Posts filed under 'Organisation'
Two of the most requested forms for the D*I*Y Planner are weight and diet trackers. However, I know nothing about such things. Keeping in mind that I don’t want to tread on the toes of Weight Watchers ™ and the like, and there is a limited amount of space available on a piece of paper, does anybody have any advice about the particular data to track (e.g., fat calories, total calories, burnt calories, and so on…)?
Please leave a comment or drop me an email (see my address at the bottom of the menu at right) if have have any advice on what should be in the form. Remember: I know nothing about these things, so if you assume my complete ignorance of such matters, you’d be entirely correct!
August 20th, 2005
Well, I’m pleased to say that Drupal is living up to my expectations so far for creating a community site. It’s a difficult learning curve, but lightbulbs are going on daily. Coming up with the taxonomy (in layman’s terms, the categorisation) is probably the most challenging bit, since Drupal’s inherent power in this area tends to push administrators to do a lot more initial legwork than most other systems. My ultimate goal is to make DIYPlanner.com as simple as possible for end-users –you shouldn’t have to be a techie to use and like the system.
A few updates:
- There are now four writers/editors involved in the project (and counting), all of whom I respect very highly, and who bring completely different things to the table and possess quite varied writing styles. I’ll announce them all at a later date.
- There will be a daily blog, complete with feeds, so you can tune in daily for your paper productivity fix. (There will also be feeds for the forums, so you can follow along without manually jumping into each one.)
- The Handbooks for the various D*I*Y Planner kits are being merged into one online handbook that can be easily kept up-to-date. Comments will be allowed for registered users, so you can make suggestions on the content.
- You can access all content and leave comments anonymously, but registered users can chat in the discussion forums, submit various items, send private messages, and see other perks.
- Not only will there be the official D*I*Y Planner kits and add-ons, but hopefully there will be a number of other community-submitted templates, as well as links to external sites.
- Also planned are sections that help newbies create their own templates, along with examples, sample forms and instructions.
- There’s a nice little image gallery where you can download and share images for use on your planner covers. (A la the OOo template that comes with the classic Planner 2.0 kit.)
- I’m shooting for a nice organic, comfortable look, far removed from the noisy techno stylings of many other community sites. It will be a constant evolution, I suspect, but we want something welcoming to begin with.
- The info on the site will be rather sparse at first, but I suspect it will increase very rapidly. There’s a lot of dedicated and/or creative people out there with a lot to share.
- I’m currently soliciting guest posts to cover many topics and perspectives. In particular, at the moment I’m looking for people who have used the D*I*Y Planner kits or other paper solutions to successfully cope with the difficulties of ADD and other similar issues. If this is you, please drop me an email (my address is at bottom right): I’d love to hear from you. If you have doubt in your writing skills, no matter: we can edit and help you along the way.
- I’m also looking for a contributor who is long-time journal keeper, and can offer advice on things like journalling, diaries, dream logs, scrapbooking and other personal “life-logging”.
- If you’re knowledgable about paper-planning issues or templates, and you’d like to write a post or two, please drop me a line. Similarly, if you have a template you’d like to share with other users, we’d be happy to give you a place to host it (or a link to your site).
Stay tuned….
August 15th, 2005
I’ve spent the past few days away from computers. While normally such a lapse in my lifestyle would leave me quaking like a twinkie junkie facing sugar withdrawal, I was more than occupied by all the family gatherings, ceremony and stress surrounding the baptism of my 13-month-old son, Conor. Somewhere in the course of events, I also came to a decision: I need to create an identity for “my other baby” too, one that will allow it to grow more freely.
The D*I*Y Planner, when I first released it, was fairly small, rather amateurish, and had no discernible future. It was simply a small pile of forms I believed I might never use again, and so I was releasing it into the wilderness to find its own way. I never would have believed that it and the subsequent –and hopefully more professional– packages would be downloaded well over 300,000 times (about 400,000, if you count the various loose forms and diagrams intended as add-ons), and that the blog would jump from two readers daily to a number that I still find intimidating. Like the proverbial tiger kitten raised in a New York apartment, it’s a beast that has now outgrown its master.
Let me explain….
Each week, I get over a hundred comments or emails about the ‘Planner and the various kits. Many are notes of thanks (which are very much appreciated, and keep me forging onwards), a few are questions that have probably been answered in the packages’ FAQs, some are general productivity-related questions, a half-dozen are clearly intended as flames or provocation (often of the “paper is for luzers” variety), a handful are wonderful suggestions (of which I cannot do without), and at least four or five include templates created by people who are eager for my feedback. While I try to answer all these emails, I’m also trying to find time to work on the version 3.0, Creativity and Education packages, juggle family commitments, and seek a permanent and stable job (not very easy in my neck of the woods). Now, this isn’t a complaint by any stretch of the imagination: I love the D*I*Y Planner work I’ve been doing, I enjoy hearing from so many imaginative and devoted users of the kits, and I see only a bright future for the project. The question I’ve been mulling these past few days, though, is this: “What’s next?”
In a way, I feel like I’ve been hoarding this project to myself for far too long. Not only has this turned a million monkeys typing into an almost obsessive productivity blog (which is far from my original intention), but it seems as though I’ve been suppressing the voices of people who should be free to share their wonderful thoughts, suggestions and templates, but yet have no real –and public– outlet to do so. I’m only one man (backed by a large, albeit fictitious, troup of monkeys) and my perspective and time are thus quite limited, but there’s an opportunity for a community, however small, to grow. And so it is with some degree of trepidation that I’m preparing to cut loose my creation once more.
Here is the current plan:
- A new domain has been registered for D*I*Y Planner, productivity and paper-based planning issues. This will launch soon, depending upon how fast I can get up to speed on the CMS, Drupal (thanks, Eric!). The site is not intended to compete with the hundreds of other productivity sites out there: its focus will be on using mainly paper, while many other sites delve heavily into the digital domain. This will result in a niche audience, to be sure, but one that seems to be frequently overlooked.
