keep track of the time-insensitive tasks, and keep the calendar, in the words of David Allen, “sacred territory”. Not only is your calendar much cleaner, but you know in the back of your mind that you really need to get these things done, and you’re way more likely to.
photo credit: Dylanisneat
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The Work Timer
Posted Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 10:17 pm by Dave Moyer
I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who doesn’t have at least a slight problem with procrastinating, and I have a big one. I tend to do the fun things first, leaving the not-so-fun tasks to do last, or sometimes to not get done at all. There’s no denying that procrastination is a problem, and there’s really no magic bullet to fix it! However, I’ve discovered a few things that can help me get things done now. One of my best tricks is to set something I call a “Work Timer”. Set a timer for 15, 20, or 30 minutes, then close the door, sit down, and work until the timer stops. This often takes lots of discipline, but it works!
There are lots of different things to use as a timer. If you’ve got a simple egg-timer, that works fine! There are lots of websites that offer simple countdown timers with alarms, if that’s appropriate for you. One of my favorite methods is to use a little-known feature of the iPod, called the sleep timer. Tell the iPod how long to play music, and it’ll play until time runs out. It will then turn off! This was designed to save battery life when users are going to sleep, but it works just as well for our purposes. To access this, go to Extras>>Alarms, then go to Sleep Timer. Select the desired time amount, and get to work!
photo credit: fleißiges Faultier
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Think of the actions, not the projects
Posted Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 10:07 pm by Dave Moyer
Yes, I admit it. I’m a Getting Things Done (GTD) maniac. Many people told me about the book by David Allen, I picked it up, and became addicted after a few chapters. I’ve got my next actions lists, a tickler file, the works. However, this tip doesn’t only apply to people with a full GTD system. It’s just a good idea to help you get more done in the time you have!
When you’re organizing your life, deciding what to do next, rather than thinking of the full project as a whole, such as “hire new assistant” or “install new sink”, think of the individual actions associated with them. Nobody can truly say, “After lunch, I’m going to hire a new assistant.” There’s no way it’s humanly possible to do that in the time you have, and even if you DO have time, looking at the full job can be daunting, making it grind to a painful halt.
Breaking things down into the individual actions that you need to do make things much more manageable and easier to do. Keep a list of all the actions you need to do, such as “Post job listing on Craigslist” or “Buy piping at hardware store”. Simply keeping track of the actions involved allow you to keep lots of projects moving right along at once, rather than having to leave things on hold, or drop responsibilities you promised someone (this could be yourself) you’d take care of.
David Allen suggests that you keep a list of all the projects that you have running at once, and anywhere from one to fifty lists of “next actions” to be performed at different places, times, or dates. Examples of lists I keep are @Home, @Calls, @Email, @Homework, and @Errands. Then, David says, periodically check your Projects list to make sure that you’ve got an action on one of your lists to keep every project moving. You’re not required to do things like this, it’s just something that works for me and other users of David’s system.
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Pen and Paper Beats a Digital PDA
Posted Saturday, April 19th, 2008 11:39 am by Dave Moyer
I, too, used to be a big Palm fan. I had a Palm III, a Zire 21, and a Z22 in my time. As one of my previous posts describes, I recently tried out Merlin Mann’s Hipster PDA and absolutely loved it. After thinking about it for a while, I started to realize that old school pen and paper is the best solution to organize your life! Here are my top ten reasons
10. It’s enviro-friendly - Hug a tree, then recycle your planner when you’re done with it. Saves lots of space in electronics dumps.
9. Who needs beaming? - Especially with the Hipster, giving others information is incredibly easy! Instead of hitting all sorts of buttons and waiting for your devices to “beam” a calendar event, just hand them a card. Done!
8. Any size you want - Let’s see you try to fold a Treo into fourths. Yeah. Not so easy, is it?
7. Great Getting Things Done integration - When I get home each afternoon, I just drop the “open loops” (each on a different card) that I’ve collected over the course of the day into my inbox. Simple quick, and easy.
6. Built tough - You’re not going to have any problems if you drop a notepad, now are you?
5. Faster “data” entry - We don’t need no QWERTY keyboard! Why mess around with buttons (or worse, a stylus and that Graffiti stuff) when you can just write a note! On paper, writing is freeform and completely unrestricted.
4. Eternal charge - Wall adapter sold separately. The reason? You don’t need one.
3. MUCH more secure - No need to back up your data! Just file things away where you want them. Lock and key is a lot harder to hack for your secure data. Also, if you’re a hPDA or pocket notepad user, nobody’s going to want to steal that. Look at that! I just saved you $20 on a Kensington lock.
2. It’s fast - One, two, three, DRAW! Watch everyone around you turn on their smartphones and PDAs and start pushing buttons like a madman, while you simply flip to next week and write down the meeting.
1. So much cheaper - Why spend hundreds of dollars on a new PDA when you could spend two bucks for some index cards or paper, and have infinite storage space? Need more space? Head over to your local office store and buy another gigabyte of space for 99 cents.
photo credit: desi.italy
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My Hipster PDA
Posted Monday, April 14th, 2008 5:22 pm by Dave Moyer
For those of you unfamilar with the great Merlin Mann’s Hipster PDA, it is, in essence, a bunch of 3×5 index cards clipped together with one of my favorite tools of all time, the awesomely powerful binder clip.
You can put things together however you want, and many people have put out their suggestons and ideas for hacking the Hipster. I decided to try out this tool a few weeks ago, and have been absolutely astounded by the results. Being a raving fan of David Allen’s phenomenal book, Getting Things Done, and a raving fan of binder clips (see my next post), I organized the Hipster in my own way, tweaking and changing some things along the way. Here’s my current setup, in order from front to back:
- Mini black binder clip - It’s the classic, and the size is hard to beat!
- In the front, around 5-8 blank index cards, for capturing events and other tasks
- A laminated divider card labeled Lists
- My GTD lists, including my Next Actions lists for all my different contexts, my Someday/Maybe list (mostly unused, I love my tickler file- post on that soon), and Waiting for list. I have them all here, this is the only place I use them.
- A laminated divider card labeled Calendar
- Individual cards containing time-sensitive actions, one card per day
- A laminated divider card labeled Inbox
- Any extra tasks or reminders to drop into my central inbox when I get home each afternoon
- A laminated card containing a little “reference diagram” for the GTD workflow.
I laminated the cards with packing tape. Just cover both sides, and cut it out to make a perfectly laminated card! In the beginning of my Hipster days, I had trouble with wrinkles. Not anymore!
Each afternoon when I get home, I do the following:
- Drop anything in my “Inbox” section into my inbox, to sort during my processing time later.
- Synchronize any date-sensitive actions with my trusty Google Calendar. I can’t do without it, but I can’t have it everywhere! This is my solution. I can schedule and keep track of events wherever I am, but I still have sharing capabilities and “black belt” scheduling when I’m at my computer.
- Refill my index cards, and I’m ready for a new day!
How do you all keep your life organized? If you use a Hipster PDA (try it out if you don’t- it’s too cool), what are your techniques? Got any GTD management suggestions? Comment like the wind, my friends.
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