How to Succeed at Life and Get Everything Done
It’s Friday night, so I’m going to swear. So if you’re one of the people in this world you doesn’t think people can say shit fuck et al. every now and then, namely when they’re being a major cynic, go away. Watch whatever crap CBS has on
New feature time. Friday’s are a fun day, the week is over and it’s the weekend which means a doubling of the beer intake and filling up on football and whatever it is grownups are suppose to do when they’re not working. So I’m going to spend time on Fridays swearing and saying how dumb something is. Tonight GTD and all the online apps that promise to miraculously cure you from your unproductivity.
Some time ago I bought a pro subscription to Remember the Milk. At the time it seemed like the best thing in the world. I installed the iPhone app and starting adding my tasks, figuring now I have access to it everywhere and I’ll surely use it more than I ever did.
I’m getting more work done than ever, but it’s not because of Remember the Milk’s Pro Subscription. I also haven’t gotten it through any of the various GTD deals being peddled (shit I think this is one of them), or from Google Calendar, or from whatever you want to sell me now.
Pen meet paper.
That’s the solution. A good pen and a whole shitload of legal pads is the solution.
See here’s the deal with a majority of these “Action Plans” and “GTDing” crap being peddled, you file it away with the idea that since everything is sorted and tagged next action, you’ll do it. It sounds a-fucking-mazing and simple, until it comes time to do them. You’ve spent so much time filing the crap away, assigning dates, tags, locations that you have no idea what it is exactly that you actually need to do. The pen and paper fix this.
I bought a moleskine reporters pad a month or so ago and write anything that comes to mind it in. Grocery lists juxapose library call numbers. Items to do fight it out with whatever else I manage to throw in there. There is no order to this thing. Each day between 1700 and 1730 (5:00-30 for those who don’t care for military time which is far better) I flip through the pad and look at what I wrote for that day. If something needs to be done I do it before 1730. See this is only the little things, call someone, pick up this book, etc.
The big stuff though goes into a txt file on the desktop1 that basically sums up what I need to do this week. I don’t do bullet points or lists or tags, I just write. For example:
This week I need to get done the first drafts of America at War, Recent American History, and Senior Seminar. Each needs to be about 10 pages and need to be forwarded to the right professors after break is over.
All of the notes are disorganized and need to be cleaned up and filed into one place. This will probably take a day plus
See no numbers (expect minimum page number requirements). I look at this Sunday morning and I write a new one Saturday night. Now instead of filing it away I remember the major things. If I don’t remember it? It didn’t get on the plan and isn’t major.
Some other tips include (shit a list):
In by 8 out by 5:30. Between those two times? No email, no work. Fixed schedule brillance. Smaller time, but work gets done because there’s deadlines.
Twitter, RSS, non-work out the window. This is the hardest, but when it’s work time it’s not update my twitter to stay the bathroom on the second floor stinks to high heaven.
Know that really fancy iPod Touch? Yeah it got replaced with a iPod Video that’s 2+ years old. No fancy stuff there just the music.
Why does Ubuntu not have a solitaire game?
- To be fair this comes from Cal Newport, whose productivity ideas should be a regarded class for incoming freshman ↩
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