Ready-Set-Do! http://readysetdo.com GTD | Desktop | Software | Productivity Tue, 24 Jul 2018 16:15:06 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.28 http://readysetdo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/New-RSD-Scope-Logo-Lighter-Blue-200x200-52x50.png Ready-Set-Do! http://readysetdo.com 32 32 The Art of Articulating Outcomes http://readysetdo.com/2013/06/29/articulating-outcomes/ http://readysetdo.com/2013/06/29/articulating-outcomes/#comments Sat, 29 Jun 2013 17:59:16 +0000 http://readysetdo.com/?p=2301 The post The Art of Articulating Outcomes appeared first on Ready-Set-Do!.

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You have no idea how much clarity you need to get things done. I know this because I have watched how articulating outcomes has evolved for me over the last six years, and I hope to share some of my insights with you here.

If you are like most people, your task list has tasks that look something like this:

  • Finish blog post
  • Meet with John Doe

For those of you who pride yourselves on brevity, your tasks may just be noun phrases like this:

  • Flower garden
  • Personnel report

Part of the reason we articulate our tasks and projects in these ways has to do with the limited space we have in our daytimers and digital devices. If you use a productivity app on your smartphone, once your task or project becomes longer than twenty-five characters or so, the phrase gets abbreviated or cut off. As a result, your daytimer or smartphone teaches you to write your outcomes in abbreviated ways so you can keep things on the same page or conserve screen space.

But consider the consequences. Chances are you have more than one personnel report as part of your workflow. Which personnel report are you supposed to work on? Were you supposed to write the personnel report? get it to a supervisor at a particular time? print it out? When you first wrote the phrase down, you knew exactly what it was and what you needed to do about it. But as time moves on, it gets lost in the haze; and every time you now look at it you have to re-ask the same questions to remember what it was you were supposed to do. The time and energy you saved by keeping the outcome short on the front-end results in a disproportionate waste of your time and energy on the back-end.

Here is an example of how articulating outcomes has evolved in my system over time:

  • Apple Certifications
  • Finish Apple Certifications
  • Finished Apple Certifications
  • I am Apple Certified
  • I am Apple Certified in Desktop and Portable Systems
  • Todd is Apple Certified in Desktop and Portable Systems

At first, I started using “action” words on the front of outcomes. So instead of “Apple Certifications” I would prefix words like “Finish” or “Complete.” The thought behind prefixing a task with an action word is that it jolts your mind into action so you can get the task done. Sometime later I read of the importance of articulating outcomes in the past tense. In the same way athletes visualize the race before a track-meet or swim competition, one takes a vantage point on the other side of the project or task’s completion to help get it done. So I began writing these action words in the past tense to subconsciously create this visualization when I reviewed my task lists. At some point, however, I realized this wasn’t the final picture. It was the equivalent of giving myself an imperative, but without any sense of what or why I was doing the task. Eventually I learned that the clearer I articulated the outcomes, the more quickly my mind could visualize the final picture, and the quicker I would get the task done. I further discovered that the clearer the outcomes were articulated, the more positive associations I would have when reviewing and working on them. And when you think about it, it makes sense: The more ambiguous and vague tasks and projects in your system are recurring reminders to you of unfinished work that require redundant question-asking every time you review them.

The residual ambiguity left in your tasks comes back to haunt you every time you review your lists because you haven’t clearly articulated what it is you want or need to accomplish with them.

If you work for others, that ambiguity can come from how poorly they clarified the outcomes they delegated to you. Most recently I’ve discovered the value of writing outcomes in the third person. So, “Todd is…” rather than “I am…” I’m not sure why this works better; for me, it just does.

The upside to longer and more carefully articulated outcomes is that your mind has more positive associations with your lists, you waste less time, and you get things done more quickly and easily. The downside is you have to think more carefully and write more down on the front end. You may also have to give up some screen real estate and/or make it more difficult to “find” some of your tasks and outcomes. A list of longer phrases certainly makes it more difficult to locate, say, “flower garden” or “personnel report.” But if you are using your computer or smartphone, you should be able to do a word search pretty quickly.

But there is a further benefit to this level of clarity on your outcomes. And this is one of the subtle secrets and the power of Ready-Set-Do!: You have to drag-n-drop and associate tasks and sub-projects with these outcomes. Every time you go to drop a new task in a folder, you restate that carefully articulated outcome in your mind. As you type a search for it, your mind conjures up the phrasing. And each time you restate that outcome, the more your mind goes to work visualizing and thinking of ways for you to accomplish it and get it done. Do you want your mind thinking of ways to complete a half-articulated outcome or a fully-articulated one? Which one do you think is going to be more effective in getting you to achieve that outcome? Which one does your mind naturally gravitate toward? Which one gets done more quickly and in accordance with the standards for it?

For some of you this makes no sense to you at all. The difference between “Finish Apple Certifications” and “Todd is Apple Certified in Desktop and Portable Systems” seems negligible. In fact, you see the extra time spent on articulating this as a waste of time. Why not spend less time articulating and more time just getting it done? Part of this comes down to a difference in temperament and the total inventory in one’s workflow. People who think like this have a smaller inventory of tasks and projects to manage. If you were to look at their lists, they have no more than twenty or thirty things they are working on. They are widget-crankers who crank through small projects and like to work on things immediately out of their inbox. But with inventories of over 100-150 projects, and complex projects with multiple sub-projects, one can’t simply work from the inbox or widget-crank—not without periods of time to gain clarity on the higher dimensions of these projects.