- Said domain will be the permanent home of the D*I*Y Planner kits, release notes, handbooks, and so forth. No more redirecting to blog links or specific dates — this should cut down on some confusion and permit bookmarks that don’t change.
- a million monkeys typing will once more become my “own personal blog,” dealing with creative matters, educational issues, and other random musings of a primate — I hope it doesn’t get too lonely around here.
Many of the better productivity-related posts of the past will find their way into the new domain.
- Although I’ll continue to write posts fairly frequently on the new site, I’ll also be asking people to write short articles and submit templates for inclusion. There are a lot of creative people out there brimming with great advice, and a few have even designed some really amazing templates that supplement or even replace my own. (Yes, the creation and release of a template DIY kit is still on my to-do list for the near future.)
- The new site will also contain forums covering such matters as template design, printing issues, ideal setups, “crossing the paper/digital divide”, productivity advice surrounding paper-based GTD/Covey/other methods, and so on. A wiki is also on the drawing board. Everything is feed-ready so you can easily follow along in your BlogLines, feed readers or new-fangled browsers, if you’re into that sort of thing.
- The development of D*I*Y Planner packages will continue as normal, and will always be free for download and individual use. (The speed of said development will depend upon what I’m currently doing for a living.)
Will this work? I don’t know, exactly, but I’m willing to give it a shot. If I can direct even a quarter of the ideas and enthusiam that reaches me privately into the more public forum, it’ll be an exciting ride.
In the meantime, if you’d like to share your templates or a proposal for an article, don’t be shy: please get in touch with me (my email address is at the bottom of the menu at right). There’s no money involved, just fame, glory, a link to your site, and the warm glow you get from helping others. Oh, and the undying adoration of thousands of paper-based-planning groupies….
August 10th, 2005
Consider this an invitation to leave comments regarding what templates you’d like to see created for the new edition of the classic/A5 D*I*Y Planner. (That can also include ideas for the Education and Creativity packs, since the work is proceeding more or less simultaneously.)
Among the tentative improvements for version 3.0 that I’m already working on:
- More consistency in template designs, including a slightly different way of handling dividers and columns — the majority of templates have undergone some changes, mostly minor and cosmetic
- Undated Monthly templates now have an option for weeks starting on Monday
- Dated monthly calendar pages (yes, with actual numbers and stuff)
- Contact pages (heck, why not?)
- Yearly calendars
- Finalised Crossroads template
- Job Tracker template (much like the hPDA version)
- “Actions Bookmark”
- Some new project management forms
- Undated Day Keeper template, for those with “non-standard” hours
- A simple “widget kit” built in an Open Source product for creating your own templates (stay tuned for further thoughts on the subject)
- Less ink needed — lighter tones will be used in many cell backgrounds, pending testing on a variety of printers
- Several reference cards, including the new GTD and Covey diagrams
- New cover options
- A dozen or so new (*ahem*) undisclosed templates
- Launch of the DiYwiki, where you can share advice and home-grown templates (email me if you’d like to help with this)
As you can see, most of these changes are evolutionary, not revolutionary, which is why I’m soliciting as many ideas as possible to add a few more options and a bit more spice into the package. Let me know your wishlist, and I promise I’ll examine all your suggestions.
Last week, we hit 300,000 combined downloads so far of versions 1.0, 2.0 and the Hipster PDA Edition, but I’m not kidding myself: it’s only because of your help, because of community feedback, that the ‘Planner kits have been so well received and seem to be meeting the needs of so many people. I’d like that to continue, so please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas. What additions to this package would help you better manage your life, your time, your information? What would you like to see?
(Egad… I sound like a PBS pledge drive, just without the tote bag. Then again…. )
If you’d prefer not to leave a comment, you can always email me instead — my address is at the bottom of the menu at the right.
Update : I’m impressed by the enthusiasm of you folks: several dozen emails and comments in just a few hours! Keep it up! Just one little thing, though: please check to see if your suggestion isn’t already in the list above or in version 2.0 of the D*I*Y Planner, or if it can’t be easily handled by a generic template such as Checklist — I’ve gotten a number of suggestions for things that already exist. Not that I mind such requests, but you may find that your need is already fulfilled.
August 1st, 2005
DEVONtechnologies has released the second DEVONthink Pro Public Beta. I’ve kept abreast of this one for a while now, and am pleasantly surprised by its capabilities with each new version. If you’re running a Mac, and need a heavy-duty but user-friendly application for managing your writing, research, freeform information, and files (including HTML, PDFs and graphics), then there’s no way to go wrong with this program. It’s probably the best software of its kind that I’ve ever used.
The final version is due around August 17th, but this download seems to allow unlimited usage till then. There is also a revised manual and a very handy tutorial to get you started. See the previous post An Attic Called DEVONthink for my review of the application, although this new version puts much of the older (and non-Pro version) version to shame.
(Sorry, Windows users… you’re out of luck on this one. However, I have had quite a number of emails suggesting Zoot as a good alternative. From their website docs, it doesn’t look quite as powerful, but I haven’t tested it myself.)
July 28th, 2005
Part of the problem with working with any productivity or organisational system is in figuring out how to shape the dozens (if not hundreds) of bits of information barraging you daily into something more manageable. This, of course, leads to fundamental precepts of the Getting Things Done system: keep your inbox empty, your data slotted into the best places to act upon, and your level of trust in the system high enough to defeat the twin stresses of uncertainty and information overload.
Whether you’re working with Outlook/Entourage, a PDA, a web-based system, or another digital tool, or using one of the numerous paper-based planning kits (like the D*I*Y Planner), the primary challenge is often in the streamlined capture and movement of your task-related materials. Whatever you use, the most important things to remember are:
- Keep your data capture system handy for whenever you need it. Either carry your entire system –for example, your planner or your PDA– or have a “satellite” capture tool, like a Hipster PDA.
