I recently started a twelve month internship at BT, where due to security reasons, I can’t take a laptop or any removable media to work. As a result, I can’t use my tried and tested system to get things done. At first, I was given one task at a time, so didn’t really need to organise myself much, but as time has gone on, I’ve had more and more things to deal with at once.
Working in a Microsoft Office environment, everyone has and uses Outlook, but its to-do list is not the most flexible tool and doesn’t scale nearly as well as a dedicated program like Things. Instead, I’ve started to use 37signals’ Ta-da List, a simple online task manager.
Ta-da List is far more basic than Outlook and much more than Things, but its beauty lies in the lack of clutter. To get to my tasks in Outlook, I’d have to open the application, click the to-do tab and then focus on the small portion of the screen in which the list resides. With Ta-da, I get a plain list with large fonts, devoid of emails, calendar items and other noise. Outlook is a wonderful program if you need total integration with the Office ecosystem, but when I’m deciding what to do next, I need as few distractions as possible.
I guess this highlights the divide that separates many programs; those that do one thing and those that try to do everything. When you’re reading your calendar, do you need your email there as well? Is it sensible to put your RSS feeds in your email application? Looking at the programs on my personal computer, it’s definitely a case of one application per task, with the notable exception of Coda. But I digress.
When your productivity system is suddenly rendered unusable, it’s initially difficult to adapt. Without your trusted tools, you have to invent an entirely new system within a set of limitations and this takes time to adapt to. However you manage, it’s important to remember not to lose control over your time because of unfamiliar surroundings and tools.
Published in Productivity, tagged 37signals, Outlook on 5th August 2008. One comment.
The amount of information that we’re bombarded with increases every day. Processing the numerous links to websites, videos and photos is one thing, but how do we keep track of what we’ve seen so that we can refer back to it at a later date?
Bookmarks are the traditional solution; file away a link to the website in your browser for safe-keeping. Yet I’ve found myself bookmarking websites very rarely of late, relying instead on my memory to recall which appropriate websites I could visit or what I could type into Google to find what I was looking for. Does the bookmark paradigm scale effectively to deal with the massive amount of information that we encounter?
Continue reading →
Published in Productivity, tagged bookmarks, organisation, relevance on 20th May 2008. No comments.
Getting Things Done application Things has been updated to version 0.9, with recurring tasks now implemented. The Mac software, which is in beta testing, is designed to help you manage your everyday tasks. I’ve written about it before and along with iCal, use it to keep track of everything I need to do.
As well as other enhancements, Things now allows you to make every task a recurring one. The development team at Cultured Code have done a remarkably good interface design job and almost any repeating pattern can be used. Note the clever addition of the next predicted dates, which makes visualising complex sequences extremely easy.
Recurring tasks are then stored in the Scheduled section, where they are split into segments for daily, weekly, monthly and other patterns. From here you can reschedule tasks or pause them, which is a nice touch.
There are many Getting Things Done applications on the Mac, but Things stands out above the rest because of its outstanding user interface design. Its clean lines, simplicity and logical layout are on par with anything that Apple produce themselves, and when it’s finally released it’ll be well worth the $49 asking price.
Published in Productivity, Software, tagged Getting Things Done, Things on 16th March 2008. No comments.
“It’s possible for a person to have an overwhelming number of things to do and still function productively with a clear head and a positive sense of relaxed control.”
The core premise of David Allen’s book Getting Things Done is ambitious to say the least. Yet believe it or not, it is entirely possible and I’ve experienced the benefits of following a few of his basic rules since reading it for the first time. I’m normally very sceptical of any book which you might classify as ’self-help’, but Getting Things Done is actually well worth a read. I now have a system which I’ve been using for a few months, but I thought it would be worthwhile revisiting the book to see if I’d pick up any other nuggets of useful information.
As I read the first part of the book, it seemed that I had made use of most of his advice in some form or another. I use my calendar and task management programs to organise all the stuff I need to do, leaving my mind fairly clear at any one point. Here’s on excerpt that I particularly enjoyed:
…you’ll need to get in the habit of keeping nothing in your mind. And the way to do that, as we’ve seen, is not by managing time, managing information and managing priorities. After all:
- you don’t manage five minutes and end up with six;
- you don’t manage information overload - otherwise you’d walk into a library and die, or the first time you connected to the Web, or even opened a phone book, you’d bow up; and
- you don’t manage priorities - you have them.
Instead, the key to managing all of your ’stuff’ is managing your actions.
