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Sep28
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Processing each new piece of information is a central GTD activity. Processing isn’t doing, it’s deciding what will happen next. Each decision may seem quite obvious to you, so much so that you don’t consciously make it. Bad mistake! Managing paper is a constant flow of small decisions.
“Before GTD, when new information came across their desks, [clients] would usually say, “I’ll get to it later.” By applying the GTD Fundamental Process of asking two questions: “What is my desired outcome with this?” and “What is the next action?” many have come to realize a powerful thing about knowledge work: “To get to it does not necessarily mean to do it.” "
Rather, it means to think about what needs to be done, and then to park a reminder for this action in a trusted system where they will be notified of it when they need to be. Aaahhh, relief!”
Piles on your desk come in two flavors: the ones for which the next to-do has been identified and piles of who the heck knows what. You get to decide.
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Sep28
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What if you left all your dirty dishes in the sink for 3 weeks? Or let your laundry pile up for 2 months? How motivated would you feel to tackle it? Once your pile gets past a certain size, you’ll...
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Sep25
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Tools that help you lessen the impact of distractions are always welcome. And if they can do it in a way that isn’t painful and doesn’t take a big dose of willpower, so much the better. I looked at...
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Sep22
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Back in April I posted about a study showing that happy people think more logically and therefore (okay, this is my inference) get more done. Today I read a review of a book about how being nice can help you...
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Sep21
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If you tuned into this blog today hoping for some hard-nosed ideas on time management, well, you may be disappointed. My posts this week have veered into conceptual territory. Why? Because 1. this is the kind of stuff I think...
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Sep20
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More on visualizing: when you make your own internal pictures, it helps you understand something better, which in turn helps you remember it better. Here’s some advice from Robyn Shields's website about teaching kids to read. “Begin the lesson by explaining...
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The theme this week seems to be perception. Memory. Listening. Now visualizing. A picture of something obviously makes it easier to understand. A 3-D replica is even better. Interestingly, the Japanese practice of creating plastic restaurant food started because...
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Sep19
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How much time gets wasted because instructions were misheard or requests weren’t heard at all? Or because you walked away from a meeting under the impression you knew what to do next, but then realized later that, apparently, you hadn’t...
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Sep18
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You know how sometimes you do a task and then you see later that you also wrote it on your list? And then you think you shouldn’t have bothered to write it down because you remembered to do it anyway?...
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Sep15
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This is a good example of a “duh” topic. We all know not to open suspicious attachments, follow iffy links or let our antivirus subscriptions lapse. But, occasionally, a usually sharp person will be fooled, or relax her guard, and...
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But I know it’s helpful for me to repeat it, belabor it even, because it helps me when I’m reminded of something I know is a good idea, but I don’t always do it. Whatever your reasons for not doing something (and Kathy cites a bunch), a friendly reminder now and again is welcome.
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Sep13
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People in the future don’t have clutter. That’s one of many important lessons I learned from Star Trek, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this month. On Star Trek: The Next Generation (my favorite), crew members had a handful of decorative items...
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Sep12
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What with all the marvelous opportunities to waste time, especially online (Cute Overload is at the top of my list), sometimes we need extra motivation to stay focused on what really matters. And sometimes it's hard to judge how important...
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Sep11
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Simplicity is the strategy of the century. It certainly worked for award winning basketball coach John Wooden, as I learned via Brian Kim’s well-written blog. Wooden’s team had only three plays they used year in and year out and they...
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Sep 8
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Via Lifehacker I found a funny post on Guy Kawasaki’s site about how his computer nearly died and he realized he had no backup of it. Actually, the post is about why smart people do dumb things, not backing up...
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Sep 7
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Frazzing, a term attributed to Edward Hallowell (who has written several terrific books about dealing with ADD), is addictive. As with other addictions, its victims easily rationalize that they have to frazz if they hope to get their work done at...
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Sep 6
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Would you recycle more if you got extra free time for it? Would you ride your bike to work if it helped you accrue more vacation days? I would! While searching around the Internet for websites about time, I...
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Sep 5
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The easiest part of the Getting Things Done (GTD) system to leave out is the weekly review. The weekly review feels like one of those things you should do, like clearing off your desk or filing, but you don’t really...
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Sep 1
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Via Lifehacker.com comes a review of RunSaver, a task scheduling program that executes time-consuming jobs on your computer while you're off on a hike or at a barbecue. This program can be custom-scheduled much more flexibly than the Windows Task Scheduler....
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