Perspective, perception and experience
Posted by Rafal | Filed under Productivity, gtd
Couple weeks ago I’ve read this in “Home with God” a book definitely not about productivity – it’s about death, souls, energy and consciousness.
There is a great phrase which says “perspective creates perception, perception creates experience”. This appears to represent in a fixed formula where first two elements create third one. As it’s later explained this is not the case. In this equation if you change the way one element it reacts on two others and can transform them..
Almost immediately I thought that this can be matched to application of GTD. In my earlier post I’ve written that GTD can be painful that I can create a lot of frustration and disappointment. That I can produce a negative self-talk that doesn’t serve any purpose except put you down and magnify the adverse sides of things.
If one was to translate the above paragraph in to working with GTD it could take a shape of one of the two scenarios.
Scenario 1:
Perspective
Once you are through the initial implementation you process all the inputs and log them on to a list. This list will represent all commitments and obligations and it will be long. For some it can be 100 items for others it can be 500 or more.
Perception
The notion of fallowing any productivity system including GTD is that you will become more productive, have more time and accomplish more. However it’s often the case that the result of gathering all the obligation results in something that’s quite the opposite. Long list of unfinished tasks is a prime example of personal failure. So many things are waiting to be done. When you don’t track to do’s in any way it’s easy to pretend they are not there, but once they are put in one place there is nothing to hide.
Experience
Once you get in the mode of seeing yourself as unproductive this will translate into experiencing being unproductive. Looking at the lists will be a burden. The hundred items will morph into single blob of endless work. There will be no focus and one will be jumping from one thing to another without finishing it properly.
Scenario 2:
Perspective
The list with all the captured commitments and outcomes is the starting point. It’s long and mighty. It has everything you’ve wanted to do and grows every day.
Perception
Look at the next actions as opportunities, a possibility to make a difference, to improve something and complete it. As the lists are full of items to work on there is a plenty of choice to make a change. Regardless where you start there always be a positive impact.
Experience
Go through the items one by one. The list is fluctuating as you complete many items and then add more which are more important and have higher impact on life. You experience increased productivity and progress.
In the first scenario the sequence looks like a vicious circle where there is no escape. But it can be broken once you change one element in this three piece equation the effect will be translated on to the other pieces.
These two scenarios are happening all the time one day first scenario is on top when things are not going as planned on the other day you feel energised and productive, knocking down the actions and progressing on projects. Perhaps they occur during a single day.
The most important thing to remember is that the list in both scenarios is exactly the same it doesn’t change at all. The change needs to happen in our heads.
What I wonder is how to maintain more positive scenario for longer?
Are there any techniques that maybe helpful?
If everything is happening in the brain how can we access it for greater use?
GTD can be painful
Posted by Rafal | Filed under Productivity, gtd
This idea came to me when I was ironing (not my favourite household duty).
Triathlon is a sport that’s very much orientated on efficient of energy use. The shortest of races takes at least an hour to complete and the longest Ironman last from 9 hours up to 17. To achieve best possible results in this sport you need to have great level of endurance and a good technique. Developing both takes time and effort.
Every swimming or running technique is built on a simple set of moves so that you can get maximum power from each stroke or step. During the learning process body needs to adjust to new type of movement. Some muscles are under bigger strain than the others, joints need to stretch more in directions they never did before.
New types of strain you put on your body cause a pain. As your muscles are not used to increased intensity of workout they develop lactate acid and you feel as you can barely move. Joints and tendons get stretched so you merely can move your arms. When you keep repeating new drills and steps over a period of time body adjusts and pain will be gone.
A similar set of principles applies to learning new productivity methodologies like GTD. There is a set of rules that need to be learned and some behaviour needs to be changed. Although these appear to be simple and easy it takes some time effort and pain.
The Getting Things Done book offers few very simple ideas to organise life and work. The information flow is straight forward. All you have to do is collect, process, organize, review and finally do. Nothing overly complicated. Yet the complete implementation can be a drain you mentally.
When you look at this methodology closer you’ll see it requires establishing new set of habits for each of the steps. New thinking paths need to develop, new behaviour needs to be learned. Old patterns need to be replaced. In the medium term the effect will be similar as for the muscles and joints, there will be experience of pain.
As I learned GTD there were couple forms of frustration and discontent jumping at me all the time. Even now days after over 2 years of practicing it I get this feeling. I’m not happy with my system or with the way things work. I’ve been reading a lot about other people experiences with implementation of getting things done, their problems and questions. I think the biggest adjustment and pain shows up in three areas.
