Since I’m never satisfied being behind with technology, I went ahead and updated the site to WordPress 2.1 minutes after seeing that it was available (yes, I missed the announcement 5 days ago … been to busy to even think about the blog). So far everything looks fine, except that they chose to retain TinyMCE as the rich visual editor … and I firmly believe that TinyMCE is one of the lousiest visual editors foisted upon the internet. Ugh.
Monthly Archive for January, 2007
Several times in the last few months, I’ve written criticizing the "improvements" to the city’s recyling program. My specific criticism was that the "improved" program will cost the same yearly as the old program.
Turns out that isn’t the case. See "Recycle Wednesday … finally!" at ChattanoogaIsHome.com where a reader corrected my error.
For 2007, the cost will be the same because of the cost of setting up the additional dropoff centers and other costs related to modifying the program; starting in 2008, the cost will actually be less.
So, I hereby retract my criticism of the cost of the "improved" recycling program, because it was based either on inaccurate information or my misunderstanding of correct information (perhaps both; I can’t find the articles that I read that were the basis of my criticism any more).
I’m still not happy with the monthly curbside pickup. I believe there are other, better ways to encourage more citizens to recycle as well as encourage those who do take advantage of curbside recycling to recycle properly. However, I do recognize that having staffed dropoff points can and will reduce the amount of trash that is taken in, which will in turn reduce the overall cost of the program.
One final thing … while doing some research this morning trying to find out if the "improved" program would indeed cost less for successive years, I found out that Mayor Littlefield is the one who initiated the curbside pickup program in 1987, back when he was the public works commissioner. So, I need to give him a bit of a break … and I will.
Last night I was sitting at Stone Cup talking with my mother-in-law about Getting Things Done (and other assorted topics directly or tangentially related to GTD) and suddenly I had an amazing revelation.
I’m not really absent-minded.
Yes, for those of you who know me, that probably is shocking, and you’re probably thinking that I’ve been smoking whatever Mike Nifong smokes during the day while he’s working as D.A. in Durham County, NC. I’m also well aware of the fact that I’ve sold myself as absent-minded for years now. But, hear me out …
The fact of the matter is that I’m remembering things I need to do now better than I ever have before. That’s saying a lot, because I had thought I was getting more and more absent minded as the years went by … last year I had a terrible time remembering everything I needed to do.
But … the problem wasn’t that my memory was faulty. The problem was that I was floating way too many tasks around in my head, and trying to keep up with all of them. The reason I thought things were getting worse is that my life has been getting ever more complex over the last three years or so. For instance:
- On November 27, 2004, I got married (see Rachel, I remember our anniversary!). Suddenly, I had to not only remember the tasks I wanted to do, but the tasks that Rachel wanted me to do as well. That probably increased the amount of things floating around in my head by at least 25%.
- On May 1, 2005, I entered the ranks of the self-employed … initially as an independent contractor, and of course now I’m a small business owner. Suddenly, I had to think of all sorts of mundane things I didn’t have to think about previously. At first, it wasn’t too bad … I didn’t have a lot of concurrent projects, so keeping up with things was easy. However … starting last year, my workload started to increase, and the number of projects I was juggling at any one time increased as well. So, I would say by the end of the year last year, being self-employed increased the number of tasks floating in my head by at least 75% of what it had been prior to May 2005.
- In mid-July 2006 (sorry, I don’t remember the date … but it could have been the 13th, because it was a bad day), I moved to Chattanooga. We are doing a lease-purchase on our house, and we are contractually responsible for any maintenance on the house. Things that I used to call my landlord to have fixed … I now have to worry about. Not a large jump in tasks, but a jump nonetheless.
- On October 1, 2006, our first child was born. I doubt any estimate of how much that increased my task load would even remotely be accurate. Factor in the fact that sleep is not always a given now … and things become even more complex.
So, what did I think of that prompted me to decide that I wasn’t really absent-minded? Well, two things.
First, as I was talking about how I was getting more things done around the house, I thought of a moment from earlier in the day, when I had been talking to Rachel. She had reminded me about some task she had asked me to take care of a few days before (something that was a regular event previously), and I replied that I already had it on my project list (without having to look), and then proceeded to list off about 2/3 of the other incomplete projects on the list she’d asked me to do in the last few days (something that would have never happened before … I’d never have remembered more than one or two of them). It actually amazed me (and Rachel too, I think) … because it wasn’t something I’d experienced in recent memory.
