Think in Projects

Processing power

Posted by Rafal | Filed under gtd

image by German Chocolate Ladies

The Getting Things Done methodology uses processing stage to deal with all the inputs of your life. The main premise is to ask question “What’s the next action?”. There is no doing involved in there. It’s simply making decision about the things that enter your life. Processing stage may appear as a waste of time, one might say “I could get so much done instead of processing all that stuff”. In fact this is a highly beneficial as it allows to sort out things that need to be done. You can concentrate on those things rather than going through unclear and ambiguous ideas to find something to do.

What’s your processing power?

The number of inputs coming towards us is increasing. Paradoxically we invite more and more information to enter our space by joining social networks, getting always connected smartphones signing up to newsletters. With dozens or even hundreds of inputs it’s very difficult to keep on top of things. When that happens it’s very easy to let the inbox keep overflowing as it’s may be too overwhelming to go through all those items.

If you’re struggling with keeping on top of things you could try one of the two. Take a drastic measure and cut out of your life as much as possible and leave just bare essentials or you could try to improve your processing power by making quicker and more consistent decisions.

How can you improve your processing power?

Look at stuff once

Look at the stuff only once and don’t let it go it until you make a decision about it. Have you seen any mine disposal team at work? Once they come across a mine they need to make a decision about it either flag it, digit up and disarm. Leaving stuff for later is simply not an option. It shouldn’t be an option for you either.
Every time you pick up a thing and not make a decision about it you add to your pile of stuff to be processed. You will look at that email or note again and again.
Do the math if you look at things at least twice that means 3 items in your inbox are now equal to 6 before you do them.

Pass it on to the right bucket.

First of all don’t leave it your inbox see above. Once you’ve picked an item put it into the right basket and move on.
I some cases it might be difficult to make that decision. Does it go to Next Actions folder, Someday or Projects?
If you’re in such place simply put it into someday or tickler file. This way you will be able to revisit the idea or during weekly review. Another handy thing to do is to create a separate Google calendar to act as a tickler file. You will keep track of those things and not clog the main calendar.

Be ruthless.

Often time the number of inputs simply exceed our capacity regardless of how fast we process. Sometimes you could spend whole day processing things and you never get anything important done. So be ruthless if something doesn’t click delete/trash it and move to the next item. Don’t spend ages agonising whether you will do or what’s the right place for the thing.

The way I see it is that if the idea is really important it will come back to you in some way. Also if you are not ready to do anything with it it doesn’t matter when it shows up if you can’t do it you don’t need to keep it. Idea will pop back in perhaps during your weekly review or maybe you will read something that will cause it to reappear. What ever the method it will get to you some how.

Processing helps you sift through the inputs that come your way. Instead of looking at inbox full of emails that can be everything and anything you can go to action folder a do some actual work. Sometimes it can be a daunting task but if you stick look at things once and put them into right places than it may not be as bad as it looks. On the other hand processing can be fun you get to organise stuff into folders, sections, lists but remember once you’ve done your processing it’s time to look into actions bucket and start knocking some actions off.

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Tags: gtd, inbox, processing

Steven Pressfield interview

Posted by Rafal | Filed under Business

Couple weeks ago I came across an interview series at Lateral Action Blog. At the time there were two interviews one with Jason Fried of 37 Signals and second with Steven Pressfield which really caught my attention.

Steven Pressfield is well known author of novels with background in WWII. He also writes about ancient strategies of waging war campaigns. In addition he is the author of “War of Art” which is one of the most popular books on dealing with creativity and resistance.

Below are quick notes form listening the audio:

Your fate is in your hands.

This sounds like an obvious thing but it’s easy to let it go. It’s easy to switch to a reactive mode where you let other people – parents, bosses, spouses - tell you what is that you need/should/ought to do. It may seem like a great option but have a think. Whose interest those people have in mind is it yours or theirs?

Be professional and approach life from the professional perspective.

There is something uplifting and encouraging when you look at yourself and world around you from the perspective of professional. Regardless of where you work and what you do keeping that attitude will always result in something positive.

Traits of Professionals (minute 20 -22)

patience, puts hours of work to build something.

accept adversity and don’t associate personality with business.

splits himself into two – one is the owner, another is the worker.

don’t give up.

