it IS encouraging to hear that you've get a system going for so long - can i ask, are you a 'disciplined' kind of person anyway? i mean, have you always been quite capable of sticking to things that need returning to time and time again?

i ask this as i think the majority of us are just starting out with these time-management methods, so you are one of the few that has been doing things for more than a couple of weeks - you are an example that proves it can be done.

-nudone (September 19, 2006, 01:22 AM)

HA  ;D I think the reason I'm a junkie of this literature is because I feel so often disorganized, and was, for many years. No one really teaches you this stuff unless you pay for a seminar or are in a corporate setting where someone else pays for it.

No, I don't think of myself as disciplined by any stretch of the imagination. Ask my old Spanish teacher, my old piano teacher, my old drawing teacher, etc.

The trick is I'm a little more organized than the people around me, and so THEY think I'm super-organized, when the truth is that I struggle as much as anyone else. (Tip: The Waiting On folder in your email will make you seem fearsomely organized, when all you're doing is just checking the folder for reminders of things that other people said they would do for you.)

For example, the tools and techniques I employ at the office I sometimes discard when I get home. Who knows why? I think I kind of want to be a little messier at home, to make up for my button-down attitude at work. Also, frankly, I don't NEED to be as organized at home as I am at work.

The key to time/task/self mgmt, as with exercise and diet, is consistency. Keep your system going long enough to see where the flaws where and then correct them. One problem we have, besides a love of the fiddle-factor, is that we're trying to create the perfect system from day one. That's crazy-making. You don't start out creating a system like this to cover all the exceptions; you start by creating something that will cover about 80 percent of the cases, and then tackle exceptions as they arise.

That said, everyone's situation is different and what works for me might get you fired  :). I don't have the high email levels others do, I work with a team of people but mostly on my own stuff, etc. But I see the value in the workplace of being organized, of staying on top of stuff, and I think I have a knack for being an information packrat, which I maybe translated into time mgmt stuff.

That said, I've probably developed a few rules for myself that work for me but that I've never tried to codify into intelligible gibberish. Some of the rules might be:

* Do the simplest thing that could possible work. This is one reason I like a paper planner. There's less customization of the interface, no worries about backing it up, etc. I used the Psion 3mx and Clie for awhile and was pretty successful with them, too. For now, paper works best for me.

* One reason I've stayed away so far from the web-based and application GTD-type tools is that they're too form-based. If I have to fill out 10 blanks to code a task, then I probably have enough time to do the damn task.

* I like Forster's emphasis in DIT on creating a structure and systems that will enable you to keep momentum going without having to do too much meta-thinking about "what do I do next?" That's the value of the will-do list for me. It separates 'doing' from 'thinking,' since those are really two different processes.

* I also like DA's emphasis on keeping the system so simple you could use it if you're achy and sick and tired. I liked the look of a lot of software tools but if I'm tired or sick, it's all I can do to boot up the 'puter. I think Forster's DIT system satisfies this simplicity requirement for me.

* I'm always asking other people how they keep track of their stuff, and I pick up ideas that way. A co-worker at my first professional job introduced me to Day-Timers and that started me on this twisted path.

* All these books and stuff offer, for me, are tools to compile my own toolkit. One system will not give you all the answers, and not all tools are applicable to every situation. You have to have enough experience using all of them to discern which is best to use now, today. I think that's why it's a good idea to shake things up every few years, go all-digital, go all-paper, see what happens, etc. When you've set up a system to ensure your bills get paid on time, you never forget a birthday card, and you can find that email in a haystack, then that feeling of accomplishment is enough to keep you going and finding further efficiencies.

* I like DA's emphasis on separating the collecting/thinking/deciding/doing stages of his workflow. I think I trip myself up when I'm trying to do too many of these things at the same time.

* You know, sometimes, good enough is good enough. My systems don't have to be perfect, but if they're good enough to trap the things that matter the most to me, then I don't mind when I find I've dropped this or that item.

* I don't do a weekly review, but I have a PBWiki page (http://brownstudy.pbwiki.com/) where I track my big personal projects (different from my workplace projects). As you can see, it's just a simple bulleted list, sometimes keywords, sometimes a stated outcome objective. I review it a couple of times a day, at work and at home. Also, it's dead-easy to edit, get a nice printout, etc. So I feel that I'm on top of what I need to be doing when I have time to work on them. But I don't obsess over the bigger projects unless there are lots of moving parts (like the grad school admissions process). Now and then, I'll do a full inventory of everything (including Covey's roles--you know, son, brother, husband, friend, etc), but not every week.

