Archive for January, 2005
When I was nine, I remember the quasi-religious experience of going into my grandfather’s room, huddling up in front of the radioactive television set (we had only two channels, by the way), and sitting in complete awe watching the original Battlestar Galactica series unfold. There was nothing else like it at the time on television –Star Trek? — puh-lease… that was for kids– and I got caught up in the action, the allusions to ancient Greek and Eqyptian legend, the bouts of humour, and the almost-oppressive atmosphere of the rag-tag fleet’s continual flight from the deadly machines that were the Cylons. It was a new mythology for me, one connected with both the past and the future, and it was fascinating.
Like many others, especially those who have closely followed Richard Hatch (the original Apollo) and his struggle to convince the powers-that-be to launch a continuation of the original series, I awaited the new “re-imagined” Battlestar Galactica with an overwhelming sense of dread. Would it be a complete disaster? Would it wipe out, in one stroke, so much of the pleasure I derived from the series as a child? Would it look like yet another modern Star Trek rip-off, filled with female aliens in skin-tight costumes, weak plots, and boring politically-correct lead characters?
Lately, I’ve had the occasion to watch the two-part miniseries of the new Battlestar Galactica and all 13 episodes of the series.
In a word… wow.
I must admit that the new series –while being completely unlike the earlier– is one of the best-written shows I’ve ever seen. I’m also a fan of Babylon 5, but even that now seems a little too “slick” by comparison to the gritty “reality-style” filming, plots and acting of the new series. The characters are well fleshed-out and the situations real enough to identify with — for example, political power struggles, father-son issues, torrid relationships, alcoholism, religion and interpersonal blow-ups. There’s enough action and suspense to keep you on the edge of your seat, there’s enough plot threading through the series to keep you involved, and there’s enough subtle emotional tug-of-war to make you really feel for all these people.
By far, one of the biggest issues that fans of the original series were lamenting was the re-imagining of Starbuck, originally and ably played by the charismatic Dirk Benedict, as a woman. Yes, a woman! The horror! The cowboy-esque role-model for a generation of thirty-something males is now a woman! Psychoanalists are no doubt grinning with the possibilities. Strangely enough, the new Starbuck is sufficiently macho enough to pull this off. She takes the original to a whole new level through a kick-ass, defiance-of-authority attitude. And, unlike most other stereotypical kick-ass women in the shows today, she (like everybody else) can screw up regularly. That’s one of the “reality” bits that makes this show so watchable.
I only have one complaint about the show. Guys, would it have killed you to inject a little humour every now and then? We cry, we cheer, we cringe, we pity… but we almost never laugh. The oppressiveness is nigh-overwhelming. I am fully aware that the writing and filming is carefully contrived to evoke this atmosphere, and that’s well done indeed. But humanity is humanity because we can display a whole range of emotion, and especially in the worst of times, a sense of humour can take our courage, inspiration and perceptive faculties to a whole new level. By avoiding the subtleties and intricacies of humour, the scriptwriters are taking the easy way out. And the abilities clearly demonstrated through the wonderful scripts show them capable enough to tackle this all-too-important aspect of human nature and survival. Please, for season two…?
By the way, there’s a nifty DVD shoot-out between the old series and the new mini-series over at DVDTalk.
January 31st, 2005
First of all, thank you to the many intelligent and mature people who have taken my recent posts in the spirit they were intended. I’ve received some great comments and email from people who are definitely in the same boat as I: that GTD, for us, doesn’t necessarily answer or incorporate some of the longer-term goals and visions that we need to keep our focus on the bigger picture. It seems that many people have also been using GTD for day-to-day tasks, and Covey for overall goal planning. A very interesting mix, and as many have pointed out, they are certainly not mutually exclusive.
So here’s a question for those folks who are already implementing (or even thinking about) such a system, and especially those people who have some familiarity with using paper-based planners: do you have any suggestions for forms that are “best of breed”, that incorporate Covey without dropping GTD, and vice-versa? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please leave a comment below, or drop me email (as usual, you’ll see my email at the base of the menu on the right). I’m in the midst of creating some new forms for my DIY Planner v.2, and any ideas regarding this approach to planning would be much appreciated.
January 30th, 2005
In my past post, I mentioned a few ways in which –for me– GTD tends to fall short. What I didn’t expect was the dozen or so flame mails I received in response. I obviously struck a nerve somewhere.
Some choice quotes:
- If GTD does n’t meet your needs, then you are doing it wrong.
