A Trifle Absurd

GTD at the Desk

This has become a veritable series: first I posted about GTD media I’ve tried, then about the mobile version of my current setup. Now it’s time to look at what’s on the computer itself.

At one point that just meant OmniOutliner for my lists and iCal for my calendar. But now that I work outside the house, it’s much more convenient to have all that data in Web apps so I can edit it from anywhere. So I moved my lists to Gmail and my calendar to Google Calendar.

Gmail isn’t an ideal list manager, but I’ve come up with a decent workflow. For each GTD list, I set up a label and a filter that redirects mail sent to “myusername+label@gmail.com”. Then, for convenience, I add that email address to my contacts, and give it a short name of just “label”. That puts address autocompletion on my side. Now I can just email that address to add something to the list, and reply to an existing list item to update it or add information.

This would be overkill for a frequently updated list such as next actions, but I keep that on paper. The only lists in Gmail are current-projects, someday-maybe, and waiting-for. So far, those seem to have the right granularity to make this setup work.

And that’s my current GTD system. No doubt it will be different again in six months, but I’m fine with that. Changing things up helps keep it interesting, as long as I don’t focus on the system at the expense of the stuff. I just need to remember that the point is not to get things organized, but to get things done.

GTD on the Go

Last time I hinted at a hybrid paper/computer GTD scheme. Here’s the on-the-go version:

I keep my inbox and next actions on paper, specifically a long narrow piece of Rhodia 7.4×21cm graph paper. My next actions cover one side, and there’s plenty of inbox room on the other side. Add a Zebra F-301 Compact pen, and I have a simple, pocketable solution.

Ah, but what about other information I might need to take with me, such as a calendar? That’s what the iPod is for. An iPod nano can sync my calendar and whatever other notes I need, then slip into my pocket alongside pen and paper. Sure, it’s read-only, but I can easily note down changes (like new calendar appointments) and put them in when I’m back at the computer.

I keep several lists on the iPod, such as bus times, (used) books to buy, and library books. The library list is actually two lists: books I have checked out, and books I have on hold. At a glance I can see what books I need to return or pick up. The best part is that I can generate these lists automatically, thanks to the Seattle Public Library’s RSS feeds. (That was the minor XML-munging I referred to in my Ruby post.)

Okay, that covers everything but the stuff still on the computer. Next time…

A GTD Journey

One of the great things about GTD is that it’s technology-agnostic. You can do it with pen and paper, or use all sorts of software tools. And in the last year, I’ve wandered all over that map.

When I first got into GTD, I kept all my lists in text files on my home computer. At the time I was working at home, so everything was always handy. If I needed to go out and run errands, it was easy to just quickly jot down a list to take with me.

But I got a little bogged down and wondered if just getting it all out on paper would help. I switched to a vanilla Hipster PDA, and that worked well for a while. I liked the portability, but got tired of having to recopy lists to get rid of old items and reorder things.

So I went from the Hipster PDA to an actual PDA, a Palm Z22. That was great fun, but it got old too: in particular, text entry was always a pain, even with help like MessagEase. And the Z22 just wasn’t small enough to be truly pocketable.

Now I’ve switched to a hybrid system, with some things on the computer and others on paper. But this entry is long enough already, so I’ll save that for next time.

Replacing the Daily Log

Over the holidays, I kept thinking it was time to ditch the daily log. I resisted at first, ’cause I really liked the daily log and its effect of keeping me on task. But the thought wouldn’t go away.

So I turned back to The Now Habit, the book I got the daily-log idea from in the first place. Neil Fiore only suggests keeping a log for a week or two, just to see where the time is going and get some idea of why you procrastinate. Later in the book, he presents a time-management system called the Unschedule, which I’d never gotten around to trying (hmm, procrastination perhaps?).

The main idea of the Unschedule is that you schedule your fixed appointments, sleep time, commuting, exercise, meals, and play time; anything left over is potentially time for work, but you don’t schedule work in advance. Then you log any work you do that covers at least a half-hour stretch. Also, you make a point of turning to some fun activity immediately after completing a work session. (There’s a bit more to it than that, of course—see the book for details.)