Recently, these insights on articulating outcomes have even changed the way I set up meetings with people. I used to write “Meet with John Doe re: Startup ideas.” Now I write “Todd and John Doe brainstormed some amazing new ideas for their new StartUp.” It takes up more space in your daytimer. It gets abbreviated on your smartphone, no doubt. But imagine how much more you would accept an invitation to the latter meeting simply because it has a more clearly defined outcome. If you run regular meetings for your company, I dare you to send an invite to your next meeting with a more clearly defined outcome. Put it in the subject line of the email for the meeting or title the name of the new event with the outcome and then send invites to accept that event on their calendars. Your employees are more likely to want to come to the meeting, they will have greater enthusiasm, and they will be better prepared to achieve the outcome for the meeting.

There are other important dimensions to providing greater clarity on outcomes, such as placing those outcomes in proper relationship to governing projects, career goals, and life purpose, but I’ll address those in another post. Have you observed any evolution in the way you articulate your tasks and projects? Do you have any tips to suggest? Let us know in the comments below:

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Yellow Belt Productivity http://readysetdo.com/2013/05/21/yellow-belt-productivity/ Tue, 21 May 2013 19:20:02 +0000 http://readysetdo.com/?p=2278 We’ve already addressed White Belt productivity. In the early days of learning the Getting Things Done® workflow, one starts out learning the basic habits of emptying one’s head whenever there is a new thought or idea, having one inbox where things get collected and processed one item at-a-time, and working through some pre-defined work filed […]

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We’ve already addressed White Belt productivity. In the early days of learning the Getting Things Done® workflow, one starts out learning the basic habits of emptying one’s head whenever there is a new thought or idea, having one inbox where things get collected and processed one item at-a-time, and working through some pre-defined work filed away in the appropriate folders (e.g., Actionable, Waiting For, Read-Review, Tickler, etc.). Today we address the second level: Yellow Belt Productivity. Once you have mastered the basic habits of collection and processing, you will gradually begin to trust that what you are collecting is going to a place where you’ll be reminded about it at the proper time. That increased confidence will result in an increased quantity of things you collect into your trusted system. Since you now remember to capture your ideas more frequently, you will start to collect more and more of them. With less in your head will come a greater clarity of mind. Suddenly your mind is free to think about whole inventories of things you still need to make decisions about but just haven’t yet. You’ll remember that box in the garage or the things you plan to do next time you’re in a particular city. As David Allen says,

“The better you get, the better you’d better get.”

This is where your newly acquired skills of collection and processing get challenged by increasingly more stuff. Do you have what it takes to handle even more?

It’s one thing when your Inbox is filled with less than an inch of paperwork to process; it’s quite another when you’ve got four to five inches of stuff to get through—one item at-a-time! Having achieved White Belt Productivity, you have the competence and practice of getting your inbox to empty. But to get to the next level, your tolerance level has to increase such that you know you can crank through a few inches of stuff, get it defined, processed, and put in the appropriate place in your system to be reminded about it later. Over time, you realize that the perceived estimated time you think it will take to crank through a few inches of material in your inbox is just an illusion: It will take significantly less time for you to get through it. But overcoming that initial misperception—moving from “I’m overwhelmed by that pile of stuff” to “Give me just a second”—takes some time to develop. Operating at Yellow Belt Productivity means you have set new records in the number of things you’ve collected into your system and broken new records on the number of items you’ve processed out of your inbox in one sitting. If you have moved from dread to excitement at the prospect of blazing through a pile-high inbox or a few hundred emails, congratulate yourself. You’re now operating at the level of Yellow Belt Productivity.

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What is GTD®? http://readysetdo.com/2013/05/11/what-is-gtd/ Sat, 11 May 2013 19:41:19 +0000 http://readysetdo.com/?p=2265 GTD® is an acronym for “Getting Things Done.” The term was coined and written about by David Allen, whose book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity describes the productivity workflow and habits that are now understood by the acronym. GTD® is now a registered trademark of David Allen and Company based out of […]

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GTD® is an acronym for “Getting Things Done.” The term was coined and written about by David Allen, whose book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity describes the productivity workflow and habits that are now understood by the acronym. GTD® is now a registered trademark of David Allen and Company based out of Ojai, California. The company provides books, audio, videos, resources, seminars, and consulting services designed to help people learn the basic approach to productivity laid out in David Allen’s book.

The GTD® workflow consists of six areas a person learns to master : Collect, Process, Organize, Review, Do.

  • Collect – The art of collecting ideas immediately onto something you can process later.
  • Process – The art of processing each item in your inbox one at-a-time, deciding what it is, whether it is actionable or non-actionable, deciding if it requires any further action, and where in your system it needs to go for you to be reminded about it later.
  • Organize – The art of specifying the things necessary to get Projects moving forward. Initially, this means specifying the primary purpose, standards, and outcome vision to get the proper clarity on why, how, and what each of your projects is all about. Additionally, this means specifying the next actions needed to realize each project’s outcome and organizing the actions by priority, sequence, or to whatever degree required. Mission-Critical tasks get sorted by priority. Key Milestones get sorted by sequence. Deliverables get sorted to whatever degree needed. When reviewing Projects, each project gets reviewed and recalibrated based on whether you need more clarity (purpose, standards, outcome) or more action (Mission-Critical, Key Milestones, Deliverables).
  • Review – The art of reviewing your inventory of tasks and projects as frequently as necessary to ensure your inventory stays clean, current, and up-to-date. The two reviews recommended are a Weekly Review, which involves a complete review of every item in your system once-a-week; and a Daily Review, which involves a quick review of the hard lines of your calendar, a glance through your task list (tasks are sorted based on locations or contexts in which each one must be done), any Waiting For tasks, and any items that have been deferred until a particular day. Developing the habits of these two reviews creates a growing confidence that you have a handle on your inventory of obligations. With consistent reviews, this confidence develops into an instinct that allows you to properly adjust and act on things throughout your day.
  • Do – The art of doing what can be done, when it can be done, based on location context. With the trust that everything important has been collected, processed, organized, and reviewed in the proper ways, you can simply act on your actionable tasks in-the-moment. When sitting on a train, you can pull out the Read-Review folder and crank through some reading. When at the phone, you can filter down to the @Phone tasks and crank through getting those tasks complete. You can then move on to work through the other location contexts (e.g., @Home, @Online, @Office, etc.).