Then, I connected that event to a quote from David Allen in Getting Things Done:
The short-term memory part of your mind—the part that tends to hold all of the incomplete, undecided, and unorganized "stuff"—functions much like RAM on a personal computer. Your conscious mind, like the computer screen, is a focusing tool, not a storage place. You can think about only two or three things at once. But the incomplete items are still being stored in the short-term memory space. And as with RAM, there’s a limited capacity; there’s only so much "stuff" you can store there and still have that part of your brain function at a high level. Most people walk around with their RAM bursting at the seams. They’re constantly distracted, their focus disturbed by their own internal mental overload.
And then … I had one of those moments of complete clarity. I never was absent-minded. I was just carrying too much ’stuff’ around in my brain, and there never was any hope of me remembering it all.
The reason why I was able to instantly recall a good number of tasks on my ‘Home’ task list for Rachel yesterday was that I had reviewed my list entire list of projects and action items that morning, and the ones I recalled were the ones that I had made priority items.
In fact, the only times that Rachel has reminded me of something I wasn’t in some way consciously aware of in the last two weeks has been when I failed to follow the GTD method and write something down in one of my inboxes as soon as she asked me to do it.
Wow.
Thanks, David Allen!
p.s. My wife thanks you too!
Tags: GTD, getting things done
About a week and a half ago, when I first started implementing the Getting Things Done methodology, I embarked on a whirlwind tour of applications that might help me organize my task lists and such.
I settled on Midnight Beep’s Inbox, which was by far the most elegant looking package that I looked at, and it was far more intuitive than any other.
Unfortunately, the concept is good, but the implementation is not there yet. This morning, I converted my lists over to OmniOutliner Pro documents, and disabled Inbox for the time being. The application is just too buggy for me to rely on for something as important as my workflow.
I like quite a bit about Inbox. For instance, it regularly checks iCal, Mail, and specified folders for new files, and alerts you that you need to process them. It automates the processing process, and helps you create actionable items. It allows you to sort items by context, and file things away for later review. Even better … if you create an actionable item based on an email message or a calendar to-do item … it attaches a "link" to the message or to-do item that you can click on to be taken to the application in question. Best of all … there is a nice heirarchical task list!
I genuinely believe that if it actually worked as intended, it would be the best GTD app for the Mac … even though it still has some otherwise rough edges and missing features.
Now for the bad side …
It crashes. Way. To. Often. It’s sloooooooow on my Powerbook G4 with 1 gig of RAM. It hangs for no apparent reason sometimes. The interface behaves in seemingly inconsistent ways … sometimes when you drag a to-do item to another spot, it drops there; other times it drops in a completely random spot. It constantly loses those handy links to email messages and to-do items I mentioned earlier … leaving me to have to go back and find the email message in question.
I decided yesterday that I was spending as much time working around its shortcomings as I was working with it. Hence my switch to OmniOutliner.
When I get my work life a little more under control … I need to test the package a little more fully and send the author some bug reports. I want the package to work … I like it … but I just can’t rely on it for now.
Tonight, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law were involved in a production of the musical Godspell at St. Luke United Methodist Church north of town. I took a lot of photos (about 400 or so) during the production, and have posted some of the better ones for those who are interested.
Gallery: Godspell
Tags: photos, photographs, photography, Godspell, theater, Chattanooga
I just realized that I’m nearly halfway through January, and I haven’t been out on a single photo-taking expedition. I’ve got some ideas, to be sure, and I’ve really been meaning to get out and take some photos of the Marion Memorial Bridge on a sunny weekend … but I just haven’t had the time to do it. But … I’m going to schedule in some potential times on my GTD calendar, and maybe I’ll actually have some new photos to share by the end of the month.
Yesterday, the Times Free Press published an article about a ten-year study on procrastination (unfortunately, I can’t find the article in their archives, so I’m linking to the USA Today version of the article).
I found the article particularly interesting because I’m an admitted procrastinator. To give you an idea of exactly what kind of procrastinator I am, back in college I was the guy who started on his papers 1-2 days before they were due.
The problem was … back in college, I had absolutely no incentive to change my habits. I was really, really good at writing papers (or doing just about any kind of assignment). I could have 25 books and journal articles stacked beside my desk and generally be able to scan them all in the time period and pull out relevant information and quote it if necessary. Despite only spending 10-12 hours on a 10-12 page paper, the lowest grade I can remember getting on one in my college years is a 93.
According to the article, I’m in good company (though I doubt most people experienced the kind of success with papers I did) … and the group I’m in is growing at a tremendous rate. Back in 1978, only 5% of the folks in the US of A were willing to admit they were procrastinators. Today, it’s more like 26%. Just to give you an idea how many people that is, in July of 2006, the estimated population of our nation was 298,444,215. That means 77,595,496 people are admitted procrastinators. That’s right … 77.5 million people. That’s a lot.