The Unschedule as presented uses a classic hour-by-hour grid, and I knew from experience that wouldn’t work for me. So I tried to express the same ideas without an explicit schedule, while keeping some of the best parts of the daily log.

Here’s my new setup: I keep track of work I complete in four simple categories, which are Trifle, website, music, and business-of-life (paying bills, cleaning house, etc.). Work has a half-hour minimum, and runs in fifteen-minute increments. I also have a list of post-work-session activities to choose from—everything from lunch to blog-reading. And, of course, I can always take some other kind of break if I need it.

I’m loving it so far, and getting a lot done, but we’ll see what I think in a month or so. After all, any system can run well for a week; the test is whether I keep it up.

From Projects to Goals

My GTD head-slapper of the week was realizing that I can just ditch terminology that doesn’t work for me. In David Allen’s scheme, a “project” is “any desired result that requires more than one action step”. He emphasizes how even small things, like getting the piano tuned, qualify as projects. But when I think “project”, I think of something bigger, like creating Trifle.

My projects list has consistently leaned towards my own sense of what a project is. The result has been that little projects wind up on the next actions list, which leads to trouble, because it cancels out the benefit of having a list of simple next actions to work from. Quoth David: “[O]ne of the subtler ways many [people] fall off the wagon is in letting their action lists grow back into lists of tasks or subprojects instead of discrete next actions.” (GTD, p. 243)

So in an attempt to get my head into the right mindset, I’ve reviewed and rebuilt my lists, and renamed my “projects” list to “goals”. I’ll see how it goes; it seems dumb to expect much of a terminology change, but sometimes the oddest little things can make things click.

Rebooting GTD

I’ve been using a GTD-based system for organizing my time and my stuff, with a few ideas from elsewhere thrown in (like the daily log). It’s worked really well—I’m more organized and productive now than I have been in years—but, like any system, it gets a little rusty over time. So I’m oiling it by rebuilding my lists from scratch, and trying a few new ideas.

On the computer, I’m using TextEdit to keep lists (as simple RTF files). It’s lightweight, fast, and simple, but still has nice extras like hyperlinks between documents (see Format/Text/Link). Long-term, of course, I want to use Trifle for this, but TextEdit has been a surprisingly capable tool.

No doubt the Hipster PDA is too well-known now to be truly hip, but that doesn’t bother me. I loved the idea when I first heard it, but didn’t think I’d have a use for one. Now I’m thinking it might be handy for stuff like my daily log, a calendar, out-and-about errands, and things to tell Elizabeth. We’ll see how it goes.

Keeping Time

I’ve been keeping a daily log for the past month. I started out intending to collect data about my procrastination patterns (along the lines of the Now Habit procrastination log). To my surprise, I’ve discovered that just keeping the log is a great productivity hack.

All I do is fill in a sheet of notebook paper as the day goes along, with three items per line: the start time, a brief task description, and the elapsed time for that task. When I switch tasks, I write down the elapsed time for the previous task, the new start time, and the new task. At the end of the day, I add up the “real work” tasks to see how much time I’ve spent working.

Simple, right? So why has my productivity shot up? I still don’t really understand it, but I have a few ideas:

First, it’s liberating. I’ve tried and failed many times to impose a system or schedule on my daily work, but this experience is showing me I don’t need to make up rules to be productive. I just write down what I do and how long I do it for. Instead of burdening myself with a guilt trip of rules and schedules, I get to look back and celebrate how much work I’ve done.

Second, it’s encouraging. I can look back at the past few weeks of logs and see how much solid work time I’ve put in. It’s also evident that even when outside commitments cut into a day, I can still get plenty of work done.

Finally, it’s focus-inducing. By writing down each new task as I start doing it, I become more conscious of each task-switching decision, leading to better task choices. Also, I make a small but significant commitment to the new task just by writing it down, and that’s usually enough to get me over the starting hump and into productive work.

I don’t know if this would work for lots of folks, or if it was just the right thing at the right time for me. But it’s simple and easy, so if you’re looking for a life hack, I say give it a shot.