By Bob Walsh
In my seemingly never-ending search for ways of Getting (more) Things Done, I’ve hit upon a pretty good method I call Butterfly Stroke Productivity. Now I will be the first to admit my swimming techniques look more like drowning than the Thorpedeo, but Butterfly Stroke Productivity (BSP) works and has been keeping my head above water for the past year as I juggle contracts, development and writing.
By Keith
Umm, yeah.
So, I’m not a huge stats geek or anything but I’ve just done my monthly check of my sites and was absolutely astonished. See, I’ve been running this fairly well read and trafficked site for about 3 1/2 years now and it’s only taken To-done around 5 months to over take it. I’ve got about double the subscribed readership (who are like, “thanks for the useless post dude”, right now) and I’ve almost crept up to the same spot as far as incoming links on Technorati.
Considering the timeframe, that is f’n unreal.
Since I didn’t really expect anything more out of this site than a simple place for me to work out and share my ideas in regards to GTD and work/life balance, I’m pretty impressed. I’m very, very glad that people out there are getting something out of this site and I fully plan to keep it going as it has been.
So, thanks for the continued interest y’all!
Having spent a good part of my life living with people who tend to misplace things, I’ve noticed a general tendency whenever such an event occurs. Panic immediately set in. A person who has misplaced something panics in accordance with the importance of the item misplaced.
Here’s an example based in part on a true story: A friend calls asking if I’d like to go on a hike. I agree and he picks me up. We arrive at the parking area near the trail head, and we fling open the doors and trunk. We change shoes, stow valuables in the trunk, swap coats for rain jackets, grab backpacks, etc. When we’re ready, we close up the car and start hiking.
Along the hike, we pass an abandoned well. My friend pulls out some pocket change and we toss some dimes and nickels to the barely visible water below. OK, that part I made up, but stay with me.
We return to the car after a couple hours hiking. My friend is frantically patting himself down. He can’t find the keys! He freezes in his tracks and looks at me with wide eyes. “I must have dropped them in the well!” he says.
This is where I intervene. Once that panic sets in, a person who has misplaced something tends to lose it and instantly thinks of the worst possible place that lost item could be.
I calm my friend down and begin searching in the most obvious places first. We check pockets, slowly and deliberately, look in all backpack compartments, scan the car and the ground around the car. We continue this until we find the keys, which aren’t in the bottom of the well. Had my friend been alone, he would have climbed down into the bottom of that well and spent hours looking for keys that were still sticking out of the trunk lock.
One other detrimental habit of people who tend to misplace objects is that when they do start searching, they tend to base their searching technique on those they have seen on popular TV cop dramas. That is, they create a huge mess as they scatter papers, clothes, and drawer contents all over the house looking for their lost item. Not only do they create a mess, but they most likely lose something else in the process.
If you do misplace something, let the panic subside before starting your search. Start with the most obvious places first, even if you’re sure the item can’t be there. I’m amazed how often it is in the most obvious place. Second, make your search slow and deliberate. Keep places you’ve searched organized. It will likely increase your chances of finding your lost item, but even if it doesn’t, at least there won’t be an additional trail of destruction left behind.
Author Bio: Britt Parrott is the communications manager for an engineering firm in Portland, Oregon, by day and a screenwriter by night. He posts most of his nonsense at Perhapses.
Not too long ago, I was asked by a client of mine how long it would take to complete a certain large project. After thinking about it for a while, I gave what I thought was a fair estimate given all of the parameters, possible hurdles and building in time for contingencies. The client then asked me if I could do it faster than that. They asked if I could do it in about a third of what I had estimated.
By Keith
From time to time I’ve got real trouble sleeping. My mind literally races. My thoughts coming in and out faster than I can deal with them. It’s almost like a thousand bees buzzing in my head.
It probably sounds worse than it is, but when I’ve got things going on (which during the day is great!) I simply have a hard time shutting my mind down for rest. I’ve had this problem all my life. Recently though, while I still have it, I’ve noticed that I can fight it off a bit better. I attribute this to my learning and putting into practice, techniques I’ve learned from reading Getting Things Done.
By Bob Walsh
A few days ago thanks to Keith’s kind invitation, I talked about how the new free beta of Google’s desktop search engine can make your e-mail life easier. I say e-mail life, because odds are good if you are reading this, you spend a good part of your life answering and writing e-mail!
In this post, I’d like to share with you a simple Google/Outlook trick that will immediately improve your productivity in certain common situations.
Modern technology is often blamed for adding complexity to our lives. I frequently hear references to “a simpler time” before we had computers, PDAs, cell phones and home theaters.
Well, that’s a bunch of crap!