* Recently, I've liked very much Forster's notion that if I've made the decision that everything on my list is important and must be done, then prioritization has already happened. What drives me forward next is urgency. And so my PBWiki list is roughly ordered from most urgent at the top to least urgent toward the bottom. I start at the top, ask myself if there's anything I can do about this RIGHT NOW, and if I can, I do it. Even if it isn't much, just a little bit every day is enough to keep the train moving. And then I drop down to the next, and so on. Again, the big thinking has already happened, I just have to turn the crank. (And how long did it take me to develop this system? Months, bit by bit, making little tweaks here and there. It didn't erupt fully formed, and I'm still tweaking it. But it's still useful to me.)

Oh crikey, that's enough spewing and spattering all over this nice clean forum  :)

I'd say don't worry too much about all this, even if it is the rage o' the 'net. You know, it's all about feeling better that you're on top of things. Try a system for at least a month or two before you change up to another one, see what resonates with you and what doesn't, and play with it. Also, read lots of stuff at 43folders.com for much better advice than I could give.

mike

Well, here's a tinyurl link to Amazon, with "goal-setting" as the search term:

http://tinyurl.com/orrdc (hope that works)

I think Barbara Sher's book WISHCRAFT is cited quite often, and just Google "setting goals" and you'll see the basic SMART framework pop up all over the place. After you've read about 4 or 5 of these articles in a row, you see the same things repeated: set measurable objectives, set deadlines, make sure the goal is achievable, etc. The basic concepts become the vocabulary other writers use when writing on the same topic.

The value to me of Forster's second book is that he doesn't focus on SMART to begin with; instead, he uses methods from Robert Fritz's book THE PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE to help one create the initial vision of what you want to achieve. In Mark's latest newsletter, he does talk about the value of using measures to monitor where you are and where you're going, but it's not the focus of his second book, which I think is more about giving the reader some basic tools to get them started.

HTH -- meb

as an example: all the cody wallpapers i'm doing - none are particularly finished, nor are they at an interim stage that could be called complete. am i rushing to get back to them and finish them? no, i'm not. am i walking around with them playing on my mind? not really.

perhaps i'm belittling his idea as i know that i'll complete these wallpapers very soon so the task is obviously still in 'focus' but i'm procrastinating about getting them done right now.

-nudone (September 16, 2006, 12:30 PM)

One of the insights in DIT that struck me and that hasn't been mentioned yet was the idea of urgency. If, all things being equal, I have decided that all the things on my list of things to do are important, then really the only way I can judge what to do next is by urgency. Now, Allen uses his idea of context and the time/energy/priority criteria to triage your day. Both are valid approaches, depending on which resonates with you. I find Forster's criteria resonates with me more than Allen's at this time.

So I'd say that since you've judged the wallpapers to be important, then you'll have the passion to see the project through to its end. Forster was interviewed on some Hay Radio show (don't have the URL at the moment), and his answer to the question of what to do when you have lots of projects is to work on all of them a little bit every day. "Little and often" is another of DIT's precepts that hasn't been mentioned in this thread. So with the wallpaper project, even if you only work on them for a few minutes a day, then you're getting work done on them, momentum of some kind is maintained, and you're doing OK. And if you're not working on them daily, maybe getting them done is not a matter of urgency to you.

I find that when I'm near the end of a project, I get a burst of energy knowing I'm about to be done with it and can work hours to get it to a point of doneness. You may not be at that point yet.

Allen has the idea of the Someday/Maybe as a place to hold the non-urgent stuff; Forster doesn't have a place for someday/maybes in DIT (I think), but Forster's focus in DIT  is on  getting a day's work done. I think Allen's GTD book is the same. I don't believe Allen has written a lot about long-range goal-setting (I gather he has a special seminar for that) but that's the area where Forster's Make Your Dreams Come True book specializes. Depending on which lens I'm using to look at my life, I'll use techniques from either of Forster's 2nd or 3rd books.
 
For long-term projects: I use the aforementioned Limoncelli book's method of salting my future daily pages with tasks related to long-term projects. Or, I keep a list of my open loops (GTD's project outcomes) on a PBWiki page and I type one of two next actions beside them, and I review them a couple of times a week. I find this is enough for me to stay on top of short, medium, and long term tasks. Even if I don't do anything on them this week, they're still in front of my face.

Forster says in his book, and I think Allen would agree, that when you feel on top of your responsibilities, you feel better.  One of the reasons I moved away from GTD's context lists was that I found myself compulsing about finding a new item to put on the list when I checked one off. I felt I was tending the lists more than getting things done, and that's why I like the DIT method better. If I get a day's work done early, then I move to the next day's work that I've laid out, and I start to be ahead of the game.

That said, I still use bits of GTD, DIT, HTMYDCT, and Limoncelli's book--and other tips/tricks picked up from hither and yon--in my own Frankensteinian way and getting a lot out of them.