Organize IT

Cranking widgets:

• To stimulate, activate, or produce.
• Something considered typical or representative.

One of the big things that David Allen covered in GTD was the distinction between simple, mindless tasks that required little thought or focus, and those complicated projects where copious amounts of planning and thought are required, and which can send you into a spiral of stress and confusion. Allen described the former as widget cranking – the equivalent of going to work in a factory and doing whatever simple task was required of you as items came down the conveyor belt.

My GTD Dictionary series is one of the most popular on the site and over the last few weeks I’ve been expanding it. My intention has always been to cover as many productivity related words so that anybody who was confused about particular terms could quickly look them up, rather than having to browse around aimlessly for the information. Below is a summary of what I’ve covered so far.

Someday/maybe:

• At an indefinite time in the future.
• A possibility or uncertainty.

Someday/maybe covers a list of tasks that you intend to reassess in the future, but have no immediate intentions to act on them because they are currently outside the scope of your day-to-day life. They include interests like learning a new language, buying a particular book, building a new extension on your home or even taking a hiking trip across Europe… basically all those ideas and plans that you don’t have the time, information, inclination or capability to pursue today. For instance, the hiking trip would first rely on you building up some savings. You can’t fly over to Europe immediately but someday, maybe you’ll be able to do it.

Effective:

• Producing or capable of producing an intended result.
• Doing something adequately to accomplish a purpose.

Effectiveness is all about doing the right things. While what projects and tasks one can class as appropriate to do will vary between situations and individuals, the general rule of thumb is to determine how much value the task will provide to you (or the company) by doing it. If attending a conference full of open minded people will lead to lots of new clients, that is an high value task making good use of your time and energy. However, if you were to start randomly ringing people up from your phonebook in the hopes of raising business that would be a poor choice of task, likely to result in minimal rewards for the amount of time it sucks up.

Efficiency:

• Producing effectively with a minimum of waste, expense, or effort.
• Ability to accomplish a job with a minimum expenditure of time.

Efficiency and productivity (in its traditional sense) have a key similarity. They both involve doing work in the most economical way possible and as a result there are numerous tips, practices and suggestions you can follow to achieve that. Efficiency can be measured in any number of ways, from how well you use your time to how little energy and stress you exert in doing your work. Nobody wants their work to become a chore but by being efficient this can be minimized.