For a good overview of the 10 habits involved in mastering the GTD® workflow, see the Ready-Set-Do! Quickstart Guide.

 

 

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White Belt Productivity http://readysetdo.com/2013/05/08/white-belt-productivity/ http://readysetdo.com/2013/05/08/white-belt-productivity/#comments Wed, 08 May 2013 22:53:42 +0000 http://readysetdo.com/?p=2256 This is the first of ten posts in our “Productivity Belts” series. Those familiar with David Allen and his books on productivity know that part of the inspiration for his approach comes from his years as a practitioner in the martial arts. In addition to being a productivity guru, he also has a black belt […]

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This is the first of ten posts in our “Productivity Belts” series.

Those familiar with David Allen and his books on productivity know that part of the inspiration for his approach comes from his years as a practitioner in the martial arts. In addition to being a productivity guru, he also has a black belt in karate. In the early days, the color of the belt was determined by wear, such that the brown or black color developed over many years of practice. Today the belts are dyed in the various colors and awarded at various points in a person’s career. Everyone begins with a white belt and graduates on through the other colors as they master different levels of proficiency in the art. Ready-Set-Do! awards users various productivity belts as they master some of the Getting Things Done® habits. In this series of posts, we describe each of these levels, beginning with the White Belt.

So what is “White Belt Productivity?” Earning your White Belt level in productivity requires mastering a few of the basic habits of getting things done. First, you have mastered the habit of emptying your head whenever you have a new thought or idea. Whether this is capturing an idea on a set of 3×5 cards you keep in your pocket, a pocket briefcase, a recording device, or on your smartphone, you have the tools (and you keep them close) for capturing your ideas whenever they come to you. Second, you have mastered the habit of getting your inbox to empty. This means following the sequence of questions David Allen recommends for processing your stuff one item at-a-time. For each item in your inbox, you pick it up and ask the question “What is it?” You define what it is. You ask whether it is actionable or non-actionable. If actionable, you specify the very next physical action along with the location context for getting it done (e.g., @ Home: Next action for you to do). And you file it in your Actionable folder to do later. If it’s not actionable, you decide whether it goes to the trash, Reference, Someday-Maybe, your Tickler, or your Waiting For folder. Third, you’ve begun doing the things you’ve filed in various folders in your system. You’ve taken out your Actionable, Waiting For, and Read-Review folders and begun working through things based on your location context. For example, when you were at a phone, you pulled out your @Phone tasks and started cranking through them. You’ve also done the same for your @Home, @Office, @Computer, @Online, and other location contexts. You follow up on any Waiting For items you can from your Waiting For folder. And you never forget to pull out some reading from your Read-Review folder when you’re standing in line, waiting at an airport, or taking a train ride.

If you are operating at White Belt productivity, the processes you spend the most time with are collection and processing. You’ve experienced a new level of organization by having the various GTD folders to process your stuff in. And you’ve begun doing things in your Actionable, Read-Review, and Waiting For folders. Next time we will discuss what it takes to achieve Yellow Belt productivity.

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Getting Reading Done http://readysetdo.com/2013/03/20/getting-reading-done/ Wed, 20 Mar 2013 23:02:14 +0000 http://readysetdo.com/?p=2089 How is it going with getting reading done? Not good? One reason may be your reading tasks are actually projects-in-hiding, and therefore need to be broken down into smaller pieces. I’ve noticed, for example, that it’s possible for reading a book to look like a simple Next Action, “@ Home: Read this book.” Nevertheless, because it […]

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How is it going with getting reading done? Not good? One reason may be your reading tasks are actually projects-in-hiding, and therefore need to be broken down into smaller pieces. I’ve noticed, for example, that it’s possible for reading a book to look like a simple Next Action, “@ Home: Read this book.” Nevertheless, because it takes greater focus and time, it “feels” like a project and thus it gets avoided. It’s important that your task list, including your Read-Review list, presents a list of things you can do in a bite-sized amount of time. If it looks like “Read this entire book” your mind will naturally conclude you don’t have time to work on it right then.

It’s important that your task list, including your Read-Review list, presents a list of things you can do in a bite-sized amount of time.

Break Down Your Reading Tasks

Breaking these down further can help fast-track your reading again. Instead of “@ Home: Read this book”, make your next action @ Home(<60min): Read chapter 1 of [Name of book]. Estimating the time, specifying the location context, and breaking the next action down to one chapter has helped me immensely with getting my reading done. I also don’t need to have all of the @ Home: Read chapter 2, @ Home: Read chapter 3, since I can just simply change the next action after I finish reading the previous chapter. If you find your mind going numb to your reading list, try breaking down your reading tasks into smaller next actions.

Attach a Purpose to Your Reading Tasks

Adding a purpose to your reading can also help tremendously. The purpose could be as simple as “@ Read-Review(<15min): Read this article on mindmapping because Joe Schmoe sent it to you.” You may avoid some of your reading simply because you don’t remember why you put it on your reading list in the first place. Maybe you tag your reading under certain subjects such as “productivity,” “leadership,” “technology,” or you link it with a project. This is better than “read whenever,” and may motivate you enough to get your reading done. But when you first add something new to read to your system is when you are the most in-touch with your reason for putting it on your list of things to read. So why not specify that purpose right then and there? My reading needs a purpose statement in addition to a location context (e.g. @ Home), a specified next action (e.g. Read this…), and an estimated time to complete (e.g <30min) in order for me to step toward the reading and get-‘er-done. That kind of specificity on reading has enabled me to get lots more of my reading done and to avoid the litany of read-this-whenever-you-get-time trap which (in the past) left me with lots of reading I never seemed to find the time for.