- Make sure you can enter your data fast. If you can’t type or write quickly enough, you’ll never capture the requisite information. (It took me months to write fast enough with Palm Graffiti for decent memos, but I also needed some practice with real handwriting again before I could write quickly with a pen.)
- Don’t let your captured data stagnate or build up. Channel it at least once a day.
All well and good, and David Allen and numerous other productivity gurus usually advocate these same common-sense productivity tips. But every organisational system has inherently different ways to capture your information and move it into the right place. This is key to distinguishing those systems that work from those that are painful to implement, and your personal situation will very much amplify each one’s strengths and weaknesses. For example, for the first time in nearly 20 years, a goodly portion of my time is actually spent away from a computer (mainly by choice), and thus fantastic and free web-based systems like GTDTiddlyWiki and Next Action are not suitable for my daily tasks. (Yes, I could print items onto paper for on-the-go, but that’s a complication I don’t actually need, as much as my inner geek is tempted.)
I’ve seen a number of people writing about how to use digital inboxes of various types, and of course Allen describes a tray-based inbox with each item on a separate piece of paper. (Recycling ahoy!) My post today, however, concerns a few simple GTD-centric tips for using a paper planner -based inbox, such as what you’d use in a Day Runner, Day-Timer, Filofax, or a homebrew kit using the classic size D*I*Y Planner. As usual, I’m speaking from personal experience; your situation and tools may require a modified approach.
- I’d advise setting up a planner section as a “special place” designated with its own tab called @Inbox. This should be easily accessible, not half-hidden or located between hard-to-reach tabs. I’d also advise putting this near the centre of the planner, not far from an @Actions tab (where you can keep your Next Actions, Waiting For and Agenda items). Why the centre? Well, the @Inbox and the @Actions sections are going to have a lot of paper both inserted and taken away; it’s far easier to do this when the opening of the rings is close by. I also put a red dot on the tab for these two sections to stress the immediacy of the material. (In my system, green is for projects, yellow for incubating someday/maybe thoughts, and blue for reference materials.)
- Fill this @Inbox with regular old note or blank paper. No fancy forms, no expensive linen grade, no parchment, nothing special. This should be filled with cheap, recyclable paper. How many pages? That depends on your daily deluge. Start off with 10-15 pages, and then up that number if you find you’re constantly running out. Remember, try to avoid bulk, or you won’t be inclined to carry your planner.
- Now for the practical part. Let’s say the phone rings, or you bump into your project manager in the hallway, or your boss walks into your office and wants to discuss something. Open immediately to your @Inbox and flip to a page with adequate writing space (which should be near the beginning, if you’re following the advice below).
- If it’s obvious that the information to be captured should go directly into another section (e.g., your co-worker says, “Here’s that guy’s contact info,” or your boss says, “The project deadline is August 14th”), then fine: jump to that tab in your planner and write the details there.
- If it isn’t clear what information you’re about to receive –and this will be the case most of the time– simply start writing in your @Inbox. Start by writing the date and time, and the person (or team) involved. Don’t be concerned with spelling, margins, grammar, or anything else: these are rough notes, and you have nothing to worry about except collecting important details. Make everything a bullet point, but be sure to capture all pertinent data. Names, dates, objectives, specifications, opinions, and so forth should all be written down in as succinct a way as possible.
- When your conversation is finished, quickly review your notes. Now that the call or meeting is over, you have some perspective on the value of the information and its correct place. Move addresses into your Contacts tab, project notes into the relevant project tab, deadlines and appointments into your calendar, call summaries into a project Contact Log, and so forth. (If you’re following GTD, most of this should be fairly evident: use the D*I*Y Planner GTD reference diagram –or the chart in the book, of course– if you need to jog your memory.) Some of your notes will no doubt need to be rewritten for clarity, and some items can be entered directly into the appropriate forms, such as the Next Actions, Waiting For, Someday/Maybe, Project Details or Agenda ones. If you don’t have time to immediately transfer the notes, at least ensure that they are clear and that you haven’t forgotten anything.
- Use your @Inbox for anything else coming at you quickly, such as a brainstorming session, the minutes of an ongoing committee meeting, or some interesting tidbits on a television or radio programme. Obviously, you may not need to use it for email, business memos and reports –these can be read, noted and filed appropriately and directly in the relevant sections of your planner or file cabinet– but for those items leaving you no time to digest contents or muse upon a course of action, jump straight into your @Inbox, whip out your pen, and start writing.
- If you’re the type of person who receives important papers and scraps all day long, you need a place to keep these safe and ready to process. Many better planners have an inside pocket of some type (my Day Runner has an accordian pocket) that you can consider part of your @Inbox. If you don’t have one, you can purchase a set of durable cardboard pockets that clip into the rings of your planner from any larger office supply store for about $7. Don’t forget to review this pocket along with your @Inbox tab.
- Don’t let your @Inbox grow. This is a cardinal sin. Whenever you have a breather, at an absolute minimum of once per day, review this section and transfer all your information into the appropriate tabs and forms. If this occasion doen’t present itself, make it happen: take your planner to a quiet place, or close the door and turn off the phones, or bring your planner to a solo lunch, or put aside a little time after (or before) work. When you’ve emptied the @Inbox, grab a little reward (a coffee, perhaps, or an apple) and then get on with your day.
Yes, it’s all common sense, but many people (myself included) find that keeping to this procedure is the most problematic part of staying organised. The trick is in dancing the capture and empty two-step. Having an easily-accessible and designated section within your planner, as well as following a daily purging ritual, will help limber up those joints and keep you moving forward.
For more information, the D*I*Y Planner Handbook (included with the download) has a number of other tips for setting up and using tabs and forms. And remember, whatever you do, keep your system as simple as possible: complexity is not your friend.