I think that there is a reason why there are so many more procrastinators today than there were 30 years ago … and David Allen discusses the issue in Getting Things Done
That’s what I thought.
Unfortunately, the article doesn’t really deal with the ‘real whys’ of procrastination. Sure, it talks a lot about the symptoms of the problem … distraction, etc. … but trying to ‘fix’ procrastination by attacking those problems is a bit like treating cancer by prescribing aspiring. It might help the pain, but the real problem is going to keep eating away at you.
I’ll cut to the chase. I think that Allen’s GTD methodology is the answer to the problem. It’s been the answer to my procrastination problem, and I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of those 70 million people who have shown up in my group since 1978 are very much like me.
Let’s go back to tasks being increasingly mental. If I were working at the Ford plant in Detroit on the engine assembly line, figuring out what to do would be really easy. Each time and engine arrived in front of me, I’d need to attach water pump, and send it along to the next person on the line.
I would be incredibly productive, as long as I focused on my task, because I’d already know what I needed to do next, I’d know I could accomplish it, and I’d have a sense of immediacy when the engine arrived in front of me because I’d know that by delaying, I’d hold up the next guy down the line.
Now … check out this quote from the article:The causes of procrastination combine temptation, sense of immediacy, the value of doing the job, and whether you believe you can get the work done ... (emphasis mine)For those of us who work with information, whose tasks are primarily mental … we don’t have either of those two things I emphasized. We don’t have a sense of immediacy, because we don’t have something physically sitting in front of us that isn’t done. We don’t know whether we can do the job, because we look at a big project (”create a e-commerce site for client X”) rather than its individual parts … and the result is that the big project looks really, really big.
GTD addresses these two problems.
First, it helps create a sense of immediacy. By filing things into my “inboxes” and processing them on a regular basis, I create a sense of immediacy because I now have a physical, viewable task list to remind me of what I haven’t got done. Every time I look at my task list, I’m reminded that I haven’t worked on importing new items into client X’s web site database, that I haven’t created the photo gallery for client Y’s web site, and that I haven’t worked on converting my e-commerce package to PHP5.
Second, it helps me believe I can get the work done. For the last example above, “convert the e-commerce package to PHP5,” in my task list, I’ve broken it down into small steps that are every do-able … delete Propel for PHP4 libraries, add Propel for PHP5 libraries, re-build Propel runtime libraries for my database, etc. When I look at my project task list for that project, I see a series of things I can complete in a short period of time. It reminds me that the task is do-able.
The article also mentions distractions, such as surfing the ‘net and that blasted “ding” that you hear every time you get a new email message, as contributing to procrastination. Once again, GTD offers a solution to these problems.
For distractions like surfing the net and playing games, my task list provides a constant reminder that I have real work that I need to get done. It also provides a list of “next actions” so that any time I complete a task, I can almost immediately move on to the next best task I can complete based on the amount of time I have, my priorites, and other factors … so I don’t have the time to even think about reading Slashdot for the umpteenth time, or playing a quick game (or fifteen) of solitaire.
When my computer alerts me that I have new email, GTD helps because I know that I will process those new messages in the next few hours … so I can ignore them and wait until my processing time arrives to deal with them. That way, something that comes in can’t distract me from the task at hand. When the time comes, I’ll carefully consider each and every new message, and decide rationally what to do with and about them. My email inbox becomes something I control, rather than it controlling me.
At the very beginning of this article, I noted that I had never suffered because of my procrastination, so I didn’t have any reason to try to eliminate the problem from my life. However, the article notes that procrastination does have ill effects.“People who procrastinate tend to be less healthy, less wealthy and less happy …”If I’m honest with myself (and you, my audience), I have to admit that procrastination did cause me problems, even in college. When I started on a paper 2 days before it was due, I inevitably ended up staying up all night the day before it was due so that I could finish it on time. Sleep deprivation isn’t good for you, and neither is the resulting stress I encountered as the deadline moved ever closer and the paper wasn’t done.
Of course, those same problems followed me into my work life. Yes, I completed my tasks (though more recently it happened that they got done after the deadline rather than before) … but the stress was still there. But that wasn’t all …
Since my work basically involves sitting at the computer and working, I get very little exercise. Coupled with my procrastination, that means I spent long hours at the computer and very little time actually being active. For the most part, when I worked, I spent lots of time thinking about what to do next, or goofing off until I was a point when I could do something mentally. At the end of the day I’d find myself with very little time before midnight, and quite a lot to do, and then I’d end up staying up late finishing things up. That left me with very little time do take a walk and do anything even resembling exercise.