Reading is also one thing academics spend more of their time doing. If you’re an academic, check out The Unique Difficulties of Getting Things Done as an Academic for some insight on ways to help you get things done.

Do you have some things that have worked to help you get more reading done? What’s working for you? Let us know in the comments.

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All-Out War On Email Programs http://readysetdo.com/2013/01/28/all-out-war-on-email-programs/ http://readysetdo.com/2013/01/28/all-out-war-on-email-programs/#comments Mon, 28 Jan 2013 17:10:44 +0000 http://readysetdo.com/?p=2180 The post All-Out War On Email Programs appeared first on Ready-Set-Do!.

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There should be an all-out war on email programs. As somebody who likes to be as productive as possible, email programs just aren’t measuring up. And I’m not the only one who thinks this. Frustrations with email programs have multiplied all over the blogosphere. Whole Kickstarter projects have kicked off as a result. What is all of the commotion about? We can put it simply:

Software should be working for us, not against us; and yet every day we are using email programs that lack the finesse and ingenuity of the processors they run on.

But let’s not add to the commotion with further complaints. What are some constructive solutions? I’d like to offer some suggestions for Next-Generation Email Programs. Here they are:

#1: The Ability to Markup Actionable from Non-Actionable Content

Email is filled with different types of content. Just a few paragraphs from your boss might request four or five things you need to get done within the next week. If you were to deconstruct the content of the email, you would discover there are at least three categories of content:

  • (a) Five multi-step projects (with their legion of implied tasks you have to define)
  • (b) A couple of actions that just require picking up the phone or checking a file or two
  • (c) Non-actionable, FYI-information about things relevant to the projects and tasks you have been assigned

What do most people do with emails like these? Some print them out and highlight the things they need to do; perhaps they pin it to the wall in their office or file it in a place to review later. Others type or copy/paste the information into some task manager they use on their computer or portable device. Others drag them into a folder called “Respond” or “Actionable.” Still others flag or star emails with actionable content or things they need to review. Some drag the email into a folder named for each client or person they correspond with.

Who among these would you say has the most likely chance of keeping things from slipping through the cracks? I would argue that the person who printed the email out and highlighted what needed to be done has an advantage over the others. She can clearly see the various types of content, look over the actionable tasks and projects she’s highlighted, and cross them out when they’re complete. So why can’t our email programs permit us to do the same thing?

We should be able to mark up various types of content in our emails just like we do with paper.

I want to be able to markup my emails with highlights. I want to be able to cross things out in the email that are complete. And I want to be able to annotate pieces of emails that are no longer relevant or need to be edited out. Email programs should also go a step further and make it possible to export, interact, and view this marked up data in creative ways. Come on, developers! Make this happen!

#2: Productivity Templates

People lack the discipline that used to come with handwriting letters or going through multiple drafts before sending communication to others. What’s more, because people have too many emails to process, there is a growing tendency to ignore emails longer than a paragraph. As a result, people skip the longer emails and things eventually fall through the cracks. Is there anything that could be invented to fix this?

I’d like to suggest a “Productivity Syntax” for longer emails. Books have a table of contents, chapters, section headings, summaries, and conclusions. This makes it easy for a potential reader to skim these elements to get an overall sense of where they need to focus their attention. Why not do the same for emails? One practice I’ve tried when sending actionable emails to others is providing a summary statement at the end of my emails along with a “NEXT ACTIONS” heading in all caps. Underneath the heading, I specify the next actions I need them to get moving on. This does two things. First, it gives them the opportunity to skim the content of the email and focuses their attention on the few things I’m asking them to do. Second, if and when they come back to the email, they don’t have to reread the entire thing for the hundredth time to sift out what it is I was asking them to do.

People waste too much time re-reading emails. We shouldn’t have to repeatedly skim or read an entire email thread in order to figure out the important pieces of information we need to focus on.

But why not take this idea to a whole new level? Why not develop some “Productivity Email Templates” for various types of standard communication? Is this an FYI email? Use the FYI template. Is this a Company Memo? Use the Company Memo template. Will this require somebody to do something? Use the Next Action email template. And so forth. Somebody needs to think this through and get on this. Maybe somebody already has. If so, let me know. But if we can create a culture of people who use these productivity email templates, it might go a long way toward boosting productivity throughout our organizations.

#3: “Cascading” Junk Mail Filters

What’s the problem with junk mail filters?

The problem with junk mail filters is that they are either too smart or too dumb.

Too dumb, and you end up with too much junk. Too smart, and you sometimes end up with important emails getting marked as junk because of keywords in their content or subject lines. The result is that now, instead of checking just your inbox every day for new email, you have to remind yourself to check your junk mail folder as well. Wait! What’s the point of junk mail filters again?! You mean I now have to skim through or search my junk mail folder for emails that shouldn’t be there? This completely defeats the purpose of a junk mail filter in the first place. Now we are wasting our time scanning emails we would have scanned anyway if they were in our inbox to begin with!

What needs to happen with junk mail is the following: There should be cascading categories for email.

  • Category #1 – Email threads you’ve already responded to
  • Category #2 – Emails from people who took the time to write you a greeting with your name (e.g., Hi Todd, Dear Todd, Dear Dr. Vasquez, etc.).
  • Category #3 – Emails from important people. Somewhere you can add or delete people from your important people list.
  • Category #4 – Emails from people who aren’t on your important people list and who didn’t write a greeting with your name.
  • Category #5 – Junk mail you want to receive. Maybe you subscribe to discounts at some clothing store or your favorite online retailer. Maybe you want to hear about Starbuck’s new afternoon delight. These are “read whenever” or “not important, not urgent.” Those viral emails from family members or friends with “watch this,” “this is funny,” or “have you seen this yet?” would go here as well.
  • Category #6 – Company memos or FYI emails that get sent out using the CC or BCC fields that don’t address you directly.
  • Category #7 – Bona fide junk mail based on filters you set with keywords found in the subject line, email content, or sender fields.
  • Category #8 – “Drop dead” emails. These are people on your blacklist or known spammers. These emails would get deleted immediately.

