The Big Picture

I’m going to shamelessly re-post one of the comments from that article I cited in my previous post.  This respondent points out that any system will only work if it’s part of a right-thinking approach to work.

This might just be the best summary of anti-procrastination behaviour ever:

First, it is crucial to understand that [this method assumes] that you want to organize your non-committed time, that is: time which is not fixed in appointments, meetings etc.

Second, if you are a person who seeks the “best” way to organize tasks: don’t do it! You will spend most of your productive time sorting lists, finding software for your lists, choosing Moleskins and pens etc.

Ultimately, you need these things:

Use Your Intuition – Autofocus

Have you ever spent a morning initiating a fancy new task tracking system, carefully entering, prioritizing and sorting all your to-do’s and projects according to a foolproof systematic method… only to find that you don’t like the answer?  What it’s telling you to work on next just doesn’t feel like the most important thing you should be doing right now?  Yeah, me too.  And then a week later, you’re back to that cloud of reminders on sticky notes that surround your monitor.

Numerical task prioritization is for large projects.  Intuition is a powerful tool, let’s use it.

Autofocus

Mark Forster has developed an interesting new system of tracking to-do’s that takes advantage of our natural intuitive understanding of importance.  It is also designed to minimize the amount of time and brain-cycles required to use it (meta-work).  Simplicity is good.  I think it looks really promising and I’m going to give it a try.  You can read about it here:

LifeHacker: The Autofocus Productivity Method: Stop Maintaining To-Do Lists and Start Getting Stuff Done

I’ll let y’all know how it goes.  If you try it, let me know, or tell us what works for you!

-Johnny 0.

Hack The System

Psychologists have determined that there is an evolutionary basis for procrastination. Call it instinctive prioritizing. In pre-historic times, it kept us alive. In the artificial world of work, it gets us into trouble. Trying to un-learn procrastination is an effort to outsmart your caveman self. It’s attempting to hack a million-year-old system.
Enter Lifehacker.com. This website publishes lots of interesting articles on procrastination, time management and related topics. They don’t form a coherent approach, but they are a great source of tips, tricks and ideas.
Articles are organized by tags (categories are for cavemen).  Check out:

Lifehacker.com/Procrastination

Lifehacker.com/TimeManagement

Lifehacker.com/TaskManagement

Lifehacker.com/GettingThingsDone

Lifehacker.com/Productivity

For your reading enjoyment.  But get your work done, first!

If you come across an article that’s particularly insightful for you, let us know here!

Productively yours,

-Johnny 0.

Habits Calendar

This is too awesome not to re-blog:

Keeping a journal of qualitative data is fantastic for developing your skills when you are chasing mastery, but it is overkill for simple habit forming. When I arrived home from my trip, I was really keen to work on my routine and build up some habits that I had let slide.

This calendar is up next to my desk, where I see it everyday. I keep four lines on it, each representing a task that I want to complete every day. It is a Seinfeld calendar on steroids.

Read the rest of the Lifehacker post here: The Habits Calendar Is Seinfeld’s Productivity Secret “On Steroids”

The Many Reasons We Procrastinate, Including the Multiple Selves

Article in The New Yorker, linked and summarized by Lifehacker:

The Many Reasons We Procrastinate, Including the Multiple Selves