Now that I’ve starting applying GTD to my life, I’ve found more and more free time to do things around the house, and more time to do things like play the part of Joseph Hewes in 1776. Next week, I’m going to the Y up the road from my house and joining, and I’ll make the most of some of this free time by spending time there regularly. I want to no longer be obese by the end of 2007.
So, there you have it procrastinators. You know you have a problem. I believe that GTD provides an answer. If you’re one of those 77.5 million in my group … give it a try. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
Read More: Scientists research why procrastination is getting worse
Tags: GTD, Getting Things Done, procrastination
I’ve had a big, busy week, which has resulted (as you may have noticed) in me not posting a single thing for the last five days or so. There are two major reasons behind this lack of updates. First, I have been incredibly busy because of the effect that Getting Things Done has had on my life. Second, my brother arrived on Monday and stayed all week, so I spent the vast majority of my non-working time hanging out with him and doing crazy stuff like watching Das Boot.
As I previously noted, I first started using David Allen’s Getting Things Done methods to organize my life last Friday afternoon. By this Tuesday, I felt like I had completely emptied my mind of any tasks that I had been storing there. The end result was a very, very long task list. In fact, it was much longer than I had anticipated it would be.
Despite the length of the task list, I still had a more productive week and I was better able to focus on my tasks than and time I can remember in my life. In my opinion, the main reason for this enhanced productivity and focus is the fact that by using the GTD methods, I was able to compile a single exhaustive task list that I could easily find and refer to whenever necessary. Not only did this mean that upon the completion of one task, I could quickly and effectively choose the next best task to work on based on the amount of time available and my priorities … it also meant that I had a visible reminder of how much I had to do, which made it much harder to allow myself to goof off and procrastinate.
However, despite my improved productivity, I wasn’t able to make as much of a dent in my task list as I would have liked. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing … previously, I had realized that at some point in the future, I would need to find one or more people to regularly help out with some of my tasks. As a result of having my unified task list, I was able this week to definitely determine that I’ve arrived at that point … and I was able to see that by having someone regularly work on some of my less advanced tasks, I would be able to be able to focus on other tasks and increase my overall profit.
You’ve probably heard that 95% of small business fail within the first two years. While that’s not true, 33% of them still do fail during that time period. Based on my financial records for the last one and a half years, I think I can say with a pretty good amount of certainty that I’m at least within the 66% that will succeed. However, I’m still at a critical point with my business.
Not only do I need to continue to grow my list of happy clients who want to continue to do business with me … I also need to continue to focus on providing services (by way of web app hosting, specifically an e-commerce application I’m working on), and focus as much as possible on programming, and less on tasks involving server administration.
Enter my brother.
While my brother was here this week, he spent some time helping me out with some of my tasks. So, I suggested he move to Chattanooga and start working for me as a contractor. Surprisingly enough … it looks as if he’s going to do that.
I’m going to start him out doing some small taks that I have on the table … mostly involving server maintenance. Hopefully, by having him here, I’ll be able to work with him and increase his PHP proficiency so that he can help me with programming projects as well.
This would be an ideal setup. Though he hasn’t done much PHP programming, he’s got experience doing server administration, and I know he has the ability to learn some advanced PHP concepts and be productive in short order. Besides … I can’t imagine who I’d rather have being a part of my business than my brother.
Now … the effects of the Getting Things Done methodology on my life don’t just stop with realizing I need help and being more productive. If you’ve read Allen’s book, you’ll probably remember that he says that in many cases, when he’s coached people in using his methods, once they cleared their minds of “stuff” they had very productive and creative periods.
I had that very experience Tuesday night.
Last Friday night, I located a pad of paper, a pencil, and a small flashlight by my bed, so that if I thought of anything at night while awake, I could immediately write it down. On Tuesday night, I hadn’t been in bed for more than about 15 minutes before I had a creative idea come to my mind … and I wrote it down. That started a period of productivity that lasted about an hour and a half. By the time I was done, I had filled nearly two pages of the pad with ideas related to projects I was working on as well as projects I have in the works. I was utterly amazed.
So … I’m pleased with GTD so far. Now I just have to find time to finish reading the second chapter, and then the book!
Today was the first work day wherein I tried to seriously implement the "Getting Things Done" methodology from the very start. Yes, that’s right, I was working on a Saturday … mainly because I lost a good bit of time during the week while we had guests, so I spent the day catching up. That means I lost most of my Saturday, but it’s really okay with me. After all, I got to spend several hours with my cousin Michael, who I haven’t seen in three years now, and my parents, who I don’t get to see very often. So, in a sense, I had my Saturday all through the week.