But could we take this a step further? Why not see this cascading relevance reflected graphically? How might we do this? I’m very grateful to Matthew Cornell for introducing me to the concept of “reverse highlighting.” He notes that when highlighting lists of information the eyes actually focus on the unhighlighted lines rather than the highlighted ones. If we applied reverse highlighting to our email categories, the highest priority categories would be crisp, black text on white background. The rest would “cascade” into various shades of gray until the last one which would be almost-white text on white background. Or we could make the intensity of a yellow background increase as the emails become less significant. The email program should permit us to click a button or slide a slider-bar that would fold the emails into each other. In other words, we could drag the slider to Category #5 and all of the Category #6 emails would disappear. More and more emails would fold under—like paper—as you move the slider higher and higher up the category list.

#4: Stop Allowing Email Programs to Take Over

Email is very effective. You type an email. You want it sent to a particular person or group of people. You type their names. You hit send. They receive your message immediately and can respond in turn. It is genius and a wonderfully reliable way to send messages back and forth to each other. It’s not really email that’s the problem, but the amount of email we receive and have to process each day that makes this such a burden to us. We begin to wonder whether our lives will only consist of reading and responding to emails.

But developers make this situation worse when they start to treat email programs as task managers (ahem, Outlook!). This results in brand confusion and even greater frustration. Email programs keep a database of your email correspondence. You then filter and search that information as the need arises. So what is the problem? The problem is we receive emails that have things we need to do in them. The need quickly arises to add tasks or categorize emails in ways that have to do with task management. What results is people feeling that their email program should not only help them compose and search for emails, now they think it should help them manage and do various tasks as well.

But the problems with turning an email program into a task manager are the following:

  • (a) keeping people constantly attached to the ding, ding, ding of new emails that distract them from the task at-hand
  • (b) not all tasks and projects—and the documents related to those tasks and projects—are in the email program

With respect to (a), this just exacerbates the distraction throughout the day. Users need to be able to pull away from email so they can get things done.

Turning an email program into a task manager solves the problem of working with actionable emails; but by doing so, it spawns another problem of keeping peoples’ attention at the one place most likely to distract them during the day.

Are you a CEO, boss, or manager? Look down your entire company and consider how many of your employees are using email programs to manage their tasks. It reminds of that scene in the Matrix where people are just soaking in fetal fluid while the machines suck the life out of them.

With respect to (b), once the email program gets used as a task-manager, people—and developers!—have to figure out ways to get non-email related tasks and documents into the section of the email program being used to manage tasks. So people have to search their folders for actionable documents in order to link them to their email program’s task-management workflow. It just doesn’t make any sense! And it needs to stop. So stop it! Developers, cut out the task-management features of email programs and figure out ways to make email link its content with task management apps that are better suited for task management and project planning. The consequence of not doing so is email programs that simply cannot provide the “clean edges” necessary for distinguishing between non-actionable content, projects, and tasks. The minute one email—with all three elements—gets put into a folder called “Actionable” or “Projects,” the edges blur. Consequently, the user becomes frustrated with an email program that forces her to constantly discern these edges with each new email she files or archives.

#5: Make Email a Beautiful Read

I don’t care to see dancing birds or GIFs with linked content from all over the web. I also don’t want to see the thread of an email with line after line after line pushing text over to the right side of my screen to indicate who said what and in what order. It’s even worse if the screen is on a mobile device. I’m not a graphic artist or typographer, but surely there must be a better way to make the size, font, and experience of reading email a more aesthetically pleasing experience. So developers, get creative, think different, and change the way people experience reading their emails. And for the love of common sense, don’t make it an option users have to dig down into the preferences to figure out. Make it intuitive and easy to change on-the-fly when they’re reading their emails. Think Instapaper or Pocket for email. This shouldn’t be too hard to pull off.

#6: Help Us All Purge Our Emails, Please!

I know Google and Big Brother are big on creating a culture of people who simply Archive every email they’ve ever received. Why risk deleting an important email you may need to find later, right? Just archive it and you can always search for it later. Plus, isn’t it just easier to “sweep” your dusty inbox emails into your Archive folder? It’s like moving them to an attic you might go visit again someday if you really need them. But technology does more than the typical attic, as it can store lots and lots of data. It’s like having an attic that can stretch as your inventory needs grow. It’s a hoarder’s dream. Even better, you can just click into a Search Box and a little Genie goes and finds all of the things from the Attic you need in an instant.

Well, that is, until she doesn’t. The problems with this are the following. First, the bigger your email database gets, the more information the search-box genie has to sift in order to find what you’re looking for. With each successive year, your email database gets bigger and bigger. Consequently, the time it takes to search through emails takes longer and longer. What’s worse is you continually have to search through more and more subject lines and dates to find the email you’re looking for. Over time, the convenience of archiving email makes you less and less productive. Second, the larger your email database gets, the greater chance there is for the database to become corrupt. As it grows, each successive data-point for the database maps over more and more places on a hard drive somewhere (either on somebody else’s server or on your personal computer). It’s like building a stack of cards with a wider and wider base. In the same way, that you can cause major problems moving one of those cards from the bottom, the same thing can happen with the data-stack that is your growing database of emails. As that data gets moved around (or the hardware ages) chances increase that the database becomes corrupt. And oh the pain when it does! For this reason, I treat my digital content in ways that match the way I treat physical stuff in my home: Purge, purge, purge.

