Defying Gravity - Wicked (Original Broadway Sountrack)
You have my permission to put it on repeat. (Probably better if you’ve seen the musical itself, but who knows?)
Anyone have something else they like to make it through a Manic Monday?
I first came across the knowledge in this area while listening to Brian Tracy. Leading Forward has a few good bullet points that I think you can probably read in less than 2 minutes.
Leading Forward: How to Multi-Task Productively
Effective multi-task requires careful thought, in addition to my previous post, some tactics to bear in mind to ensure appropriate multi-tasking are:
- Limit multi-tasking to simple tasks. Keep multi-tasking to simple tasks, that which does not require deep thinking, creative thinking or problem solving.
- Set apart time and energy for important work. Give important work, work requiring deep thinking, problem solving or creativity and imagination, the quality, energy and time it deserves. This will mean you will need to persevere on an important task until it’s completed
- Remove distractions and limit interruptions. When working on complex and important tasks, remove distractions, shut down your e-mail client, switch off your phone and TV, etc. Focused time and energy on important, complex tasks IS the most productive way to work!
- Daily and medium-term planning is crucial. Without effective daily and medium-term (a 40 day window) planning, ensuring appropriate multi-tasking is impossible, you ultimately remain in crisis (multi-tasking) mode. Planning helps to schedule time for important and complex work which is best suited for focused attention.
I have found that I often lose data (ie: thoughts and ideas) when I am forced to switch between tasks. Even when these tasks are related (parts of the same project), I either have to completely finish what I’m working on, or write down all the important things I need to remember with the regard to the task (which saves me some loss in productivity, but less than if I just switched without capturing that data).
How many times have you gone “Oh, right, now I remember you saying that”?
If you used computer-based lists like me, then you probably enjoy some amount of automatic sorting by the list program. This is good, of course, but a way to make it even more effective is to choose your words carefully. What do I mean? Well, obviously I’m going to explain or this wouldn’t be much of a post would it?
Say you’re adding something to a list that already has several items, and this thing you’re adding isn’t as important, or isn’t something you want to do right away… The example I’ll use is adding content to a web page (since this is what made me think of it). Adding the particular set of content I will be adding for this project is not as important as doing some other things I’m working on for this project (like getting all the buttons and forms to work correctly). So, instead of calling this item (Next Action, if that’s not trademarked - which it probably should be) “Add content to xyz.html” … I’m going to say “Put content into xyz.html.”
Figured it out yet?
If I use the word “Add” my lists (and probably some of yours too) will put this action near the top (ie: in alphabetical order). But if I say “Put” then there are other actions that will appear before this new one (usually, since P is for “Pretty far down the alphabet.” Things that are more important to “Add” to the site (since I seem to be “adding” a lot of things for this project) will appear before things that are less important to “Put” into the site.
If you don’t have a program yet that lets you make and sort lists, I have to recommend AirSet. It’s still under development, but they’re adding features as fast as I’m adding posts. And they reply to their emails in a much more timely manner.
This tip is for somewhat advanced users (and people who are trying to cut down on the amount of time they spend going through their RSS feeds). That’s just a warning, but don’t let it discourage you from reading on…
There are three types of subscription services you can utilize at del.icio.us (for me at least).
The first is what I’ll call “category” subscriptions. This is where you subscribe to something like http://del.icio.us/tag/productivity. This will give you all the web sites/pages that people bookmark and tag with productivity. That’s one that I subscribe to (cause I’m sure you hadn’t already figured that out).
The second type is “user” subscriptions. This is something along the lines of: http://del.icio.us/tag/devilishgrin. (These are real examples, people) I tend to think of this as slightly more “drilled down” than the category subscriptions since I keep an eye out for when users bookmark a lot of pages in a category to which I subscribe. From there, I’ll check out their page (like mine: http://del.icio.us/nelsoc. I used to use http://del.icio.us/new/nelsoc, but they’ve taken that away from me… Bring back the tag clouds!)