Tools. Perhaps not the most important element of the methodology, yet it’s discussed the most. In order to track thing you need a tool and most people searches for a perfect appliance. Although the choice is varied we rarely settle with one for long. Frustration grows every time I change a tool and then realise that all I need is a simple set of lists. Yet again I spend hours trying new shiny programs and gadgets. It can be a vicious circle.
Rules. They are simple; one word rules yet again we are not used to think by them. Collect, organise, decide, review, do, how difficult is that??? Either you don’t collect, forgot to review or completely ignore what you decided to do. Then when you try to re-examine what went wrong you look at the principles and try to find the answer why you can’t implement them – they are so simple.
Progress. There is expectancy to get an immediate result with anything we do. Have headache grab a pill and in 10min pain is gone. Want more time, be more organised and efficient then use GTD. But this time it doesn’t work that well, there is an improvement. It lasts only until next surge in workload when everything goes out the window. On the other side you crank through the carefully carved actions and then you find you haven’t moved a lot. Something important and meaningful was left out.
Implementing GTD is major shift in thinking so there will be obstacles, challenges to overcome. So if you are feeling down with your implementation or you fell from the bandwagon just take a moment and think of any things that your GTD adventure helped you to experience, complete etc.
It just takes time and persistence to work with your system. But once the change is done you begin to act on some sort of autopilot write down, process, organise, review, do! And it happens just like that.
Someone said that anything worth fighting for will cause you pain. Is GTD worth the pain? Probably not but most definitely it will have impact on areas that are important in life.
A Perfect Day
Posted by Rafal | Filed under Productivity
What is the purpose of all the productivity systems, tools for managing tasks and projects?
What do we want from them? Why do we need their help?
I would assume that we all want to create something, be it writing an article, coding a website, putting a presentation. Each of us may have a different answer to that but I think it can be funneled into to something that’s called a perfect day. A day when everything goes as planned, a day that leaves us satisfied with the progress on things that are important.
Visualising a perfect day can be a very powerful tool to create the desired effect. I think when we consciously work on creating visions and plans we engage in a process of internal change that will result in the vision becoming a reality.
How would you like to for your day to look like? What would perfect day look like? What would happen on that day?
For me it would be something like this:
- My day has been planned a day before
- Work on the planned actions and complete something for an important project
- Have a lunch and go for a walk,
- Complete planned triathlon workout,
- Read a book and talk with someone,
- Work on some more actions,
- Enjoy the evening feeling accomplished,
This is my perfect day. What I like about it is that it can serve as reminder of how I want things to look like in my life. It’s also a kind of checklist that I can refer to see how far off I’m and what needs to happen to get there.
Work and swimming
Posted by Rafal | Filed under Productivity
Water is not a natural environment for humans, when we swim; there is a lot of resistance to overcome. To move forward and to limit the friction we need to streamline our body and ensure that maximum power is achieved from each stroke.
When you swim in chaotic and uncoordinated way you’re not getting far. The water is holding you back. To maximize efficiency of swim strokes need to be refined so that you rather slice through the water making as little movement as possible.
One of my favourite swim drills is to swim with a float between your leg and use arms to propel. I can focus in streamlining my body and making sure that each stroke gives me the best result. Because I like to drill so much I’m able to focus on it so much that I can swim 25m pool on a single breath. It’s a fantastic workout.
I’ve observed a very similar pattern doing my work, the more friction is in my work the less stuff gets done and the more disconnection and boredom I feel. The elements that cause this friction are mostly stress, lack of clarity, the nature of work. But pretty much anything that you can consider as "work environment" can create some sort of resistance.
Many times to overcome this friction I tend to stress more, put more pressure on, try to move in giant pushes of effort. As this is not leading very far, a feeling of exhaustion and burn out appears. It is like trailing the water in strong current, you exert lot of effort and power yet you’re not moving anywhere.
Reducing resistance at work is not an easy game but you can try. There are countless ways of decreasing stress and anxiety at work and some will work for one but not for the other. As I’ve been attempting to reduce the frictions that I experience, I’ve decided to try three items:
Focus – Most of the time, the work I do requires longer periods of time to achieve the right state of mind and concentration. I try to block out distractions as much as possible. Also I’m forcing myself to complete one single thing until it’s done. Sometimes technology can help you with that. You can use distraction free software (like Q10 my favourite) or work in the full screen mode. Other technique is to use a tool that’s so simple it can’t be any simpler hence I enjoy using Filofax or pen and paper in general.