Email programs should have streamlined databases and ways that help and encourage users to purge their email inventories. There should be some “spring cleaning” functionality built into email programs. I know. You’re thinking, “What about the Delete button?” True. This is very effective. But in some ways, this is like taking an overstuffed garage and just lighting half of it on fire. The value of spring cleaning is to sift through old stuff for things you’d like to be reminded of or keep. Surely there are ways email programs could add some valuable review functionality here. But the bottom line is that

Email databases should be purged to eliminate the drag on your searches and reduce your risk of having a corrupted database.

Of course, if you are obligated by law to keep certain emails, then do so. But where possible, a culture of purging is better than one that hoards. So developers, please find some ways to make email programs better at identifying and dealing with stale emails so we can Eliminate, Incubate, or Activate them.

That’s all I’ve got. If you’ve got something to add, please sound off in the comments:

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All Spread Out and Not Getting Things Done http://readysetdo.com/2012/12/10/all-spread-out/ Mon, 10 Dec 2012 23:00:03 +0000 http://readysetdo.com/?p=2139 In a recent post, David Allen addresses the “Three Common Reasons Why People Flounder.” The three key variables are Consistent, Current, and Context Available. He writes of a recent coaching session with a senior executive which brought these to his attention. I’d like to focus on the first one, with special attention to mobile app […]

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In a recent post, David Allen addresses the “Three Common Reasons Why People Flounder.” The three key variables are Consistent, Current, and Context Available. He writes of a recent coaching session with a senior executive which brought these to his attention. I’d like to focus on the first one, with special attention to mobile app design. David Allen says ‘consistency’ means:

“Information or reminder triggers of a specific type must be kept in the same place, the same way, all the time.” — David Allen

In the case of the senior executive, she had reminders all spread out—sticky notes on the phone, pieces of paper, etc. But in the same way that one needs to have “clean edges” across one’s entire inventory of projects and actions (e.g., projects with projects, actions with actions, non-actionable in archive or reference), one also needs to have “clean edges” across the channels by which this information gets captured, processed, and reviewed. This is why it’s better to have one inbox than two; it’s also why one must be consistent in treating that inbox as what it is and only put things there that have yet to be processed. The solution was to label some simple file folders with those clean edges and begin filing each item in the appropriate context for later review.

THE PROBLEM: ALL SPREAD OUT

The same problem is compounded in our new mobile era. I need to capture a note to myself. How shall I do it? I click my iPhone on, tap on my “Writing” apps. I have four different ones to choose from. I now have another choice to make: Which writing app is best for capturing this thought? Well, it happens to be something that requires a bit more thought than a quick note. I’d rather write it up in the Notes or Pages app on the iPhone. And so I do. A bit later I have another thought I want to capture. It needs to be quick. I only have a sentence or two. Do I email the idea to myself, capture it in Evernote, TaskPaper, or one of the other apps? Later, I’m scanning through my Facebook and see a post I want to capture. Unfortunately the Facebook app on the iPhone doesn’t allow you to copy the text from the post. So I take a screenshot to capture it to my Camera app. With respect to capturing this information, none of this really matters. Regardless of what I’ve captured, each of these mobile apps have fulfilled the purpose of helping me capture the thought. Quick capture. Done. The problem arises when I need to find and process this information: It’s all spread out!

And what’s worse is—unlike the senior executive who has post-it notes and paper she can “see” piled around her office—these digital collections are out-of-sight-out-of-mind.

Furthermore, I now have the problem of needing to get all of those things into a central place I can process and organize. Where did I capture that again?! I know what some of you are thinking, “Well, just use Evernote or a Dropbox-enabled app like GoodReader, DocumentsToGo, QuickOffice, PlainText, ReaddleDocs, iAWriter, Index Card, etc.; or just remember to always put it into Omnifocus or some other productivity app.” But even if you are mostly consistent in pushing all of your stuff to the same place, there inevitably seems to be certain types of collection and writing that naturally gravitate to different apps. And, no surprise, this is a major problem!

WELCOME TO THE “BERLIN WALL” OF MOBILE APP DESIGN

But what may surprise some of you is that the problem is not just a behavioral one; it’s actually a symptom of the way mobile apps themselves are designed. Mobile apps have been conceived—from the ground up—to be individual programs that have been “sandboxed” for security and battery performance reasons. This means they can read and write things within their own application, but are severely limited in their ability to interact with documents made by other applications. This helps them conserve battery life and “play nice” on operating systems that are growing too large to police. Welcome to the “Berlin Wall” of mobile app design. The documents in Pages live separated from their brethren in Notes or Taskpaper or Omnifocus. I’ll let you decide which apps are on either side of the wall, but at some point, users—who used to have apps designed on platforms aimed at a “unified user experience”—begin to feel the cracks in the operating system and the apps written for them. To what shall we compare it? It’s like being the parent of multiple children who is only allowed to play with one of them at-a-time. Hold on Johnny, go sit on the bench while your sister June gets a turn. Double-tap. Tap June. “Hi June.” “Ok, June,” double-tap, tap Johnny, “go sit on the bench while I spend some time with Johnny again.” What’s worse—if you’re a power-user like myself—you have over 50 children to spend time with, remember the names of, and keep track of. It is symptomatic of technology that is capable of providing a level of portability people have dreamed about for decades, but hindered by the limitations of battery performance and memory allocation.

Currently users have to accept the convenience of the portability these devices provide without the unified user-experience they may be used to on their desktop or laptop computers.

This is precisely what has led to apps that are trying to provide the “all-in-one” user experience that should exist on the platform or operating system itself. It’s also why power-users constantly find themselves bouncing back and forth between netbooks and their smartphones.

