On goals, the road to them, and life in between.
Today I don’t have a day that’s broken up with appointments, so I’m going to be trying the GSD method, just out of curiosity Basically, just a big to-do list and work through it. Thanks for all your feedback on these posts. Here’s all of the posts in the 3 part series:
How to make a productivity system that works for you (Part 1)
Have you been trying something new since I’ve posted these? Have you had success? Failure? Let me know by commenting here.
So there are a few productivity methods out there. Some are really simple, other’s are more well-thought through. There are likely good things to glean from all of them. I’ll summarize a few here:
This is a pretty well thought- through process (it’s kind of scary). I read half the book and started trying it. It’s got a lot of really good ideas. According to WikiSummaries, the book is divided into three parts. “Part 1 provides an outline for getting control of your life through the five stages of mastering workflow: collection, processing, organizing, reviewing and doing. Part 2, which is well over half the book, repeats a lot of what is said in Part 1, but provides much more detail on the application of Allen’s methodology. Part 3 explains why Allen’s methods work and the benefits to be gained from using his approach.”
The part I find most helpful from this book is his underlying philosophy: “Allen’s philosophy is that to be one’s most productive self, one must be able to think clearly. In order to think clearly, one must have completely downloaded from one’s short-term memory or RAM (like computer RAM) all the “open loops” — unfulfilled commitments one has made to oneself. This frees the mind to do naturally what it does best — think about things rather than of things” (WikiSummaries).
Collecting: putting everything that comes to your mind to do in an Inbox. That could be a FieldNotes book that is always in your back pocket like the way my brother does it. It could be an Evernote note called “Inbox” or note on your smartphone. It’s the place you write down everything that you will ever need to do, might need to do, want to do even if it’s sometime in the future.
Processing: the regular time you take to review the things in your inbox and do them/process them. When processing your inbox, if the next item on the list will take less than 2 minutes you do it immediately before moving it. I was actually angry when I started doing this because it was causing some serious cognitive dissonance. My heart wanted to procrastinate but my brain wouldn’t let me!
If you want to know more you can read the WikiSummary, check out this article on 43Folders.com, read anything LifeHacker.com has to say about it.
The Action Method is made by creatives for creatives so if your mind is less systems oriented, this might work for you. Or, if you just like pretty things, you’ll probably like this one too. It operates on the same principle of GTD as having to-do items connected to different projects. You can read more about it/see the apps or paper goods here.
This one is a stripped down version of GTD. Bill Westerman was sick of his Palm Pilot stilus and too overwhelmed by GTD method and the pretentiousness of Moleskine (and the hipsterness of the hipster PDA) that he accidentally developed his own system using a grid journal and pen. He starts by dumping all of the things he needs to do that day onto the list. Then he refers to the previous day’s list and adds what hasn’t been finished the day before. He then processes the list by adding markings to indicate priority. You can see a more detailed (including pictures) explanation here.
Two columns of to-do items, the left column is regular tasks, the right column is urgent. See more here including pictures and find all his posts about it here.
Taken from his post explaining why GTD sucks for creative work:
“Most task/to-do software is based around the concept of projects and tasks. It’s really too bad. The tendency is to fill up your task software with dozens of projects and tasks under each project. But the more you look at your projects and tasks every day for the next few weeks, it gets discouraging. It feels like a never-ending river of stress.
The most important thing for the creative innovator is not a ton of tasks to do but rather the ability to see what’s important to focus on and to focus on that deeply. The creative innovator needs to go deep on a feature or issue, and the deeper they go the more creativity they unleash.. thus creating lots of value to the end user.”
He has a bunch more steps on that page if you want to know more, and a few more other posts that explains in more detail how it works.
If you’re a real beginner I’d suggest GSD or SuperFocus. If you want something more robust, then start looking into these other ones. Remember: it takes practice and time to develop the habit of putting your system in place. It can take a few years of trying and evaluating to get it right, that’s OK! Three years right now can serve you a lot more in twenty-five years than if you never try anything.
So out of this list, which methods have you tried? Which ones are you interested in trying? Or do you now have enough ideas to figure something out for yourself? Leave a comment here and let me know!
When I started working after I graduated from university, I quickly realized that I had no sweet clue how to keep track of my schedule and responsibilities. I knew it was the thing that would make me sink or swim on the job. I started by learning about productivity and trying things out. I tried to-do lists, tried filling things into my daytimer, I tried different kinds of day-timers. I tried all-digital and all analog. Over the course of a few years I had figured a few things out. I read parts of David Allen’s Getting Things Done and found one thing to be shockingly true: open loops (ideas/thoughts floating around in your head) take up mental space/energy. Closed loops (writing things down in an inbox) freed up my brain for other things. Getting the systems to work for me has been an ongoing process.