July 24th, 2005
Update : This set, and many more, are now available free at www.DIYPlanner.com.
The latest member of the D*I*Y Planner Hipster PDA Edition family: a new job-tracking card with room for client info, times, rates, expenses and tasks, along with an optional back face sporting a grid for related information and diagrams. Hopefully, this should prove useful not only for freelancers and contract workers, but also those who move around a lot on different projects.
A big monkey-man salute goes to Neil Ford for his valuable ideas, suggestions and testing.
Download: hpda_jobtracker.zip
This package contains 1-up PDF, 4-up PDF and PNG graphics versions. I still consider this a first draft, so I’m especially open to any suggestions folks might have.
July 22nd, 2005
Well, all those tales of photographers being sued for images containing the barely-recognisable faces of sue-happy individuals have instilled within me an unhealthy sense of paranoia. Seeing that I’ve been delving far more into photography lately, I decided to round up a few D*I*Y Planner templates to serve as photographic releases.
In this kit (a part of the forthcoming Creativity package), you’ll find:
- Photographic Release (pocket form), in Hipster PDA 1-up, 4-up, and graphical versions
- Photographic Release: Adult, in PDF 5.5×8.5 format
- Photographic Release: Minor, in PDF 5.5×8.5 format
- The adult and minor releases in an OpenOffice.org Draw source file (1.1.4 and up)
The pocket releases are for both adults and minors, and suitable for printing onto index cards, à la my Hipster PDA Edition. The adult and minor versions are also provided in a source file so you can modify them to suit your needs; this will allow you to insert your name, change the size (say, to A5), jigger the margins, or change the wording per the advice of your lawyer. If you want to use the OpenOffice.org file, please download and install the free Blue Highway font first, which is used for the title. (There is no public source file for the Hipster PDA variants, but you should be able to use the included OOo file to create your own with a bit of elbow grease.)
These templates differ somewhat from the usual D*I*Y Planner gear, but mainly for the sake of readability — remember, you want your model to be able to read and sign the form without any legibility issues. Aesthetics is a secondary concern.
These forms are based upon releases provided to Popular Photography (see original text here) by the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP). These templates are provided here simply as a courtesy, and all applicable rights belong to the original creators and owners: any objection to their distribution in this form by said owners will result in the withdrawal of this offering. As always, check with your lawyer before using any legal forms: they may not be valid in your area or for your purposes. There is no guarantee, implied or otherwise, that accompanies these forms, either on my part, or the part of Popular Photography and Imaging Magazine, or the ASMP.
Whew. In other words, use at your peril, and please check with your legal representative first. Remember, I am not a lawyer, nor do I claim any legal knowledge.
Download: D*I*Y Planner Photographic Release Kit 1
Feedback, especially from those with real legal opinions and knowledge, are quite welcome.
July 16th, 2005
Hmmm… three people have sent me this link so far. It’s a conspiracy, I think.
July 1st, 2005
Back in the bronze age –my high school and university years, to be more specific– I spent a lot of time writing fiction. Just like every other struggling writer (and perhaps those with far more experience), the development of plot and subplot elements within story lines proved to be one of the most intimidating and frustrating parts of the writing process. And, like so many others during that epoch, I turned to index cards. I’d jot down a title like “Man peers down into sewage drain” and then use the rest of the card for details. Afterwards I’d lay out the cards on a large table and shuffle them about till I was satisfied with the progression. Nowadays, I often use outliners for that purpose, but they never felt, well… authentic to me, at least as a writer.
Enter the Writer’s Café, a woefully under-publicised application from a UK husband-and-wife team that seeks to deliver an authentic writing experience in ways other software falls flat. The duo is an interesting couple: Dr. Julian Smart is a fairly well-known software developer, the man behind the cross-platform wxWidgets project, and Harriet Smart is a novelist with several books to her credit. For this product, they combined their respective disciplines to create an application that might prove invaluable –if not essential– to many writers.
Writer’s Café is essentially a suite of writer’s tools. The emphasis is not on word processing –there are too many of those out there already, including the free OpenOffice.org Writer– but rather on the development of ideas and the organisation of material. StoryLines is their equivalent of the index-card-shuffle, and you can create several streams, one for each plot line. You can create detailed content for each card and even add annotations and an image, then export the whole lot to an external file as a report suitable as the basis of a first draft (it even supports OpenOffice.org format). Another application serves as a hub for:
- Keeping a journal
- A “notebook” for writing down your loose ideas and developing them
- Displaying random inspirational quotes the developers have selected (they call them cookies)
- Timing your writing, with optional prompts to kickstart your brain
- Creating simple brainstorming diagrams or collages, with ovals, rectangles, pictures and text interconnected with lines and arrows
- The scrapbook: this is essentially an outliner in which you can organise text, web links, images, collages and shortcuts to files on your hard drive
There are a few other applications, such as WordTiles (like a fridge-magnet poetry tool) and Forty Thieves, a card game to help de-stress. Also included is a 60-page ebook called Fiction: The Facts, which should prove handy to beginning writers, and a catchy theme song by Jay Goldmark called Untie Your Tongue. (Hey, why not?)
So is this for you? Well, it depends. There are a few things I really like about it. First, it’s cross-platform, running on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux (which is probably a bigger deal for me than it is for you). Second, it does a great job of creating a nice little self-contained system for writers to develop, research and arrange ideas, plots, locations and characters, even if one’s computer skills are fairly basic. Most things work by dragging and dropping or by simple menu commands. An effort has been made to keep it flexible but user-friendly. Third, I like that it caters to writers and the writer’s mindset… everything is ordered and implemented in such a way to make a writer feel at home, using standard time-honoured nomenclature and techniques. Even the title is meant to evoke this. Fourth, the StoryLines program is definitely a best-of-breed, and I can’t say I’ve seen many comparable pieces of software, at least in terms of helping writers to re-arrange and annotate their plots. (I’m not about to mention the oft-hellish Dramatica here.) Last but not least, the program contains functions that are normally only found in higher-end and more technical applications, albeit here they are far more basic and intuitive (read: less intimidating). Programs like DEVONthink Pro and Visio would scare the pants off many creative writers I know, but Writer’s Café should hit the sweet spot in terms of balancing technical know-how with the need to be productive as a writer.