- GTD does everything an dmore. my life changed wehn i started using it, and you dont have any rite to convince people otherwise
- Your [sic] a [expletive] [expletive] if you think that your [sic] [expletive] getting things done right.
- you give people the wrong impression. gtd works.
- y dont you try christanity, you [expletive]
There were one or two well-written, thought-provoking messages among those disagreeing with me (thank you, Dawn and RJ), but most of them are along the lines of the above.
People, remember this: GTD is not a religion. It is simply a way of introducing efficiencies into one’s life: it is a process, a 1-2-3 method of (duh) getting things done. I know that GTD is the height of geek fashion right now, and it is quite effective for many people, especially more procedurally-minded folks like myself, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t infallable, or that it addresses everything for everybody.
My point was simply that GTD is more finely-tuned for pragmatic, day-to-day tasks and events. This is great, and this is what I use it for. However, I have begun to yearn for something a little higher-up in terms of long-term goals and character-building. I am not looking for a religion: I am looking for a way to integrate such bigger-picture objectives into shorter-term tasks, and I find that GTD –or at least the way in which I implement GTD– doesn’t do an adequate job of doing this, even with the “Runway to 50K feet” sections that (to me) seemed tacked onto the end of an otherwise effective system. I am, fundamentally, trying to integrate philosophy with methodology, and am seeking ways to do this. The first step was simply to acknowledge that Getting Things Done falls short in this regard for me.
My apologies to the “cult of GTD”, if I have sullied their altar in any way. Normal organisational junkies, we now return to our regular scheduled programming.
January 28th, 2005
Lately, I’ve been snowed under, literally and figuratively. Almost every waking minute of every day is spent doing work, or for moments too brief, helping to tend to my six-month-old boy Conor. Relaxation is almost non-existent, and the stress (compounded by all-too-typical personal issues) has built up to rather exorbinant levels. My only time to relax seems to be in those fleeting moments that I read myself to sleep. Reading is good… it calms the mind, tires the eyes and body, and takes the tenseness out of the muscles in preparation for rest. Sometimes, though, the mind can get hooked on an idea from a book, or even an idea lacking from a book, and seize upon that for continuing hours of (often frustrating) wakefulness. I had such a night recently, and the book I was reading was (no surprise here) Getting Things Done. It finally occured to me what the methodology was missing, for me, and it lay at the roots of my elevated stress levels.
Back in my former life, when I did the “corporate thing”, I read Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and the follow-up First Things First. The ideas were good, but they got lost in all the other business-oriented winning-strategy style books I was plowing through on a weekly basis. I took a notion or two from him, but even those became twisted out of recognisability when processed with a hundred other competing methodologies. Eventually, they (and dozens of other books) were consigned to boxes or the back-of-shelf areas behind little-read technical books.
I’ve never been an overly-religious person, and at times far too logical for my own good. This is why Getting Things Done was initially a great fit for me: it’s great for geeks that want a 1-2-3 process that they can follow, much like a computer can follow a script language. But what’s missing is depth. By depth, I’m not referring to procedural depth, or the flexibility to handle multiple situations — GTD is quite able for such things. Instead, I’m referring to something that penetrates deeper down into what it means to be human.
[I can get a thousand people clicking their “back” buttons now….]
Covey is actually good for this sort of thing. For example, early on in Seven Habits, he differentiates between “character” and “personality” -driven methods and traits. “Personality” encompasses all those quick-fix methodologies that all the gurus are constantly touting in their one-day seminars. Let’s face it: we all know that –if these work at all– they don’t last long before other things fall apart. For example, take the whole idea of “smart negotiation” (something I didn’t get from Covey, but a good example, in my opinion). If you go into a conference room, you’re supposed to sit with your back to the window. Psychologically, this intimidates people: the light behind you makes you appear more powerful, looking into any glare is typically unsettling for everybody else, and the person opposite you cannot read your facial expressions very easily. But, although this is all well and good, effective negotiation skills require more than just simple psych-out parlour tricks. You need to have a strong presence, a good knowledge of the facts, a grounding in diplomacy, and a certain degree of wisdom that allows alternate viewpoints and compromise. And these would be the “character”-oriented traits that Covey is focussing on.
