Inspirational Quotes: 18th Aug 2007

August 18th 2007 Quotes 0 comments

Inspirational quotes for 18th August 2007.

Helen Hayes: “My mother drew a distinction between achievement and success. She said that achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is in you. Success is being praised by others. That is nice but not as important or satisfying. Always aim for achievement and forget about success”

George Washington Carver: “How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of those.”

Danny Hoch: “In the coming years I would like to see politicians wear maintenance uniforms instead of business suits, because when they wear business suits they represent business. When they wear maintenance uniforms they are the servants that they are supposed to be.”

GTD Dictionary: Next Actions

August 17th 2007 GTD Dictionary 4 comments

Action:

1. Organized activity to accomplish an objective
2. The most important work or activity in a specific field or area

Next actions are the next physical steps you need to take to move a project. When you look at a project it can often be difficult to determine where to start. That’s why you take time to define what the next action would be. Most projects can be vague and abstract, such as “tidy the house.” But where do you start? What do you do next? Without deciding on a next action, it can often be difficult to see how to move a project forward, or to even start it. Taking the house tidying project as an example again, it would typically be broken down into individual room mini-projects. Maybe on a to-do list you would simply put down to clean the bedroom. However, where to start with that? The next physical action could be to clear the floor of all rubbish and clothes. Next, it could be to dust and finally you would hoover up.

Next actions are not always immediately obvious. Putting down a next action of “ring John” might seem simple enough, until you realize you don’t have his number. You can’t action this task, it’s not the next physical step. The next action ends up being to search for his number instead. Though the GTD approach of defining your next actions can mean more thought and time with planning, when it comes to actually working on your projects your path to completing them is much more clear.

For detailed information on defining your next actions read my guide.

The Organize IT Habits: Be Proactive

August 15th 2007 The Habits 8 comments

A couple of months back I finally bought 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People. It’s been very interesting and useful, almost as much so as GTD, and was a big inspiration behind my current system (if you’ve ever read it you may recognize some of the similarities to the chart displayed in the book). Only problem for me was that it tended to be a bit long-winded and somewhat lacking in practical advice, so I thought I would start my own series, discussing habits that I think are important to personal growth and being productive.

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Designing Your GTD System: Part 3

August 13th 2007 GTD 1 comment

Last week I did the first two parts to this series looking at questions you should ask yourself when thinking about designing your GTD system. Over the weekend I had another think and came up with a further three questions. Have any readers found them useful? Can you think of any other questions of your own? Share your thoughts in the comments!

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Organize IT Recap 12th Aug 2007

August 12th 2007 Recap 0 comments

Organize IT recap for 12th August 2007

• This is a neat little tip to squeeze every last drop of detergent from a bottle. However I seem to have collected about five bottles which are taking up lots of space under the sink, so I don’t really have to worry about running out
• 9 reasons why an apple a day really really keeps the doctor away.
• How about 147 tips for living a more frugal life? What’s better, they are all broken down into catagories such as your job, home, social life and relationships. Speaking from personal experience though, I find trying to be frugal with relationships can be a pretty risky prospect
• I’ve always found the prospect of a time audit a little too much micromanaging of your life (what’s your thoughts?). However if you are interested in the concept then check out this post at Genuine Curiosity for some details about it.