So are you, like I was a few years ago, a complete noob at organizing your life? Have you figured some things out and not others? I still feel like both. Here are some things that I’ve come to understand about myself.
The best combination I’ve come up with so far is:
I can’t seem to manage without the digital Calendar. I need reminders to be sent to my phone to start working on the next activity, or to leave to go to a meeting. I value the ability to be able to invite people to meetings or them schedule meetings with me and that seamlessly integrates into my calendar with little effort (I use Google invites or Doodle). I find it valuable to take 30-45 minutes to schedule my week at the beginning of the week to make sure priorities stay priorities and reduces decision fatigue because I need to decide “what’s next?” less. Some of these things can be done with an analog (paper) agenda. I personally like digital because I can move things around without it making my agenda page ugly.
It’s surprising how much time we can waste. Having everything written in my calendar either before or after I do it helps me manage myself. Did I spend 15 minutes joking around with my coworkers? Did I only take 30 minutes to do the thing I had scheduled an hour to do? Did the metro break down and my meeting at UQAM get pushed back? Are these things patterns? I turns out I like to evaluate enough that this information is helpful to me. Plus, I just like to feel like I accomplished something at the end of the day and a calendar full of pink helps me see what I accomplished. If you agree you like those things, then you should try out using a calendar. If you’re not sure, give it a whirl for a few weeks and decide whether it’s helpful or not — NOT whether it’s easy or not.
Something I took away from Getting Things Done is the idea of Projects and Areas. In my job I can work from various different places on various different things. Tasks range from Administrative things (emails, phone calls, reimbursements) related to one project or another. Projects can be as simple as running an event or retreat or as complex as a month-long overseas trip involving smaller projects inside of it. When I can divide my brain into Université de Montréal responsibilities or UQAM responsibilities, or this staff or this website I can think through the next steps easier. When I plan my day out, I have a better idea of what I need to take along with me depending on where I’m working and what I need to do. This is less relevant for people who work at the same office every day. I don’t.
I’m still figuring out which is best for me on this one: digital or analog. Last year I found a system that worked pretty well that was on paper. I grew a bit tired of how I always had to carry this bulky thing along with me and was helpless if I forgot it. In September I tried out a new digital version of what worked last year (read about it here). It worked pretty well, but it required more work to maintain than I was used to in my paper version. I’m going to take some time to evaluate which is better for me in the long-run.
As you start to figure out what does and does not work for you think about these things:
I’d love to hear your thoughts since I’m still learning about what works best for me. Leave a comment here and let me know what you swear by and what you’ll never try again!
A twitter friend recently asked her followers to keep her accountable to going to the gym that day. As I followed up with her to see if she did, I asked her if she noticed how good it felt to actually keep to her word. That’s something I’ve really noticed recently as I’ve been starting to run. Every time I did it, not only did the exercise feel good, but doing what I said I would felt even better. For those of you who are not procrastinators you may not be very familiar with this feeling because you’re used to just doing things.
I am not.
My name is Jess and I am a procrastinator. I am a terrible procrastinator even though I am a lot better than I was as a teenager. I think procrastinators know how much procrastinating is like drugs. You do it, it feels really good in the moment, but after it feels terrible because there are consequences to your procrastination. It’s this awful cycle of procrastinating, feeling overwhelmed by the tasks, then procrastinating more to feel in control, and then the tasks pile up etc.
But I’m a recovering procrastinator! I have learned a few things about myself. Here are 4 key things that have helped me just do it when I don’t want to.
I have come to recognize that the cycle doesn’t feel good and it feels much better to actually do stuff NOW. A lot of times I need to coach myself and remind myself of previous times when the reward for doing it now was much greater than putting it off. It goes a bit like this: “Remember the last time you went for a run even though you didn’t want to and it was your favourite one? And it felt so good to not let your laziness rule your life?”
If you put off approving this reimbursement right now like you said you would, it will go into a pile of things to do that will pile up more and more until the pile is actually overwhelming instead of just appearing an overwhelming. Not confronting this person right now will make it much harder and likely more messy later on. No one wants that. If I take the time to think through the consequences of my procrastination I usually see that it isn’t worth it.