Downsides? Well, there are a few. Depending on what applications you already use, the Scrapbook and Collage tools can seem rather primitive and a little clunky. Unless you’ve invested time, money and effort into learning other applications, though, you’ll still do fine by these tools. The text tools are another matter, however. I understand that the emphasis is placed upon developing your ideas, and not to recreate a fully-functional word processor, but the lack of certain functions like search/replace are a little frustrating if –for example– you decide to change a character’s name or a location. That being said, you can do a search within the application and replace text manually, or simply export the “report” to your word processor and just change the words there when you begin work on your first draft. The good news is that (according to a post in the forums) improving the text tools is high on the developer’s to-do list.
My only other qualm, and it’s a fairly minor one, is that of aethetics. The cross-platform widgets set seems a little out of place on Mac OS X, and things lack a little of the Aqua “elegance” that many expect from most native applications. Likewise, the application icons seem rather primitive, not at all lickable or even anti-aliased. That being said, Writer’s Café looks quite natural on Windows, and only slightly awkward under Linux. These issues mean little when contrasted against the value of the software, though.
While I probably won’t be giving up my cherished DEVONthink Pro or other professional tools very soon, I can certainly recommend Writer’s Cafe for those writers stuck in the mire of a story going nowhere, or for those trying to get along with only a regular word processor. Many professional writer’s tools –several of which are of inferior quality or hopelessly complex– cost several hundred dollars, so at $45 USD, Writer’s Café is a great deal. StoryLines itself is worth the cost of admission.
If you’re interested, the UK’s Practical PC site has a review of Writer’s Café with screenshots, and of course the Writer’s Cafe website has plenty of information as well as a downloadable demo.
June 30th, 2005
Methods for brainstorming about projects are often hard to implement. Some of them are so needlessly complex that it’s difficult to be creative and free-form with your thinking. Mind-maps (and mind-mapping software like NovaMind and Inspiration) can be useful, but they take some getting used to, and often work best when several people are involved. Others, like the D*I*Y Planner Brainstorming template (basically, an empty grid for note-taking and doodling) are too free-form, and the lack of structure and prompts may do little to help bust your creative blocks.
I’ve decided to take a leaf from Roger van Oech’s book Whack on the Side of the Head, a great book for sparking many types of creativity — I’ve cherished mine for nearly 20 years. He wrote:
Much of our educational system has taught us to look for the one right answer. This approach is fine for some situations, but many of us have a tendancy to stop looking for alternative right answers after the first one has been found. This is unfortunate because often it’s the second, or third, or tenth right answer which is what we need to solve a problem in an innovative way.
He goes on to say that creative genius tends to lurk in the least obvious places, and it’s a shame that we always stop at the first thing that comes to mind, since that only serves to stiffle our imaginations. So what can I do, I pondered, that would force me to think of alternatives? I have a few ideas in development, but I’d like to start by introducing a draft for a new form, which I’m calling (at least temporarily) Crossroads (sorry, 5.5×8.5 only for now). Click on the form at right to download the 2-page PDF file.
So how do you use it?
- First, consider the issue at hand, and summarise this for the Title. The shorter the better. For example, “Publicise technology workshops for volunteers,” “Start club for learning Japanese,” “Fund-raising for Dialysis Machine,” “Start a fitness consultancy,” or “Write department proposal for Q3.”
- The Destination is the objective to keep in mind, and should take into account what would make this a succesful venture. Be succinct.
- In each of the boxes, from 1 to 4, write down a possible path to take. Force yourself to think of four completely different approaches. If you have a lot of ideas, don’t stop there: use another form or a piece of note paper. (Don’t worry about the checkbox items for now.) For example, ideas for publicising a technology workshop might be:
- Newspaper/radio/TV ads
- Fax posters/flyers to volunteer clubs
- Ask service clubs to mention in meetings
- Get churches involved
- In each box, think of a few Checkbox items — essentially actions that would help further develop that path. For example, under “Get churches involved”, you might put:
- Short description of workshop for minister
- Ask for mention after sermon
- Check out clubs, find leaders
- Elderly “wanna-learns”- how?
- Modified curriculum/approach
- Parish newsletters
- Grandparent-teen teams
- etc.
- Look down through your paths. What makes more sense, and what might provide best results per effort required? Decide upon which actions you want to pursue, move them to your Next Actions or Weekly Planning lists. You can either check off the ones you’ve moved, or check off the ones completed (depending on what makes most sense to your system). By the way, nothing is saying that you have to stick to just one box: mix and match. this is for brainstorming, not restricting you.
- When the destination has been achieved (or not, or side-tracked), conduct a mini-review (the Looking Back). I’d suggest –at least when getting started– that you note four things you could have done more effectively, or the four things that worked best. Attach regular note paper if you need the space. A personal review, however short, is not only a good way to keep things in perspective and learn about oneself, but it also helps push creative solutions to the next level.
As I said, this is an early draft of the form, and I would really love to get some feedback. Any takers, please leave a comment below or send me an email (address is at the bottom of the menu at right).
June 28th, 2005
Often we must come full circle –to return to the very beginning– in the efforts to renew ourselves. To do this, the years of rubbish accumulating in our minds need to be emptied periodically, lest we find ourselves with little room to move and breathe.
