Back to School season is one of my favourite times of the year. I love seeing “school supplies” appear in abundance on store shelves. It’s not because I’m going back to school (far from it), it’s because I’m obsessed with process.
I’ve finally learned that a key problem in my life is the fact that I love processes. I love the idea of planning. When I stop by at a Staples I think to myself - “I have a spot on the wall where I could hang up this chart paper…”, when I really have no use for it at all. This line of thinking affects a lot of different things I do in my life. For example, when I take interest in a new “project”, I spend a lot of time (anywhere from a week, to a month or more) just reading about. Reading articles about other people who have taken on similar tasks or builds, how they approached it, etc.
For this reason, it often takes me a long time before I just do anything. I told myself that I wanted to do things right the first time. I thought I just loved ideas, but really, I loved procrastinating by excess preparation. This is going to change.
Crash And Burn
I’ve decided to throw myself head first into the world of task management. Up to this point, I’ve tried a few things:
Keeping things in my head
- You’d think this works, but really, it doesn’t. I forget things all the time (not on purpose).
Apple Notes
- I tried listing things out manually. It wasn’t conducive to me changing things around all the time, and they were easy to ignore.
Apple Reminders
- I’ve never liked the look of the app or the interface. It seems too clunky to me.
Wunderlist
- I stopped using this a long time ago. It felt really rigid and the sync was super slow. I hear it’s improved, but I don’t want to go back to it.
A plain old text file
- I use this to (somewhat) great success at work, but that’s because I’m in front of a computer all day there. Not so much at home.
Trello
- I thought I had everything solved when I started using Trello. Then I found I don’t care much for cards, and it’s hard to have recurring tasks set up.
Getting Things Not Done
I decided that I needed some structure first, so I recently watched the Getting Things Done course by David Allen on Lynda.com. It seemed pretty interesting, and there are some good ideas, but I do have some issues with the way it works. I like the ideas of capturing ideas to get them out of your head, but I’m not so sure about “contexts” just yet.
If anything, it’s because the “workflows” for the things I do can happen just about anywhere. For example, this blog post started life on my iPhone, and now I’m writing it on my computer. The post just before this one (“Watch This Space”), was 100% completed on my iPhone, while out at the Rockton World’s Fair. I can work on the go, and I often do.
Still, the ideas behind the flow of GTD seem to resonate with me.
Current Methods
I’ve decided to take on a hybrid approach for the time being. I’m going to start with pen(cil) and paper, and slowly migrate over to using technology as well.
First, comes the idea of “Capture.”
I’m going to start capturing things by using Field Notes notebooks, and a pencil. Leading up to this post, I decided to try carrying a Field Notes notebook with me at all times. I stuck it in my pocket, sometimes in my jacket, I would place it beside my laptop at work, and right now it’s sitting in front of me at my iMac.
Once I got used to carrying the notebook for the week, I started to write in it. In this case, the notebook is my “inbox”. Anything that comes to me, an idea, a task, a project, any “spark”, will get written down in to the notebook. Once there, it’ll be joined by a few other ideas, until I take a moment to batch them in to a digital task management system. At this point of entry is where these captures go through the “Clarify” stage, and get refined.
For “Organizing”, or task management, I’m currently planning on using Todoist. It has excellent platform support, so I can use it from my iPhone, iMac, Windows Work Laptop, or over the web. I like the idea it has with “Karma” and charting, so I have an incentive to keep up my productivity up. I’ll batch in my written ideas anywhere I am, whether it’s a moment I get with my iPhone, or on a computer.
Instead of using contexts or labels extensively, I’ll use projects as the main categories to sort tasks. Projects feel naturally easier to organize for me. I can put things in a few buckets and switch back and forth between them.
Stress Induced Productivity
(Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love App Badges)
Next comes the step of actually taking action on an item.
The biggest motivator for me is being told that I have something pending. To this end, I’ve decided to give Todoist prime placement on my home screen. It’s currently sitting in the third row from the bottom (including the dock), on the rightmost edge. This way when I unlock my phone with my right hand, it’s easily accessible. It’s also got it’s badge turned on, in an effort to force me to use it. I’ve also turned on the Apple Watch complication, so it will be visible when I’m in “working mode”.
The Future
Hopefully this will work for me. It still feels a little novel, and I fear I’ve made it complicated by just trying so many new things at once.
The real trick is trying to stick with the system, but right now, I’ll just take it a task at a time.