A lot of the book goes into the fine detail of implementing this sort of system, but you don’t have to read it all. In fact, the first part alone is all you really need to take in. I found that once I had the basic principles and methodology, I could work out how it fit together with my life. The most surprising thing that you don’t realise until you read the book is actually how easy all of his guidelines are to implement. You don’t need any new skills, just a logical way of using them.
I meet quite a few people who are a lot more stressed out than they need to be, mainly because they have trouble keeping track of their lives. Others have sporadically implemented systems which don’t cover all of their bases, so they end up worrying a lot anyway. If you fall into either of those categories and are curious about improving things, then I’d highly recommend picking up Getting Things Done. It might take a while to get used to, but as I’ve found over the last few months, the benefits are huge. Ever wondered how I manage do do Thunderbolt, Impact, university work and all the other stuff I commit to? Well this book is my secret.
Published in Book reviews, Productivity, tagged Getting Things Done on 25th February 2008. No comments.
I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only one with a hectic lifestyle. I have university work to do, Thunderbolt to run and write for, Clan Recruiter to rebuild, a magazine to help design and manage, a social life and various other commitments. With all this stuff going on, learning how to keep it all in balance has been a major preoccupation of mine. I’ve now settled with a system which allows me to keep track of everything and I thought it might be interesting to share a few tips and ideas.
I basically organise my life with three programs: iCal, Mailplane and Things. These are all Mac-only applications, but I’m sure there are various Windows and Linux equivalents that you might use.
I don’t know what I would do without iCal. Pretty much everything I do is in it, from lecture times and society meetings to Thunderbolt stuff and TV schedules. Any appointment or meeting that I have goes straight in it and I sync it with my phone so that I know what I’m doing on the move.
A calendar is pretty much essential to staying organised and I’m sure that most of you use one to one degree or another. Keeping them up to date can be a pain, but the more you rely on them, the more useful they become. The neat thing about computerised calendars is that you can separate different topics from one another, which makes it really easy to understand the context of your day, week or month.
I’m not sure about you, but I have quite a few email accounts. The amount of messages I receive each day isn’t too bad, but the number of accounts I have could make it infeasable to keep track of it all. However, there’s a wonderful application called Mailplane here to help. Essentially, it’s a desktop viewer for Gmail. It looks and functions almost exactly the same as using Gmail through a brower, but it makes switching between accounts extremely easy. A draw on the right shows you total unread messages for each account, which you can switch to by clicking on it.
You could always forward all your mail to one account and sort it that way, but I prefer keeping mail separated into various accounts. That way, when you reply, the address you’re sending from is always consistent. Email can often be overwhelming if left untended, so tools like this are a great help.
The third and final thing I organise is tasks. You know, things like “write a Halo 4 review” or “go and pick up the laundry”. To-do lists are great for keeping track of these kind of tasks, but you might find that you have a huge list of unordered items with no real context. This is where applications like Things come in.
Things is basically an advanced to-do list that is based on the Getting Things Done (GTD) idea. I read the book on the theory by David Allen and to be honest, I couldn’t find a reliable way to get it to work. Things is the first program that I’ve been able to implement it effectively with, so I’m pretty pleased with it.
Essentially, the idea is that you record every task that comes into your head, then organise them into different groups. You have tasks that you’re doing today, or ones that are next up, or items which are postphoned. You can also group these by projects or areas of responsibility. It seems complicated, but it works surprisingly well once you get used to it.
In practice, getting organised can be a hit and miss process. It’s easy to forget that you need to write things done or put them into a program, but the busier your life gets, the more neccessary it is. Unless you have an amazing memory, remembering to do everything can be almost impossible. However, with a bit of research and curiosity, you can get to a stage where you don’t have to worry about forgetting and you can spend more time on living your life.
Recommended reading:
What do you think? How do you keep track of life?
Published in Productivity, Software, tagged Getting Things Done, iCal, Mailplane, Things on 19th February 2008. No comments.
I find that I’m frequently distracted when writing and I’m sure other people must feel the same. Fortunately, there are applications here to help us! WriteRoom (OS X) is a full screen text editor which is very simple and great for just concentrating on what you’re meant to be working on. Dark Room is a free the Windows clone of it.
I tried writing the first part of my Sega Rally review in WriteRoom earlier and it’s a strange but productive experience. It’s nice not having lots of other programs to draw your attention away from the review or article you’re meant to be doing. I haven’t decided whether I’m going to use this for all my writing from now on, but I’m leaning towards doing so.
Published in Productivity, Software, tagged writing on 14th February 2008. One comment.