Four-Eight-Four [dot org]

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!