Welcome back! It's good to see you again. Please note that I am now publishing all new material at my hub site: In Context Blog
This is the final post in this weeks’ Periodic Review series. It is inspired as my own productivity practice has evolved quite a bit over the past two years, since I have been writing about Getting Things Done and other workflow systems.
In the previous posts we looked at how to manage your Periodic Reviews, starting with a high level of granularity and developing a personal method that works well for you.
In this post I am going to show you some of the tools that I use to manage my workflow.
I have tried and evaluated many different tools and applications, and changed everything more than once. Here are some things that I have learned about myself via this process:
I fear that Penelope Trunk is missing out on something.In case you don’t know her she is the author of Brazen Careerist, a thoughtful blog that is all about work and life.She’s intense, smart and very much to-the-point.So much so that some people love her stuff and others…well, you get the point.
I don’t always agree with Penelope but she speaks from the heart and does offer some truly brilliant career advice.This post of hers bothers me though.
She talks about parenting as difficult, occasionally boring and often unsatisfying.She cites evidence of this that she says backs her up.
The Missing Link
What I think Penelope is missing is a sense of contemplation.Contemplation cannot be easily measured just as parenting cannot be summed up in a Harvard Business Review article. I know of no metric that calibrates one’s contemplative(ness). Just as it is intuitive that a mom-dad family unit makes the most sense for kids, being a contemplative parent just seems right. When you develop a pattern of screaming at your kids, you know deep down that there’s something that’s “off” about what’s going on.
I’ve witnessed three child births and while I did not have the “religious experience” that I’ve heard others dads speak of (I was much too nervous for that!), it was nothing short of mind-blowing.To later hold your child and have him/her stare back at you, no blinking necessary, is nothing short of incredible.
Ordinary and Contemplative Moments
Most nights, I will just wash up and go to bed but occasionally, I’m reminded of the treasures that await as I walk upstairs to the children’s rooms.I watch them sleeping for just a few seconds and see the face of God.
As Mother Theresa described the poor as “God in his distressing disguise”, I wonder if parenting provides us with a string of contemplative moments.Moments that allow us to see the very presence of God in something as innocent as a child.
Contemplation is good. It’s been described as “the long, loving look at the real” and it can apply to nature, to one’s work or to the face of a child.It’s probably what each of us can use more of- more frequent loving looks at what really matters in life. So, for Penelope and any other parent out there who feels stressed or out of place spending time with your kids, see it as a contemplative moment.
Sometimes contemplation is the most important “work” we can do.
GTD Spin
So what’s GTD got to do with parenting and contemplation? I think it comes down to one word- focus. When your attention is wholly on one thing at a time, you’re more likely to really crank at whatever you’re doing. I believe that this ability to focus chunks of attention is a very contemplative habit.
EffTD Interview Part One: David Allen
Written by Mike Vardy
Wednesday, 08 April 2009
David Allen
Right before last month’s GTD Summit, I had the opportunity to chat with the surprisingly reasonable and like-minded David Allen. I say this only because prior to contacting him, I’d been of the mindset that he was a staunch anti-supporter of Eventualism and EffTD. Quite the contrary, as you’ll read here - seems as if he’s given EffTD his own seal of approval!
For those of you unfamiliar with Allen’s work, I have two things to mention:
1. He is the creator of the popular productivity system and accompanying book Getting Things Done (or GTD for short - it’s an acronym). His latest book is entitled Making It All Work and it expands and refines what he’s been preaching for the past several years.
Email is for grownups. There, I said it and now I’ll walk away. Seriously though, for those of us who work with young people, texting is the preferred medium of communication, not email. Facebook postings would be a close second. As for email, many young people think of it as old school, “so 1990’s” they will tell you.
But as an adult, I rely on email to send documents, communicate on a number of levels and in general get things done. There are however some things that you just can’t expect from email users…
That people check email as often as you. It’s frustrating for folks who check email often to communicate with those who don’t. Don’t expect that everyone else has the same availability or even desire to check email as often as you might.
That email will be the norm for business communication within five years. With the power of Facebook posts, texting and Twittering, email just might become a thing of the past within the next few years.
That sending an email ensures that the recipient will read it when you want them to. It’s not enough to send something very early in the morning and then expect that your recipient either got it or had the time to read it an hour later.
That emailing is a habit more than anything else. Most of the people I know have poor email habits. I can fall into this from time to time as well. Joan checks it daily. Bob every other day. Cary lets it pile up and then blitzes her inbox once a month at best. Just accept this and figure out best ways to communicate with people- email might not be their thing.
In a GTD world, email is a must. From a human nature standpoint, the habit of email may need work. Clearing out open loops (i.e. an in box) and negotiating the agreements that email may symbolize is clearly a GTD principle.
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April 18th, 2009 by Stephen
This is the final post in this weeks’ Periodic Review series. It is inspired as my own productivity practice has evolved quite a bit over the past two years, since I have been writing about Getting Things Done and other workflow systems.
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