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Ever since I read Steve Leveen’s Little Guide To Your Well-Read Life, I have become a fan of writing notes to myself in the margins of my non-fiction books. I have found that it helps me to remember what I have read, and leaves a “tag” if I need to go back and refer to something later. I also use a 3″x5″ card as my bookmark for writing longer notes, marking interesting quotes, or capturing questions that occur to me while reading.
If I am planning to do a review of the book after reading it, I also use that notecard to track all of the page numbers where I have highlighted something for quoting or special mention. The Innovation Tools Weblog has a post on how Don Snyder uses his index card bookmark:
“The front of the card is horizontal and contains spaces for book title and author’s name to allow for easy filing. The card opens like a book and the inside is ruled to allow for journal-like entry of important points in the book. I list the page number and then the concept I wish to note. The back of the card includes additional ruled lines for final points. I also included a spot on the front of the card to list the most valuable lesson I learned from the book, as well as a favorite quote… Once a book is read, I can replace it on my bookshelf and file the card/bookmark in my office for future referral. I can file books on subject, author, or title - and information is always on-hand.”
This has given me an idea for a formatted notecard to use while reading, specifically designed for taking notes.
Here ( note-card-template.pdf ) are two free downloads, a super-simple note card and “pocket” template (and a more detailed one here [ note-card-template2.pdf ]) that you can glue into the front of your book, like Library books had, back in the day. I may do something more elaborate, and offer it in the store with the GTD Calendar and the Review Workbook.
In the first post of this series I introduced the first three of the five basic steps of the LEAN methodology:
Define the Value to the Customer
Map the Value Stream
Introduce Flow
Introduce Pull
Perfection
In this post we will discuss the concepts of Pull and Perfection. Jens Poder has already described the idea of pull, which I will quote here:
PULL in LEAN is all about appropriate reactions. A traditional industrial system tries to produce a large quantity of something, by forecasting (guessing) the demand, producing it, then putting the stuff on storage, and selling it on demand.
The problem in the traditional approach is that forecasting is pretty damned difficult to do. So 99% of the time you either underestimate or overestimate demand. Overestimating demand is bad because you end op with a lot of stuff you can’t sell at your target price, and then you loose money. Underestimating is just as bad, because reaction times in traditional industrial production are so slow, that you’ll have difficulties supplying the demand for outsold extra popular versions of your product, thus loosing potential sales and loosing money!
LEAN does it the other way around. It tries to get rid of forecasting alltogether, by making a superfast production chain, that reacts on customer pull. Production methods with fast change-over times and smaller output are favoured over superfast industrial machines, with high change-over times and large output. This makes the production system more ready to respond to demand.
Forecasting in your GTD practice translates as being aware of your appointments, responsibilities, and known demands on your time in the near future. As we all know, there are always the unkown variables and emergencies that will pop up and destroy the most carefully laid-out timetables.
Pull as a Trigger
Introducing the concept of Pull into your routine is achieved by recognizing emotional states or environmental situations that indicate that a certain task should be initiated now, rather than waiting for its alloted time.
For example, I balance my checkbook on a weekly basis, at that time I also write out the checks for the bills that are to be paid that week and double-check my receipts against the online bank statement. All of this information is kept in a folder, easily accessible to be reviewed on Wednesdays. If an extraordinary expense were to arise, that would be a trigger to sit down and do the balancing early, in order to account for the unplanned expenditure, and re-allocate any funds from Savings or Checking as needed.
As another example, I may be assigned a new, and time-consuming, project at work that will interfere with regularly scheduled, repeating activities. This would trigger a review of the hard landscape of my Calendar, in order to accommodate this project and still complete the other tasks.
Everyone will have their own set of triggers for varying sets of actions, here are a few that may be common to most people:
I am not motivated - This is a time to check your activities against your principles. Are you subconsciously aware that you are working on something that is not taking you toward your goal?
There is too much to do and no time - This should trigger a review of the hard landscape of your calendar. Block out appropriate time to get back in control, and eliminate some interruptions for a while.
I don’t know what to do next - This trigger is a sign for you to clean up your Next Actions lists. There may be a host of completed items that are preventing you from seeing clearly what the next Next Action should be. Or perhaps you need to clarify your Contexts, i.e. is this an @Work NA, or is it a time-specific action that should be on the calendar?
I am getting too much email - The answer to this trigger is to quickly scan the unopened emails, looking for those that you know are vital and important. Move them into a temporary folder. Delete the rest. This may seem harsh, but if you did not recognize the importance of a sender/subject, then it is likely that it was not very important. Ifone of the messages was important, they will get back to you.
