Book Log – Getting Things Done

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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

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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

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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.

Book Log – Jane Eyre

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Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Thanks to galbinus_caeli for reminding me of Project Gutenberg, which has made a number of improvements since last I had a Palm, making it much easier to transfer those books to a ebook format.

I really enjoyed the first 4/5 of this book. It’s got a Harry Potter/Oliver Twist sort of beginning, and the language is very enjoyable1. The last fifth dragged a bit, and I sped read the last few pages.

I picked it up because I’ve been reading the Jasper Fforde Thursday Next series, which began with The Eyre Affair. There was much plot of that book based upon the changing of the plot in Jane Eyre, none of which I understood. So now it all makes sense.

1 It should be noted that I find Jane Austen’s writing enjoyable as well. So… there’s your reference point.

Those Brits do pick on religion…

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Does Religion Do More Harm Than Good?, courtesy of galbinus_caeli.

A quote of a quote of the original study, regarding religious belief in developed, democratic countries…
“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, (venereal disease), teen pregnancy, and abortion,” while “none of the strongly secularized, pro-evolution democracies is experiencing high levels of measurable dysfunction.”

First off, I hate that they dropped “pro-evolution” in there. Religion and Evolution are not opposites.

Secondly, is this an increase-in-preachers-causes-increase-in-criminals sort of false correlation? (or, if you prefer, decrease-in-pirates-causes-increase-in-global-warming) Perhaps is there selective data being reviewed? Dunno.

As the author of the article mentions, all of these issues are more likely to happen with the economically disadvantaged and countries with stronger belief in a higher power tend to have fewer social programs (at least, fewer governmental social programs).

My instinct is to resist the blow to religion. In a country where there are few social programs and a harsher form of poverty, I would hypothesize a tendency to look towards satisfaction in the afterlife when satisfaction in present life seems unattainable. Thus, poverty and its accompanying ills beget religion, rather than the other way around.

And Britain is “post-Christian”? Who knew?

Sucking.

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Okay-

Who’s got a vacuum they love?

One what’s got all those fancy HEPA anti-dust filtration whatamajiggers. Picks up allergens and dog hairs and bad juju.

We’ve had a terrible vacuum for years now, and its complete and utter inability to pick up dog hair off the couch is the final straw.

My mom is extolling the Oreck XL series, but I see too many bad reviews out there on the internets. Allergy Buyers Club sells a host of high-end, pricey ones I’ve never heard of.

Help!

Venturing into the kitchen again

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I used to cook a lot.

Not a lot of different dishes, but often. Mostly, variations on stir-fry. The wok was my friend.

I rarely used recipes, and the results ranged from perfect to inedible.

For years now, steakums has completely taken over the reins of cooking. Largely because she used to get home well before I did (upwards of an hour to two hours) and got hungry. In my bachelor days, I would often just skip dinner, or not start thinking about it until 8 or 9pm.

So, only very rarely do I take up the wok again. Less than once a year. And every time has been an abysmal failure, lack of practice does not make perfect.

But our schedules have realigned in recent months such that my commute is much shorter, and I leave earlier, and all those sorts of things, and thusly I arrive home right around the same time steakums does, or at least not before she’s started cooking. So, last night I made a stir-fry again. And it went pretty well.

I only bring all this up because my hands smell severely of garlic. This is only a complaint insofar as every time I scratch my nose, I get hungry.