211–220 of 235 posts
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I've found something similar. Kanban boards have probably made me more effective, but more than that, they've made work a lot more enjoyable by helping me limit the number of open projects at once.
Do you use any particular kanban implementation?
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Cal Newport wrote the book "Deep Work". David Allen wrote "Getting Things Done". Do you mean David Allen instead of Cal Newport?
See reply to danial
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A similar trick works for avoiding sugary treats: don't strongly oppose this desire - instead say to yourself you can eat it at a later time and move your mind to something else. (When you finally eat whatever it was you so much desired, you didn't really fail, because you are only consuming 1 unit for those 3/5/whatever days, instead of one every day...)
I use this trick when I want to buy something online which I don't absolutely need. I'll add it to a wish list on Amazon (or even put it in my cart) and then leave the site. When I come back a few days or weeks later, I often find myself asking why I ever wanted that thing in the first place and remove it.
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See reply to danial
Just read reply. I'm confused then because both books are about different things. I guess we could also say it was "mercifully shorter than Leo Tolstoy's book".
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The only implementation I have found worthwhile is paper, and to a certain extent, plain markdown/org files in Dropbox. Everything else, like OmniFocus and whatnot has had severe issues with the flexibility inherently required.
Out of curiosity, what are your issues with OmniFocus? I have some issues with it (primarily that it's hard to share information from it with other people), but otherwise I find it to be a fantastic personal tool for GTD (I'd use it for work, but my office is all Windows). That said, I do like paper and org-mode at least as much. I definitely find paper best for writing down my intentions and clarifying them before I…
- The context support is weak. It ideally would be replaced by a tagging system, but I doubt that's coming at this point.
- No support for making sequentially dependent tasks -- I can't mark task A to be doable as soon as task B completes. (I guess I could, if I do a lot of sub-projects with sequential dependency)
- In addition to this, subprojects are janky. They're just kinda awful to use, from the awkward indentation to the fact that the side-bar projects view is not actually a full tree, and just works with folders. This would need to be changed to also expand/be usable for sub-projects, not just for folders and top-level projects.
- The system maintenance tools are lacking. One of the core tenets of GTD is to make sure that every project always has a next step, and OmniFocus has no support for this whatsoever, aside from manual review. I realise that paper also doesn't do this, but it seems like something a digital solution should have.
- No sharing information, as you said, aside from exporting things as TaskPaper.
- Support for deferments, but not for Tickler files, which are one of the handiest things about a paper-based system.
- Reference and storage, per nature of OmniFocus, has to be completely separated, which adds jank. I realise this is massive scope-bloat, so it's probably not fair to complain about.
Things I really like and will probably keep even after I drop OmniFocus:
- The dedicated mail drop. I think even after I move away from OF, this is going to be something I keep.
- The "due" list view. OmniFocus pushes you towards using this a lot, even if it's not completely in the spirit.
- The good integration between my laptop and phone is going to be hard to live without again.
I hope this shed some light on my gripes and issues with OmniFocus. :)
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This works very well for me. The trick is put the gym clothes without thinking about your feelings and thoughts. Then proceed to walk out the door with the same attitude, supressing the internal chatter..
Would you say one should just do it ?
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Personally I used the same approach to start running: “just lace the shoes”. After you finish this, you are almost running.
Haha! that´s genius. Could technically be applied to lots of unpleasant tasks. I sometimes have difficulties with getting out of bed in the morning. Might a "just stand up" help with that problem? I will test that tomorrow.
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You always have to decide. Say you are in the context "at office" and have a list with twenty action items on a list called @office. Which one will you do? You have to choose. Based upon your energy level, time available, etc. David Allen (DA) outlines a process where you sit down ( way before you start implementing a project), brainstorm / think through / clarify / define the endgame, and finally come up with "atomi…
> DA recommends not to organise lists by priority I agree with his advice. You are either going to complete a task or not complete it. If you define one task to be important and another to be trivial, they shouldn't be on the same list, or if they are, you should put the important task on the top. Things that have to get done should really go on your calendar. > Why not take a decision way before and learn to clear t…
I never got that sort of thing to work with GTD, viewing only some number of "next actions" hides the fact that all those actions need to be done by some date.
This was mercifully shorter than the Cal Newport book. That's about all I can say for it. Ivan Sutherland had the secret, and it only took one paragraph to share it: ' I used to hate washing dishes. I would delay as long as possible. Eyeing the daunting pile of dishes, I would say to myself, “I'll be here forever at this dumb task.” The enormity of the task deterred me from starting. I still dislike washing dishes, b…
That doesn't really endear me to the concept...
I read David Allen's book in 2002 and immediately started implementing it. At first it felt like godsend. Capturing every "open loop" (everything that is not the way it should be = everything with a delta between current and desired state) and deciding for each of them if there is any action that I need to take and if so, what the very next step was - that practice alone released a ton of energy and gave me a sense o…
http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2015/5/21/the-final-...
Key paragraph that explains why this worked better for me than GTD did:
> There are three main requirements which have to be kept in balance. These are urgency, importance and psychological readiness. Traditional time management systems have tended to concentrate on the first two of these. The neglect of psychological readiness is probably the reason that most people don’t find time management systems particularly effective or congenial.The most distinctive feature of FVP is the way that its algorithm is primarily based on psychological readiness - this then opens the way to keeping urgency and importance in the best achievable balance.
I still use a rudimentary GTD approach for collecting stuff (various inboxes) and keeping track of a project as a whole, but I've so far this 'AutoFocus' (or rather the unfortunately named 'Final Version') approach has been the only one that didn't fall apart quickly.