Covey preaches habits that work deep-down, that are a cumulative process in achieving effectiveness in both work and personal dealings. Habit three, “First things first”, is his take on organisational methods, but is only a small part of the big picture. (It is, however, the subject devoted to his follow-up book.) By contrast, GTD is far more shallow in this regard: it is something that can be digested in a week, and can be used very quickly and effectively because it is so procedural. Note that I’m puposely disregarding the “runway to 50K feet” bits, because I feel that these seem like quickly-written sections to address longer-term issues that GTD doesn’t really handle well — it works best as a short- to intermediate-term strategy, in my opinion. Whereas GTD concentrates on day-to-day processes, Covey proposes habits that must be acquired carefully and through thought and deed, and these will take months –if not years– to permeate your life and methods.
So, it is “depth” that I’m missing in GTD. You may argue that GTD is just a way of becoming more productive. That’s true, and fair enough. It’s the whole top-down vs. bottom-up debate all over again, and neither is more correct than the other: both are perfectly valid, and will appeal to certain individuals according to their own tastes and situations. For me, at this stage in my life, I’m at a crossroads. No doubt, I will continue to use GTD methods, but I will take another look at Covey and try to build up the life and character I need to possess, because I want to feel good about who I am, what I can do with the years ahead, and what sort of person I should be to lead a good example for my baby boy. Thanks to GTD, I have a map of my day and week, but now I need a map of my life.
Is Covey the answer? I don’t know, but it’s a good first step.
January 26th, 2005
Well, I meandered around the FranklinCovey websites during lunch, and dug up a little gem. At the base of the Downloads District page, you’ll find a Windows-only (alas) program for printing forms and templates, called Forms Wizard. (This is a little hard to find in the rest of the site… I guess they’re pushing their WinXP and Outlook software much harder nowadays.) The description reads:
This easy-to-use software lets you create customized personal and professional forms for all FranklinCovey Planning Page sizes. Adjust any of the more than 60 templates to suit your needs, then print out only what you need on FranklinCovey blank pages or Perf-Fit Pages printer paper.
Free 30-day trial download, and as far as I can tell so far, there’s nothing saying you can’t print these templates on ordinary paper as well (including full letter-size). Plus, the software allows you to use the forms like a rudimentary word processor, so you can enter all your own information into them, set the fonts, make certain changes, etc. The forms are rather ordinary-looking, but there are a great number of them, including some that I hadn’t even considered making. (/me takes out scratchpad and starts making notes.) For the calendars, you can even tell it what dates/months to create. (So for those people complaining of a lack of calendar templates in my DIY Planner, this is your cue. 
)
The system is obviously Covey-oriented, but that doesn’t mean you won’t find a lot of useful forms if you’re a GTD nut. Even if you don’t spring for the software, there’s still a lot you can do with this in 30 days. Plus, at only $29.95, it seems like a great deal for anyone that uses paper planners.
January 21st, 2005
Found via WOYP: 50 Strategies for Making Yourself Work. Although this is meant mainly for writers, there’s some good general advice there, too.
Work avoidance is one of the major paradoxes of the writing profession. Generally, writers want to write (or want to have written), but all too often we find ourselves doing anything else but. We’ll mow lawns, do the dishes, polish silverware–anything to keep from facing the blank page. At the same time we know we eventually have to get to work, so we come up with all sorts of strategies for forcing ourselves to the keyboard.
I can personally vouch for many of them, including the “put the wristwatch in the drawer” one, as I tend to overwatch the clock when I’m facing a blank page. Not knowing the time helps me forget about the long moments of nothingness, and keeps me focussed. Of course, on a computer this isn’t so easy.
January 20th, 2005
Sorry for the dearth of posting as of late. Having a hard time thinking, especially in the off-hours when I normally write in this blog.
During a recent weekend excursion into St. John’s (our province’s captital) to deliver workshops, I appear to have picked up one of the worst colds I’ve ever had. You probably know the type: all you want to do is lie down, but when you do, the urge to choke, cough and sneeze jolts you back upright. Meanwhile, all your senses function as if you were immersed in aspic, and your brain is mired in thick pea soup. You want to cry out, “pity me, pity me!” but your throat is too swollen to do anything except constrict in pain at every involuntary and unexpected bark. Every joint creaks, every muscle is stiff, and your body is slow, bloated, heavy and barely responsive. Your focus is gone, your motivation kaput, your stress amplified, and your attention… what was I saying?
I seem to remember wanting to make a point, but it appears to have slipped my mind….
Yes, must keep a to-do list in front of my face. Must assume long-term memory doesn’t work. Must avoid letting my mind wander. Must have more medication….