This is a little post about Zen. I’m not talking about the clichéd trend of recent years to denote every little amusing bit of human nature as Zen, nor the smug satisfaction of thinking one’s excellence in a particular area is Zen, nor am I referring to the misconception tied to the existential angst of nothingness and futility as Zen. These are ridiculous, and only demonstrate one’s ignorance of the philosophy. While I don’t wish to define Zen here (and it defies verbal description anyway), I want to mention an important way it can help folks whose minds are cluttered by years of intellectual analysis. (Well, it helped me.) I’m talking here about the beginner’s mind.
In response to my Simpleton and the Grail post, I’ve gotten a few email like the following, asking exactly how I went about “reducing” my system from one of inherent complexity to one that worked in its simplicity:
You mentioned you’d write about your system later on — but I’m more curious as to how you approached the process of it figuring out. I’ve been productivity tweaking since Jan ‘04 (my first read of GTD ), and have tried all sorts of things. Frustrated, I occasionally engage in the exercise you describe, but always end up more frustrated and muddled than if I’d stuck to my 17-step, 4-system, daily-review process.
What was your mindset? How much time did you devote? How did you pare down to the essentials?
Many people, myself included, get caught up in over-analysing everything. If you’re creating a top-notch piece of software, or a bridge, or a space shuttle, this isn’t a liability, and is often preferable. After all, you want to account for every usage, process and contingency when so much is on the line, when so many people are involved in the equation. To many, the mental challenge is exhilarating, and to see one’s well-ordered and well-thought-out plan being implemented is a far greater reward than simple financial gain. And so, many of us attack every issue in our lives with the same sort of intellectual gusto, thinking that there’s nothing wrong with applying complex flow charts, cutting-edge technologies and detailed quality assurance methods to every proposed solution.
Last summer, I realised I had to do something about my time management problems. I had stretched my days to the limit, I was losing track of bills, I constantly forgot tasks from one hour to the next, and found my stress levels approaching critical. No problem, I thought. I’m an IT professional, and like most of the breed, I’m wont to fantasize about ways of increasing my efficiency using a powerful and systematic series of tools. Having recently finished Getting Things Done, I was inspired to leap into the fray and somehow come up with a technical system that could revolutionalise the time management arena (which –I believe– many of us geeks see as a completely feasible undertaking).
Uh-oh. You see the problem coming, don’t you?
Well, to make a long story short, I got caught in the “must track everything” mindset. I got trapped in a never-ending circle of figuring out the ultimate methodology for containing the ebb and flow of each and every little bit of information, and I involved every tiny byte of technology I could wield, cajole or duct-tape together. Not only was the sheer complexity of the system overwhelming –and thus not likely to be used– but my constant rejigging (including weekly replacements of core applications) meant that nothing was stable or long-lasting enough to be useful. The downward spiral of productivity tweaking wasted my precious time, drained my energy, decimated my efficiency, consistently distracted me, and consequently drove my stress levels to soaring heights.
Fifteen years ago at university, I did a whole lot of soul searching. While things like existentialism, behaviorism and various shamanistic concepts soon staled the neurons and trickled out of my brain, I did find Zen Buddhism interesting enough to pursue. One day this past fall, I was rummaging through my boxes of books and stumbled across a book on the subject (Zen for Beginners, to be exact — an excellent and easy-to-digest introduction). I flipped through it in an amused sort of way, remembering the years of study and meditation, and then it hit me: I needed to leave behind the complexities of my thinking and return to the “beginner’s mind.”
The beginner’s mind is one of clarity unencumbered by the years of ego, rules, social experience, worldly knowledge, bad habits and other baggage that accumulates and weighs us down. It is the original face, the one we each had before we were born. It is primordial, and free of imposition. It heeds no resistance, and is aware only of the natural flow of things.
I released that my biggest problem was trying to contain all the information, constantly trying to shape an unnatural flow as one might attempt to contain or change the course of a river with only one’s bare hands. Time after time, this caused my tension and frustration to build to the point of needing to abandon my fledgeling systems. You see, my cherished systems were the result of my accumulated knowledge and many years’ experience in IT work; they had become a series of intellectual challenges, and not a natural way of looking at or managing my life. I had to leave this mind-clutter and baggage behind, at least temporarily, and forget about my unholy communions of wikis, web-based project management tools, PDAs, server-synced calendars, sitebars, databases and 20-step flowcharts.
But how does one return to the beginning, and forget about technology? Simple: I took out a piece of paper and wrote at the top, “Things I actually need to track and use to be effective”. How very primitive, right? Well, that was the intention.
I started listing only those things I thought I absolutely needed.
“Email”. After all, about 90% of my communication is email. Right-o, not a problem. Gmail has labels and archiving, and I can set up @Action, @WaitingFor, @ProjectName, @Review, and so on. That was easy.
Here, I stopped, though: I decided to make a conscious effort not to think yet about how to manage the information, but just discern what information was needed in the first place. Beginner’s mind, no process yet. Okay, move on.
“Next Actions,” of course. Have to keep on track, keep going forward. “Waiting For,” because I don’t want delegated tasks to stall.
“Calendar Appointments and Deadlines,” since I have to remember to do certain things on certain days. Likewise “Birthdays” and “Anniversaries.”
“Daily news.” I wanted to tote news so I could read it during my lunch hour or in line-ups.
“Contact Info.” “Logins/passwords.” “Car Loan Information.” And so on.
It took about an hour. When I was finished, I was amazed how much information I was trying to track and use that was –in the grand scheme– utterly useless to my productivity. Many of the things I had been trying to contain didn’t even make the first cut. Then I started crossing out everything I didn’t need, and minimising everything I had deployed in multiple formats. For example, why did I need to keep track of daily finances when almost everything appears in my bank statement and online banking? I only needed to track when payments were due. (Onto the calendar they go, then.) Why did I need to have several versions of a contact list, in three different forms? One is enough. Did I really need two ways of tracking projects, and did I really need a web interface for them? Why did I need four different calendar-based ways of keeping time? Did I need to make all my project files text-searchable? Was it necessary to have my IM lists tied into my contact lists?