Clarity – During the day many items will attract our attention, like an article in the newspaper, an email or a colleague. At the end of the day letting all these things to pull us in various directions leaves a feeling of incompletion and lack of progress. To counter that try to list one maybe three things you would like to complete in a day in order to be able to say that you’ve had a good day. Getting this sort of clarity even in such a small form definitely works and is a great start for introducing more direction in to live. Knowing what you want to achieve is much better that simply bouncing around like a free electron.
Doing what you love – Being in a place that is not right for you and working on stuff you have no desire for feels like a great waste of time and energy. Due to social conditioning, our beliefs, lack of clarity (again) it’s probably the hardest thing to achieve. Yet, as many have proven it’s possible. Making your way from the point where you don’t like what you do to the point of doing what you love may take some time. Best way to test how it is to be fulfilled is try to do it in your free time. Spend couple hours a week on those activities you enjoy most and see where does it take you. Perhaps you won’t make a living out of it but you will introduce a positive change in your live.
Streamlining your body and refining your strokes makes you a better swimmer, focus, clarity and working on your passion makes you a more satisfied person. Just like you need to do drills in the water to improve your swim technique you need to exercise focus and clarity at work so that you no longer in trailing in one place.
I’m pretty sure it will take me a while to make sure that I use these things and I will fail many times but I’m also pretty sure that trying one time after another will pay off.
How I use Onenote
Posted by Rafal | Filed under Onenote
I like to read how people use software and how they come up with various usage scenarios. It allows me to discover new uses, setups and features that I’m not familiar with.
The program that I use the most and that has been storing almost all my ideas, notes, web clippings for the past 3 years is Microsoft’s Onenote.
This is one of the first and few products that I have paid for. I started with version 2003 then moved to 2007 and now thanks to beta testing I enjoy Onenote 2010.
I’m planning to write more about Onenote as this is fantastic application but for now I want to focus on my current setup and the way I use it.
The general principle behind Onenote is to resemble a paper notebook although in digital form. So the main building blocks are notebooks, sections(tabs) and pages.
For a while I’ve struggled with getting my setup the way I liked. It was either too many notebooks or too many sections. Just recently I’ve gone through a simplification process and I cut down on the number of notebooks and sections and keep things to minimum. Also I’ve stopped sweating about perfect cataloguing of information and take advantage of wonderful search capabilities and tagging options that are provided.
So how do I use Onenote?
Notebooks & Sections
"Unfiled Notes" is special section. This is a place where everything goes for the first time. I’ve set up Onenote to send all the prints, web clippings, quick notes, screenshots into this section. If you know Getting Things Done methodology by David Allen the "Unfiled Notes" section is my inbox. I review it every other day or so.
Every clipping becomes a separate page. For some reason I get the feeling that it’s wasted space so in most cases I will put the relevant notes onto one page and then file in one of the notebooks.
Main – this is my main notebook, which stores pretty much everything I use on a daily basis. I divided it into handful of sections only. I’ve created a dsktop and keyboard shortcuts so I can access from anywhere. My most important sections are:
Task list – Since I use Onenote daily it became obvious to use it for tracking tasks. This section contains mostly single tasks that are not related with any project. I have couple pages here and each is dedicated to different context. To mark current weeks or active tasks I review them regularly and tag them. I intend to make this section one of the central point of my GTD setup so I’ll be writing more about this later.
Projects – My projects tend to be small I perfectly fine with pages. This place is mostly designed for keeping some notes on the project, brainstorming, further actions etc.
Someday – this is dedicated to storing all the ideas that I would like to do at some point. Things that I would like to buy, get, books to read, gift ideas etc. Each page is dedicated to a different area.
Reading – This section contains various web clippings and articles that I would like to read at some point. I used to use Firefox extension called Scrapbook, which is fantastic for quick capture of website content, but decided to move to Onenote strictly for consistency reasons and ease of search. I prefer to keep things in as few locations as possible in order to make finding information most effective.
MemoLists – this is a section dedicated to storing some checklists, some small things that I like to keep handy. Like router password, list of people whom we send Christmas cards. Etc.
[Current year] This is a diary/journal/catch all section. Basically I try to create a page every day and that I fill as the day goes by. I put there links to websites, some quotes, thoughts and other bits and pieces. Once I process all that and decide if there are any actions I file it into that section. It works as running reference library.
Archive – This is a Section group which essentially is a folder with various sections. It contains previous years notes, completed projects.
Blog – This notebook is dedicated to my blogging efforts. I store here ideas for posts, posts that I’m currently working on, blogging tips and some other things like design ideas, code snippets for various page elements, potential things to do on the blog.
