Archive - Nov 2005

I'm starting to promote myself as a productivity coach, and I had strange experience recently at a holiday party. While talking to a neighbor about full-time consulting, I noticed that all her comments were extremely negative, including such classics as "You can't make enough money doing that," "You'll have to put in too many hours," and "You won't find enough business." These were all spewed out in the space of about one minute. Bleh!

As part of my study of the field of personal productivity I'm reading (hopefully efficiently) as many books on the topic as I can, including ones on time management and organizing. I just finished Time management for dummies by Jeffrey J. Mayer, and (unlike some others) has enough good content for me to want to pass on.

(Note: I'm focusing on the time management portion of the book. The rest of it covers a broad range of topics including managing phone calls and correspondence, doing presentations, promoting yourself, travelling efficiently, and some now outdated technology tips. Check it out if you're interested; I found some useful tidbits in these sections.)

The "Master List," and processing inputs

In LAX-ORD: air; ORD-CLE: car, Jason Womack describes choosing to drive all night from Chicago to Cleveland after his flight was canceled, to arrive just in time to deliver a morning presentation.

While coaching my wife in David Allen's Getting Things Done (her request - I swear!), I was asked what project naming convention to use, and I decided I hadn't given this enough thought. My first response was "start with a verb," but I realized I was thinking more of actions, rather than projects. I'm pretty clear that actions should start with a verb, but projects?

As I get older, and after having adopted Getting Things Done to help keep my life sane, I find that I'm getting a little more conscious of how I spend my time, both at work (I've always been fairly focused there) and in life. Maybe it's the relentless ticking of the clock, but I'm getting more rigorous in addressing something my five year old daughter recently said: "Daddy, that's interesting, but not useful" (pronounced "in-stirring", and an amazing thought!)

OK, it's a bit silly to have a favorite Getting Things Done list (each one has a specific purpose, and all seem necessary), but lately I've felt a real kinship with my Waiting For. Why? First, unlike some of my next action lists (hey - I'm working on it), this one has lots of activity - adding items, checking them off, and needing frequent new blank pages (I use a paper planner for GTD). So it feels like I'm making progress.

In Hold That Thought!, David Seah wrote a delightful piece about using a pickle jar to hold ideas he doesn't want to loose, but isn't ready to act on. The jar is (was) an actual pickle jar, and he wrote the ideas on small pieces of paper. There are a number of sweet ideas at work here:

• "Pickling" the idea is weirdly cathartic - you can get back to work, trusting that it's captured.
• The act of formulating satisfies the urge to follow up on it.
• The size of the paper also prevents you from writing too much.
• You can see that you've got the ideas queued up.

He goes on to say it works for him to have something that "encourages easy deposit but prevents casual withdrawal".

Have you ever been around someone (e.g., a significant other, friend, or workmate) who regularly says something like "Remind me to ____"? You fill in the blank: "finish the report," "fix the bug," "make the appointment," etc. I had this happen this weekend while taking a day trip with another family. We were all in the same car, and I noticed that one spouse repeatedly brought up things as we travelled, including "We have to remember to pick up the pictures," and "Don't let me forget to install the snow tires."

In To save or not to save Kelly Forrister provides two questions that answer the question of whether to keep something or not:

• How hard would it be to get the information again if I needed to?
• When's the last time I looked at this?

Her questions reminded me of something more general that I came across when reviewing the Paper Tiger filing system (esp. the tutorial). When answering the question Should I keep it?, the author notes that 80% of what we keep, we don't use, and that 40% of most inboxes can be tossed. I don't know where she gets the numbers, but she does go on to give these great tips for deciding to keep something:

• Does this piece of paper require any action?

Because I'm investigating the field of productivity consulting, I've been working on expanding my people network (both regionally and on-line), and I've been learning the joys and challenges of doing so. By nature I'm more of a maven than a connector (the terms are from Malcolm Gladwell's book The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, summarized here), but I do love being with people who are intelligent, fun, and considerate.