Organize IT

The end of October is rapidly approaching so it’s time for another recap of all the best posts over the last several weeks. Whether you’re looking for a reality check on simplifying your life, thoughts on whether GTD is good for your memory or you want to know why we’re all inherently time wasters, there should be something for you here. If you’ve missed out on any of these posts please check them out, share them on Twitter and join in the conversation!

Simplifying your life is very popular idea nowadays. It’s been popularized, I think, by people like Tim Ferriss of The 4-Hour Work Week who pushes ideas like the 80/20 rule and the low-information diet, and Leo Babauta of Zen Habits in particular. Simplifying your life is good. No, it’s actually great and I believe everybody should have a go at it just to filter out some of the crap in their lives.  Modern life is complicated and hectic enough without us blindly letting in and taking on board everything that comes our way.

A simple question today that I hope will get some varied responses. How did you learn GTD (or if you use something else, how did you learn that)? The obvious answer will probably be that you just read the book, but that wasn’t the case for me and I suspect it isn’t the case for many of you guys too. I originally came across GTD via several blogs like Lifehack.org and picked up tips from those for a few months before finally purchasing the book. I applied bits and pieces from the book as I needed them so I suppose you can say I never really had a “full” GTD implementation (the original highlights that I took from the book were contexts, next actions and, er… having a big filing system).

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The more books I read (Brain Rules, Predictably Irrational and Freakonomics to name a few recent ones) and the more I write on this blog, the more I come across ideas and concepts that go against the conventional advice dished out by businesses, schools and the media in general. This is in some ways alarming. Millions of people are born, grow up and lives their lives based on traditional ideas that are sometimes outdated, occasionally misleading and often contradictory to scientific research and logic. Is it any wonder that we are generally less happy, less well off and often in careers we hate nowadays? Below I’ve detailed four concepts where, when it comes to being productive organized and just generally living stress-free, the world has got it badly wrong. Can you think of any others?

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Today is the third annual Blog Action Day, a great event where thousands of bloggers (just under 7000 at the time of typing this) all write about one particular topic of concern. This year it’s about climate change, a particularly apt subject given how world leaders will gather in two months time to hopefully finalize a global deal on the issue. I like to get involved in this event  and have done so for the previous two years (be sure to read my posts for 2008 and 2007). This year is no exception. However this time it took me a while to figure out what exactly to write about. After all, climate change is a huge, complicated topic. Now that the politicians, companies and the media have jumped all over it, there is so much information, facts, tips and advice out there that it’s hard to know where to start. But starting is what we all have to do, and that’s what this post is about.