Look through the forums and comments on this site, and you’ll see folks with an all-too-common problem. This problem is not relegated to paper productivity fans, but high-tech gadget users as well — the chief distinction often being the amount of money spent, and the technical ability required. I’m sure you’ve suffered from it yourself. You’ve wandered the aisles at your local office mega-store, browsing the shelves and looking in vain for the perfect solution for your productivity crises or creativity ailments. You’re convinced it’s there somewhere, probably covered in rich leather, sporting multiple pockets that miraculously organise your clutter, holding sumptuous paper that just inspires you to write all the right things. You don’t know what size it is: it might be tiny, it might be large. It might consist of index cards, it might be loose paper on rings, it might be fixed pages in a special journal. It may have forms with all the right prompts, it may be blank and free-form. You’ve tried multiple products and approaches, and none have stood the test of time, and now all you have is a mass of half-written pages of different sizes and shapes and methods and mappings. Still, you think, it’s out there: the perfect solution. The Grail quest continues, and like Galahad, you plod wearily onwards and blindly follow the next vision, taking home the next item on the shelves.
Here is a comment in the thread, not from just anybody with an idea, but a Levenger employee whose job includes keeping an eye on what the Productivity Community is doing with their products:
An interesting thing happened over the last few months.
In my last ‘report from the blogosphere’ at headquarters, I spoke to a broader group of our managers about ‘hacking vs. cracking’ and the creative talent that lies within DIY communities. Like one big ‘Show & Tell’ I pulled out a hacked CircaPDA full of official DiyPc forms and Matt’s hipster satellites, a “nano PDA” full of business cards, and a junior notebook full of Bill’s Recipe Jotter pages. Using DiyPc members by name and state, and detailing the projects they were working on, I noticed a stunning irony.
Instead of a shirt and tie, it would have been more appropriate had I presented in an official DiyPc T-Shirt designed by our resident artist. ;)
***
Building interactive opportunities for customer control over the products and services we should offer is what I hope to be just the beginning of an experiment in open innovation. Discussions of issues like shipping (work in progress, but there now is at least the choice of Smartpost vs. FedEx ground as a result of everyone’s input) are essential to address before we can fully take advantage of peer production, and explore new methods for adding back to the community. Much of the direction this takes is in your hands, so keep me informed of any new ideas that are in their incubation stages. I’m open to all manner of feedback. ryan.rasmussen[at]levenger.com
Levenger makes some of the highest quality planner and organizer materials that I have found, and it is very exciting to see ideas and requests from the Productivity Community showing up as real products from a trusted company. Quickly.
Go ahead and take Ryan up on his offer, because you know he truly is listening. And while you’re at it, check out D*I*Y Planner.
Update: Bubble Planner is another company that Gets It, check out their shop here for some innovative planning products.
I have just installed the dofollow plug-in from semiologic, so that everyone who comments can get a link back from Google in their page ranking. Check out the badge you can download and read about the “do follow” movement here.
There is a discussion raging at the DavidCo forums regarding the use of the Tickler File. The gist of the thread is pretty simple:
Do you use a Tickler?
No, I use a Mac.
I love the Tickler.
I can’t get in the habit.
Yada, yada…
There were no real explanations of how people were systematically using their Ticker Files, which I admit would have been helpful to me a couple of months ago. Once I got in the habit of using the folders, they became indispensable.
In the interest of saving my readers the time of going through all of those posts, here is my GTD Tickler File methodology:
At home, where I do have things that are date-specific but will not physically fit into my calendar (which I refuse to stuff with notes and errata). this is a full-on 43 folder system (12 months + 31 days).
Now that I work from home, I will schedule a trip to the Post Office to get the mail a few times per week (it’s 7 miles to the PO!). I zip through the mail as so:
Tickle the bills for the date of the next Weekly Review,
Leave the mail for my wife on the kitchen table,
Open and handle any other mail,
Toss the junk,
and Defer the rest to an appropriate time (usually WR day again).
Simple.
Then, each morning, while the coffee is brewing, I check the contents of “today’s” folder, sync with my paper calendar, and get on with my routine. Again, simple.
I have found the 43 folders to be invaluable. There is a complete description of my GTD hardware here, and my method for the Weekly Review here (including downloads of Review Checklists).
How do you use your Tickler File, and how did you make it a habit?
While working on my Master Plan this past week I did a bunch of research on how to define my goals and plan for success. I came across a couple of resources that really resonated with what I am working on accomplishing.
The first references, of course, were Getting Things Done and Ready for Anything by David Allen, in order to create the workflow mindset. Then a search of the internets took me to Two Weeks to a Breakthrough by Lisa Haneberg. Finally, I found the book Living with Less by Mark Tabb.
After all of this reading & working through the Goal Setting Tutorial from Goal Setting College the Master Plan is ready to be deployed and engaged. In Ready for Anything Allen discusses how Energy Follows Thought:
“Putting your mind to something activates both the subject and the object of your thinking. The body neurologically begins to respond as if the thought is true, and ideas start living a life of their own. Thoughts can occur a second time much easier than the first. Merely having thoughts is one thing. Conciously feeding them is quite another. You are powerful all the time, by way of your attention and intention. The question is, Toward what are you pointing that power? “
In order to achieve our goals we must focus on them; in order to focus on our goals, they must be clearly defined. Once they have been defined we can create an Action Plan for getting them done. We can track our progress and correct our path when we see that we are getting off track.
All three of the resources that I used for this exercise worked together, complimented each other, in helping me to clarify, define, and plan actions for each of my goals, from @3-5 years to the @Next Actions list. This synergy has made the project’s resolution much better than it would have been otherwise. I also feel very motivated to actually carry our the Next Actions on my list, which include the steps recommended by Haneberg in her book. I am definitely looking forward to a breakthrough…
The building blocks of Haneberg’s program include the power of intention, and sharing your goals with others (more on this in a forthcoming post). As a corollary, Allen provides a tool for focusing on your goals, recommending three tips for improving your productivity in achieving them:
What tricks do you use to make yourself more productive?
What could you put in front of your mind more regularly that would serve you? Where would you put it?
Imagine something you’d like more of today. Have that thought as many times as you can in the next hour.
And I will share my answers:
Capturing everything on my index cards, then using my worksheets for the Weekly Review.
Simplify, simplify, simplify.
More ideas about where to dispose of all of the extra “stuff” that I do not need at home.
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April 28th, 2007 by Stephen
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