ToDoOrElse.com

Free GTD Desktop Backgrounds

This may not be for you, on the other hand, maybe it is: Jacob Reiff over at jaacob.com has come up with sets one and two of Getting Things Done key concept desktop backgrounds, like this one in a variety of sizes. You could also use them in a screensaver program like Webshots.com's.

The perfect cheap Geek Gift - a Lifehacker book

One of my favorite sites - Lifehacker.com - has a book coming out Dec. 18, "Lifehacker: 88 Tech Tricks to Turbocharge Your Day" have a look at the full Table of Contents and the Amazon page. Here's a bit to get you interested:
The table of contents:

• Chapter 1: Free Up Mental RAM
• Chapter 2: Firewall Your Attention
• Chapter 3: Automate Repetitive Tasks
• Chapter 4: Streamline Common Tasks
• Chapter 5: Get Your Data To Go
• Chapter 6: Control Your Email
• Chapter 7: Organize Your Stuff
• Chapter 8: Kickstart Your Productivity
• Chapter 9: Master the Web
• Chapter 10: Tune Your Computer

This is the perfect gift for the GIYL: the Geek in Your Life. I've already ordered mine!

Procrastination solutions are always in order

It's especially easy around the holidays to procrastinate - the phone stops ringing, the emails dry up and everyone is shifting to holiday mode.

Jason Womack, the staff trainer at David Allen's DavidCo, has some great advice to any and all who fall ill with procrastination:

• Go for a walk around the block, to the park, in the yard.
• Visit with a friend by phone, video or in person over tea or a meal.
• Get a high-protein meal - actually eat something!
• Do something on purpose; identify and complete something that is important to me.

Motivation is the first step

After I wrote yesterday's post my Blog Radar (A Google home page with lots of predefined search feeds) picked up Alina's take on motivation and time management:

There is talk of tools, optimizing everything, efficiency, success, and rules like “Concentrate on results, not on being busy”. As far as I am concerned, they should start with one thing: first you have to convince yourself to act according to your plan. Because most of us can learn how to write a to-do list extremely fast!

Yes, you need to prioritize, see what is really important. True, but what if you know exactly what you need to do, the order of completing each task, but you simply don’t feel like it? Because, when there are things to do outside office hours and you don’t get them done, there are no immediate consequences to fear. Like writing an article after work, when you could just watch TV…

Well said Alina!

4 ways to get seriously motivated

Getting and staying motivated to keep turning the crank on your life is a never-ending challenge. It's all very well to build a perfect Getting Things Done system for yourself, but at the end of the day, it's wasted effort if you don't do the things that need doing.

Here's four ways I've found that work to recharge your motivation batteries:

• Get up and move. Whether you get up and move to dispel the lethargy that comes from sitting in front of a computer too long, or you're going to start taking exercise seriously, moving your body is a proven way of generating real motive power.
• Connect to the Block. Sometimes, not being motivated is your mind's way of saying, "Wait a minute - you should not do that!" Example - I've been seriously putting off writing a specific chapter for my next book. I had it outlined, but just could not muster any enthusiasm for it. I woke up today realizing my whole approach had been off, that the real story for that chapter was something entirely different. Instant energy! If you have a task you rationally know you should do, but you haven't, maybe it's time to ask yourself why.
• Break it up. Too often, especially if you are live/work online, you end up with a whole project pretending to be a task. For example, my My Documents folder is totally overgrown with files and folders, yet "Clean up Files" has been stuck on my Current List for months. Why? There's at least a dozen actual tasks hiding inside those three words - review two dozen downloaded .pdfs, install/try 4 different apps (but not before Friday, I promise!), move completed projects out and cull their files, etc. etc. Projects - or strings of tasks - pretending to be a single task are motivation killers - cut them down to size.
• Connect to what you want. Why are you doing this (unmotivating) task? If you can't connect that task to something you care about you are not going to do it - just that simple. You can connect to it in terms of what you get, or in terms of what you avoid - but if you can't explain to yourself in five seconds or less why do something, that's a very good sign maybe you should not do it at all.
  

Upgrades versus Productivity

Today I had no less than 5 update/upgrade announcements, a Windows OneCare "reminder" to install no less than 16 updates and 4 different programs wanting to check or install updates. A typical day.

How did we ever let this insanity get so out of control?

If I interrupted you that many times by walking into your office or demanding to talk to you, you'd be ready to kill me after I'd killed your productivity this way. And rightly so.

Yet, meekly, we accept this nonsense online. Microsoft? - go ahead and reboot my PC three times today. This vendor, that vendor, this app, that app - go ahead and unmake my day.

No More.

