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A few months ago my Motorola v330 met it’s demise after slipping out of my bike bag and meeting the asphalt at high speed. I secretly had hoped this would happen for quite some time. I can’t replace a piece of tech until it dies because I’m thrifty that way. With the v330 dead, I was free to look for a new phone. I hated the v330, but it was the cheapest phone that would sync with Apple iSync at the time. I regarded it as a holdover until phones got better. At the time smartphone selection was pretty dismal. Almost two years later the smartphone selection is still pretty dismal.
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I have a real problem of getting myself out the door. Ask Meschter sometime about my inability to find my wallet and keys. The problem is that I’m almost always late for work or other appointments. It’s something I’m very aware of and feel terrible about. I had resigned myself that this is just the way I’ll be forever. In the spirit of Kaizen I wrote on a notecard, “What could I be doing to reduce my tardiness?” The point of this was not to come up with an a final solution to this problem, but just finding small improvements that might help me towards ameliorating the problem. I read this notecard everyday. The point is that by reminding myself of this problem, one day my unconscious might generate some solutions.

The other day I spontaneously came up with a partial answer to my Kaizen question. I noticed that I wake up with plenty of time to get to work, but somehow I always blow it in the last ten minutes when I’m trying to get out the door. Usually I’m forgetting something that I need to take with me and I have to run back into the house or back upstairs to get it. This results in multiple trips that often eat away two or three minutes. My solution to this problem is that I work my way out of the house by starting with the farthest room in the house from the front door. I scan the entire room looking for something I need to take or remember to do. When I finish scanning the room I say out loud, “Clear.” I leave the room and move to the next room and repeat the process. I systematically go through the entire house until I’m at the front door. By then I have everything I need. My scan always finds my wallet, keys, phone, hat, shoes, papers, books, mail, and everything else that needs to go with me. Through this process I never have to backtrack into a previous room. I’ve noticed that a surprising ancillary benefit is that it greatly reduces my stress level before I get to work - so I arrive at work clear minded and ready to start working. Am I still late to work? Yes, but I’ve noticed that since I’ve used this method I’m no longer late by over 10 minutes, and I do believe it’s shaved 2-3 minutes off my usual tardiness. I’m sure there are other pieces to this puzzle, but Kaizen thinking helped me discover a partial solution.

In the spirit of Kaizen here are some lifehacks I’ve come across.

Lifehack 1 I came across this one on 43 folders. I’ve been asking myself a Kaizen style question, “why do I procrastinate so much?” A lot of my things on my next steps list actually don’t take a lot of time to do. My technical writing professor in college once said, “there are only two stages in writing, the worrying stage and the doing stage. The secret to good writing is to spend as little time as possible in the worrying stage.” Likewise with next steps, I spend more time worrying about what I’m not doing than actually doing it. So when I write down a next step list, I write the anxiety associated with doing that action. Often I surprise myself when I do this exercise. Sometimes I realize that the anxiety is silly and once I realize that, the action becomes much easier to do. Other times I realize that anxiety is justified and that I need to steel myself to get the resolve to do that action.

Lifehack 2 I eat out a lot, more than I should. I also indulge myself far too much when I eat out, often eating things I would never make for myself. Rather than go cold turkey (no pun intended) and eat only salads everytime I’m out. I write a - on a notecard I carry with me everytime I eat an indulgement meal. The next time I go out I’ll try to eat something healthy and then draw | through the dash making it a + . The goal is to have more + than - at the end of the month. It’s a small step but certainly more motivating and less intimidating than eating salads at every meal.

Well I thought I’d do my first book review. My dad pointed me to this book and I admit I was skeptical at first. Usually tiny books like Who Moved My Cheese and FISH! tend to be a blend of BS and “well duh” common sense. After all, the truth is complex and really hard to put in a 100 page book. The Kaizen Way is actually an excellent book and I’ve managed to create pockets of change in my own life by adopting the philosophy of small almost microscopic life changes. I find it’s a good complement to GTD. Often people are overwhelmed by the amount of change GTD requires. Kaizen can help you on the path of GTD without a mental breakdown. I heartily recommend this book, it won’t take you more than a day to read it, or you can read it Kaizen style like I did over a two month period. Everyone knows that the secret to doing a big insurmountable task is to break it into smaller tasks. It’s amazing though that so few of us do that. It’s also amazing how rephrasing a problem can make a huge difference. Replacing “I wish I weren’t so messy,” with, “What’s the smallest thing I can do to make my space less messy.” can totally change a moment from failure to success. Just getting rid of one piece of clutter can turn that whole moment into a positive success instead of looking at the rest of the mess and thinking only of the negative. I think the other important lesson learned is that life shouldn’t be about trying to obtain that brass ring. What if you woke up and all your goals were acheived? Would you be transported to a state of instant happiness? Probably not. The real point is to find joy and success in every small moment and action.

Through the power of GTD, I’ve become much better at following things through. So this year I’m setting concrete doable New Year’s goals and I’m going to broadcast them so you out there in blogland will keep me accountable.

