Webworker Daily published an interesting article. A programmer decided he would not list his next actions but his problems. While reading the article I was thinking the same thing some commenters also state: "Well, isn't it just another list you have to work on?" Whether you call them problems, projects or "stuff", you still put them on a list to work on. Actually, they are just another form of Succesfull Outcomes. Nice read though...
Used tags: gtd, list, software, todo, work
30 04 07 - 20:29 - Permanent link -
The last couple of days my posting habits have been slowed down again. Yes, I completely forgot the Friday 5ives. Well, not forget them, but I just didn't have the time to make them. Couple of reasons: Work is swamped (I occassionally squeek in a few minutes during lunchbreak or in between jobs), the weather is excellent (so why stay in), had a lot of evening-appointments (when I used to write) and well...I had to get things done actually! Taxes, administration, garden, livingroom...just doing stuff...
Posting will resume to normal real soon I hope! In the meantime, check out the excellent and growing GTD Network website where you can find all sorts of productivity pearls
29 04 07 - 21:19 - Permanent link -
A interesting thoughtexperiment for yourself on the weblog of the dutch serial entrepeneur Boris VvZ (You don't want to pronounce his last name...)
He tells about the difference about succesfull and less succesfull entrepeneurs. The less succesfull most of the time talk about possibilities with phrases starting wiuth "If Only..." while the more succesfull entrepeneurs always talk about "Despite..."
Read the article and let it sink in for yourself. Food for thought for your own personal lifemanagement. Even when you're not an entrepeneur.
Used tags: entrepeneur, mindstate, thinking, thoughts
25 04 07 - 22:42 - Permanent link -
Every friday I present to you The Friday 5ives. Around one central theme I give five tips. tweaks, moments, pointers, anything. Really short but I hope really helpfull. The past Friday 5ives can be found on this tag-page. I am experiencing some difficulties with the tags so they give some errors. It's on my Action-list to resolve!
This friday, I present to you five tasks you really can do in two minutes. So why not do them right away?
More >>
Used tags: 2_minutes, cleaning, friday_5ives
20 04 07 - 15:03 - Permanent link -
Sometimes you read these little hacks and you think to yourself "Why didn't I think of that?". Check out this excellent hack to quick-compose a message in Gmail
Compose Gmail Quickly. Want to send yourself a task in
Gmail but don’t have much time? Set up a bookmarklet for a quick
compose:
- Click on “compose” in Gmail, and then click on the pop-out
button in the compose area to bring it to a new window;
- Right-click
on some blue space and select “Bookmark This Page” and save it in your
Bookmarks Toolbar folder;
- Right-click on the new bookmarklet you’ve
created, select Properties and check “Load this bookmark in the
sidebar”. Now just click on this bookmarklet at any time when you want
to send yourself a new task, or send someone else a quick email.
Read more Gmail tips on Lifehack.org
18 04 07 - 21:58 - Permanent link -
In my Read/review list I came across this article (part 1 and part 2) on applying GTD in your financial situation. A very interesting and thoughtfull piece on the use of the core principles in your finances.
[...]every dollar you own is considered an “open loop.” If there is any
dollar unaccounted for, ignored, or forgotten, you will never have
peace about your finances. There will always be questions in your mind
as to whether you’ll meet your financial goals, or even if you’ll have
enough to pay next month’s bills.
18 04 07 - 11:28 - Permanent link -
GTD is a timemanagement/planningssystem that has been wildly popular over the last few years, especially (or because of) the large following online and the ease of use to get started with it. But there is one problem. It will not get things done for you...
The biggest thing I have discovered about GTD is that it is a system that doesn't give you orders what to do next. It does not tell you: "Listen up, it's 10 AM, you should be doing this right now". What GTD does, is it gives you simple principles for you to collect, process, organize and review your work. But the doing part, that is hardly an issue with GTD. Sure, The Dave talks about the use of time, energy, contexts to decide what to do next. But that nanosecond, that one defining moment where you know what to do next? Where you know where your next tasks lies? That is actually not an issue at all in GTD.
More >>
Used tags: empty_mind, implementation, information_overload, lookback, planning, relaxing
16 04 07 - 21:59 - Permanent link -
This shirt would be excellent! XL please :-)
14 04 07 - 13:17 - Permanent link -
Yesterday we had the first GTD evening in The Netherlands. Together with Taco Oosterkamp and Marleen Kruyswijk from meereffect.nl I organized a fun evening where about 30 GTD enthousiasts exchanged ideas, showed some ubiquitous capturing tools and people gave demo's. Here are the 5 best things I experienced at this evening...
More >>
Used tags: exchange, flow, friday_5ives, gtdnl, ideas, productivity, sharing
13 04 07 - 21:35 - Permanent link -
This weekend, I received a link to an articleon Everyfing.com which gives some pretty good critique on the GTD system. It is a very good article and some of the points he makes resonate with me. Especially when he talks about how the book is written and how the chapters are set up. I agree, it could be shorter on some points. I do disagree with him on the implementation and use of the system. I get asked often about a sort of managementsummary of the system since people don't have the time to actually read it and implement the system. I had the same problem. untill I started to read and started to think about it.
You can compare setting up your GTD system as learning how to walk. I have a baby daughter so I know I'm gonna see this happen real soon with her. When you see a young child learning something new, it always goes with errors, falling, learning, wondering, trying again. When I watch how my daughter first discovered her own feet when she was 3 months old. It was pure joy. She didn't understand those parts of her body and it took some time for her to connect. But you see how she learns. She tries new things. Like rolling over. She fails, cries, gets angry. And then tries again.Untill she gets the hang of it. The smile on her face and in her eyes (and her parents') is the best thing in the world.
