March 5, 2007 by Kara.

Merlin Mann of 43folders.com in his podcast from January 14, 2007, entitled Kung Fu, Meditation, and Sex talks about how we need to move our productivity system from a point where we spend so much time thinking about the system to actually doing the things held by the system.  Merlin creates an analogy between the coffee cup and the system for maintaining your list.  If you spend all your time thinking about your coffee cup, you spend far too little time drinking your coffee (obviously you can think about the cup while drinking - but hopefully you understand the basic idea).  Being at a point where my lists have fallen apart in my initial implementation of GTD and I’m back to what I feel is square one, I’m devoting a series of posts to my search for productivity nirvana.  While Merlin has a point that we need to stop thinking about the system, searching for the best way to contain the system, and the best tools to use to implement the system, I think we do need to spend that up front time thinking about the system.  As David Allen states in Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity” target=”_blank”>Getting Things Done, “Thinking in a concentrated manner to define desired outcomes is something few people feel they have to do” (p. 15).  So while Merlin is right that once we are to the point of trying to utilize the system we need to stop thinking about the system and start doing the work contained in the system, I contend that the system will never work if we don’t spend that necessary time up front thinking about it and working through how it will apply to our lives.

In order to hold myself accountable to the whole process I’d even post what it is I’m thinking about as the outline for this series (The quest for productivity nirvana) and the publishing deadlines (self-imposed) for those.  So, here goes:

1. The quest for productivity nirvana, Post #1 - Series Purpose and Overview; post by March 6, 2007
2. Post #2 - Hard vs. Soft Landscape; post by March 9, 2007
3. Post #3 - Where are the in-baskets?; post by March 12, 2007
4. Post #4 - Where are the out-baskets?; post by March 15, 2007
5. Post #5- When to ask for help; post by March 18, 2007
6. Post #6 - When to say no; post by March 21, 2007
7. Post #7 - What is a project?; post by March 24, 2007
8. Post #8 - What is a task?; post by March 27, 2007
9. Post #9 - Where do I do work?; post by March 30, 2007
10. Post #10 - When and where do I work and think best?; post by April 3, 2007
11. Post #11 - Ways to organize it all - using paper; post by April 5, 2007
12. Post #12 - Ways to organize it all - using technology; post by April 8, 2007
13. Post #13 - Ways to organize it all - hybrid; post by April 11, 2007
14. Post #14 - Happily Cranking Widgets - Keeping it all up to date; post by April 14, 2007
15. Post #15 - Happily Craking Widgets - Have I reached Productivity Nirvana; post by April 17, 2007

Of course, I reserve the right to change the publishing schedule if necessary - but you’ll at least get these posts over the life of the series.  I hope you enjoy and I welcome your comments or thoughts for additional articles.

Posted in productivity nirvana, productivity, 12habits, gtd | Print | 3 Comments »

February 13, 2007 by karamonroe.

The midwest is being pounded on by mother nature in the form of a winter storm. It’s one of those storms that isn’t really bad yet, but has promises of many great things to come.  As a facilities director, it is my job to assist in the decision making regarding whether or not to close our little campus.  Thankfully, we’ve decided to close for the day.  Needless to say, this helped me greatly in my question towards the early rising and more routine evenings/mornings as I always try to get to sleep a bit earlier the night before a stron like this since I know I’ll have to be up so early and I got up at 4 this morning to start monitoring the weather situation.  I did take a couple of cool pictures out the window this morning with my Nikon D80 which I’ll share with you in a post a bit later.  If you’re in the midwest, stay inside today and off the roads.  If you’re on the east coast, particularly New England - get ready.

Anyway, if you work in a business where you have the opportunity to take a snow day once in a while (either the business imposes it or you simply save a sick day or two in order to use as snow days - regardless of whether there is snow on the ground), I say congratulations.  It is a great day when mother nature says, you need to stop.  For those folks who can’t stop - doctors, nurses, my social worker friend who works at the local hospital, road crews, police, fire, and emergency workers - the rest of us NEED to stay off the roads and let these people do their jobs under the worst possible circumstances.  The rest of us need to cuddle up under a blanket with our favorite pet and a good book and catch up on our leisure reading, blog postings, or just get a little shut eye. 

I do love snow days.

Posted in 12habits, why work, random thoughts | Print | No Comments »

February 11, 2007 by karamonroe.

So, today is the first day I am implementing the new daily routines.  Let’s take a look at the constraints of my day.  I work a typical 8 - 5 job but don’t punch a time clock.  My job is about 50% interruption driven (that’s probably a conservative estimate) so any plan I have once I get to work is often quickly derailed by the latest emergency.  (I’m part facilities director/part finance director/part IT director - hence why so many interruptions - as soon as email goes down it becomes the most pressing issue I have to deal with - all the rest of my tasks be damned).  Therefore, I want to get my day off to and close my day off with a nice routine process that helps me center for the day.  So here is my proposed daily routine:

Morning Routine

1. Wake at 5:30.  I’ve been doing this for years, but not getting up - I normally hit snooze several times so the goal here is to get up and get moving.
2. Fix hot tea, water, or fruit/vegetable juice and an appropriate breakfast.  I typically grab a diet coke and pack of pop tarts, even though I know I feel better if I grab a piece of whole wheat toast and glass of V8 juice.
3. Pack lunch for the day if applicable.  Many days I have lunch meetings so this doesn’t matter, but when possible, I want to start packing lunch.
4. Do blog post. - my accountability mechanism
5. Meditate/Read/Pray - start my day centered
6. Feed, water, walk cats/dog.
7. Shower/dress for the day.