Where did I put that paper/letter/note, etc? - This means that it is time to un-clutter your reference files. It is perfectly okay to have one piece of paper in a file-folder that is properly labeled. Trust me.
I do not feel like I’m getting anywhere - This trigger is a common one, especially when tensions are high. Take a good look at the Someday/Maybe list and your long-term goals - are you closer to achieving any of them? What is one thing that you can do today/this week to get closer to accomplishing one of those goals?
As you can see, these triggers set off actions/tasks that are (or ought to be) handled during the Weekly or Monthly Review. Sometimes, however, there is no time to wait for that appointment to arrive. The premise of LEAN is to eliminate waste, and sitting there being unproductive and demoralized while you wait for the scheduled review is all waste.
Getting Over Yourself
The idea of Perfection means just that, reviewing and analyzing your performance, monitoring your flow, and acting on the triggers that induce a Pull response. Perhaps you will notice that your carefully planned agenda for the week never survives the Tuesday afternoon Staff Meeting. Stop doing your calendar planning at a time before that meeting. Get the new information/assignments and then make your agenda. Carry it through to the following Tuesday. A simple change like this can save hours of time and immense amounts of frustration.
Do not forget or omit the idea of doing some creative thinking as part of your Weekly Review. As time goes by, you will be able to see areas for improvement without having to invest large chunks of time in this type of evaluation. Set an appointment with yourself for a time that you will not be interrupted, do this at least once a week, to go over what has been done, and clean up the lists of Next Actions that remain.
This is your time, and you must invest it wisely.
Suggested Reading
Here are a few additional posts that may be helpful to you in evaluating your GTD practice:
This is my current Organizer, as it looks at the end of the two-month beta-test of the custom Calendar Pages -
My strategy behind this design is to create a system for managing the Hard Landscape with a tool that is just as conducive to planning (putting information into the calendar) as it is to implementing (getting information from the calendar). Each section is deliberately placed, as follows:
The header text on the new version will have the current month at the top left and a meta tag for the appropriate Errata [commenter Chris suggested to me that another word would be more appropriate, so let’s call it an Addenda page] page at the top right.
“Big Rocks” are listed first, at the top of the left-hand edge of the page. This is where our eyes generally go first, and spend the most time. The goal is that we will look there first while planning, and while executing.
Just below the Big Rocks is a section for notes, short quick-capture info that can be transferred to a more appropriate spot later.
Appointments for the day go across the top of both pages, in the daily boxes. This is the second place our eyes will scan, giving us an “automatic” quick-review of what is coming up, and what has been accomplished. There is room in each daily box for the time and the name of the Appointment. Further information or an agenda will be found in the second Tab (Addenda).
The shaded section of lines in each daily box is for listing those Next Actions that must get done on that day.
The middle of the left-hand page leads the eye to an area for focusing on open Next Actions in their proper @Project contexts. This acts as a guide for our eyes, again to be able to review which Next Actions are outstanding. There is a field in each box for the Context, and room for some notes. This space is for tasks that need to get done this week, but may not have been assigned to a specific day.
This field also happens to be 3″ x 4″, which is just the right size for the Post-it mini cards.
The small calendar in the very bottom left is dated for July in this example, the final PDF version will have a sheet for each month, with the appropriate calendar. I hi-light the current week, and draw a red line through the past weeks. Using the colors gives me a visual cue when I am looking for information like “what day is it?”
The top half of the right-hand page is for planning Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
The middle of the right-hand page contains a prompt for Weekly Review notes to be entered. Here is where I capture ideas that I want to think about creatively, information that I want to be sure to review, or a Tag/link to another page in the Organizer for meta-data or addenda.
This calendar is available as a PDF download at the HD Bizblog Shop .
The organizer itself is split into tabbed sections for planning and capture:
Tab #1 is the calendar itself, with pages printed for this month and next month. There is a single blank page for each month for the rest of the year. This blank page is for capturing notes and appointments.
Tab #2 - Addenda: this is where I capture information that is related to entries in the hard landscape, such as directions to an event, the agenda for a meeting, etc. This is generally a larger amount of information that will just clutter up the calendar page yet may be useful for quick reference during the week. I made the Addenda page with the DIY Planner widget kit. I printed it on colored paper, and it has grown on me.
Tab #3 - Next Actions: one page for each context, currently @Work, @Computer, @Read/Review, and @Blog Posts. Again, the colored paper is a visual cue as to where I am.
Tab #4 is for the @Waiting for list.
Tab #5 - This tab is now home to blank forms for filling in the other sections, and for blank notes and agenda pages.
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October 4th, 2007 by Stephen
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