January 20th, 2005
New article in the UK newspaper The Observer: Why encyclopaedic row speaks volumes about the old guard:
According to the laws of aerodynamics, the bumblebee should not be able to fly. Yet fly it manifestly does, albeit in a stately fashion. So much for the laws of aerodynamics.
Much the same applies to Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia written, edited and maintained by its readers. Or, to put it another way, written, edited and maintained by anyone who can be bothered to log in and change it. By all laws of reference-work publishing, Wikipedia ought to be a disaster. Yet it is exactly the opposite - an exceedingly useful online reference work often consulted by this columnist and countless others.
While I seem to remember some scientist on the Discovery Channel attempting to debunk the myth of the bee’s aerodynamic instability, the metaphor is nevertheless a good one. Wikipedia is generally my first choice of reference, before I ever hit Google.
January 19th, 2005
Psst, buddy! [Cranes neck to look over shoulder.] Interested in the Meaning of Life? It’ll cost ya.
Here it is, the ultimate truth in existence, the meaning of life. It is contained in this small envelope on a plain piece of white lined paper. Nothing showy, only the absolute truth. It could be a single word, a paragraph, or an entire treatise. Whoever makes the winning bid will discover its secret.
January 17th, 2005
Owing to geography, I don’t get an opportunity to visit Staples too often. It’s a four-hour trek to St. John’s, the capital of the province and the location of most of the superstores. However, I’m currently in town to give workshops and, while running errands one evening, could not resist stopping into Staples to peruse their DayRunner and Day Timer templates. The situation is quite different than it was a few years ago.
Once upon a time, the local Staples had a tremendous number of templates, including plenty of project management ones. Now, nearly half of the templates are calendars of some type (often with natural landscapes and crudely-drawn images of fairies trailing ribbons). I guess this speaks to the main use of paper planners nowadays. Of the other templates, there were only the following: to-do list, contacts/address book, plastic zip pouch, business card holders, slash folders, mileage forms, “Today” snap-in, and receipts (with pouch). That was it, aside from the $6 CDN ($4 USD) 30-page notepads. Prices all around were quite expensive, ranging from 20 cents to $4 per page. Ouch.
Browsing through the DayRunners and Day Timers on the shelves at least showed me a few more templates. Most planners come with 2-6 page samples of various templates, including some project management ones. (Obviously, you’re to visit their website if you want more.) DayRunner has two different levels nowadays: regular and “Pro”. The regular templates seem a little flimsier, have a very basic design, and not many fields. The Pro ones have a slightly more elaborate design, some gold and grey colouring, more project management options, and more fields (rather akin to the ones I offer). The only “loose” Pro templates I could really find to purchase were the calendar and address forms.
Just a few years ago, Staples had many dozens of templates, pretty well 80% of those now available from the planner websites. Nowadays, with the advent of PDAs, Outlook and other PIMs, there’s obviously much fewer people using planners, and thus far less of a market of the forms. The store is now only stocking the common templates that people would regularly demand. Hence, the planner websites now better serve this “niche” market.
Initially I was quite surprised at the demand for my templates, but now that I’ve had the opportunity to visit the province’s largest office supply store, I realise why so many people are downloading them. In a way, I feel like I’m helping to supply a necessary fix to a dying breed, like selling butter churners to back-to-earthers. I only hope I’m not hastening the demise of paper planner -based companies –which obviously derive a fairly high mark-up on forms– by giving my package away for free.
January 15th, 2005
Great short article over at Newsarama about Neil Gaiman’s first foray into directing:
From cult author-cum-filmmaker Neil Gaiman — the endlessly creative genius behind the otherworldly film fantasy MirrorMask, the Sandman graphic novels, the BBC-TV series Neverwhere, and the U.S. adaptation of Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke — comes A Short Film About John Bolton, a darkly hip and hilarious film which explores the question that torments artists of every medium: “Where do your ideas come from?”
I have always been in awe of Gaiman’s writing, from the Sandman to his novels, from his blog to his Hugo Award-winning Holmes-cum-Lovecraft story A Study in Emerald. It’s always interesting to see people from one creative field leap into another, because they tend to do so face-first and completely blind, usually with only the vaguest confidence that their quick-thinking will somehow get them out of any jam they might find themselves in. Sometimes it is far better to know too little than too much, at least if you find creativity through chaos. Seizing a new medium also tends to re-awaken the spirit and yanks one’s mind out of the mire of stagnancy. Artists become writers, photographers become filmmakers, printmakers become sculptors, and expression is free again.
See also his essay Where Do You Get Your Ideas? for an insight into what makes the man tick.