Reference – as you can tell this is my reference notebook, I mostly put here articles that I would like to keep for future. (I could keep links only but some of them are too important to trust the web for permanent storage). I also keep here notes on the books I’ve read, some computer tips and triathlon related info like, training plans, training tips, observations etc. One of my current projects is to move articles that I saved using Firefox extension called Scrapbook and move them into this notebook so I have one big database with reference material.
Search & Tagging
Above I walked you through the manual process of organizing information and the structure I created.
No information is helpful unless you use it or able to find it when need it. Onenote offers powerful search features which returns results from text, pictures and audio. Because search features are so good I can easily limit the overhead of creating extensive structure of notebooks, groups and sections. It makes things simple which I like a lot.
Tags. I’ve for a while I couldn’t figure out a good way for them. They seemed useful but somewhat I didn’t stick with them. Using search and keywords was easier. That was until recently when I began using them again. I found a dual functionality for them:
First I use them to support my GTD system. At the moment my system is split between action listed in Onenote and in my Filofax. Because most of my actions are at the computer I decided to move them into OneNote and use tags like: Process, @Computer, @Home to track my to do items. This way I can work in slate and laptop modes on my tablet pc with out cluttering space with extra items. For things to do on the go i input relevant data into Filofax.
Second set of tags which I use are dedicated to marking important information. Things I want to remember for later, some ideas I come across, lessons learned and so on. This is useful if you are looking for something but not sure what by pulling all my tagged notes I can look through them and see what jumps out.
I try to stick with 6-7 tags mostly because they will have keyboard shortcuts (CTRL+1-9) which makes assigning them a breeze.
This is my setup, it’s not finished yet and I tweak it a bit whenever I discover some new features. Hope you will find it useful for your own setup.
3 Lessons
Posted by Rafal | Filed under Productivity
In last couple weeks I’ve noticed a growing frustration with my productivity system and the little progress that I’ve been making at work. Things began to pile up and although no deadlines were missed I was not happy with the way things were going.
Obviously, I was looking who’s at fault and it appears that it was me (surprise). There are many reasons for this dissatisfaction and things didn’t move the way I wanted. One can be the fact that the tasks that I had to do were not that interesting. I had no incentive to make the effort and complete them except that regardless of when and how I would have to do them anyway.
In order to overcome this I jumped on the internet and visited many of my favourite sites for words of inspiration, understanding and hopefully solutions.
I’ve found many fixes but they are not easy. Well, they are easy in way they work but it takes some time and effort to see the results. This can be painful (mentally) and not less frustrating than the uncompleted tasks (and I wanted result now!). I’ve spend some time doing the research and there were three things that really clicked with me. Now, they appear so obvious solution that it’s almost embarrassing to admit that I didn’t use them earlier.
It seems like we are bound to understand things in own time. Anyway here are the three lessons.
Daily planning
This comes as classic time management technique. Basically at the end of the day I spend 15-30 minutes to plan my most important actions and projects for the next day. Although it’s seems like a simple solution completing this on a daily basis requires some will power. It also requires you to focus on the stuff that you "have" to do or you have committed to do. In some cases this may not be an easy thing to look at especially if you’re not a fan of your work.
Observations
Slight improvement in the number of tasks completed.
Definite surge in effectiveness of work. I can shape most of the day in a way I want.
Less stress and pressure form the fact that you have not completed anything meaningful.
Little more frustration with interruptions – this is slight contradiction to the above but interruption put stop to carefully laid plans. In most cases you need to "defend" your self form others and their requests until your happy with the progress of the day.
Focus
Deliberately focus on a single task/action and try to avoid interruptions. Try to firewall from all possible distractions and don’t allow yourself to look at other things until the task at hand is finished. In many cases this was surprisingly easy but there are time when it’s really difficult especially if the task is boring and feels like a total loss of time.
Observations
Noticed greater ease in completing tasks which were mundane and boring – didn’t work every time though.
Deliberate practice – "hold on there" type of thing – is necessary to switch off mind and internal voice that’s distracting you.
Time really flies when you get into the right zone
Breaks
My brain works in cycles, yours probably too. So it has a peak performance time and a down time. As deliberate practice to focus on single thing consumes quite a lot of brain power. To keep the brain in good condition you need to take breaks. What I noticed is that you need to take breaks even more when your are under pressure. As you push your brain further and further they return less and less but if you give them a break just for 5min it makes things a lot easier. I go to grab a cup of water, stretch etc.
Observations
Regular breaks (every 1h preferably) worked wonders for brain allowing to reset and refresh.
After each break it’s easier to maintain good quality focus time.