So here's my plan to end - or at least contain - this shouting horde of time wasters. Just Say No - Until Friday afternoons. No updates, upgrades, program check-ins, installs or whatever until my week has pretty much finished, I'm doing my admin stuff and then and only then will I deal with you on my terms.

Use the right words to describe Next Actions

Merlin Mann over at 43folders.com has done it again: he's found an currently out-of-print guide which includes David Allen's lists of Project Verbs versus Next Action Verbs. Why care? Because if you describe Next Actions wrongly it's like tying your shoelaces together and then expecting to be able to run. It doesn't work.

A Next Action in Getting Things Done parlance is the next physical action you can take that moves you closer to completion a task, set of tasks, project or goal. Without a physical verb, you're not defining a Next Action, and the whole system Allen has conceived breaks down. This is one of the easiest ways of fracking up your GTD system.

Here's a few examples - checkout Merlin's post for more:

• Worthless verbs that define impossible to take Next Actions: Finalize, Resolve, Handle, Look into. Treat these like the flashing red lights they are.
• Verbs that define Physical - and therefore doable - Next Actions: Call, Organize, Review, Buy, Fill out, Find, Purge.

Clutter or Work. Not both!

Just a quick before/after comparison of my work area as of when I got up this morning.

Which would you find more conducive to being able to effortlessly move from Next Action to Next Action? Me too.

The Lesson: five minutes of cleanup/prep time at the end of the day will prevent 5 hours of flailing pain, doubt and confusion. Spend the 5 minutes.

Productivity and the 48 minute hour

There's a new technique that I'm finding which works extremely well as a general-purpose productivity enhancement.  I picked up this technique from LifeHacker who found it on the Success Begins Today blog. I've added my own GTD-centric spin to it and can report that my productivity is up a good 20% just because of this one trick.

Here's how it works -- at least for me. When I need to get a specific thing done:

1. I first assemble any non-computer things I need such as books and paper on my work desk,
2. I take a blank sheet of paper and write on it the specific Desired Outcome I want to achieve and a starting time a couple minutes ahead in the future.
3. I take those few minutes to quickly review that I have everything I need, I know what I want to achieve, that I've turned off or shut out whatever distractions might get in the way and I know exactly why this piece of work is worth my time and what I'll get from it.
4. When it's start time the kitchen timer that's preset for 48 minutes starts.
5. 
6. For those 48 minutes I focus on just completing the work to achieve the desired outcome. Nothing else. Nothing short of catastrophe or urgent bodily need will let me out of that chair until either the timer goes off or I've done what I set out to do.
7. When the timer goes off either I'm done and I go on to the Next Action I need to deal with or I'll be coming back to this task in 12 minutes.
8. I use that 12 minutes to walk around, attend to various needs, and do a mental GTD quick check on what I'm doing and why.  The mantra I used is Capture, Clarify, Complete and Win. Each word helps me take stock of where I'm going and what I'm doing.

We live in a world of endless information-receiving and communication-making possibilities.  But the only way you're going to put food on the table and a roof over your head is to get things done.  These 48 minutes hours focus all my attention on doing just one thing  well -- that's why they probably work as well as they do.

Give 48 minute hours a try the next time you realize you've spent half the work day doing "something", but you've accomplished nothing.

 

Update on turning e-mail addiction into GTD discipline

Ten days ago I started to try and break my e-mail addiction with a bit of operant conditioning: each day I would plan the times I would actually check my e-mail in advance -- and each time I did not check e-mail before my next "email appointment" I'd reward myself with an iTunes song.

Here's what I've learned so far:

Controlling your inattention is as important as controlling your attention.  As soon as I started to focus on exactly when I would check e-mail, that uncontrollable urge to flip over to Outlook and check it started to subside.

Rewarding yourself from the right thing is a good thing.  At $.99 a pop rewarding myself with a new song is a really cheap way to build a habit that will make me more productive and less stressed.

Stress makes you revert to old habits.  For me Tuesday this week was a travel/meeting day with no access to email. When Wednesday morning I checked e-mail the sheer volume (214 e-mails -- 5 that mattered) so unfocused me that I forgot about sticking to my plan the rest of Wednesday and Thursday.

Never say never, but always persevere.  I suppose I could expend a great deal of mental energy kicking myself in the butt for blowing off Wednesday and Thursday; instead it's more important to get back on the horse, focus on where I want to go, and keep on riding.

I happen to think that e-mail is seriously broken as a means of communication and needs to be taken out some dark night and quietly put out of its misery. But until then -- or the micro-ISV developers I hang out with find a better solution -- I'm going to stick with my iTunes for e-mail discipline routine.  Besides making me more productive, it's fun!