The third (and obviously final) type is “user category” subscriptions. This is what I try to use the most since it limits the amount of “crap” you have to sort through. Once again, learn by example: http://del.icio.us/tag/worldbfree/basketball. In case you are in need of an explanation: here I’ve noticed worldbfree posting things that interested me, so I subscribed to his feed. However, his interests, while as diverse as mine, do not exactly reflect mine (which is probably a good thing). So, instead of looking at all the things he chooses to bookmark, I’ve taken (in this example) only the things he categorizes as basketball sites/pages. Now, I don’t go around subscribing to just anyone’s del.icio.us feeds, so worldbfree should feel very special indeed. Of course, I’m the only one on BlogLines who’s actually subscribed to his feeds… but then, I’m the only one on BlogLines who’s subscribed to my feeds… and I don’t know where I’m going with this…
To recap:
First: Subscribe to categories
Second: Find users within the categories
Third: Find categories within the users within the categories
I wouldn’t recommend expanding the other way too often. The point for me is to cut back on the amount of time I spend in my feed reader, so adding users and/or categories is something I do very judiciously.
I’m posting this because it seems like a lot of GTD devotees seem concerned not only with taking control of their time, but also of their money. For other frugal GTDites, here’s a great post from the Wealthy Blogger…
The Wealthy Blogger » Frugality Versus Cheapness
It would appear that no, people do not respect frugality or consider it a virtue anymore, or at least not a certain portion of society. Instead we have started respecting materialism. We impress people with what we have, not how we paid for it. This of course explains why people are deeper in debt than ever, they need more things to impress their friends (and themselves) with.
My girlfriend and I are both of the frugal mindset, and as a result, we love going shopping with each other and getting great deals on the things we buy.
Frugal but not cheap places to shop:
So, next time someone at the bar pulls out a Discover to buy you a drink, give ‘em a Paris Hilton “That’s hot.”
Any other frugal but no cheap places to shop? Leave a comment!
Frugal 4 Life!
wingedpig.com - Mark Fletcher, CEO of Bloglines: Google Launches My Google, World Does Not End
My Yahoogle doesn’t track what information you’ve already read, and what bits are new. So, each time you visit your My Yahoogle page, it takes time to scan the page to see if there’s new information. This is a complete waste. If you only show new things, the amount of information that needs to be displayed decreases greatly. There’s less information, and it’s all new. It’s a much more efficient way of dealing with many information sources.
Another flaw in the My Yahoogle model is the idea of placing everything on one page. Besides forcing the user to become a web page designer (should I place this information source in the right corner, or left?), this again reduces the number of information sources that can be followed, to a number that can be reasonably placed on a single web page.
The Bloglines user interface was developed partially in response to these flaws. Only show new articles. Provide a mechanism (the tree display in the left pane) that allows you to easily select a subset of information sources to display at any one time.
I have over 200 subscriptions in my Bloglines account (many of which you can see in my blogroll on the left). There’s no way I could follow that many sites in My Yahoogle.
Now, granted Mark Fletcher is probably more than a little biased, but in this case, I agree with him.
I also have slightly over 200 subscriptions (after cutting it down from 311) in my BlogLines account. I tried using My Yahoo for a while (since I’d been using it for weather, email, calendar, fantasy basketball) to read RSS feeds, but once you get past about 10-15 feeds, it becomes unmanageable. Even if you separate out categories onto different pages.
I use Gmail, so I thought that maybe My Google would be good for that, but I already have the Gmail plugin for Firefox, so really it doesn’t help that much… not to mention that AirSet has a new version of their web app available (since yesterday). Airset is my new (one and only) homepage. (I used to have Bloglines and Gmail as other home pages - since you can have multiple home pages in Firefox), but that was WAY too distracting from actually Getting Things Done.
Okay, so maybe it is merely coincidence that probably the most famous slogan in recent history (Just Do It) is from the company named after the Goddess of Victory. But there certainly is a correlation… Just Do It = Victory.
I’d been studying GTD, 43Folders, etc. for about 2-3 months before it kind of hit me last week.
I’d been tweaking and changing systems like Carrie buy shoes… and I thought that was the cool part of GTD. Systems are Pretty. Shiny. Cool.
I know from reading the 43Folders Google Group, that it’s not just a problem for a few people. If you’re a tweaker or a system-switcher, you are not alone. And you don’t need help. You just have to realize (as I did , and as I believe most people will if they keep trying to implement GTD) that in order to Get Things Done… you have to get things done.
Repeat: You have to get things done.
You have to get something done.
You have to get anything done.
Just do It.
Your system is fine. Now stop messing with it and do something. Then you’ll have more time to watch S&TC.