I found this hugely insightful especially in the context of rejection. It’s not you that is being rejected it might be your offering or the person might have a bad day and say no to everybody. Separating the two gives you space, a buffer zone so you can keep sane even it things aren’t going where you wanted. Other important virtue is patience, in today’s world we expect to get instant gratification and results. Building business is not that straightforward you need to put real effort into your venture to succeed.

Power of one hour a day – devote one a day and build your success.

An old proverb says that 1000mile journey starts with one step. Sometimes it may be hard to see the progress but by putting that one hour a day over the time things will change and move in the direction you want. It’s very similar with “snowball effect” first it’s small and insignificant but over time it grows and makes difference. So putting that one hour a day may seem like nothing but over time it will yield results bigger than you thought.

Don’t need to neglect/quit that day job, just focus on what can do.

Often times pursuing our passions seems like we need to leave everything behind, quit day job etc. This may not be necessary or practical especially if you’re just starting. Simply focus on what can you do that brings you closer to your passion, spend that one hour a day doing that and see what happens.

Making important changes in life is like turning a battleship it’s slow and takes time.

Again with increasing speed of life we tend to expect the results now. We want instant gratification and if it’s not there we abandon the idea and look for some thing else. But important life changes take time and are often times slow, very slow. Although you may have impression that some people lives change in an instant just have a look closer, if you can talk to them see how it really was.

These notes are filtered through my views and interests. I picked up those things because seemed important to me. Yet I’m pretty sure you’ll find something interesting for yourself.

Please head to Lateral Action page to get the full interview there.

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Tags: Business, creativity, resistance, time

Time Blocking

Posted by Rafal | Filed under Productivity, Time Management

This is the final post of what became a three part series about looking at your time, where it goes and what to do with it.

When it comes to working through your day there are generally two approaches. Free fall where you let the loudest, shiniest, most recent thing to take over your day. There is no structure and the only aim is to move through as many actions as possible.
On the other hand you could look at your day and give it a structure. Schedule some very specific time to work on some important projects. Perhaps these are not the most attractive things you could do, perhaps they are thing the you dread doing. Yet they need to get done and if you don’t have any one to delegate to you have to do it yourself.

Time Blocking what is it?

Time blocking is one of the classic techniques for making sure that your time goes where you want it. This is where rubber meet the road. You’ve looked where your time goes using time map. You’ve planned it using budget, now you need to execute it. Time blocking is exactly that, it helps you follow through on the decisions you’ve made.
It’s very simple to use. All you have to do is pick up a calendar, select an action/project you want to work on and set the time and put it in a calendar. The aim of this is to block any other activities and get focused on that one thing.

Benefits

Direction – using time blocking you can add a shape you your day. You can make a choices about the tasks that are important to you and you can devote your time to them. Instead letting yourselt to freely flow through the day you can make sure some of it is used for the right things.
Focus – is about getting fixed on one thing and giving it maximum of your attention. Blocking time precisely let’s you do that. It works two fold. You can focus on the task at hand and work through it. You can also focus on actions that allow you making progress in the direction of your goals and plans. Getting enough focus will help to limit impact of the distractions around you like, your colleagues wandering around, people talking over the phone, pinging email client, etc.
Close off on overdue items – some items on your todo may seem to be more attractive that others and unfortunately that means the second group is always pushed back. Whether you want it or not those tasks still have to get done. What you can do is simply block some time for those type of menial tasks and have them off your list.
Reminder – often times it’s easy to get caught up in spinning world of incoming email, co-workers asking favours. Day just whizzes through and you just can’t remember doing anything meaningful. Blocking time will work as a reminder of what you supposed to do. If you use electronic calendar you’ll get a pop up message or text from Google. This works even with paper planners. Next time you look at it you will notice that you ought to be doing something.

I recommend watching this video by Gina Trapani which is a great summary of how time blocking can be used during the day:

(via Fast Company)

Time blocking is very simple but effective technique. Sometimes it might be very easy to over use it. Blocking out full day for different tasks is not the best idea. Although you need structure for your day you also need flexibility. Days are not linear there is always something different happening that you haven’t planned for.

If you liked this post please share your views. Do you block time for some tasks? Does it help? Do you get more done?

