Entries from July 2008 ↓

I have to admit - for the first few months that I saw Todoodlist on other blogs, I thought it was “Todoodlelist.” Under either version, it’s a crazy name.

Underlying that crazy name, however, is a sound principle - simple, paper productivity systems are more effective than complex, computer-based ones. Readers who have stuck around for a bit know that I’m rather fond of paper-based systems.

It wasn’t until Naomi ranted and raved about the book (without claiming the affiliate fee) that I considered actually buying the book. After all, I was already thinking, and somewhat rebelling, against computer-based systems, so what did I stand to gain from an ebook teaching me how to be more effective using paper systems?

Turns out, there’s a lot to be learned from the book. Continue reading →

I’m going to say something obvious and try to make it sound profound: technology changes the way we approach our work.

This realization became salient yesterday as I was thinking about Andre’s comment on “How to Write Effective ToDo lists” . Responding to my suggestion to include all the information needed to complete the action, he suggested to go ahead and put things like telephone numbers and email addresses into the phone or application in which you’re going to execute the item.

What I love about Andre is his profound one-liners: “the less verbiage an action item contains, the more responsive you’ll become to it.” They’re all over the place on his blog, Tools For Thought, and I may start a collection of them.

My issue (again from the comments) with that is that I need to be careful about doing such things and opening a chain of actions that don’t include completing that action. I should note that I’m using a gimp penny phone (penny phone because it was one of those “get the plan and get the phone for a penny” deals) that has a horrible user interface and still has the twelve keys. So, in my context, entering in the telephone prior to actually calling makes the chain look like this:

1. Identify call to make
2. Write ToDo to make call
3. Look up information to make call
4. Put phone number in cell phone
5. Make call when planned

The killer for me is that fourth step, for two reasons. The first is that it takes me about 90 seconds to put in the number in my phone, so it adds time to the task. The second reason is that since the pre-portion of the task takes so long, it can throw me off to the fact that I still need to make the damned call. I can’t count how many times I’ve done that very thing only to forget to make the call.
Continue reading →

It’s the 28th, so it’s time to pick the next month’s planners. Pick them up here:
Daily Productivity Planner-August (471)
Weekly Productivity Planner-August (404)

If having the reminder is helpful, let me know and I’ll either program it to happen on the 28th of every month or set up a newsletter that does so. Which would work best for those of you who are using them?

If you’d like to stay current with your planners or learn how to effectively manage your days, get FREE updates by Email or by RSS.

I’ve been writing a lot recently about taming your ToDo lists. My focus has been on learning how to do less, but there’s another important way to go about taming your ToDo lists that’s as simple as learning how to write them in the first place.

This became clear to me as I was reading Dustin’s post Back to Basics: Your Task List over at Lifehack.org. It’s a quick but very good read.

One of the best insights from the post is about including all of the relevant information needed to complete the item in question. Think of the difference between writing “Get Details on Project X” and “Call Susan at 422-111 about Project X by Wednesday.” The latter links the action with the project it belongs to quite nicely and allows you to complete the action as a stand-alone item, whether you write it down, put it into your phone or a computerized task-management system, or email it to yourself.

I learned to do this from reading Merlin Mann’s post GTD: Project Verbs vs. Next-Action Verbs. In that post, he talks about how to spot whether you’ve got a project or an action, but I took it as a primer on how to write ToDo lists.

The table below, reproduced from the aforementioned post from 43Folders, sums up most of what you need to know to start writing good ToDo Lists.

The easiest way to implement this technique is to memorize, print, or write this list down and keep it close to you. When you start listing, try to start a task or project with one of the verbs listed above. For tasks, include phone numbers, individual people, email addresses, and deadlines in the task so that you don’t have to reference other information to complete the tasks.

It takes a bit of mental reprograming, but it pays for itself very quickly when you notice that your lists order themselves nicely and you can look at a task once and complete it without having to backtrack. Try it when the Productivity Series Planners, too - it works!

If you’d like more tips on mastering your ToDo lists, get FREE updates by RSS or by Email.