All three work well for me as I gradually work my way through the day. Even though I’ve been practising these lessons for a while now sometimes it’s difficult to remember to take break or not got carried away by some random unexpected tasks.
Here are some references that helped me learn the lessons and move forward.
-
Matt Cornell time management classics.
- Zen Habits and the book “Power of Now”
- Breaks via ezinearticles.com
Do you have any lessons you have learned recently? Please share them in the comments.
Feeling overburdened by GTD?
Posted by Rafal | Filed under Productivity
At a glance the concept of Getting Things Done hints you into the assumption that this is marvelous method to do it ALL. And while to an extent this system allows you achieve a lot, it’s definitely won’t let you do it all. Simply because there is always something more there is no end to things we want to see, do, buy, etc.
In principle you need to capture all things that enter your life from physical documents, digital bits to floating thoughts, and broken appliances. Then you need to make decisions about those things and place them in designated places so that you can review those places and act on them.
GTD channels your brain activity and external inputs and asks you to use external storage to park it. This allows you to look at your commitments and goals from a third person perspective. All is in front of you.
The initial process of capturing open loops, making decisions about every single one and organizing them may lead to growing feeling of overburden. You will be looking at considerable number of items that have not been finished yet.
Below you will find couple of my personal observations and thoughts that helped me to reduce the feeling of overburden and to a degree frustration that not everything is done.
Use someday/maybe, a lot
As a result of the implementation there will be a lot of actions, projects, things to do, buy, see etc. Obviously there is no reason in putting this on your current actions list as you can’t work and focus on hundred things at once. Also you won’t be able to do them all. Perhaps at this point of time these things appeal to you but this may change in couple weeks or months.
Plan (weekly review)
This is one of the hardest things to implement when getting to grips with GTD but, it’s there for a reason. Basically this is the time when you review your actions, projects and other commitments and make a decision if you want to work on them next week. One of the reasons why this is so important is that there will be many things coming into your system and pretty soon everything can go overboard. Planning your next actions and current projects will let you stay more on the ball and move The right things forward.
The fever things the simpler the system
If all you really need is to remember about handful of things it does not matter what application you use. Generally the more complex system the less usable it is and requires more time to maintain. When implementing GTD it easy to get overwhelmed by sheer numbers and come to conclusion that powerful application is needed. Over time it’s easier to see that all we need is a simple list manager. Looking for perfect application is like being Don Quichotte, you never find your ultimate target.
Also don’t focus on the implementation stage. I think too many people are focusing on this part. Attacking it from various angles: paper, electronic, mix of both. Just use one for a while and refine as you go. System is meant to help you do your work not work the system!
Complex tools are good for planning and storing
Most of your planning can be done on single sheet of paper and neatly organised on the other side of that sheet. Regardless of how many action you might have complex tools are primarily good for planning, brainstorming, creating sequences of actions. If you use them for tracking in most cases they will slow you down and require substantial time to keep them current. I’ve spend a lot fiddling with various applications and set up just to use paper in the end.
Pick what’s matters most
With piles of things you want to accomplish you may want to be like a rubber man stretched in many directions at a time. But what you real need is to balance your needs and wants and accept the simple fact that there is not enough hours in the day to accomplish everything.
Avoid “time inflation”
Every person expects gigantic surge in free time but what happens is that we quickly take it for granted and add more things to do, so we miss that point when we had more time and then complain how busy we are and that GTD does not work. There is a good term for that “time inflation” where time saved through use of GTD is spend on doing more work and not on things that are fun.
Think often think a lot
Also there is general expectation that GTD helps you create more time, accomplish more but the key should be put on fact that this is possible thanks to the thinking that you do. I believe that this is most important element of this method. GTD is about thinking, making decisions and following through. This is very much the essence of the system with core elements being processing – making decisions about the inputs and weekly review where you look at your things.
GTD can be overwhelming and weigh you down but when you approach well it will be great help for you. You need to figure things out what work well for you, that fit you as there is no magic formula. Once you test is trial it then you will be able to use the benefits of GTD in full potential.
Do you have any thought and ideas? Please share what do you think.
Tags: gtd
Thanks for stopping by
Posted by Rafal | Filed under Uncategorized
Hi,
Thanks for stopping by. I’m currently working on launching this blog and hope to do it by the year end.
I will be covering primarily topics of productivity, technology, triathlon and some random related bits and pieces.
You can subscribe via RSS or come back in couple weeks.
Thanks
Rafal
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Recent Posts
- Perspective, perception and experience
- GTD can be painful
- A Perfect Day
- Work and swimming
- How I use Onenote