I put each item in its proper context, attempting to simplify matters as much as possible: I needed the bare essentials only. I went through the list. Cross that out. Nix that. Forget about that. Strike that. Uh-uh, nope. Drop that. No, that isn’t needed. And so on….
I was left with about a dozen things I needed to track and/or use daily. Another Zen precept is based upon the notion of intuitive understanding. I’ve seen enough of my successes and pitfalls to implicitly understand how my flow best works (at least, with a minimum of variables). And so, based upon my list, I could see fairly clearly how to manage my time and information.
The tools were then matched to these necessities. Eventually, it came down to a Palm (for contacts, daily news, MP3s, alarms, encrypted docs, and pictures of the family), my up-and-coming D*I*Y Planner (still in the inaugral stages, but suitable for the calendar, actions, short reference lists, brainstorming and project tracking), and a computer note-taking/reference application (DEVONthink Pro is perfect for containing all my digital dribs and drabs at the moment, though I’m told Zoot is great for Windows users). To that, I’ve now added a Hipster PDA set, mainly for “on the go” errands and the like. The new system was fairly streamlined, and worked well. No resistence anywhere, just a natural flow and an obvious place for everything.
No process is perfect right out of the gate, of course. Thankfully, mine was only incremental from there: small changes –kaizen as the Japanese call it– to continually enhance the flow. For example, I’m integrating a bit more Covey for the top-down thinking, but it still fits with my basic GTD setup.
Step one, simplify to the bare essentials. Step two, seek out the flow of least resistance and effort. Step three, choose the best tools. Step four, simplify some more, and steamline.
For me, I’ve learned that the whole key to my success is in staying away from technology unless it’s absolutely necessary. Ironic, coming from an IT professional, but it saves me from from trying to systematically incorporate everything, attempting to contain too much, giving into the temptation of shiny toys, and subsequently hitting the downward spiral.
There’s something to be said for stripping off the world, facing the mirror as a newborn babe, clear of mind and thought — if only for a moment, before we face worldly matters once more.
June 27th, 2005
In the past few months, ever since the D*I*Y Planner 2.0 was released, I’ve heard from some very interesting (and often very strange) people who are sharing some ideas about what they want to track in their planners. In all, I have fielded maybe a hundred or so requests for certain types of templates. Some I have provided in one form or another, such as the Contact form for the Hipster PDA Edition, which you’ll probably see in the 3.0 release of the classic kit. Some are so niche that I can’t justify spending much time on them — the Night Watchman log and the Tropical Fish Breeding requests come to mind. And then there are those concerning subjects I know so little about that I cannot create effective templates — the Make-Up Accessoriser, the Carb-Counter, the Ovulation Indexer and certain types of fitness forms are good examples. (My wife will attest to my lack of knowledge –and interest– in make-up, hair products, fashion accessories and anything else that sends my testosterone into a tizzy. And ovulation…! I get confused by our garbage collection schedule!)
Just because I’m not producing templates for these things doesn’t mean that you have to do without your precious diet logs and breeding trackers, though. About 90% of requests that come from the users of the D*I*Y Planner system can probably do just fine with one particular form, the Matrix. (And please, no blue pill / red pill jokes: I’ve heard them all.)
In the classic 5.5×8.5 and A5 ‘Planner kits, the Matrix comes in two versions, portrait and landscape. (There is also a Hipster PDA version.) It is essentially meant for keeping track of tabular data. Herewith, some examples:
- Grade Tracker : Students, why use another agenda when you have a perfectly good planner? Teachers, why do you need to carry around that big heavy red book?
- Book/Tape/CD/etc. Borrowing : What did you borrow, and from whom? To whom did you loan your Greatest Hits of the New Kids on the Block CD? Add a date column for library books, and you’ll always know when you have to return things at a glance.
- Time Sheet : Yes, some of us are accountable for our time, as those boss types keep reminding us. Workdays across the top, times down the left, and job numbers or dockets in the grid. (Or any other way that makes sense for you.)
- Brewer’s Log : Track your batch name, number, start date, starting specific gravity, rack/bottling dates, and ending SG. (I think I’ll create a dedicated version of this later, since I’m back into wine making.)
- Diet Log : Day/date, breakfast calories, lunch calories, and so on, with a totals column at the end.
- Weight Training : Date, types, reps, times, and so on.
- Hobby Logs : What do you do, and how do you track it? If it can be put into a table, mayhaps the Matrix will work for you. Suggestions: Ham Radio Logs; Photographic Info (shot, time, place, f-stop, shutter, etc.); Comic Collection; Old Time Radio episodes; Fish Breeding; Hitchcock DVDs; O(prah) Magazine Collection; The Ultimate Sandwich.
- Cleaning Logs : Which employee or roommate has to clean the toilet next, and when?
- Inventory List : Keep a basic inventory control list for your business or hobby.
- Lottery “System” : Not a joke. I know people that do this: put in the winning numbers to the 6-49 Lottery every week, to see if they can find a pattern. For the pathologically numeric.
- Accounting : Some accountants wrote to thank me for providing this form, although I couldn’t fathom their exact usage. Sounded impressive, though, as anyone managing large sums of money generally are.
- Neighbourhood Watch : What car was parked next door from 10:30 am to 3:00 am last night? Your neighbour’s business is your own. So says the yellow vest and fancy flashlight.
- Writer’s Submissions : What article was sent to whom, and when? Track rejection letters as they trickle in, celebrate publication by supporting your friendly monkey shop.
- Ummm… Ovulation?
Of course, much of this you can do in a spreadsheet or database, and perhaps more effectively. But would it really be as much fun?
Any other ideas?
June 21st, 2005
Update : This set, and many more, are now available free at www.DIYPlanner.com.
