Persons attempting to find a "text" in this [story] will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a "subtext" in it will be banished; persons attempting to explain, interpret, explicate, analyze, deconstruct, or otherwise "understand" it will be exiled to a desert island in the company only of other explainers.
BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR - Wendell Berry's introduction to Jayber Crow.
This article was posted to Jayber on 20 December 2005 by to the following categories: Stories.
An audio version of this article is also available.
Lately, due to the increased number of tasks I've been collecting, I've revisited the way I capture info, make lists, and reallly just get crap done. My goal is to have a system that ends my worrying about the future tense, and moves the here-and-now, front-and-center.
These are some of the things that I've learned recently:
Email is one of the biggest productivity saps I own. I found that if I only check email once every 1-2 hours, the number of interuptions goes way down, and my productivity increases dramatically. I recommend it. Try it once, just completely close down your email program. You'll live, I promise.
The importance of lists, for me, is to dump all the information I have in my head, to a place where I can see it, prioritize it, do it, and forget about it. Lists are indispensible.
I use my email inbox for tasks. Actually, I have a few task lists, and my inbox is only one of them. I have a rule set so every email I send gets copied right back into my inbox. This way, I can track all emails from a certain thread (including my own), and track what things I'm waiting on as well. Emails never get removed from my inbox until they're a completed task (more on this at a later time).
Prioritization is important because it helps me make sure that I'm always working on the highest-priority thing. If I don't do this, I fall in to the deadly FIFO syndrome where I'm always working, but the really important things never get my attention, or worse, TIFO, a sort of mindless zombie-mode where I just do whatever's easiest.
Get the small stuff done right away. This one's really hard for me to do for some reason. Because I spend so much time organizing, I rarely have bouts where I just knock off all the little tasks. Ideally, each time something comes up that wouldn't take too long to do, I should just do it and be done with it.
A few weeks ago, I learned about GTD (Getting Things Done). I know that it's been around for a while, but I didn't really take the time to read about it. Now that I have, it turns out that the GTD process is very similar to the process that I've been using and tweaking for the last 5 years.
More GTD Links:
Regarding post-yuletide-beating stimulation, maybe a little GTD reading should be my prescription.
About 1/3 of the way down the post, I immediately thought of GTD. (One of my best Christmas gifts this year)
I hope you are also reading “Slacker Manager” on a regular basis. It has some great tidbits in the archives.
PS. I have really enjoyed the extra creativity you have been adding since your declaration of “more creative blogging”.
Paul. Good man.
I had forgotten about the “more creative blogging” declaration.
Have you found Lifehacker? (http://www.lifehacker.com) They talk a lot about GTD - and many other little tips that help make life easier.
Yeah, that’s a great site. I’ve found some especially useful tips on writing there.