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Tags: blocking, direction, focus, time

Time Budget

Posted by Rafal | Filed under Productivity, Time Management

Over a week ago I’ve covered topic of time maps. This time I try to explain the concept and benefits of using something called time budget.

What’s a budget?

Budgets are widely popular in the financial world. In very simple terms it’s a list of all the income/revenue streams coming in and all the planned expenses in a period. Each year every country would announce it’s budget plans. This is pretty significant event for the financial markets. Based on the content of the budget proposals economists and analysts try to forecast the future growth and economic conditions of a country.

On smaller scale families and individuals are advised to keep a budget to monitor their spending and income to build future wealth and financial stability.

In general terms budget is a framework, a plan which details areas of spending and the available resources. The net difference between both will indicate if you have anything left or whether you’ve overspend the available supply.
Budget also works as a boundary which indicates whether you’re spending too much or too little.

What’s a time budget?

In this context a time budget would be a plan detailing available hours against the activities you want to spend that time on. Time budgets can be created for weekly,monthly or even yearly intervals giving you a wide perspective. Similarly to financial budget you would have fixed commitments like eating, sleep, work, commute, shopping and more flexible appointments like exercising, going out, visiting friends and so called free time. Once your budget is read then you can review and you can decide whether you can afford to spend your time on some activities or should you spend it on something else.

How it’s different from time map?

Time maps as we described them last time show your time and commitments as they are. Their main purpose is to provide you with a higher view of your current situation. Time budget looks into the future. Budgeting is really a planning process where you look at your commitments, needs, wants and try to figure which are sufficiently important to have your time. Setting time budget is more about taking control of your time and not letting it slip through your fingers.

Benefits of having a budget.

Setting up a time budget can bring a number of benefits:

Focus on important areas – by creating time budget you can pinpoint areas of higher importance and give them sufficient amount of time. If for example getting into shape would be your top agenda item, then you could create a budget that would take into account 1h of training each day. Consequently you would reduce time spend on other areas in order to set aside time for exercise.
Less time wasting – with increased focus on important items, you would reduce the time that’s wasted. When setting up budget you would identify elements that don’t take you anywhere and in fact should be eliminated from your schedule.
Progress on goals – setting up a budget can be a significant boost to making progress on your goals. Simply bringing them to your attention and setting a side sufficient amount of time will allow you to start making a progress. No more saying “I don’t have enough time”.
Sharpen your attention – Some activities like deep thinking or creative work require significant amounts of time. Unfortunately those are mostly pushed to the back as there is never the right time, mood etc for them. If your work, goals depend on having creative/uninterrupted time making an allotment in the budget will help you with that.

How to create?

Creating a budget is relatively easy and involves just a handful of steps.

List the activities your want to accomplish in a week or or a month.
Estimate the number of hours you need to have for each task or commitment.
Add all of the together and compare against total available hours i a week or month(24h in a day, 168 in a week, 708 in a month).
Remember to leave few free hours as there always are some unexpected or unplanned thinks popping up.

For example I try to sleep not less than 7-7.5 hours per night so every week that means 7.5h x 7days = 52h per week.
Another big chuck of my time is used for my day job, that including commute takes around 9,5h x 5days = 47.5h per week.
Other rather fixed activities that I spending my time on is eating/cooking which takes around 2,5h a day which = 17.5 per week.
Since triathlon is one of my hobbies I need to dedicate sufficient time to keep in shape and that takes around 6-7 per week.
When I add all above I’m using 124 hours on activities that are somewhat fixed but I also have 44 hours a week that I can plan any way I want. Some of it will go toward spending time with my wife, going out, some will go to reading and learning, cleaning, shopping etc.

Once you’ve created your initial budget then you can analyse it and decide if this is what you what or are there any elements that should come forward or should be pushed back. It’s very much a balancing act.

Budget is very much a pro active tool. It’s planning tool where you learn how to use the main resource of your life – time. It gives you a chance to create a framework of commitments for coming week or month. It can help you model new behaviours or introduce new way of using time. Time budget also puts your need and desires in the perspective of what is really available to you.

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Tags: budget, map, planning, time

Building Time Maps

Posted by Rafal | Filed under Productivity, Time Management

Do you have enough time? Do you stress out over the hours that you’ve left out to finish your projects?

If you want to have "more time" or to manage it more effectively I have couple of tips for you.