• Visit friends and family in Pittsburgh. I’ve been meaning to do this for years, and I never get around to it because I don’t make a point of planning and seeing it through. This is the year to do it. I have no excuses. I’d also like to visit Falling Water along the way.
• Get my Will written. I have some serious assets now, and someone’s got to take care of my bicycles and cats when I die. This was on my list of things to do before I die, but now it’s getting escalated to this year.
• Pick up a creative hobby. I used to draw and sometimes write or watercolor. I used to make my own birthday and Christmas cards too. As I got busier I stopped creating my own art and just started consuming it from others instead. So this year I’d like to get back in the habbit of doing something creative that has nothing to do with being productive at work or home. I think taking time out of the day to make art is really important, and it’s something that I’d like to get back into the habit of doing. Any suggestions?
• Become a regular card writer. I don’t write thank yous and get well cards. It’s something all people used to do but seems to be a dying out as email replaces all of our communication.
• Get in the habit of planning the next day the night before. It’s not that hard, and I always have a better day when I do it.
• Complete coach Hatch’s squat program. I don’t know if I’ve ever completed a lifting program ever in my life. Well this one is 12 weeks long and dead simple. One of these days I’d like to be able to power clean my own body weight.
• Complete at least three things from my 43 things list

Well that’s it folks. I think it’s all doable and not that hard. The problem is reviewing and sticking with it.

Well I fell off the GTD wagon fairly hard in the last few months, and my productivity really showed it. Ever since I’ve moved, I haven’t been able to get my daily processing cycle back in line. Things sort of die on my desk. The nice thing about GTD is that once you understand the principles, it doesn’t take much to get back on the wagon.

To complicate things further, my Treo 600 died finally. It kept on crashing while receiving incoming phone calls. Finally one day it crashed and never came powered up again. My general verdict is that smartphones just aren’t ready yet. QC at Palm has been lacking for years. The last decent palms made were the 500 series. After that they went downhill fairly rapidly. However if you look at the other reviews for the PocketPC smartphones, they don’t fair much better either. Forums, lists, and blogs around the world attest to the problems smartphones have. The biggest problem is usually that they crash or make poor phones (bad reception, low battery life). I think it will be at least two years before smartphones become cheap and reliable.

So what am I doing now? (more…)

Well it’s about time for a GTD update. Well it’s been about a month since I’ve started my GTD endeavor. I feel like I have a lot to show for it, but I still have a lot to do. I think V .3 is an appropriate release number. I would say I’m about 30% done. I’d also like to say my GTD system has been battle tested under some very harsh real world conditions. I’ve had some really tough weeks that have pushed me to the edge of what my new-found organizational skills can accomplish. (more…)

Well my GTD system is working pretty stably. My Inboxes are regularly empty (it’s a painful process), new material is being neatly filed away, and I feel like I have a game plan to get ahead. I feel more effective than ever before. I’m not forgetting things or wondering about what needs to be done. However what needs to be done freaks me out sometimes. Being more effective means you do a lot more… So what more needs to be done: (more…)

Well I ordered a T5 Torx bit driver to disassemble my Treo and do the foil hack. This actually worked surprisingly well. The speakerphone is still lousy, but most cell phones have lousy speakerphones so I don’t care that much. The buzzing has gone away, and that’s all I care about. It seems to be a little more reliable as a phone as well.

Having a palm PDA again is really nice. I’ve finally gotten to the point where I’m completely comfortable with the Treo’s controls and have started to use Bonsai, Todo, and the Calendar as my GTD system.

I got a JavoEdge skin case for my Treo. It’s not completely lousy, but I wouldn’t recommend getting one. On the plus side it does protect the Treo well and all the buttons and connectors work well with it on. However the Treo won’t fit in the cradle with the Skin Case on! Taking the case on and off is like changing out of a wet suit, it’s tough. Also the neoprene rubber sticks to everything. It’s hard to get in and out of a pocket and it’ll turn your pockets inside out when you pull it out of your pocket. Plus lint and hair easily stick to the Skin Case, making it less than desirable. The $35 price is way too much for something that has too many issues. I might try to mod my skin case to work with a cradle. I ‘ll post it if I do.

Progress is being made at marklabs. I spent a lot of money and got my home workspace setup. My home and work tickler files are made. I’m working on a stripped down “quick and clean” GTD implementation. I’m trying to make it as simple, quick to implement, and scalable as possible. E.g. my tickler only uses 17 folders. Works good enough and doesn’t have the undo complication of 43 folders. I think one can get obsessed trying to make complicated GTD systems using fancy software and writing custom scripts and never getting it built. The first thing that I think needs to be setup is a clean, distraction free workspace. So my home workspace is now setup. It’ll be a launchpad for getting the rest of the system started.

Note the file drawer is within arm’s reach of my chair. The labeller is ready to go, and my inbox is already stuffed. So how did I manage to accomplish this workspace? (more…)