2005: An experiment in being productive (with a bit of GTD thrown in)
I have decided to make 2005 the year that I try the most software/ techniques to stay productive. Being productive is a subjective term, so I had better define what it means to me. I just want to ensure that I have all my information where I want it and when I want it. In a nutshell, productivity is efficient information management. Only with efficient information management can I be prepared to take on all the tasks and projects that 2005 holds.
I have been reading a lot from 43 Folders. Merlin, who maintains the site calls it the art of Getting Things Done (GTD) after being inspired by this book from David Allen Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. I finally went to order it today from Amazon.com together with another book I have been planning to read: Mind Hacks (more on that in another future post). Since the book takes about 5 days to get to me, I decided that even before reading the book I will outline what I plan to do and then compare it to what David Allen says. Of course, what I plan to do has been slightly influence by GTD since I have read some of the things on the web about it.
I have invested in a moleskine pocket-sized notebook which I intend to carry around with me whenever I am out. I have a Palm Tungsten but I decided that it will be more convenient to carry a notebook around. Why? By using the Palm I am limited to taking notes using Graffiti; though I can write pretty fast with Graffiti, it still does not seem natural to me. Moreover, I feel that a notebook will allow me to jot things down as quickly as possible. I will be using this notebook to primarily jot down notes that come to mind and also include sketches (something that is limited in a Palm even when using the Notes application). Since I will be carrying my iPod with me most of the time, I can easily access my address book and schedule. Whatever needs jotting down will be quickly recorded down with pen and paper before it is forgotten: Document it or it is lost! or The faintest ink is better than the mightiest memory!
Anything that I read will also be jotted down now for permanence. This can involve writing it down in my moleskine or just writing things down within the pages of the book. Important quotes will be transferred to the computer so that I can search for them quickly. I will continue to maintain my text file of interesting fortune messages. Here is an excerpt:
A is for awk, which runs like a snail, and
B is for biff, which reads all your mail.
C is for cc, as hackers recall, while
D is for dd, the command that does all.
E is for emacs, which rebinds your keys, and
When I am on my computer, I will be storing whatever websites that I am interested in using bookmarks. And if I find a particularly interesting article, I will store it inside StickyBrain. Too often have I encountered the frustration of not being able to locate that bloody article when I need it even though I can remember what website it is from. Because certain articles may seem important but then lose its importance over time, I will be keeping them inside one main folder in StickyBrain first. And then I will look at them two weeks from now and see whether they should be moved into their own folders. Else that article would be gone for good. This is of course a dangerous situation but it is also another of my methods for GTD: if the article has not been touched within 3 months, it is probable that you will not use it and it will be obsolete when you need to use it.
Using the two methods above, I hope to be able to quickly store what I need and retrieve it easily in the future. When I am not near a computer I will be using my moleskine and when I am near one I will be using StickyBrain. And when I am on a computer that is not my own, then I will be using plain text files that I will send to my gMail account or just sftp them over to my computer. This combination seems to be the best. Writing something down gives it a sense of permanence and having it on my computer whenever possible will allow me to quickly search for the article. And the best (or worst) news is that any article that I have a comment for will quickly be posted to this blog using the MarsEdit bookmarklet. I will be expecting a lot of new posts to this blog.
For my classes, I will be using the large-lined notebook that I have been using. I will continue to meticulously record the date I took the note on the top right corner. And I will jot down class notes using a pencil (since it is easily erasable). When I next review them I will be using a pen to jot down future thoughts. Homework assignments will now be done using separate pieces of paper and not by tearing them from my class notebook. This helps the pages from finishing too quickly and hopefully it does not leave me with more than one notebook for each class I am taking. I particularly dislike this because then I have to use two notebook while revising. I will probably not be using PowerPoint files to jot down my notes anymore since I can still write and illustrate faster than I type. So, I will make it a point to try to print out all the lecture materials for that lecture beforehand. In the event that I do take notes for a class, maybe one that has extensive online materials or I am reading from an article, I will be using OmniOutliner.
Moreover I will be storing all the articles I come across on the web in the respective class folders which I will create. They will either be organized by date, lecture, or subtopic, whichever is more convenient. This files will be backup and should be available on some shared folder which should be easily accessible.
Those steps should take care of information management. I am still looking for some method that will allow me to quickly access all my information and synchronize them over multiple computers. Right now, .Mac seems to be one way but it is limited to macintosh machines. Tasks seems to be a good program to try out but I find its user interface leaves much to be desired. And it does not synchronize with the tools that I am currently using. And I am glad that MovableType supports posting from an external browser using its web interface. So I am still able to quickly recored my thoughts on some site before I forget.
Another thing that I will be doing would be using more "tasks" in my to-do lists. It seems that having a phrase like "complete mp1" is direct and understandable. However, completing mp1 is not a task, it is a project! Tasks are things that can be completed within an hour or so. Breaking "complete mp1" into tasks would of course mean more typing but it makes the current task that needs to be done more tangible. So I am going to try that out.
My iCal and AddressBook will now be as updated as possible so that all data will be synchronized across all my machines. I hope that Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger will bring about better .Mac synchronization.
My desktop shall remain as clutter free as possible. It will only hold files and folders that should not need to remain there for more than a week. If they do, it probably means that I should store them in some folder. I know that Google Desktop search would be able to find everything, but that will not be how I use it. I will be using Spotlight/ Google Desktop search to quickly locate pieces of text that I need. Not locate files that I misplace in the first place.
All in all, this might seem like there is going to be a lot of information to store. And I agree. Nevertheless, the way I have described it seems to be logical to my own mind. I will of course change it if it fails in some way or complicate matters.
This post was written quickly in the spur of the moment so that I can document all the ideas I have got for GTD. So it might be a little choppy.
Updated: Of interest would be this article on the New York Times that compares and contrasts the "fast" productive side and the "slow" but successful side. Resolved: To Do More. Or Less. Or Something
Posted in college stuff, paradigm, readings | 1 comment |
about 17 hours later: