Fresh Focus On Productivity!™

I really find that the Internet is the best tool to aid in my quest for better productivity. I really enjoy reading how other people are able to maintain their GTD system as well as other ‘lifehacker’ tips. Whenever I read about someone’s GTD system, I try to glean at least one tip that I can incorporate into my own life. Even if it someone is doing things totally opposite from how I do things, I look for one thing that they do to improve my system. Now there is a downside to this as well. You can just continually read about other systems and such, and you never get anything done in your own life. I have been guilty of this in my life, especially when I was first starting out with GTD (about 5 years ago now).

A little more specifically I think that RSS is the single most important technology for my productivity. To be able to bring together 19 different blogs that deal with productivity in one application (Google Reader) is such a HUGE time saver. I can just scroll through the stories that are of interest to me and read the ones that I want and move past the ones that do not appeal to me. Most of the times the stories that I read will link off to another story and then I find another blog to read.

I have also found that twitter is getting to be a better tool for my own productivity. I have made so many contacts through twitter in the productivity realm is amazing. It also surprised me to see so much GTD talk there is on twitter. I regularly keep a Summize search of ‘gtd’ open to see what is being said, and how people are doing things, which then leads me to reading about more systems. It is the strange dichotomy of my life.

I think that it really is dependent on the individual. There are times when it is a hindrance, but I find that those are days when I am not feeling very productive anyway. Here lately, it has been about 50-50 hindrance to me. I have felt a need for a wholesale revamp of my system so I have been struggling with staying digital or moving back to a Lo-Fi paper based system. The move to paper would also require a HUGE restructuring of how I get things done, but it is something that I am willing to do, if I chose that route. My current system is totally online right now. I use Linux on my work laptop and a Mac at home so I do not want use any client-based software. So in that fashion, technology has really helped me. If the Internet was not as well formed as it is, then the only way for me to stay productive would be to use a paper-based system.

Since I am a technology worker, i feel very comfortable embracing new technologies. At the same time, I come to realize that the time that it takes me to really incorporate that new technology into my workflow, I have usually stopped getting other things done. That is what is really fueling my return to a Lo-Fi paper based system. I have been feeling that I have lost control over my lists since they are “in the cloud”. I am hoping that by moving back to a paper based system, I will regain the control over my lists and I will see a vast improvement in the amount of stuff that I get done. I have been adapting a system that very closely resemble the ‘Getting Sh-t Done’{GSD} [http://utilware.com/gsd3.html] that Bill Westerman has created. Basically, it is keeping your list of actions in one (1) list called the Master List, and working your Daily List that is usually 3 or 4 things that you want to get done that day. Every day you rewrite your list and pick 3 or 4 more things that you want to get done. Seeing those items everyday, in my opinion, is the key for me to control my list.

• Do you feel that in some ways, technology has hindered us in regards to being able to do certain things for ourselves instead of letting technology doing it?

Definitely! We live in a society where we want things now, and we really don’t want to do anything to get it. In GTD specific terms, it seems that every app on the block is judged by its ability to be able to run through your list and logically move things to your next action list. Everyone wants to be able to put actions A, B, C, and D on their lists. All of the succeeding actions are dependant on its predecessor. They want their tool to know that when A is done to move B to the NA list, when B is done, move C to NAs, etc. People want all of the automation that they can get their hands on, so that they can ’set it and forget it.’

I was there too, make no mistake! I was adding so much stuff to my system and expecting it to tell me what I should do next. That is when I sat down and really looked at all of the actions on my lists. It took a post by my good friend Patrick Rhone called Getting Real with your Lists [http://patrickrhone.com/journal/archives/2008/04/337.html] for me to realize that there was a lot of crap on my lists.

I think that I am a “I like my technology, but I’ve got to try everything out!” I think that was another one of the problems that I had in getting things done. My friend, Brett Kelly of Cranking Widgets blog, wrote about this at the end of last year in Your GTD System Isn’t the Problem [http://blog.crankingwidgets.com/2007/12/18/your-system-is-not-the-problem/] That post spoke DIRECTLY to me. I was a ‘fiddler’ as Brett described it. At the end, he issued a challenge: