Organize IT

According to Time Magazine, David Allen of GTD fame is currently working on his third book. Some other sources are even speculating that it could show up on shelves by Christmas 2007, so I am sure we will all be keeping an eye out for more news on that. A lot of you may be asking what his second book is because it rarely gets much coverage in the blogosphere. Well it’s called Ready For Anything but that’s about all I know so I’m curious to know if any of you guys have seen it or read it and have any thoughts?

View original image

I was once told a nice analogy about the human body and it’s stuck with me ever since. The human body is like a battery, every so often it needs to recharge (if you have ever watched The Matrix, you will remember how humans were used literally as batteries). If you ever feel tired, depressed and just don’t feel like doing anything, don’t beat yourself up over it. It’s just your body telling you to sit down, chill out and refuel. We are only human and we need that break, however small it is. It is much better to take a small break now so as to get more stuff done in the long term, than trying to struggle on, losing all motivation in the process.

Organize IT recap for 04th March 2007.

• How many words can you read per minute? Find out with this speed reading test. At the very least it’s fairly interesting to see what your speed is. I know that it has been mentioned before on Steve Pavlina about the practical benefits of reading quickly, so this tool is a good starting point and way of measuring any improvements.
• Check out this very nice looking GTD themed wallpaper. Normally, I’m not too bothered about these sorts of things because I don’t want it to be rammed in my face all the time that I’m on the PC, but this particular wallpaper looks so nice and clean I have to recommend it. If only all GTD diagrams were so nice.
• I recently came across a nice little prioritizing tool from over at CNN Money of all places. I’ve only had a brief play with it because I don’t currently have any prioritizing dilemmas to deal with but I like the idea. If any of you give it a try and find that it helps you out then let me know.
• Merlin Mann of 43Folders fame has started a video podcast. Despite being in its opening week, there are already five shows up to go check out.

I’ve found myself with a fair bit of spare time recently as I am between jobs so I’ve decided to give the home a really long overdue tidy and de-clutter (four big bags of rubbish and counting). As a result I’ve learned quite a lot about the whole process, so as a natural progression I’ve decided to start a new series of posts on how you can de-clutter and get control of your possessions. In this first part I will look at what sort of attitudes make us keep so much stuff, rather than getting rid of it all.

Over at The Simple Dollar there is quite an interesting article on frugal living and how to get over how overwhelming it can seem by taking several small steps instead of making big changes to your lifestyle. Ten suggestions have been made that you can try out for a week. The idea is that at the end of the seven days, you will hopefully find what meshes with your life, what adjustments you can freely make and what sort of expenses you can do without. Below are my favorite tips from the article with my own additional thoughts on how to implement them.