“PRODUCTIVIZING” CLOUD-BASED APPS

I don’t see the philosophy of mobile app design changing much in the near future. In fact, I see it getting worse as sandboxing becomes the norm, and files related to that app stay with that app and nowhere else. So what is the solution? One is to use cloud-based solutions like Dropbox or Evernote and modify them to provide more functionality for end-users. In some ways this is already happening, as apps are building pipelines to save data into Dropbox or Evernote. The same goes for Android apps and those designed for other platforms. The value is that users can then access this data from multiple types of devices regardless of hardware (e.g., they can use Windows, Mac OSX, iOS, Android, etc. to access their documents). But that’s where the value ends. What we are left with is simply a very convenient “file-bucket” we can access from anywhere. Nothing to complain about, for sure.

But what we don’t have is a native way to sync the information that reminds us of how we want to think about and use this data.

The best way to illustrate this would be something like the relationship between Omnifocus and the documents one needs related to the tasks it captures. Imagine Omnifocus on the Western side of the Berlin Wall. The documents are on the Eastern side, all spread out in various suburbs and ghettos. Dropbox (or iCloud? or Evernote?) is the secret tunnel that provides the access point between the two. The end-user has to make it back and forth through the tunnel, updating the intelligent connections between tasks and their related documents.

Every new level of complexity adds extra work for us. We have files and we have task-management apps. In order to get them to talk to each other, we have to “link” or “attach” them to each other as a separate act. So users of Omnifocus, for example, have to do two things: first, create a new task or project; second, link each relevant document to that task or project. The same goes for just about every other task-management app out there. Some of these apps require paying for a separate, desktop app that syncs with the app on their mobile device. That’s a lot of money for the extra work it requires for users to link their tasks and data. It also creates problems when the data moves around, the tasks get changed, or a sync goes really, really bad. The links get broken and the documents have to be re-found. Imagine how much time this wastes over time!

In some ways, the solution above would be like asking the senior executive to keep her paper and post-it notes where they are but open an Excel spreadsheet where she can duplicate the data in an orderly way, with notes describing where she can find each post-it note and piece of paper in her office. In the same way that this would be an inefficient solution for the senior executive, it’s equally an inefficient solution for those of us using mobile means to capture, process, organize, review, and do our stuff. We can learn something from the solution for the senior executive: She labeled simple file folders. Why not do the same for the cloud?

Instead of developing separate apps, one of which we use for task management and another we use for universal access to our files, why not completely change the way we think about file-based apps like Dropbox itself?

My constructive proposal—and I hope the developers of Dropbox, Evernote, GoodReader and others are listening—is to get cloud-based, file-system apps to provide the following:

#1: A way to organize files into folders with clean edges – They already do this. Check.

#2: A way to open, view, and edit the data of various document types
– Dropbox? No. Access/View only.
– Evernote? Only text-based changes (or audio recordings) with document attachments.

#3: A more intuitive way to display longer file names for folders and documents that doesn’t cut off their names on our smartphones

And now the clincher:

#4: A way to use, sync, and edit the metadata tags of files and folders as a way to get things done (e.g., Spotlight comments, tags, etc.)

This latter one is key. In the same way that this senior executive can slap on a post-it note to the front of a document that needs action and file it into her Actionable folder, or slap a Waiting For post-it note onto a document she’s waiting to hear back on and file into her Waiting For folder, metadata on files can be used the same way. What’s more, if cloud-based solutions like Dropbox automatically sync this metadata with their respective files, it eliminates the extra step of needing to “link” or “attach” tasks and their corresponding files. And if all I have to do is open up the file in Dropbox to make a change to the document or tap a window that flips over to edit its metadata tags, I’m in heaven. Now I can get things done without having to open up a separate task-management app. Everything syncs. And because it’s based on the file system itself, that sync works across all of my computers and portable devices, regardless of hardware or operating system. I can access, modify, and edit this information from any computer or device.

What do you think of this proposed solution? Do you have a better one or a modification of this one you’d like to suggest? Sound off in the comments:

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In Search of a Productivity Meta-App http://readysetdo.com/2012/12/02/gtd-meta-app/ Sun, 02 Dec 2012 07:04:52 +0000 http://readysetdo.com/?p=2074 Is Ready-Set-Do! a Productivity Meta-App Ahead of its Time? David Allen recently announced his exclusive partnership with Intentional software to design a GTD® meta-app “. . . that integrates with leading applications individuals already use.” The goal is to create a program-agnostic way to work with all of your inventories of stuff (e.g., applications, mind-maps, documents, […]

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Is Ready-Set-Do! a Productivity Meta-App Ahead of its Time?

David Allen recently announced his exclusive partnership with Intentional software to design a GTD® meta-app “. . . that integrates with leading applications individuals already use.” The goal is to create a program-agnostic way to work with all of your inventories of stuff (e.g., applications, mind-maps, documents, notes, email, calendar, etc.).

This is fascinating. First, it tells me that Ready-Set-Do! has been thinking in the right direction:

Ready-Set-Do! is a minimalist meta-app that works with all of one’s files, programs, and applications. What’s more, this has been its primary motivation from its inception.

Second, having worked on a meta-app solution for the last six years, I have some insight to offer on what makes a good one:

1. It Needs to Be a Minimalist-Approach

The best solution will be one that is “bare-bones.” It will minimally provide you with what you need to work with all of your stuff without itself becoming (or trying to become) the “perfect app” that does everything (e.g., ask how many people still feel “trapped” by Outlook). There will always be a better calendar program, a better email client, a new and better way to do project planning or mind-maps. End-users need the flexibility to use all of these current and yet-to-be-invented apps. So whatever the solution is, it needs to be “the little guy”-app that—while working with everything—doesn’t try to do everything. The moment it tries to become the catch-all app is the day it ceases to retain the simplicity and long-term reliability needed to work with whatever the future may bring. Furthermore, it means minimal programming. Less code is more transferable and sustainable long-term (i.e., it can be handed off more easily and kept alive for decades down the road–even moreso if that commitment to simplicity (which is so important to GTD®!) is inculcated into the programming culture. Less is more.