This is another “making of” posts, so if you don’t like such things, you probably won’t care much for this one. This one is considerably less melancholy than the last one I wrote sometime in April.

Some of you may have noticed that I’ve been a bit less active here on the blog for the last few weeks. The reasons are two-fold: I went on a ten day trip to Arkansas to visit my family and I’ve recently interviewed for a professional position at the University.

We were gone to Arkansas for so long because we had a few family reunions and because we wanted to see if living there was an option. It quickly became clear to us that we can’t return there - the upside is that it closed doors on possibilities that were once open, and at our phase of life, that’s a good thing.

The interview is another matter. For those of you who haven’t ever witnessed them, academic interviews are all-day events. The prep-work and energy required to make it through them are immense, and it takes a few days to recover. But yours truly went in as the underdog for a very prestigious, once in a lifetime position on his first job talk…and was offered the position.
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How productive have you been today?

There are many ways you can answer that question - but there are two different perspectives to think about when you do. One perspective depends on how much you actually have gotten done. Another perspective depends on how much you could actually do.

I favor the latter perspective. When I wrote How Heatmapping Your Productivity Can Make You More Productive, I used the phrase “productive capacity” to draw the distinction between actual productivity and potential productivity. The phrase worked well for some segment of my audience, but I think it’s time to revisit that post and make some ties that I’ve neglected to mention in the past.
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Summary: The rules for getting rid of too much stuff apply equally as well to trimming down your todo and commitment lists. Set a limit of what you can do, and don’t take anything else on until you finish or drop something you’ve already started.

If you’d like to hear more tips on how to stop carrying around your overfilled boxes of commitments, get FREE updates by RSS or by Email.

If you work from your home or would like to work from home and have a family (your partner counts as family if you don’t have kids!), stop skimming, sit up, and pay attention. This may be the most important thing you have read in a while.

A friend of mine recently quit her stay at home consulting job due to her work-life balance getting out of whack. I’ll let her out herself in due time, but let’s just say she’s no small fry and she’s very good at what she does.

The problem was that her work became the only thing that she was doing - but she’s a wife and mother, too. Her words:

“I spent so much time and effort trying to be physically present at home that I forgot about being mentally and psychologically present.”

If you work from home, ask yourself whether you’re fully present or just physically present. If you’re planning on working from home, ask yourself whether you’ll be able to separate work from life.

Continue reading →

I’ve updated the Productivity Series Planners for July and August. Yes, I know I’m a bit late for July, but hey, better Nate than lever!

They’re (still!) free. Pick them up here:

Daily Productivity Planners

Daily Productivity Planner-July (371)
Daily Productivity Planner-August (471)

Weekly Productivity Planners

Weekly Productivity Planner-July (306)
Weekly Productivity Planner-August (404)

If you’re new here and don’t know what these planners are all about, check this post out for a good primer on how to use the Productivity Planners.

I’d appreciate it if you’d “Like” this post on StumbleUpon or tag it with Del.icio.us.

If you’d like to know when new and updated planners are available, get FREE updates by RSS or by Email.

Summary: Life choices are so hard to make because there’s a Gap between important questions and their answers are filled with things that can’t be quantified. To answer important life questions, you have to start asking different questions.

It’s a long one, folks (almost 17 minutes!) - but I think it’s worth a listen.

References:

• Don Clark has a great article on Bloom’s Taxonomy, if you’d like to know more about it.
• Evelyn has a beautiful post on the Gap as it relates to the space between thoughts. It’s a wonderful, informative read.

As I was uploading this screencast to YouTube (last week), I checked Twitter and saw that Duff released the second part of his interview with Clay in which they touch on learning to ask the right questions. Great job, guys!

@Duff: Great job with the podcasts. Thanks for allowing me a spot with the PowerUp! tip - I can’t believe the cheesy one made the cut! I really enjoyed the conversation last week.

@Clay: I feel like we’re swirling around the same ideas from different perspectives. You provide some really good insights in the series. Keep it up, my inspiring friend!

I would’ve commented there, and I may yet, but I did such a good job of screwing that up last time that I decided to make somewhat intelligible comments here.