Genuine Curiosity

Author Dwayne Melancon is always on the lookout for new things to learn. An ecclectic collection of postings on personal productivity, travel, good books, gadgets, leadership & management, and many other things.

 

Some things feel more “done” than others

I took some time off around Christmas and the New Year, and decided to get a bunch of things done on my "Someday Maybe" list. Most of the items were of the "clean up" and "fix it" variety, and some of them were things I'd been putting off for a long time. For example, I rented a 3 cubic yard dumpster for a day and did a massive clean up of our garage (filled the dumpster to the rim and brought a van full of stuff to the Salvation Army) and now we can park in the garage again!

I noticed that checking each of these old projects off my list felt really good -- like a real, satisfying accomplishment. In other words, they really felt "Done."

When I compare cleaning my garage to a lot of the things I do at work, the feeling is a bit different. You see, at work, a significant part of my job is managing long-term, ongoing relationships with other companies and, even though there are lots of deliverables on the way, they don't feel as "Done" as cleaning the garage or filling a dumpster.

When I think about why, some of it is just the "nature of the beast," I suppose. But I think another aspect is that I tend to think of my job as an ongoing stream of "stuff" - and I don't regularly break it down into smaller, more deliberately-defined subprojects. The result? At the end of the week, I see a lot of little check marks, but they aren't nearly as satisfying as checking off a whole project as "Done."

That realization came to me while re-reading David Allen's "Getting Things Done" (GTD) the other day. Part of David's GTD philosophy is to break big tasks into smaller, more manageable chunks, then identify small steps (Next Actions) that you can pick off one at a time.

As we move into 2008, I am re-visiting my approach to GTD, trying to re-establish better habits. One of the changes I'm going to make is to be more deliberate about defining my projects more discretely (and doing more thorough Weekly Reviews to keep on top of them).

And if you haven't read Getting Things Done in a while, I highly recommend it. In the realm of personal productivity, it's a great way to spotlight things that aren't working as well as they should.

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Hit the GTD mother lode

I was just checking out a tremendous list of GTD resources at Bootstrapper: "The GTD Resource Motherload: 100+ Links." There are 103 links there - I haven't been through them all yet, but have found a few gems already so I wanted to share this resource with you.


A few of my favorites:


99. A Roadmap to Spectacular GTD Failure: This article tells readers what NOT to do if you want to implement a successful GTD system.
This includes such gems as the following (which would be funnier if it didn't hit so close to home:


"Do your weekly review when you're damn good and ready - Make sure to never even attempt to schedule a regular time for your weekly review. Friday afternoon, Saturday night, Wednesday during lunch. You're a busy person with a dynamic life - you clearly can't be expected to block out 1-2 hours per week!"

67. GTD-Tools.com: GTD-Tools.com publishes articles and reviews of the "best GTD tools and productivity software tips." Readers can also catch up on the latest GTD-related news.
Visually, this is a bit busy but it contains some awesome info!


52. Time Management, Simplified: This post teaches readers "how to be productive with no worries" by simplifying the GTD system so that it works for your life.
I really like this "in a nutshell" summary of the essence of GTD.


These three samples are just barely scratching the surface - go check out the other 100 GTD resources!



Countdowns and time boxing

My buddy Gene told me about a cool tool that is very helpful with time boxing. The tool is called "TimeLeft" and it is a very versatile tool for creating countdown timers, activity timers, and things like that. When you install it, it creates a "Happy New Year" countdown timer by default, and you can create your own timers. You can also customize the appearance of the timers, so you can tell them apart on sight - they just hover over your Windows desktop so you can glance at them to see the status (it's not as distracting as it sounds.

Useful countdowns

Countdown timers can be quite useful. For example, I created a countdown timer to help me keep track of how many shopping days remained for me to get my Christmas gifts delivered on time. I am currently tracking the time left until I have to turn in PowerPoint slides for a project at work. Yes, I often just set reminders in Outlook, but for some high-priority projects the countdown is just what I need to remind me to focus on the project.

Time boxing

You can create one or more general purpose timers with TimeLeft, and each timer has a pause and a reset icon on it so you can restart the countdown. This is useful for time boxing and GTD (create a 2-minute timer like the one David Allen recommends), so you can keep projects or sub-projects from taking more time than you intend.

Timeleft is very cool -- way better than I thought it would be from Gene's simple description -- but its amazingly simple, yet customizable, interface is powerful. On the site, you can see the plethora of features included in TimeLeft.

Try it, and I think you'll like it (Windows only - sorry Mac folks). There is a free version and a pay version, with the main difference being that the free version limits the number of timers you can use at any given time.

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Backup a-plenty

I was chatting with a friend of mine about data backup this week and he mentioned he'd seen my previous write-up about Mozy, which I use (and love) for data backup at home. What he didn't realize was that Mozy is only $4.95 per month for UNLIMITED data backup (he thought you had to pay based on the data volume). It's a good deal and very reliable.

By the way - I got a notification from Mozy the other day with two pieces of good news:

  • they are now part of megacorp EMC so they will not be going anywhere soon; and
  • they have some coupon codes that will get you a discount in December (I just signed up my wife's new computer using the discount).

To get the 10% discount, click this link, then use the codes for December on the signup page: DECEMBER gets you 10% off of an annual subscription to Mozy, and DECEMBERY gets you 10% off of a 2-year Mozy subscription (which is already cheaper on a per-year cost basis).

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Plusmo == way cool mobile feeds

If you're looking for a new way to track RSS feeds on your mobile phone, take a look at Plusmo. What's a "Plusmo" you ask? Plusmo is a free service that lets you run cool mobile widgets on your phone. Mobile widgets are tiny apps that offer a much better mobile experience for a specific purpose. There are over 20,000 widgets on Plusmo, most of them created by users.

I discovered it because someone is using it to read my RSS feed, and it showed up in Feedburner's report this month as an "Uncommon use" for my feed. Naturally, I was curious so I tried it out and I really like it. You can use Plusmo to "widgetize" any RSS feed (blogs, news feeds, etc.), as well as use existing widgets. One thing I like: it syncs the content to your device so you can read it when you aren't online (like on an airplane) - that helps me use my time more effectively.

What can I monitor?

To give you an idea of what you can monitor with Plusmo, you can subscribe to local weather & traffic, news headlines, comic strips, sports, and loads of other widgets. Plusmo installs an app on your phone that manages displaying and synchronization of content, and it allows you to easily add, remove, and tweak widgets.

Plusmo supports all J2ME MIDP 2.0 and MIDP 1.0 enabled mobile phones, RIM/Blackberry devices, Windows Mobile Smart phones and Pocket PC enables PDAs. Currently, it only supports AT&T / Cingular and Sprint as carriers, but they are adding new carriers and supported devices all the time - you can see the current list of Plusmo's supported devices on their site (the list of carriers is on their FAQ page).

To install, the easiest way is to point your phone's browser at http://plusmo.com and follow the instructions. You can also sign up via their site, which will use your choice of SMS or email to send an install link to your phone.

If you're traveling overseas and need to rent an international mobile phone, our cell phone rental services have you covered. With a world phone, you can make and receive phone calls from anywhere!

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