January 10th, 2005
I’ve been considering a number of additions to the existing set of templates for DIY Planner v2. The ones I’m thinking about are:
- A set of “Web Developer” templates. I can’t recall the number of times I’ve had to write down and design the same things… I might as well create a form for it.
- A “Sources” template, usually used to gather together pertinent contact people, equipment leasors, project staff, all-night pizza delivery places, etc. Sort of like a “yellow pages” for a category or project.
- A basic “Expense Report”.
- A fold-it-yourself Receipts form/envelope (this could be neat if I can make it work right).
- Project Ideas.
- Other possibilities:
- Trip Diary
- “Inventory” Control
- Various quick reference cards
- Important Numbers (simple form for police, fire, poison control, insurance, Chinese take-out, etc.)
- Simple DIY templates for OpenOffice.org (and possibly other) formats.
These are mainly vague ideas right now, and none are set in stone. There comes a time when you can have too many forms, and I want to avoid going that far. After all, nothing is preventing you from taking a Notes page and simply labelling it whatever subject you want. And sometimes, that’s far more efficient.
In addition to the new templates, some old ones are being modified, a new design will probably be integrated, and different sizes (letter-size, A4 and A5) and possibly languages will be offered (the latter being dependent upon volunteers).
Any other suggestions for templates, GTD or otherwise? Please leave ‘em in the comments or send me an email, and I’ll collate them for future consideration.
January 8th, 2005
Over at 43Folders.com is a call for GTD-ready applications and templates, with preference given to free and Open Source solutions. It occurred to me that TreeLine is just such a program, albeit not designed with GTD in mind. Basically, it’s a free outliner/PIM/freeform database, somewhat along the lines of the venerable Tinderbox. While it’s maturity does not yet reach anywhere that of Eastgate’s software (for example, you basically only have the latter’s “Explorer” view, and it can’t handle graphics AFAIK), it does have a number of other attractive features, not the least of which is that fact that it is Open Source and thereby modifiable by folks comfortable with Python/QT. It is also cross-platform.
Some would call TreeLine an Outliner, others would call it a PIM. Basically, it just stores almost any kind of information. A tree structure makes it easy to keep things organized. And each node in the tree can contain several fields, forming a mini-database. The output format for each node can be defined, and the output can be shown on the screen, printed, or exported to html.
Versions are available for Windows (in an easy-to-install package) and Linux. Given the libraries listed, I can so no reason why someone can’t install it on OS X as well, as long as he or she takes the time to install the libraries beforehand.
No calendar is included (yet), but I can’t see any valid reason why some very smart people cannot add it, as well as the ability to synchronise stuff to a server. In the meantime, it seems to be able to organise quite a bit, and is only limited by your imagination. “Structure-junkies” should be fairly impressed with the freeform database potential of the app, as well as the import/export, sorting, filtering, encryption, parent-child relationships, and XML capabilities. Treeline is still at version 0.10.2, but even at this stage, it demonstrates a lot of potential.
I’d love to see an XUL-based version of this application, if any Mozilla programmers out there are listening….
January 7th, 2005
Had a sleepless night last night, so I started thinking about a few elements of the existing DIY Planner templates that still bother me. One aspect is the design: it’s solid and non-offensive, but it’s also very staid and blocky. I need to pursue a more modern design, but something that’s classic enough to not feel out-of-fashion in just a few short months. It also has to feel fairly professional. (That is, I’m not stringing daisies, dandelions and dancing bears across the top. ) I had a few spare minutes during breakfast to do a quick mock-up. Any feedback?
By the way, I’ve now added a direct link to the DIY Planner to the sidebar at right. That will always point at the most recent release.
January 6th, 2005
Yet another option for all you bookmark (and GTD) junkies out there, especially with more than one machine: a new SiteBar Sidebar extension has been released to work with Firefox 1.0. For those not in the know, SiteBar is a cool way to manage your bookmarks from multiple machines using a hierachy, synced with a server somewhere. The Firefox extension gives you a neat sidebar so you can easily manage and use those bookmarks.
I suggested using SiteBar with a wiki a few months ago for GTD-related work. Each bookmark can take you straight to the edit form page for your Next Actions, Projects, etc. It works exceedingly well, if you want a nice web-enabled GTD app and are comfortable with text and wikis. At least it worked well for me, with the exception of no built-in calendar (which is what I generally use my PDA for, anyway). Hmm… I wonder if there are decent calendar plugins for any wikis I use….
January 5th, 2005
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