Users of the D*I*Y Planner Hipster PDA Edition will note that there are two new diagrams included that were not part of the original D*I*Y Planner kit. I promised I’d make them available for the classic and A5 versions of the kits, and here they are for your downloading pleasure.
The 8-page kit includes the following diagrams, both on odd pages (”fronts”) and even pages (”backs”), so you can choose how you want to print them:
- The original Getting Things Done diagram from the ubiquitous David Allen book (simply resized for your convenience from the original diagram available here), henceforth called GTD-DA
- The GTD advanced workflow diagram by Scott Moehring (scaled from the original available here), henceforth GTD-SM
- My new version of the GTD diagram, including prompts for mind sweeps and the weekly review, which I call GTD-DJ
- My version of a Covey Quick Reference, a summary of the methods from First Things First, which I call Covey-DJ
Two versions are available:
- 5.5″x8.5″ 1-Up - for the “classic” size D*I*Y Planner (half letter-size)
- A5 1-Up - for an A5 size D*I*Y Planner (half A4 size)
There is currently no 2-up version, since this would probably waste a fair amount of ink. If the demand is there, I can certainly provide them.
June 19th, 2005
Well, it’s been about a week since the release of the D*I*Y Planner Hipster PDA Edition, and the feedback has been excellent and very constructive. I’ve also had a few dozen people writing me about how they implemented the Hipster PDA in their own systems, and it’s been some interesting reading. However, there seems to be a disconcerting trend among a few users, and there is one person in particular whose email illustrates it well. Let’s call him Ringo (and I thank him for his permission to post about his situation).
Ringo wrote me a message asking for my opinion about how he might tweak his setup. Normally, my standard reply is “whatever works for you, my friend,” since everybody’s situation is so very different, and I advocate a process of discovery. But this email caught my attention, since it epitomised a number of problems I see emerging among some productivity tweakers.
His GTD-based system involved Outlook, Excel spreadsheets, a wiki, a web-based to-do application, a Palm synced with both Outlook and Palm Desktop, some Perl scripts to import and export CSV and tab-delimited data files to and from various applications, a D*I*Y Planner Day-Timer and a rather thick set of Hipster PDA cards using most of my templates. I won’t get into the details: suffice it to say that the system was detailed in 17 steps, was about three pages long, required carrying a large bag filled with his tools, and done daily. I must say, as I read his email, I could certainly admire his technical abilities and –in certain cases– his ingenuity. His Perl scripts used a number of CPAN libraries to retrieve and post information from his private wiki and prep it for his Palm, and his next stages were to involve Plucker in the mix using some Python scripts and then use pilot-link libraries to import to-do’s and memos into his Palm. Ringo is a part-time CGI programmer, and quite the smart cookie.
Too smart, I think. It seems like all the really smart people (and notably the ones with technical abilities) overcomplicate matters, and make the productivity process far too difficult and inefficient.
I’ve noticed some people are sharing their planning mantras. Here’s mine: simplify.
In the body of Arthurian legends, you’ll find various tales of the Sangraal, the Holy Grail, the sacred cup that once contained the blood of Christ and which possessed the abilities to heal the land and its people of infertility, disease, despair and –some would say– ignorance. The earliest legends had for their central character the knight called Perceval. (Other Arthurians, please forgive my mixing of versions in the effort to make a point here.)
Now, Perceval’s mother wanted to shield her baby from the nasty world outside, from its war-mongerers, its tempting damsels and its enticing evils. She retreated to the Welsh wilderness and raised him there in the wood for 15 years in complete isolation without the benefit of books, visitors or tutelage in outside matters. Then one day, Perceval experiences knights for the first time. He was amazed by the sight of the armored warriors, and in his naivété he couldn’t comprehend that their metal casings weren’t skin. Finally, in the face of a barrage of questions that forever broke open his self-contained little world, his mother gave in, and told Perceval of his noble birthright and knights and kings and chivalry. Perceval, the young fool, pitched some food into a sack and left for the cities, forever leaving behind his weeping mother and the tranquil life of the forest.
The Quest for the Holy Grail was the medieval epitome of the search for excellence. Many great knights, including the great Lancelot du Lac, tried to achieve the magical vessel and failed miserably, for they were flawed in their thoughts or deeds. Eventually, it was Perceval –the naive, the unlearned– who attained it. Despite the powers and techniques and worldly experience of the other knights, it was only Perceval that possessed the one thing that could lead to the Grail. The simpleton’s secret? Focus. While all the other knights spent most of their time jousting in tournaments, chasing damsels, conquering evil knights, sleeping with queens, and sundry other glamorous tasks, Perceval was single-minded upon reaching his objective.
I’ve always thought that the moral of the tale is to keep things as simple as possible and to focus entirely on the desired outcome. I used to be like Ringo, and had some pretty …uhm… “interesting” ideas on how to use technology to tie together my information and organisational methods into a coherent system. I was always questing, but taking my eye off the Grail. There were so many interesting and glamorous diversions in implementing the various tools that I rarely stuck with my procedures long enough to be efficient. Each new side-quest was alluring, filled with the promise of fulfilling the end goal while making my life easier.
It was only last fall that I realised I was in a never-ending spiral of productivity tweaking. I sat down with a blank piece of paper and wrote down the types of information that I needed to use to keep myself productive. The solution was actually far simpler than I would have imagined. Within a day, I had figured out what I had to do. Within a month, I got the bugs out of the system. Six months later, I only make small and incremental changes –which the Japanese call Kaizen– but only if they are simple, effective and focused. (I’ll write about my own productivity methods at a later date, for those who are interested.)
My most important lesson learned: unless it’s simple, I won’t do it, or won’t find it efficient. Simplify.
Update : I’ve written a post concerning how I simplified matters, entitled The Beginner’s Mind.
June 18th, 2005
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