Category sprawl and GTD

I’m in the process of doing a “reset” on my GTD system.  Basically, I ripped out all of my categories, printed out all my list and deleted them, and am starting from scratch.

Why? I found that I let my lists turn into “junk drawers” which meant that I was a) afraid to open some of them, and b) couldn’t find anything useful when I did force myself to open them.

One of the culprits was what I call “category sprawl,” which meant that I created so many granular categories for my tasks, and so many goofy ‘contexts’ that my lists really weren’t all that useful any more.

Basically, I acted like I was “special” and made a bunch of changes to the recommended GTD method.  It was fun for a while but turned out to be not such a great idea.  And now I’m paying the price.

Preventing the sprawl – my strategy

I’ve taken a number of steps to try to get back into a clean place with GTD:

1. I have reverted to the recommended, default contexts as recommended by David Allen (those shown in the screen grab at right). [Note:  I am about to add one additional category called @ONLINE but will try not to add any more].
2. I turned of automatic categorization in ClearContext so that I have to manually assign categories to tasks.  (This wasn’t an issue for the GTD Outlook Add-In)
3. I am “forcing” all of my next actions to fit into one of these categories.

There are (obviously) a lot of other tweaks I’m doing to my process, like getting back into the discipline of truly identifying physical next actions, moving all projects I’m not actively working on to SOMEDAY/MAYBE, and more.

If you’re a GTD person and you find yourself with category sprawl, this kind of a clean-slate approach might help.  Let me know if this resonates with you, or if you’ve got any best practices for a GTD reset.

Google Voice – the new Newton?

Back in the day, I had an Apple Newton PDA which was an early, stylus-based (and quite large, by today’s standards) handheld computer.  It was pretty cool but one of the love/hate attributes was its handwriting recognition.  You’d write clearly (or so you thought) but the Newton would mangle the words, creating a nonsense sentence.  This became a joke that was featured in the Doonesbury comic strip and other pop culture outlets.  A classic Newton joke:

Q: How many Newtons does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: Farm.

Google Voice

I’ve been using Google Voice for a while now, which is a great, free service that lets you use one, central phone number that can be dynamically routed to whatever other number you like.  One of the most interesting features is that it will allow you to “screen” incoming calls and choose whether to accept them, send them to voice mail, or send them to voice mail while you listen in to what they are saying (you can press a key to take the call if what they say is interesting).

Additionally, you can make long distance calls through Google Voice for “free” (you make a call via Google’s site and it “patches you in” so you don’t incur long distance charges).

Promises unfulfilled

One other feature that holds great promise is one in which Google Voice will transcribe your voice mails to text and email them to you.  This makes it easier to About this feature, I say “holds great promise” because it doesn’t quite have the transcription accuracy that makes this a killer app.  For example, consider this Newton-esque transcription of one of my voice mails:

Pretty hard to tell what this means.  To be fair, the bold text is the part of the transcription they had high confidence in, while the gray text is lower-confidence transcription (and they got the phone number right).

I’m hoping this feature improves – this is one promise I’d love to see them fulfill!  I’d love to be able to route all of my voice mail into my inbox for processing along with my emails.

Trust and the test of relationships

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending a talk by Stephen M. R. Covey, author of “The Speed of Trust.”  Covey is an excellent speaker, because he has a way of crystallizing his points with stories and personalized exercises.

An Exercise in Trust

One such exercise was the following.  I encourage you to actually go through it right now – it won’t take long, and I think it will be enlightening.

Part 1: High Trust

Identify a person you work with whom you feel you have a “high trust relationship.”  Got them in mind?  Now, ask yourself each of the following question and take about 10-15 seconds to write down the first responses that come to mind for each question:

1. What is it like to work with this person?
2. What is it like to communicate with this person?
3. How fast can you get things done?
4. What are the results when you work together?

Part 2: Low Trust

Identify a person you work with whom you feel you have a “low trust relationship.”  Got them in mind?  Once again, ask yourself each of the following question and take about 10-15 seconds to write down the first responses that come to mind for each question:

1. What is it like to work with this person?
2. What is it like to communicate with this person?
3. How fast can you get things done?
4. What are the results when you work together?

Comparing the Results

If you’re like me, the results you see will mirror Covey’s description of the characteristics of each type of relationship:

High Trust: Open, energetic, and authentic.  Things get done quickly when working together, usually with great results.

Low Trust:  Guarded, calculating, with information hiding and “CYA” behaviors.  Working together is an energy-draining experience, and the results usually aren’t very impressive.

The Litmus Test

Covey’s point in all of this was how much trust impacts the speed and cost of getting things done, and how much more efficient & effective high trust relationships are.

But what really drove this home for me was the “litmus test” Covey offered, by which you can quickly tell the difference between high- and low-trust relationships:

• “In a high-trust relationship, even if you say the wrong thing, the other person will still ‘get’ your intent or motive.”
• “In a low-trust relationship, you can be very precise & measured and the other person will still misinterpret you.”

Powerful stuff, that.  I think I may go back and read his book again.

Always something there to remind me...

This week, I've been an adult leader at a Boy Scout summer camp and it has been a great experience. Not only has it been relaxing, it has been a refreshing week of interactions with others - adults and young men, alike.

One of the things I noticed was how well the camp we attended has created "embedded" reminders of the core values of Scouting throughout the camp. These core values are represented in the Scout Law:

A Scout is: Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent.

The goal of these points is to remind Scouts of the character attributes they should aspire to exemplify in life. At the camp this week, there were signs reminding everyone of these values and many of them were just-in-time triggers, like the "Clean" sign above (placed just outside the dining hall), and the "Thrifty" sign at the front of the Trading Post.

Of course, the challenge is always to make a good, values-aligned choice even when there aren't reminders right in front of you. With this in mind, I encourage you to think about the values that define your character from time to time.

Are there any areas around your guiding principles where you can improve? If so, what can you do to become more aligned with your desired values? Are there any ways you can embed reminders in your life to better anchor you to where you'd like to be?

-- Post From My iPhone