Monthly Archives: April 2007

Book Log – Getting Things Done

Posted on by

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen
(or How To Change Your Life With An Electronic Labeler)

I loved this book. Loved it. And I am, by nature, distrustful of self help books.

This is the book that I mentioned which has set me off on an organization tear. I heard it mentioned1, read the wikipedia page about it, and I found it really intriguing.

I’m not going to describe the whole system that this guy lays out for Getting Things Done2 (the Wikipedia page does a fine job of that), but there’s a few key points to mention that I think are going to make a major difference in my stress level and productivity.

First, Allen fully acknowledges the imposing nature of To Do Lists. I’ve tried many, many self-designed “systems” for keeping track of what I needed to do. And they all fall down, in one way or another. Throughout the book, Allen kept mentioning different ways in which methods fail, and I recognized myself in at least half of them.

One such flaw, and one of the simple brilliances of GTD, is that To-Do lists are often composed of projects, and “you can’t do a project,” you can only do the actions that will lead to the completion of the project. “Design a settop,” “Remodel kitchen” and “Teach my son to read” are projects, not actions. To-Do lists should have Next Actions, like “Call Tom to set up a meeting re: new settop feature list,” “brainstorm with on what we want our kitchen to be like” or “Do a Google search for tips on teaching kids to read.” Break it down, and then to-do lists look very doable.

A big thrust of GTD is getting rid of the existential stress of having too much to do and not knowing where to start, or starting and not being sure that what you’re doing is REALLY the best thing to be doing at any given time. I’m feeling better already about things.

Also, he stresses the importance of owning an electronic labeler, because they’re fun. And I love any book that encourages me to buy office supplies and feel good about it.

Of course, it could all fall apart. But the geeksphere seems to be pretty on board, and they’re good folk.

If you’ve ever felt pulled in too many directions, read this book.

1 Special thanks to kaughy for mentioning this book in his LJ.
2 Every online review or blog I’ve read about GTD starts off with “I’m not going to describe the whole GTD system” and then goes on to describe the whole GTD system.

Life Stories

Posted on by

I’m on an organizational kick. The mind clutter level has gotten too high, there are two many things going on to keep it all straight, and things were starting to fall through the cracks.

kaughy inadvertently provided me with a path to follow to solve this issue whilst posting about his own efforts to manage the startup of his business, and more about this later, for that is not what this post is about.

This post is about, sort of, Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way. I’ve told this story many times, maybe even in this journal. It bears repeating.

Julia Cameron was a professor for a time at the undergraduate university I went to. I never took her class, but a couple friends of mine did (stronglanguage, for example). Everyone who took her class loved it. One of my friends believed she was a witch because of her uncanny way of knowing what you were thinking, and what you needed/wanted at any given time.

One of the first exercises in this class was to write your life story. They had a week or so to do it, and on the day they turned in their papers, Ms. Cameron asked everyone to raise their hand if they had done a major purging of their stuff the previous weekend. Everyone raised their hand.

It seems the act of recording your life down on paper frees up some of the need to pack-rat mementos. It clears out some of the cobwebs and baggage hanging around in your brain.

So, I’m going to make an effort to try and get some of those stories out of my brain. Time to turn the hose on the mind clutter.

I may need to rent a dumpster.

Post Office Temperance

Posted on by

I went to the post office on Saturday morning to ship some stuff steakums had sold on eBay.

After the cliche’ long wait in line, the woman told me I couldn’t ship in the box I had, because it had the words “Wine” and “Champagne”1 in various places. It wasn’t labeled wine or champagne, persay, just had the name of a Wine & Champagne company on it on several sides… “Drunky McDrunk’s Wine & Champagne Distributors” or some such thing.

She offered me some leftover waxy paper that self-adhesive stamps come on to cover it up, but with no tape or anything to do it with. Nor did she have a black marker. So I left, as I had a show to get to and a life to lead.

But later I thought… how does someone send something to Champagne, France? Or Champaign, IL? Or Champagne Lane, Kane, IL? Or Champagne Ct., Naperville, IL? Or Wine Street, Randolph, IN? Or, for that matter, to the Wine & Champagne company itself?

What if I had taken a regular pen and written “NOT” in front of each instance of “Champagne” or “Wine”. Would that have worked?

Or written “Street” after each?

Or inserted an “h” in between the “W” and “i”?

Words. Fear their power over the Post Office.

1 Box taken from Georgia Shakes… we don’t drink champagne by the case around here.