Protocol 80 Productivity Blog

When faced with explaining “Getting Things Done” to people in a quick, easy to understand sound bite, I use the same phrase myself as I’ve heard plenty other people use, “It’s writing lists”. Somewhere along the line, as the time I spent reading the book drifts further back, I keep allowing myself to slip more closely to this overly simplistic approach.

Most importantly, while I fairly consistently write lists, and place things vaguely into some sort of inbox (Or pile on an available surface). I spend less and less time actually reviewing all my incoming stuff.

The problem of course, is that writing lists is ideal for procrastinators, you get a huge amount of positive feeling from collecting all your todos down on paper, and on a really good day you might go that extra mile and sort in a couple of “next actions”. Now that’s productivity for you.

But, after all that productivity, well, you need a break. And then it’s forgotten about, but without that nagging “I need to do something” feeling, because after all, you have your lists. The trick of course, is to take a little bit of time now and again to actually review your list, and do some of those next actions. David Allen was right to say there is a sense of achievement in crossing things of the list, but doesn’t really take into account the sense of achievement a hardened procrastinator can get by simply writing them down in the first place.

So personally, I’m starting to fix that. I’m in the middle of reducing myself down to only one inbox at home, I have two work based lists; One in my Filofax that consists of post-it notes held within a divider set, and one in my outlook inbox for email based requests. Now, even though this isn’t fully implemented, it’s starting to help, post-it notes work great because I can easily see what I have on at a glance and work better then index cards, because when I’m juggling a couple of tasks I can stick them to the edges of my monitor for quick eyeballing, and the tend not to drift around in the someway.

Over at A Blog Around The Clock, they have posted what looks like one of the better looks at how and why we sleep in their Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sleep (But Were Too Afraid To Ask) and it has some great comments about how to wind down at the end of the day.

None of it’s new advice, I’ve read the majority of it before in one form or another spread around the internet, though its good to see it with fresh eyes and all layed out in a concise form. But for me, while I know I’m not getting enough sleep, and that I should stop watching TV or peering at bright screens at night I just can’t figure out a way to fit that into my life. Not because I have to much to do on paper, but living in a shared house that acts as a social hub, I’m always fitting in “me time” around people on shifts who come and go at reasonable hours.

With that said, I came to the only solution that makes sense; Tell people I have something to do, or need to go to bed, and do it. Obviously, if there is a planned event or something, that would be a bit rude. But when people are just calling around for a cup of tea or glass of wine in an evening, then it needs to be done. And actually, nobody minds now that I make a point of doing it.