Archive - Jan 2006

I recently found my GTD Projects list getting a little, well, stale, and decided to spruce it up. This was partly to add some excitement (and therefore attraction to the list - important for the Weekly Review), and partly to test different ways of organizing Allen's "buckets" that might appeal to people with less linear thinking styles. (I've started coaching people in GTD-like methodologies, and it's important for me to test their breadth.)

So in the spirit of self-experimentation, I've switched my projects from a tab in my paper planner to a full-size file folder (special color!) that contains small sticky notes, one per project. (Hey - Allen claims they're just lists, so why not play around?)

As part of my self-planned "Master's Degree in Personal Productivity," I've been doing pro bono coaching with a variety of people. In order to test who the various systems might (or might not) apply to, I'm trying to work with people who have different learning and thinking styles. I've coached a number of people with "left" brain styles (e.g., science graduate students, a web design CEO, and a sales/marketing consultant), but one of my current clients is much more of a right brain type - less linear, more holistic, "creative," etc. (I don't like the words I've used - I think how we label people seriously belies the complexity of minds - but I hope you get the idea.)

A few years ago I introduced our research lab to Extreme Programming (XP), a somewhat controversial software methodology with some surprising practices. This has worked out great, and as I continue my GTD exploration I've noticed some parallels between it and XP, which I wanted to share.

As I continue exploring the field of personal productivity (and a possible new career in it), I'm pursing a number of possibilities (i.e., experiments), each of which requires time and energy to move ahead. However, they all have varying probabilities of success, none of which I know. So the question is: How much effort should I put into each one? [1]

One popular answer I've come across is to Follow the energy, the concept of letting nature itself tell us which experiments are promising. Here are two great descriptions I've found:

I've previously mentioned that I'm training myself to be a personal productivity consultant, having become seriously inspired after applying David Allen's Getting Things Done methodology to my life [2]. As an autodidact [3] (because there's no M.S. in Personal Productivity), I'm having to define the field of study for myself. Surprisingly, in addition to the expected subjects (time management, motivation, creativity, etc), my inquiry has expanded quickly to include broader topics like work/career, wealth/money, and personal growth and development. (Thanks again to Steve Pavlina for the great starter list.) And the queen of them all? Networking.