Same thing with GTD. It is hard. You will fail. You will fall of the bandwagon. I did. I still do. But you must know what lies ahead. If you just get the slightest sense of victory, try to keep that in mind. Try to keep that as a successfull outcome. And when you fail again, know that you can try it again. Just as you learned how to walk or sit or eat. And then try again.
This post was influenced by a column from Danny Bader on the Davidco.com website.
Used tags: gtd, implementation, inspiration, learning, support, vision
10 04 07 - 22:32 - Permanent link -
A while back I wrote about our dishwasher, how it got defunct and how I was finding time for myself in doing the dishes by hand. This all still holds very valid. But there is a slight change. We decided to get rid of the dishwasher. Well, I wanted it gone. My girlfriend still hates doing the dishes. So I was checking out how to deconstruct the dishwasher out of our kitchen. When doing that I tried to get it to work one more time. You never guess what happened...
Ofcourse, the dishwasher started working again. We didn't do anything about it, it just worked again. So now we have a dilemma. I must admit, using the dishwasher again is very handy. But we could also use the extra space and as said before, doing the dishes by hand gives me some peace. But doing the dishes by hand while you have a machine in you rkitchen. That's just not efficient.
Triggered by the original thought and by the comments on the original article, I decided to find some more private time where I don't go online, read, watch TV or do anything else. Not really medidating, but just doing nothing. Being there, in the moment. Hope it works....
Used tags: information_overload, productivity, relaxing, technology
09 04 07 - 17:11 - Permanent link -
Steve Rubel from Micropersuasion.com is one of the more prolific GTD-ers out there. I know he reads this blog (Hi Steve) so I want to thank him for getting the word out there every now and again. In
his latest article he extends his serie of GMail tricks with a new episode. This time how you can use GMail as a business diary, how to annotate books, how to get critical alerts and how to use GMail as a searchable river of news. Very worthwhile to read, review and perhaps try for yourself. Make sure you also check out his other articles on the use of GMail as more than just an emailclient.
Used tags: email, gmail, lifehacks
09 04 07 - 08:35 - Permanent link -
It's friday, that means it's time again for the Friday 5ives. Every friday I will take a subject within the field of GTD, personal productivity and lifehacking and wrap it up in a list of 5. Last week we looked at
5 ways to deal with tedious tasks. Today we'll be checking out the 5 best moments in the GTD-system!
More >>
Used tags: feel_good, friday_5ives, gtd
06 04 07 - 08:33 - Permanent link -
Besides this weblog I have several other blogs and websites. They run on different domainnames and on different weblogsystems. One of the biggest problems I had was the blogsystems sort of getting in the way of one another through directory structure, use of htaccess and other causes. This has given me and the owner of the server (Pivothosting) quite a few headaches so we decided to move things around a bit to make life easier for ourselves. One of these days I will start to move some directories and servers around. There is the possibility that this blog will be offline for a few hours. Do not worry, everything will be back to normal as soon as possible. The biggest challenge is always moving directories around on a server and configuring everything, especially URL's for the least amount of loss in Google juice and other backlinks. I hope this will run smoothly and What's The Next Action is back to normal as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience
Used tags: moving, pivot, server, system_message, work_in_progress
04 04 07 - 17:38 - Permanent link -
Just received note on a new GTD-app for the Mac, iGTD. From the looks on the site I am intrigued. I don't own a Mac myself (yet) so where are those Windows-developers with these funky apps? Are they procrastinating?
iGTD comes with a Quicksilver plugin and some nice features like notes with tasks, linking tasks to people in your address-book and a lot of keyboard-tricks. If anyone has had a chance to play around with this, let me know!
Used tags: product, productivity, software, technology
03 04 07 - 11:51 - Permanent link -
I'm not a native english speaker, I'm dutch actually. And last night I had a discussion on Twitter (oooohhh....the famous T-word) with some fellow GTD-ers from the Netherlands about the dutch meaning of two words. Since 99% of my audience is not dutch-speaking I'm going to ask the question different here. Perhaps anyone can help us out.
In GTD, The Dave talks about a list called "Errands". I never gave it much thought and just use the word. But what does it actually mean? Is it the same as "Doing groceries"? Or more something like "Shopping"? Another famous word in productivity-management is "procrastination". Now how does this translate? I know what it is and I know when I'm doing it. But it's hard to describe. Is it something like "slacking"? "Avoiding work"? Or more "Putting work behind"? I try to come with a dutch equivalent for it, in just one word.
Hope anyone can help us out here!
Used tags: definition, errands, procrastionation
03 04 07 - 08:48 - Permanent link -
Last Comments
John B. Kendrick (The Friday 5ives:…): Did you discuss any computer or mobi…David Barrett (Email reminders t…): Hey there, I’m the guy behind 3mindm…
Conga Keystone (Firefox tabs as s…): Thanks!! At any given session, I can…
Chad (GTD wiki): Your writing is fine. There is only …
Summy (The next action: …): Sorry to see you go. I do understa…
Matthew Cornell (The next action: …): Best of luck, and thanks for all the…
rob (The next action: …): Thanks Frank. I started my GTD journ…
Lodewijk van den … (The next action: …): Sorry to hear about that, but it was…
Sanne Roemen (The next action: …): Kill your darlings, it’s not easy bu…
judyofthewoods (The next action: …): All the best in your new venture. I …