Where is my time?

Nothing comes from nowhere and in order to have more time you need to know where it goes. Your first task is to think what are the ways you spend your time. It would be the best if you could track it for a week or so. For starters simply jot down all the regular and irregular activities that form part of your life.

Think of as many as possible. Then look at your list and check how many hours per day or per week are you spending on each activity.

If you really want to know where your time goes consider tracking it for a week or more if possible. There are countless software packages for doing that, some even allow to monitor your computer usage, used applications and visited internet sites. But remember, it’s not only about tracking your computer activities, look at your life as whole.

Daily/Weekly chart

Once you have your list of activities ready it’s time to put a map in place. It works best if you use daily or weekly perspective of your week.

Lets start with a simple and easy method that will give you results very quickly:

Take a ruled sheet of paper and some colour pens or alternatively use spreadsheet on your computer.
List all the hours in the day starting from 0:00 to 23:00. Each of the line represent a single hour of your day.
If you need more granular approach, say 30min slots just divide the lines appropriately or find bigger piece of paper.
Now start on the top and go down drawing a line between each activity. Once you’ve done fill the blocks with colours you want.

[sample day schedule]

What you can see now is the map of day’s activities. By sketching this quick map you can identify any time sinks or simply realise that you have a lot on your plate and there is not much room.

If you have listed the number of hours you spend on each activity per day or per week then you can create pie chart. This method approaches your time map from slightly different angle and lets you see all the areas where you spend your time in proportion to the total time available. You can also see how they stack up against each other and what are the areas that dominate your schedule.

[sample weekly activities]

It’s worth considering this approach if want to look at things from monthly or even annual perspective.

Analyse

Once you’re done with your map it’s time to look at it and analyse it. There is no point in creating something if you’re not going to use it. Time maps give you an overview of your situation so now you need to look at it and start asking questions.

What is important?
Is there anything that can be eliminated?
Is there any free time?
Am I spending time in the right way? etc

Next week I will look at time budgeting which aims at re-shaping your current schedule and making space for activities that are important and move you towards your goals and desires.

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Tags: exercise, time, tips

Time a zero sum game

Posted by Rafal | Filed under Productivity

The problem with Time

Many people have problem with time. When we think of stuff I would like to do, see, experience etc we end up with a sigh and consternation – there is not enough time. How could we possibly fit all those things in to this week or day. It just not possible.

We are all equal.

Looking at various successful people on the web, in the news etc. I couldn’t stop thinking how do they do it. Where do they get the time? But the thing is we are equal, everyone of us has the same 24h a day, 168 hours a week. These amounts are fixed, you can’t add anything to them can’t subtract. There are no people with extra hours in their days. In order to make the most out of the time you need to learn how to play with time.

The Game

Have you ever heard of zero sum game? This is the game where winner takes all. If I win I take the prize if you win you take the prize. Simple as that. Now apply this concept to managing time. You can fill your time with ‘x’ amount of activities up to 24h mark. Once you reach that limit you need to trade. Want to add any new activity then you need to remove one of an equal size.

For example if you want to sleep until 9am you need to make sure you haven’t scheduled anything for that time.

If your follow Merlin Mann’s talks (page15) he refers to a similar concept by Joel Spolsky. The metaphor is a giant box which represents single day. You can fill this box with anything you want but once you reach the limit that’s it. If you want to add anything else you need to first remove one thing and than add another.

Regardless of tricks you might use to play the time your end result will always be the same. Double-booking, multitasking are just old tricks that don’t really work. You can get away with them for a while but eventually they will bite you.

Play by the rules

To make the most out of your time you need to accept the rules. And these rules are very simple it’s actually just one rule.

To put one thing in your calendar you need to make sure your have still enough time or you need to take something out.

That’s it, only one single choice. Whether that choice is spending time with family, working some extra hours, going for a run or whatever, it’s still a choice. There may not be equal weight in each of the items. For different people the weights might be different but we all work from the same base of 24h.

That 24h is yours, you own it, so use it well.

Now knowing this would you change the way you interact with your time? Would you do differently?