I found this as I was starting to run. I did it and it was good, which motivated me to do it again, which was exciting, which motivated me to do it again, which was thrilling. Every day I didn’t put it off I found I gained more momentum in just doing it because I hadn’t let that good feeling of doing it wear off or did diminish. If you stick to your plan, you don’t feel that guilt. The last two weeks I have nott run, yet I didn’t procrastinate. I didn’t run because the sidewalks were icy and I was trying to figure out what was next for me. I didn’t let guilt build (which often promotes procrastination because you feel crappy and disempowered) because I gave myself grace to figure out this new situation. I’m still excited for my next run when I have the opportunity and I won’t put it off.
The reimbursement example was me. I also have two other finance related things that have been put off since August that I keep forgetting because I got out of the habit of using my system I first blogged about. These are important signs to me that my life is piling up and I’m not managing it properly. It’s a sign to me that I’m making poor choices. It’s a sign I need to re-evaluate and get back to that. I read a very important book a few years ago called Organizing Your Private World which talked about how if our inner, personal life was out-of-order there would likely be evidence in the “real” world. Messy desks, filled up inboxes, piled up laundry, empty fridges to name a few examples. For me it means I’m feeling overwhelmed and I need to get back on top of things. By staying on top of my inner life (do I feel overwhelmed and stressed? Or empowered and inspired?) I am better able to manage my outer life. Sometimes though, like today, I just need to hit ‘reboot’ and get control of my life again. With time, I think it will become more and more natural.
As I was writing out the title I realized, this is odd, Jess. You’re a self-described technophile, yet you keep pushing writing with an actual pen and paper. What gives? This is true, but one thing I’ve been forced to accept about myself is there is something different about writing down on paper. Somehow my brain thinks it’s more legit. Part of me resents that because I want to live my life completely in technology (why I don’t know), but it’s just the way I am and so I’ve come to accept it. I write things down and then digitize them by taking pictures and sending them to Evernote. Somethings, though, just stay on paper.
Creativesomething.net has these great reasons why you should actually write things down. In the spirit of the journal giveaway week, I wanted to share them with you. See the whole article here.
Writing down your ideas makes them nearly impossible to forget.
Sure, you could rip out the page you write your idea on, or you could lose your idea notebook, but writing down your idea is a pretty certain guarantee that you won’t forget it later. Even if the idea seems pointless or stupid at the time you think it up, you may want to recall it later, and if you don’t write it down somewhere… you probably won’t ever remember.
Writing down your ideas makes them more than just ideas.
An idea is just a mental thought, until it is written (or typed) down. Writing down your ideas takes them from being just a thought, into being a real, feasible idea. In this way the creative ideas you have also become expandable; you will be able to physically see the idea, rather than just imagining it in your mind (seeing is believing). Being able to see your idea is the very first step in acting on that idea.
Writing down your ideas puts them all in one place.
If you find yourself bombarded with a lot of creative ideas often (or if you’re a creative professional), writing your ideas down in an “idea notebook” makes it easy to keep track of your ideas. An idea notebook means you always know where to look when you want to recall an idea (or when you need some creative inspiration). Don’t want to buy a notebook? Then try to collect all of your ideas on your computer or in a pile of scrap paper. Anything to put your ideas all into one, easy to find place.
Writing down your ideas makes it easier to think up new ones.
Once you are in the habit of writing your ideas down, you’ll quickly develop a knack for thinking up, and tracking, ideas. Before you know it you will have notebooks full of great ideas. The more you write the more you will have to write about.
Try and discover ways in your everyday activity to keep track of your ideas until you can get them together in one place and in one format.
I really buy into #1. There’s something about closing loops in my brain that just works when I write ideas down. But then I have to go back and review them in order to put them into action.
How about you? Do you need to write things down like to-do lists etc? What things have you kept on paper and what things have you moved digital? You can comment by clicking here.
Sharon and I have been friends for a few years now. She’s a fellow Montrealer (though I have no idea if I’m allowed to call myself a Montrealer yet), fellow clothes-swapper and paper-goods lover. Just over a year ago she started her hand-bound journal business, Soundless Soliloquy. Sharon has a great story that brought her to start the business that hopefully I’ll get her to share another time. It’s about not being all that happy with her circumstances and taking a risk to change them. Sharon’s journals are gorgeous little creations that, like her motto says, helps me write my soliloquy. She has kindly offered up one of her journals for a give-away. They’re obviously sweatshop free and cruelty free because she makes them by hand and uses acid-free paper so your precious writing will be preserved for a long, long time.