.: UNEASYsilence :. - How-to: Quicklaunch Applications/Files/Del.icio.us on Windows
Using AppRocket, we can now quickly locate, launch, or search for files on our Windows computers. I’ve found this especially handy for browsing Del.icio.us bookmarks.
If you were not already aware, I discovered the beauty, simplicity, and all-around wonderfulness of AppRocket before this post. The evidence is in the link to it from the sidebar. It’s over there. Now, go download before reading any further. Seriously, it’s awesome. I paid the $18 for it, and I have not been more happy with a purchase since I bought www.givemetherock.com.
Everybody with a blog and a PC should be jockin’ AppRocket like an NBA pundit on Dwyane Wade. Or a productivity blogger on David Allen.
The del.icio.us idea presented by UneasySilence is good enough that I went and downloaded Foxylicious so I could make it happen. I haven’t tried ActiveWords, which is what David Allen recommends, but AppRocket seems just as good, if not better. And for the frugal gourmet, it’s also cheaper. Either way, though, you need one of them…
You can make it - make it happen!
Self-Discipline » Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development Blog
It’s a mistake to try to push yourself too hard when trying to build self-discipline. If you try to transform your entire life overnight by setting dozens of new goals for yourself and expecting yourself to follow through consistency starting the very next day, you’re almost certain to fail. This is like a person going to the gym for the first time ever and packing 300 pounds on the bench press. You will only look silly.
Once again, how much do I love Steve Pavlina’s blog? A lot.
I recently came across some other articles on concentration, which I consider an important part (no really a part, per se, but close relative, perhaps) of self-discipline. I won’t link to it, because I don’t have the link any more… But the point is that I think using concentration techniques is a great way to start out building your self-discipline. Things like:
It seemed kind of ridiculous to me at first, but I believe that doing these things (I started about 2 weeks ago) has actually improved my ability to concentrate, and helped me in my quest to stop biting my fingernails (of course, the psychology behind that, I think, is a whole different thing that I am still trying to figure out).
I saw Steve’s post, and thought it was a great, so I wanted to provide a few ideas of how you can start your self-discipline training regimen. I started with the walking one, and found it the easiest. Just make sure you’re actually counting steps, and not just counting to four while walking. I like these particular ideas because you can (or rather have to) do them while you’re doing something during which you can’t really be doing anything else (I can’t send email while I’m walking to work; I could do something on the train, but it’s nice to relax and count breaths in the mornings - after all, I got the idea from a Zen meditation book).
I use Firefox (which I shouldn’t even have to recommend to you) … and I have an extension called Adblock. I think Firefox has an ad blocking featuring (or more simply, and image blocking feature) built in (cause it rocks). However, Adblock allows you to block not only images, but Flash movies (cause I don’t really want to shoot Brad Pitt, or punch a monkey, or even look at any stupid moving ads). It takes time to block the images and Flash animations, but with liberal use of the “*” you can make short work of most advertising servers. Often you can even make it so you still see ads you want to see. So, that’s my first tip…
The second tip is, well, not so much a tip… but a behavioral observation. I am more than happy to look at ads in people’s RSS feeds. As long as the ads don’t flash at me or move around, I really could care less. I consider that a great way to support the people I enjoy reading. In my recent reading there has been quite some fervor over whether people should put full text entries in their RSS feeds, or whether they should stick to summaries. I am a full-on proponent of full text. I have been known to unsubscribe from feeds that only have summaries (not all of them, like Scoble, but some). Really, there are 2 reasons that make sense as to why a publisher would only have summary feeds. 1) Advertising revenue, and 2) getting people to look at other posts on the site (in attempt to make more advertising revenue) Frankly, I’d rather have ads in my RSS feeds than partial posts or summaries. I put that in bold so hopefully someone will notice. Not likely, but a man can dream (in fact, a man must dream, according to Brian Tracy)
Of course, the issue of “full posts with ads vs. summary posts with no ads” pales in comparison to ads as posts. Partial or summary posts don’t make me anywhere near as mad as feeds that mislead my BlogLines account into telling me there are new posts when, in fact, there is merely an advertisement waiting for me. I was excited to subscribe to Computer World’s RSS feeds until after about 2 weeks I’d consistently seen more posts starting with “Partner:” than actual posts with content. It goes without saying.
Everybody’s writing a novel + Dave Ramsey + Give Me The Rock + Affirmations anyone?
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