Archive - Aug 2005

  I've put me clothes in order
  For our packet leaves tomorrow

  Yes, our packet leaves tomorrow
  And it fills me heart with sorrow

  For I love to gaze upon you
  And to spend me money on you

  O you are me only treasure
  And I love ye still full measure

(from Shallow Brown)

Something I had noticed in the last year or so was a decrease in my memory's functioning, something that scared the bejesus out of me. The kinds of issues I noticed were smaller things like trouble remembering a name, recalling when I did an activity, etc. Apparently this is typical (in Silver Threads: Aging, Memory it's called "tip-of-the-tongue" memory loss), and it bothered the hell out of me. Both that article and Memory in the aging brain point out that there are significant reversible environmental and psychological factors that can impact memory, and that's where David Allen's Getting Things Done comes into play.

I was excited to to read this article (found via the unparalleled 43 Folders) describing one user's experiment with using a single (eventually large) text file to organize his stuff. For me the reason it's an interesting read is that I've been using a plain text file for my professional log/diary/journal/notes since Thu Sep 28 10:57:09 EDT 2000. In this post I'd like to talk about how I use the file, in hopes that it will give me some motivation and ideas.

FYI, my current file (see description next) has ~14,000 lines (~0.5MB), and my previous non-wiki file had ~55,000 lines (~1.5MB).

History

With tongue firmly in cheek, and with apologies to The Onion, Timothy McSweeney, and David Allen, I present the top 10 things people are currently 'getting', courtesy of Google Suggest:

1. pregnant
2. a passport
3. married
4. away with murder
5. things done
6. organized
7. away with murder (still!)
8. fit
9. published
10. out of debt

I leave it to you to draw your own conclusions...

I would like to share some changes I've recently made in my life that have made things easier for me, a parent of a five year old, and a sufferer of a mood disorder that got worse, oh, about five years ago. :-) (Disclaimer: I deeply love and support my wife and child, but I have to say that, for me, becoming a parent at 40 has kicked my behind.) Now on to the goodies!

Problem: Generalized anxiety in life

What helped: David Allen's Getting Things Done discipline for personal productivity. It's helped get things out of my head, which has made me happier and more creative. (This is now a major focus of mine; more on it as it develops.)

A short time ago in our lab I had a minor revelation. Here's the story: I was walking around with my dog-eared copy of Getting Things Done, sharing my excitement with the grad students, who are interested and skeptical (a good trait for getting Ph.Ds!). After talking about how it applies to research (more on that later), I was walking in the hallway when I encountered our technical writer, who was also walking around excitedly with an artifact. In her case it was her detailed notes and sketches on the steps she took to solve a problem using some lower-level database access (MonetDB for the interested). After listening, I sat down and realized that this kind of behavior (which would be grounds for crossing the street if it was a stranger) is actually a very good sign of an organization's intellectual health.

Yes the GTD meme continues to infect, and it's got me good! (In fact, I've starting coaching others in it, but that's another post). Today I want to briefly summarize my experience implementing David Allen's Getting Things Done (AKA GTD on the net), highlighting points which were particularly helpful or surprising, and describing issues and questions I have so far.