2. It Needs to Root Itself in the “Common Core” of Computing: The File System

The core of computing is the file system. It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about Unix, Windows 8, Mac OS X, iOS, JellyBean, Java, C++, Applescript, Ruby, PHP, or some future programming language or operating system yet to be invented. They all have to deal with files, information anchored to those files, and some way to interpret the relationships between those files. What’s more, they always will. The problem with most approaches to GTD® app-design is that they work from the top down instead of from the bottom up. But if a GTD® meta-app is to be successful, then start where GTD® starts: the runway. The runway is where the files are, how they are defined, and how the relationships among them are defined. Why start with a completely different system users then have to “import” or “link” their files to as a separate list manager? Why not simply use the file system itself and then build up from there?? Even better if you can train people to organize their files in GTD-like ways to make this easier.

3. It Needs to Get Out of the Way

What productivity-conscious connoisseurs and GTDers want—more than anything—is technology that simply “gets out of the way.” The moment users feel like they’re “inside” of a program, it’s just a hop, skip and a jump into the labyrinth of new features that turns the software into a maze people spend more time tinkering with than actually using to get things done.

Ready-Set-Do! does all three very well. First, it is minimalist. It provides a “program-agnostic” approach to my workflow, which has given me confidence to focus on working my system more than tinkering with it. Second, instead of developing an entirely separate system, it roots itself to the system I already have—the file system—and teaches me to organize that system in GTD-like ways. As a result, I can sync my stuff to the cloud and across all computers and portable devices—regardless of what hardware or operating system each of them has! It also means I never have to fear my stuff being locked into a program that dies off without any software support or get annoyed with software’s familiar shortcomings (e.g., co-dependence, feature-creep, tinkering, getting bought out by a future company, dying off without any more support, the excruciating pain of a bad sync). Third, Ready-Set-Do! gets out of the way. It gives me the flexibility to work my system independently of the program itself and only bring in its resources as needed. How do I know it’s working? There are moments when I don’t notice Ready-Set-Do! is there. It is like a servant that just nudges me along to get my things done. Nothing flashy or shiny to jump out at me. No endless “tap, tap, taps” to decide context, color, start date, etc. Just a simple dialog box that says “Next” and then I’m moving along.

Is Ready-Set-Do! a GTD® meta-app ahead of its time? I don’t know. You be the judge and let me know what you think in the comments.

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RSD – OmniOutliner Professional http://readysetdo.com/2012/10/03/rsd-omnioutliner-professional/ Wed, 03 Oct 2012 20:30:40 +0000 http://readysetdo.com/?p=2060 The post RSD – OmniOutliner Professional appeared first on Ready-Set-Do!.

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The Perfect Portable “Inbox” http://readysetdo.com/2012/08/16/the-perfect-portable-inbox/ Thu, 16 Aug 2012 23:36:49 +0000 http://readysetdo.com/?p=1861 The post The Perfect Portable “Inbox” appeared first on Ready-Set-Do!.

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How do you quickly capture everything that has your attention? As veteran GTDers have discovered—as much as they would like to have that perfect digital tool—nothing matches the speed, ubiquity, and battery life of paper.

But paper comes in different sizes.

There is the standard 8×11 letter sized paper used in most offices, and the most portable size: the 3×5 index card. If you’ve been around the world of Getting Things Done® for awhile, you’ll no doubt have read about the hipsterPDA (hPDA), and wallets and pocket briefcases that make ubiquitous capture of your ideas easy and quick.

My problem was I needed a way to collect both form factors in one portable inbox. I purchased a collection of David Allen’s GTD folders made of very sturdy plastic. These work great for keeping 8×11 sheets of paper. But when you toss 3×5 cards in, they tend to bulk up the folder and slip out the sides.

Perfect Portable Inbox
Accordion GTD File Folders

Getting a pocket with a zipper along the top definitely solves the problem of having 3×5 cards slip out the sides, but it also makes it difficult to group cards of a similar kind together without some way to bind them together. As an academic who likes to do his research with 3×5 cards, I don’t always read through the same book—so collecting 3×5 notes across a range of books would leave me with no way of keeping them organized in my 8×11 inbox folder. So I came up with the following “hack” for the Perfect Portable Inbox which can easily store both 8×11 paper and 3×5 cards organized by category.

Here’s what you’ll need to create your own Perfect Portable Inbox:

Instructions:

  1. Take each of four velcro dots, pull the sticker tape off, and put them on the backside of one pocket protector.
  2. Take the matching velcro dots that correspond to those you just put on. Push them into the other dots so the velcro catches.
  3. Take the stickers off the back of those velcro dots so the sticky sides are exposed.
  4. Take the entire pocket protector and line it up on the left side of one side of your GTD® Inbox file folder. (Cut off lip of pocket protector – optional)
  5. Repeat the process for each of the other pocket protectors.
3x5 Card Holder Portable Inbox
Perfect Portable Inbox With 3x5 Card Holders

Now, how to use it. When doing research on a particular book, write the title of the book in large print on one 3×5 card and slip it into one of the pocket protectors. As you collect quotes and notes from the book, you can slide these behind that title card. No more redundant writing of the title on each 3×5 card. Collect other kinds of information besides quotes and notes? Just make your own card to designate the category that slot will be used to collect. I always have one designated as a generic Inbox with that title as you see below. I’ve also used one for “non-urgent data entry”, “urgent”, and “Full Quotes” (i.e., the card has the entire quote written out and just needs scanning or data entry). The nice thing about the velcro is you can interchange them.

Do you have a portable inbox hack you’d like to share? If so, tell us about it in the comments below.

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