Caffeinated Coder

In my last post I mentioned that I had recently decided that it was time to overhaul my approach to managing tasks. The changes I implemented were mostly inspired by a book by David Allen called Getting Things Done and I have been extremely pleased with the results so far. As promised, here are some of the concrete ideas that I’ve adopted and incorporated over the last month.

1. Following a Workflow: I found that my procrastination was mostly fueled by not knowing where to start on something or else feeling that it was too big for the small time slots that I usually had available during the day. Following this workflow whenever I a faced with a new item in my inbox gives me an automatic starting place and a way to boil down a massive, disorganized, tangle of items into a relatively small set of very specific tasks that I need to do.
2. Treating Collecting, Processing, and Doing as Different Activities - The workflow diagram really only covers the processing part of the equation, which is where you make decisions about things. Two other distinctly different activities are collecting and doing. Collecting simply means recording items that are floating around in your head and placing them into some kind of trusted inbox so that you can process them later (I use rememberTheMilk.com, a Samsung smartPhone which syncs with rememberTheMilk.com, my email inbox, a physical inbox on my desk, and delicious). The idea is that each process requires a separate type of thinking, thus context switches detrimental in terms of productivity and effectiveness. I find that I also gain the most benefit in terms of peace of mind by completing the collecting and processing stages before I attempt to actually do anything (with the exception of the 2 minute rule below).
3. Transitioning from To Do’s to Next Actions - My TO DO’s used to be very vague, like ‘Get Supplemental Life Insurance’. Now I take the effort to formulate the exact action I need to take and then attach any relevant information that I will need, such as ‘Call Mark (xxx-xxxx) and ask for quote on 20 year, $xx term life policy’. Since all the preliminary decisions and information gathering have been done, I am finding that I am much more likely to actually do it when I have a free minute during the day.
4. The 2 Minute Rule - If I grab a task from my inbox that will take less than two minutes, I just do it. This keeps my list short. If it will take longer than two minutes, I force myself to put it in one of the ‘deferred’ piles (Next Action Lists) until I am finished processing so I don’t get distracted and run out of time before the processing is done.
5. Grouping Tasks according to Contexts - Another helpful hint that I picked up from the ‘Getting Things Done’ book is to organize my Next Actions according to the context required to do them (call, errand, home, work, computer, etc.). Now, whenever I am out running errands, I scan my ‘Errand’ list to see if there is any other errand I can tackle that is close to where I’ll be. I’ve been surprised at how much more I get done now that I’ve picked up the habit of scanning the appropriate context list based on where I am and what I am doing whenever.
6. WaitFor List - This is a very useful list where I now track everything that I am waiting for (the phone company to send me a rebate, the insurance guy to send me a quote, my wife to make an appointment, etc.). I set due dates on them so that I know when it is time to start bugging somebody if things aren’t getting done.
7. Someday List - By explicitly separating all the things that I am explicitly agreeing to do (my Next Action and Project lists) from the things that are interesting to me but not appropriate to tackle at the current time, I dramatically decrease my tasks list and don’t feel nearly as guilty for those things that I’m not choosing to do at the moment.
8. Reference Materials - I realized that a lot of items that I thought were TO DO items were simply things that I needed to keep as reference in a system that would allow me to quickly retrieve it when and if I should ever need it (that meant overhauling my existing black-hole-of-a-filing system). To have a good filing system, you really need to take an agile approach and constantly tweak it as new items come in and old ones become obsolete. The best way to do this is to buy an electronic label maker ($30) so that you can quickly relabel folders in a way that is neat and easy to read.
9. Delegating and Deleting - These were two activities that I was not nearly aggressive enough with over the years. By having these questions as part of the workflow, I find that I am more likely to weed items out by throwing them away or letting someone else do them instead who is better suited to the task in the first place.
10. Using Projects to Organize Multi-Step Actions - I found that the items I was most likely to procrastinate on were the things that had multiple steps involved but were too small to traditionally be considered a project. David Allen recommends considering these to be a project, which he defines simply as a place holder that is useful for periodically generating Next Action items and organizing supporting material. This is great for smaller projects because it naturally lends itself to breaking things down into more manageable chunks. He also has some great suggestions for larger projects in terms of defining goals, envisioning outcomes, and brainstorming possible tasks.

If you’re interested in learning more about these concepts, I definitely recommend buying the book (which is a quick read) or visiting some of the resources here.

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