Most of us make To Do lists that really aren’t so much about doing things, as they are lists of stuff without definition or context. We feel better knowing that we put everything on a big To Do list, but if my experience is any indication, I think many of us get “deer in the headlights” after we realize just how much “stuff” we have and no idea how to get it all done. In a 2003 interview by Management Consulting News, David Allen, states:

…what most people call a to-do list is incomplete and unclear, which is highly unattractive. Everything on your list is either attracting or repelling you psychologically. There is no neutral response: it’s either, oh boy, when can I mark that off or, get out of my face. If there are still a lot of decisions you need to make about items on your list, your brain glances at the list and says, I don’t have the energy to do all that thinking, go away. 

Even if we can get out of the headlights and across the road, we’re still left wondering what to do next. This is a crucial moment of decision about whether to move forward (decide on next action) or stagnate / procrastinate / panic / etc. In his post, Andre Kibbe suggests that a common form of procrastination is what he calls “serial digression,” and he offers us the following example to illustrate his point:

Many To Do items that people write down are multiaction tasks, like “Set up Dell,” as opposed to a genuine next action like “Read Dell Quick Start Guide.” The aim of a next action is to keep your attention on the most immediate physical task instead of the outcome. A To Do like the one in the example is overloaded, conflating what needs to be accomplished with what needs to be done.  Any project, no matter how large or complex, can be parsed into at least one next action that’s simple to do. Not everyone can get into Harvard, but anyone can download the admission form.

Put another way, David Allen remarks in the MCNews interview that, “You don’t usually see specific actions on to-do lists because most people haven’t forced themselves to sit down and finish their thinking about what has their attention. They collect items in their in-basket or think they have made a list, but there is another level of thinking that is required to move forward.”

What we’re left with are what Andre Kibbe defines as “Next Distractions” noting that, “Procrastination is more than not doing priority tasks; it’s doing non-priority tasks.” In terms of what Kibbe calls “Crutch Activities,” he argues that, “No task exists in isolation. A key consideration of any activity is not what the activity is, but what it leads to.”

So, whenever we go to check our RSS readers just before starting a project, fire-up our browser to find something on Wikipedia, or even write that next blog post (ahem…), be sure to remember the suggestions and quick tips that Andre Kibbe offers in his post. And watch out for the deer.

What’s the Next Distraction? 

I had promised my editor that I’d send in a cool idea for my next column. So I was trolling through the thousands of news tips and blog posts I’d archived using services like del.icio.us. But I was drowning; I’d saved so much that I could no longer find the really good stuff. What I needed was some help — an assistant to do some sifting for me.

In my cursory understanding, Twine (currently in invite-only beta) takes the idea of social networks and moves them from being just about connecting with other people who share similar interests (a network that is somewhat inwardly-facing, mostly friends and friends of friends), to connecting to new content and collaborating within a network of other people (outwardly-facing) who share in your content interests based on the stuff that you feed into Twine. From there, Twine is able to provide more targeted recommendations about which you — and others within your network — may be interested. Or, as Clive states, Twine “…rifles through bookmarks and documents you feed it, extracts the core concepts, and then finds relevant new stuff for you to look at it.”

In terms of making life simpler, Twine seems to address the issue of deciding how and what to tag the accumulated files and bookmarks on your computer. Further, no matter how careful you are in organizing, your system only matters to you and is only as good as you can make it. Tagging helps you to identify files, but doesn’t do much in terms of helping you to articulate different content into more meaningful sets of information. And if you stray from your tagging system, the system soon breaks-down. Built-in search capability helps to locate files, but it cannot help you contextualize and build upon the things that are relevant to you buried somewhere in the blob of stuff on your hard drive. 

With this said, why not let the cloud help you out? The cliche, “A thousand monkeys typing on a thousand typewriters…” works here; not that we’re trying to write the next great play, but as we’ve seen with Wikipedia, the more like-minded people you throw at a problem, the more likely we are to start making sense of stuff. In terms of Twine and your content, not only does Twine seem to help in sorting it semantically instead of arbitrarily, it has the added bonus build upon your content new sources of related information that you’d have otherwise missed (or just never know about). 

I have yet to play with Twine, but it’s possibilities are intriguing, especially in the academic sector, where the sharing of knowledge and content among faculty and students is in desperate need of an overhaul.