Actually, I didn’t just use the GTD methodology for my work. I started off the day and did a number of tasks I had put in my "next actions" to-do list, and made my wife very happy … mainly because I had been forgetting some of them for weeks now. Next Saturday I should be able to finish the others, and by then she’ll be ready to buy me enough mead to keep me happy for months. 
Anyway … my reflections:
1. Clearing up the "open loops" and "stuff" in your life really does clear your head.
As I mentioned yesterday, I spent a good bit of time in the afternoon cleaning up my office … shredding old documents, throwing stuff away, and filing stuff I might need but don’t need in the office somewhere out in the garage where I can find it again. Today I continued that … I cleaned up my email inboxes, culled through the stacks of printed documentation on my desk and filed some away for future reference and tossed other bits that weren’t relevant any more or were completely outdated, and generally made things neat. Most importantly, as I went through the notes and such on my desk, I entered pertinent information into the Inbox app I bought yesterday. Now, when I sit down, there isn’t as much stuff distracting me.
Yes, I knew before that having my office clean was a good thing, and generally surrendered the the impulse to clean things up every 3-4 months … but now I understand why the clutter distracted me, and why things didn’t really get any better. When the office was cluttered, there was a constant reminder of all the "stuff" that was up in the air in my life. So, cleaning it up helped … because I lost the reminder. But … I still wasn’t filing the useful information away somewhere I could find it again … somewhere I could then decide how to act on it, and look at all of my action items at once and determine what my next best action was. I’ve fixed that problem now.
2. Processing my inbox really does help me feel more "in control" of my tasks.
As I mentioned earlier … I spent a great deal of time processing the information in my email inboxes. I also have now processed the information in the Inbox application three times (I’ve resolved to do so twice a day), and taking all the incoming information and determining what my next action will be for each item makes a big difference. Now, I can switch to Inbox, switch to the Review task, and immediately view everything I need to do.
I started out my work day by doing that, and I’ve already marked five items off that list. The feeling of doing that is nice … but the real benefit is that as soon as I complete and mark off one action item, I can easily scan all my tasks and make a quick decision about which one is the best one for me to do next based on time constraints, deadlines, etc.
I can’t say enough about how much more productive I was today because of that. Generally when I completed one task prior to GTD, I had to determine what to do next by reviewing things in my head (I never did keep to-do lists on a regular basis because they didn’t do much for me), and that took time … time to try to remember things I needed to do, etc. Invariably, there were certain important things I never thought of … and then a client would call me up and ask about the task, and then I’d have to scramble to complete it quickly. I can see that those days will be a thing of the past if I stick to the GTD methodology.
3. Using the GTD methodology has already made me focused on keeping "stuff" and "clutter" out of my life.
During the day today, five times I found myself thinking about places in my office where clutter still existed … and each time, I created a note in my Inbox about the area. Then, in the early afternoon, when I created actionable items, I made processing those cluttered areas my top priority … and took care of those before going back to work. Never before have I been so motivated to do that … previously, I’d just have left clutter like that alone, until I couldn’t stand it any more.
4. Doing things that take less than two minutes NOW really is a good thing.
One thing that Allen recommends (that I don’t think I’ve mentioned before) is that when you process your Inbox, if there is an item that you can take care of in two minutes or less, you go ahead and do it right then. I’ve started doing that, and once again, I find that it helps me feel in control of my to-do list.
Why? Well, previously, I’d put those things off … because I was busy doing "important" things … invariable big projects that needed to be done quickly. So, I’d put off those little items over and over and over again until they piled up and became unmanageable and very distracting. Then I’d feel like I needed to do them, and spend lots of time trying to figure out which ones to do first, and rushing through them, never quite completing all of them … all the while feeling like I was getting further and further behind.
In short, I felt like I didn’t have time to do them when they came up. That’s not true … not only do I have time to do them ‘right now’, if I do them immediately, then they don’t bother me any more, and I’m more likely to complete them in a satisfactory manner than I was if I put them off until I couldn’t stand it any more.
So, there they are … four reflections on GTD, based on only trying it out for a day and a half now. And heck … I’m only slightly into chapter two now. I can’t wait to get further along …
Tags: GTD, Getting Things Done
Whew. I’ve just sorted out my personal and business email inboxes and archived useful messages, created notes to process for actionable items, and deleted a ton of crap I shouldn’t have ever kept. I had 694 messages in my business inbox, and 832 in my personal inbox. It was definitely time to get those cleaned out. Now my goal is to never have anything in my email inbox at the end of a day …
Tags: GTD, Getting Things Done
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