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Tags: time

Lessons from the “Drive”

Posted by Rafal | Filed under Productivity

Keeping up with any productivity systems requires dedication, will power and motivation. Making sure that the system is constantly updated that it contains actual information can take a lot of work. Sometimes when we struggle with too many assignments it’s easy to let the whole system go.
The book that made a lot of buzz in recent month and that looks at the traditional and scientific approach to motivation is Daniel Pink’s "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us".

The main concept of the book looks at the interrelation between two of the three of our drives.

biological
reward /punish
intrinsic motivation

Traditional concepts of motivation assumed that reward / punish is the most effective approach. Throwing more money or threatening with more severe punishments was and still is a common practice to ensure that job gets done. This concept still works in some type of jobs which are mostly simple outcome, procedure or routine based.
However it appears that science does not support that support that view. In his TED talk Daniel Pink describes an experiment conducted over 40 years ago where researchers have discovered that people rewarded with high payoff were less creative and engaged and had bigger problem in solving the task than those with smaller reward. (the talk is just 20 min long but it’s well worth it)

What does this mean for current workers? The ongoing shift to so called knowledge work means that old approach of carrots and sticks is less and less effective. Daniel Pink says that what we need is to motivate people by giving them option to develop three intrinsic elements: autonomy, mastery, purpose.
Although I’m yet to read this book, you can get a pretty good idea what’s it about by reading blogs and interviews with Dan Pink.

Below is an outline of some key lessons that I’ve learned.

On Mastery – it’s not possible to become a master with out feedback. No athlete or musician becomes true master with out constant improvement and reviewing of his work. The so called performance review in our work places are not enough to bring any reasonable value. Dan Pink’s advise is to set your own goals for things you want to learn or do and then review the progress monthly. Mark your self against the desired result and see where you fell short and where your succeeded.
On Purpose - you need to find what’s your internal drive. Pink’s advise think what gives you the most satisfaction at work, what would you spend your time on, what would you do for free. If you answer these then you will be on the right track to finding a purpose.
On autonomy- educate your boss so he/she can understand that giving large amount of autonomy will result in greater satisfaction, creativity and engagement. Be working example of such beheviour as the persisting view is that more autonomy means more slacking off.

Some other lessons/observations:

Top motivator for people is chance to develop and making progress.
Carrot & sticks still works however it’s good only the in short run as it narrows focus to produce only one thing. As result it limits chances for great work.
Carrot & stick approach creates constant expectation of reward and risk of taking shortcuts to get it – vide current financial crisis.
Money matters are still important but for jobs that are creative it’s best to take the issue of money off the table.
Although the intrinsic motivators are effective not only for knowledge work. Any profession can benefit from using them. Pink gives a great example of hospital janitors who were given some autonomy over their work and this little change resulted in greater work satisfaction, lesser turnover and continuous progress.

This book is definitely worth reading and I’ll be sure to order it with my next Amazon purchase.

References:

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Tags: Daniel Pink, mastery, motivation, performance, purpose, work

Time of imbalance

Posted by Rafal | Filed under Productivity

Balance in life is something many people are striving for.

The times we are living in now put a lot of pressure on people to do a lot of things at the same time. At work you have to finish that big project but then you’re asked to help out with another one. At home you need to spend quality time with your family, you should be reading to keep on top of things, meeting with friends, exercising and looking after your health etc. There also spiritual life that needs taken care of as well as your garden, car and next holidays. This can go on and on.

Simply there is not enough time to fit all of that and produce the quality you would like. Yet I believe that maintaining a balance in long-term results in fulfilling and prosperous life.

So How can you merge these seemingly opposite forces?

First change the perspective.

Achieving balance on a daily basis may not be the way to go. But if you shift to monthly or even weekly overview things may look much better than expected. Cramming all things into 24h may not be possible but spreading them over 7 or 30 days looks much more manageable.

Secondly create time of imbalance.

This is where you focus on selected thing that are highly important to you and reduce other commitments to a minimum.

The areas you may use the time of imbalance for may include:

completing important work project that requires you to work longer hours.
write a book you always wanted or launch a business on the side
preparing for an exam.
organising and enjoying quality holidays
finish a marathon

Simply these would be projects and goals that require significant time and effort to complete.

How to make a good time of imbalance?