My Evening Routine

My goal here is to get to be by 10 p.m., hopefully to sleep by 10:30.  This means the following routine:

1. Take care of personal items (brush teeth, wash face, etc.)
2. Clean litter boxes/check pet food/walk dog
3. Turn off TV at 10:00 p.m.
4. Read until sleepy, but no later than 10:30.

Posted in 12habits, goals | Print | No Comments »

February 11, 2007 by karamonroe.

I was doing some reading over at Life Hacker today and came upon a post by Leo, auther of Zen Habits, regarding his 12 habits.  In this post, Leo identifies 12 habits he is going to adopt, apparently at least one per month over the next twelve months.  (This is clearly stated so it could also be assumed Leo is going to adopt all 12 habits and track progress on each for a month to ensure the habit is adopted).  As I read Leo’s post, I thought about how many of the items I am concerned about in my life really reflect habitual processes - relearning a way of viewing something or relearning a method for doing something so that it becomes routine or habit.  So, I thought I’d share my 12 habits for the next year.  My goal is to implement one of these habits per month and track progress on each one.  So, my 12 habits to be adopted are:

1. Develop a morning/evening routine - My mornings and evenings (bedtime) are currently a hodge-podge of different activities which aren’t repeated with any form of regular consistency.  I don’t eat breakfast every day, don’t complete the bible reading I’ve pledged to do daily, don’t make my bed, don’t turn off the tv at a consistent time each night which research says will help me sleep better.
2. Stick to a budget - I’ve tried this before but always fall off the wagon.  However, as that I’m planning to finally buy a house this year, sticking to a budget is going to become far more important. 
3. Reduce my debt - Once again I’ve let my credit cards get a little higher than I want them to be, so I’m planning to develop a plan to reduce debt.  Obviously just one month in this habit isn’t going to do much for me, other than perhaps developing a plan.  However becoming more aware of my spending, thinking more about purchases (being more frugal), etc. it will probably be the most valuable month of the year.
4. Drink more water and take vitamins - This one kind of relates to the first, however, I drink entirely too much diet soda and I don’t take vitamins to get some extra calcium, which as a female I desperately need to prevent osteoporosis later in life. 
5. Eat a healthier, homecooked diet - This is really two items in one.  It’s entirely too easy to eat convenience take out food, even though I love to cook.  I have a wealth of healthful cookbooks/recipe resources - just need to spend some time putting them to use.
6. Use GTD/DIT Concepts to be more productive - I’ve been using GTD for the last eight months and feel as though I’ve gotten some additional productivity as a result of this so far, but know that I’m nowhere near the proverbial black belt which David Allen discusses.  In addition, I’d like to implement the concept of Mark Forster’s Do It Tomorrow Closed Lists as I think that the large scale Next Action/Waiting For lists are still too overwhelming.
7. Keep a cleaner home - I’ve put this as item number 7 specifically because I think by that time in the year (seven months from now), I’ll be in my new house and ready to really finalize what it is I’m doing with keeping my home organized and neat and clean. 
8. Read more regularly - I have a huge list of to be read books.  This habit has nothing to do with me not reading enough - it’s simply that I don’t make the time to read the books I wish to read (those on my to be read list).  Perhaps this will become a part of my routine.
9. Exercise at least five days per week for at least 30 - 40 minutes per day - I want to lose some weight.  I want to be more fit.  Exercise is a great way to meet both of these goals.  Whether it’s an evening walk around the neighborhood with the dog that gets longer regularly (good for both me and puppy) or doing sit ups while I watch Grey’s Anatomy there are a lot of easy things I can do to make this habit a reality.
10. Stop complaining - I used to be a healthfully optimistic person.  The world wasn’t all rose colored glasses, but I saw my glass as half full far more often than half empty.  A confluence of activities - a job I don’t enjoy so much, surrounding myself with some more negative people, some general depression - have joined together and I’m not that same positive person.  In a step back toward that aim of being more positive, I plan to stop complaining.
11. Rediscover what motivates me - I’ve never been a huge procrastinator until the last year or so.  I really feel like this is related primarily to the items I’ve mentioned in item 10 above.  When you simply aren’t as happy as you’d like, it’s more difficult to be motivated.  So hopefully the placement of this item in number 11 and my plan to work on these sequentially, this one will find me in a new place (perhaps a new job, a new house, and the adoption of 10 new habits by that time).
12. Reconnect relationships - I’ve struggled lately with keeping relationships with family and friends where I want them to be.  There are no major problems here - no big break up, etc.  I just want to be a better friend, sister, aunt, daughter, co-worker, etc.

So, there you have it - my 12 habits I pledge to adopt over the next year.  I’ll keep you up to date as the year progresses.  Who knows - perhaps even a second post on my already gathering thoughts on how to adopt my new morning/evening routine.  How about sharing your 12 habits in the comments.

Posted in 12habits, goals, vision, gtd | Print | No Comments »