Organize IT

Over the last few days I’ve been reading through Making It All Work, the eagerly awaited follow-up to Getting Things Done. For somebody who writes a lot about productivity and personal growth here at Organize IT, I often have a hard time reading such books. Most advice you get from them can be distilled down considerably, but of course a fifteen page book wouldn’t sell so well. However, I found MIAW a comparative joy to read. It not only discusses how GTD works but how the mind works when it comes to doing stuff. It’s so full of common-sense discussion. Rather than thinking, “That’s a great idea but personally I’d do it differently,” like I get with most books, I find myself nodding along in agreement at what Allen has written. It’s difficult, after all, to argue with common-sense.

Organize IT recap for 20th February 2009.

• The productivity backlash seems to be continuing, with Jonathan at Illuminated Mind taking an excellent look at why it’s a huge waste of time. This is probably one of the best reads on the issue in a long while, though it brings up an interesting point about the definition of productivity in general. I’ve long since moved away from the more business-y perspective of productivity (measuring my performance based on how much I get done, for instance), even though I still use the term to describe what I do now. What is your definition of (personal) productivity?
• The more people I talk to the more I find that they are  increasingly turning to good old pen and paper to get organized. As if to emphasize the point Kevin Brune shared his GTD evolution from cellphones and Blackberries to a totally paper based setup. Of particular note is how he says he prefers being able to physically cross out a completed task, which is in my opinion should be a key motivational element of any setup.
• Making It All Work is a couple of months old by now but if you’ve yet to check the book out Bnet has an entire feature including a video of Allen personally explaining it. Be sure to check out my own review on Monday!
• I like Muji stationary and storage devices. Don’t know how popular they are because I’ve not heard anyone else mention them before but I recently found out that they had released something called the Chronotebook. It’s basically a blank notebook but each page has a analog clock print in the middle. As the article says, it’s the simplest manifestation of what a day planner is all about: time on paper. I want one!

I recently read Making It All Work, the followup to Getting Things Done. I’ll be writing up my thoughts about in next week but in the meantime I want to take a look at an aspect of GTD that I don’t think has really been discussed before. As I was working my way through MIAW, Allen discussed the process of filing and organizing projects and how you shouldn’t be afraid to use plenty of folders, letter trays and other stationary to get sorted… but how  much does that cost? Consider the video of him showing us around his office for some idea of what I mean.

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I’m finally back from my honeymoon, not nearly as tanned as I hoped to be, but certainly recharged despite the free bar! Naturally, there was lots of thinking back to my wedding in July and the whole complicated deal of arranging everything. Though I didn’t realize it at the time I learned a few valuable tips about Parkinson’s law and the whole process of setting effective deadlines. As an example of what I’m talking about I will refer to two of the biggest tasks my wife felt confident enough to give me (big mistake!), those being sorting out the music and writing my speech.

This post was written for Organize IT by Howard Yermish. He is an internet marketing strategist and is obsessed with finding ways to use technology to make people and business more productive. In this post he describes how he rebooted his office to make way for a more focused work environment. It should hopefully give you an insight into the thought processes involved in streamlining and simplifying, whether it be your office, your home or your personal life. Share your own office reboot experiences in the comments!

Thanks to the current economic conditions, I recently found myself back in my home office and it was time to reboot my career as well as the office. So I had an interesting opportunity to start from scratch.