One item

The time of imbalance should be focused only on one area/project. When it comes to managing time it’s zero sum game – you need to take something out in order to put something in.
Say, if you need to prepare for an Ironman race you need to devote 18-20h per week to training. But the same 20h needs to be taken from some other activities.
Trying to juggle more items at a time will result in greater struggle with time and defy the point of time of imbalance as you will try to focus on too many things at a time.

Communication

Creating imbalance will have some sort of negative impact on people around you. You may be late from work, miss the family dinner etc – whatever it’s some one will be hurt.
So you need communicate that particular project at work or at home is very important to you and it needs maximum of your time and attention.
By communicating you solve the issue of expectations that other may have. If people know what you’re up to, if they know what has your attention they will react more positively to you. They may not like where you put your time but it will send a clear signal.

Control it

If you focus on something that’s important for you, that’s fascinating, if you work on something that makes you alive it’s easy to get sucked into it and lose the control.
Just one more hour, just one more project, just one more……. this is a dangerous road that may lead to addiction and some form if -ism like work holism.
The imbalance is good for short period of time otherwise it will eat you. You need to control it. Set a clear deadline or specific target. Once you achieve your goal you should move to something else preferable something that was neglected due to the imbalance.

In the end by creating these times of imbalance you can achieve things you desire and give them enough time, effort and attention to create best result. Also by putting your focus in to various areas of your life you will allow for creating a pattern leading long term balance.

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Enhance personal productivity with Android phone

Posted by Rafal | Filed under Productivity, Technology

Mobile phones are no longer designed to be used as phone or texting device. With so many hardware features packed into a very small box they start to replace a dozen of other devices. And while the hardware development has a huge impact on functionality of such devices the greatest impact comes from the software side.

First was the iPhone and now Android operating systems that allow for building applications that further expand the functionality of smartphones to the level not seen before. When you look at currently available options the choice is far greater than that available for full featured computers of ten years ago.

Smartphones are one of the few devices that are always with us.This is why they are perfect devices for personal productivity.

Out of the box any Android device supports Gmail and Google Calendar applications.

But these devices can do much more than that. Below is little rundown of interesting apps that I’m planning to use once I have the phone. (A good site to visit if you are looking for some nice apps is Appbrain.com.

Do/Track

Keeping a todo list at hand is always a good thing. You can use those couple minutes here and there and knock few items out. Also it relives you from figuring out what is the next thing you need to do.

Remember the Milk – this is one of the best online applications for managing tasks. It provides a slew of features allowing you to structure, review update your list the way you want.

Astrid – is a simple and easy to use task manager with nice notification and reminder system. In addition allows you to backup/sync your tasks with Remember the Milk so when you are at the computer you can use desktop interface.

MyTasks – another interesting app for managing tasks on your phone. MyTasks provides a host of features to sort, categorize, input tasks. Each task can be enhanced with a note, priority and due date. The only missing element is that your tasks sit on your phone and can’t be synced with any online service or your PC.

There are two more applications for managing your actions that caught my attention and both were inspired by the GTD methodology.

Action Complete – it provides out of the box basic GTD setup for managing actions, projects, waiting for’s. Task can be created and assigned to projects, context, people and places. Actions can be sorted and filtered so you can match your actions to available context, time energy, etc. At this stage unfortunately there is no option to move/sync actions with computer or web but it’s in the development.

Goals ToDo (free or paid) – second GTD inspired app is Goals. This program provides you with a full featured system for managing, reviewing and clarifying your actions, projects and goals. It’s very well designed and thought out.One of the elements that caught my attention was the dashboard screen which allows you to see and access different element of GTD systems. The other one worth mentioning shows you the concept of goals and how to think about them from the start to the completion. There is paid and free app available unfortunately no sync to web or computer app.

Read

As much as it’s easy to imagine using phone for managing tasks and calendar, reading on it is completely new thing for me. I know it’s possible and practiced all over the world – hey, look at all the blackberry users. I’m hoping that reading on the HTC Desire will be good enough experience and easy on eyes. The plan is to be able to read my Google Reader or Read it Later articles whenever possible. Android platform offers broad spectrum of apps designed for reading in the go.

Paperdroid (free or paid) – this is most promising and interesting app. If you are a user of Read it Later your can synchronize bookmarked items with your android phone and take it offline and read whenever you like. It’s great if you want to read on the go and would like to avoid data charges.

iReader (free or paid)- this is mobile ebook reader application that allows you to read over 2300 books that are available for free. It supports TXT, CHM, UMD, Palm PDB formats so you can always add your own content if you like.