Although I may be completely off, Twine seems to pick up from where del.icio.us leaves off (particularly with the idea of tagging) and smacks head-on into the untapped potential of social network services + the emerging Semantic Web (here’s how Twine approaches this). I dare make a comparison to Amazon.com’s recommendations tool (You may also like… / Other people viewed… / Other people also purchased…), from which I’ve purchased many items I’d had never seen otherwise (and my bank account reminds me of this abuse every month…). I’ve never met these “Other People,” nor would I call them friends, but based on what we feed into Amazon as we browse and purchase, it turns out that we have a lot in common. Put another way according to Clive, “But the truth is, sometimes social connections are less useful than semantic ones.”

Why?

Sometimes it’s just easier to wipe the slate and start over, rather than try to organize the amorphous pile of stuff. I play with a lot of apps, subscribe (temporarily, see the strategy here) to just about every blog I find interesting, and tend to collect things in piles at home (no matter how organized I think I am, these piles just appear. Really.). I’ve developed a set-point at which I am comfortable saying, “That’s it. Time to reformat.” My Partner doesn’t like this approach, but I get rather single-minded on this, so she just shrugs her shoulders and keeps her distance, especially when I decide that the furniture needs rearranged about every several months.

Seriously, you should try it, so long as you are able to keep calm and think through before you begin; “Measure twice, cut once,” as my Father would say. This includes backing up key files on your computer (trust me on this one…). Once you get underway, you’ll probably realize, like me, that suddenly you have control again, and can choose to systematically reintroduce the things that truly help your productivity, or simply make your life a bit more enjoyable.

By the way, if you aren’t familiar, the image below is from the game Scorched Earth. It’s a fantastic game. Tragic Hero’s Blog has a good write-up. Perhaps play a few rounds to get into the spirit. I recommend going heavy on the megaton nukes.

Lifehack.org: Living Scared

[Excerpt] Some people have been almost creating their best life for far too long. Some people have been standing at the threshold of greatness for years, twiddling their thumbs, wasting their time and talent and hoping in vain that success might somehow find it’s way to them. An interesting, if not totally unrealistic notion.

[Excerpt] Some Personal Development Junkies are masters of this. Just one more workshop, one more conversation, one more mentoring session, one more self-help book and just one more day and then I’ll do it. Okay, maybe two more days. Sadly, they don’t understand that what they really need is not more time, books, workshops or more motivational fluff, what they really need is some balls.

The added benefit of the 3-week tech trial is that it eliminates the
mental “weight” of keeping track of all those new feeds. I’ve found it
much easier to add feeds at-will as I surf around the Tubes, knowing
that I have better control over what’s incoming to my RSS reader.
Currently I have about a dozen feeds that have made it past the trial
(some of which are feeds of friends and coworkers).

I’ll soon post an update on how the 3-week tech trial is playing out
for the hardware and software in my life. – Michael

Actually, there is a way. After a quick Google search, I discovered that it’s so simple I wish I’d thought of it in the first place.

In the Filters tab, create a new filter and enter into the Has the Words field “is: spam” (w/out quotes).

One more thing that I no longer have to think about. Ahhh…

With this new Probationary tagging system I have a firewall of sorts
to protect the tags for only those apps that I grant “access” past the
firewall. This also fits nicely with my previous post about the 3-Week
Tech Trial. All new apps will remain in this folder for 3-weeks until
such a decision can be made on the app’s viability. As a bonus, GMarks
keeps track of the Most Used bookmarks, so I can monitor this tag to
help make decisions on what to keep and what to delete. – Michael

I am instituting what I call the “3-Week Tech Trial” to which I will scrutinize all new technologies I choose (or am asked) to bring into my life, whether for work or for personal use. The general idea is that each new technology gets a 3-week probationary period, during which I will put forth an honest effort toward learning the technology and, in a process of “natural” selection, see if the new tech fits into my life habits and/or workflow. Most importantly, this includes the extent to which the technology compliments my life, adds something to improve my life, or simply makes my life a bit more fun. I’m at a point where I am fairly confident in understanding how I live and work, which makes embarking on this project a reasonable endeavor.

Before I begin though, I plan to compile a complete (or as complete as possible) listing of every technology (hardware and software) in my life that is above the level of being required for daily existence (i.e., a stove or refrigerator fits nicely into this category). On the surface this sounds daunting and somewhat overkill, but success of the 3-week trial necessitates having a firm understanding of where I currently stand, and then judicially applying the 80/20 rule to the list.

Certainly this rule is subject to revision as appropriate, but for now I’ll see how it goes and report regularly on my progress. Wish me luck… – Michael