I think another program worth mentioning as the side note is Gutenberger, which allows you to access over 25499 books.

This is less about reading but still about consumption of information.If you are big fan of audiable.com the bad news is that there is no app for listening their books on Android phone. However you can always listen to many great podcasts available for free. One of the best app for managing them is software called Listen. It allows you to stream podcasts or download them and listen them offline. You can manage feeds directly on your phone or on desktop PC via Google Reader.

Think

Maybe there are times when your head is full of ideas and you just want to get them out of there or maybe there is a challenge that you have to think through and asses from various angles?

One of the best ways to deal with that is to let it all out put it on a mind map. And Android has an app for that actually two apps. It’s Mind Map Memo and Thinking Space. Both apps look like they are very easy and fun to use. Interface is simple and well laid out. What’s more important, once you’re done with map on the phone it can be further expanded on the desktop as they are compatible with Freemind format.

Obviously this is not all that Android operating system can offer. This is what I envision doing the most on my phone. Your own situation can be different and you may prefer consider different use scenarios.
Since there are over 40k apps so I’m sure everyone will find something interesting, useful and fun.

[If you use Android phone to enhance your productivity and keep on top if your life please share your thoughts in comments sections.]

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Using two systems for GTD

Posted by Rafal | Filed under Productivity, gtd

Most people lives have two main facets. First is the home area and second is the workplace area.
When implementing GTD one of the first elements I stumbled upon was making a decision whether to keep two separate systems or just one.

This may appear a non issue for some people but for others including me it was not such clear cut.

General recommendation is that single system is the way to go. This was the route I’ve taken first so a had all my work and home projects in one place, all the actions were with me etc. Although this worked reasonably ok after the initial period I’ve decided to abandon this approach.

Why

There were couple elements that influenced that.

I would need to carry all my stuff everywhere even though I would not be able to do it.I do realise that having next action all the time gives opportunity to knock off couple items while waiting in the queue or before appointment. Yet I really prefer not to mix work and personal stuff and keep a firm separation between both.
Everything in my system would have to be in paper. My workplace would not allow to sync company info to non-company equipment. This would be quite a burden as electronic organising is a better approach for my work tasks. Sometimes i find this lockdown a pain but mostly I like it. There are no regrets that I might be doing something for my work when I’m at home.
I could go in the direction where all my stuff would live on my work computer but again this would not be best. First of all I’m not be able to access my stuff after the work hours. Also we are constantly reminded that work equipment including email etc is for business purpose. Then I would not be comfortable keeping my personal stuff there as it would be backed up to company servers and would be available for other people to access. Personal stuff is personal and it should stay this way.
At the time of single system I still used a top level divider to separate home items from the work items. So regardless of the approach you take for your GTD system the tendency for separate home/personal stuff from work. This is mostly achieved by using sub contexts or splitting master lists into two. I think unless you work for your self there is no way you will avoid having some sort of separation between what needs to get done at home versus at work.

Strategies

With two systems there is some additional work needed to maintain both. It’s important to develop some strategies which would allow you to make both systems work appropriately.

To make sure things are moving as desired so need to accept that weekly and daily reviews are duplicated as I have to review both systems. Fortunately it doesn’t take all that long for my personal stuff.
Proper use of inboxes and ubiquitous capture allows me to dump any relevant ideas and then pass them into my work or home systems for further processing and organisation. This way I’m not worried that I’m missing on things. Because my personal system is always with me I jot down any ideas straight into it. When I have some work items to note I just email them to my work address.
A good reminder system. It’s not unusual that I need to call someone or go somewhere during the work hours. To make sure that I don’t miss that I use a dual approach. I make a note in my filofax and also I add it into my Google calendar. This way each morning when reviewing calendar I will make a mental note about the task. Also Google will send me a sms (text) reminder once the action is due.
Train yourself to focus on a location/context you’re in. If at work don’t focus on home stuff and vice versa. Although in some cases a change of environment can have very beneficial effect.

Setting up two systems my not be the best option for everyone. As usual it’s a matter of personal preference and situation. In my case it appears to work reasonably well.

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