Distraction Hack: Protecting Me from Myself During the Weekly Review

If you’re like me, you probably don’t have many places where you can comfortably execute a weekly review. You probably have a desk that’s also likely to be holding the monitor on which you are reading this, or maybe you have a nice dining room table. As for me, it’s pretty much just my desk (since that’s where my “home base” is, as far as filing and such), which happens to also have my monitor on it. Figure that!

Anyway, it should also be said that I’m capable of spending hours, nay, days in front of a computer without getting bored. There’s always something interesting to read or futz around with, at least for me. Having said that, it’s rather difficult for me to sit at my desk for any length of time without my hands creeping onto the keyboard. So, in true GTD-newbie fashion, I came up with a solution to protect me from myself when doing my weekly review (or mental sweep). I give you what I’ve affectionately dubbed The Monitor Curtain. Here’s how I made it:

  • Blank Paper (2 Sheets, but you may need more depending on the size of your monitor), 3-hole punched
  • 2 Paper clips
  • Stapler
  • Tape (if you have a CRT monitor)

Take the two sheets of paper and overlap them so that they will cover the greatest amount of surface area and staple them together. Then, take the paper clips and bend them so that they form crude hooks, leaving one of the original bends in place. Hook the paper clips through the holes in the paper, then hang the whole mess over your display. Voila.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Can’t you just turn your monitor off?” or “Yeah, that’s dumb”. Well, I can’t turn the monitor off because my display is an Apple display and the power button controls the computer power. And yes, it is sorta dumb since I can just take the thing off. The point of my little invention is to put an extra layer of pain-in-the-ass-edness between me and drone-like internet browsing when I should be doing something productive. I like to think of it as a small reminder of what I ought not to be doing, should I be tempted to stray from the task at hand.

Anyway, my first foray into hacking life is complete. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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December 29, 2006 | Filed Under Distractions, Productivity | 2 Comments 

A Very GTD Christmas

Took a little break from this budding blog over the past week or so, apologies for that.

Well, Christmas Day brought many smiles and laughs at my house, as well as some sick GTD gear (courtesy of my beautiful wife):

  • Moleskine Memo Pocket - The new face of my hipster PDA. It’s a little bulkier than my previous iteration (binder clip + cards), but I really like not having to sift through it to find a specific card (or a blank one).
  • Fischer Space Pen - Having drooled over this little jewel for a couple months now, it didn’t disappoint. Small form factor and excellent hand-feel make this the undisputed champion of the change pocket of my jeans.
  • Ready For Anything - David Allen’s follow-up to the venerable Getting Things Done - I’m about a third of the way through it and so far, it’s top-notch. Gives more of a theoretical insight into why GTD works as well as it does.
  • Index Cards - Can’t ever have too many of these, am I right?

I’m planning on picking up another space pen and possibly a moleskine large squared (or maybe ruled) notebook for journaling.  Productivity pr0n all the way, baby…

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December 28, 2006 | Filed Under GTD | 1 Comment 

Taming Your Inbox at Work

Let me start off by saying that my job (programmer) requires me to use email fairly regularly. It’s how I’m notified of bugs, feature requests, new projects, etc. So I really can’t ignore my email inbox completely, but I certainly do try. Here’s my approach:

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December 16, 2006 | Filed Under Email, Productivity, Work | 1 Comment 

GTD/Productivity All-Stars

Been pretty busy around my house lately, and I’ve got what will surely turn out to be a controversial post brewing. But, just to keep the content coming, I thought I’d share some of my favorite sites and blogs for productivity tips, tricks and inspiration:

  • 43 Folders - The mack daddy to be sure. If I had one wish regarding this site, it’d be for more content. Merlin has such an engaging and entertaining style of writing (not to mention a ton of really spot-on ideas), it’s hard to not love it. Here you’ll find all sorts of GTD-related stuff.
  • Ririan Project - A blog about personal productivity, health and happiness. Always an interesting read.
  • What’s The Next Action? - GTD centered blog that reads like a journal, this guy full of GTD-related tips and insight.
  • LifeHacker - High-volume site with all sorts of, well, life hacks.
  • LifeHack.org - Jam-packed with lists and how-tos.
  • Black Belt Productivity - Less-frequent, longer posts, mostly business oriented.

These are just a few of the sites I make it a point to read (or, in my case, subscribe to). How about you?

(Up next, my guerilla approach to email at work - Stay with us!)

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December 14, 2006 | Filed Under GTD, Productivity | Leave a Comment 

Keeping Instant Messaging Out of Your Way

The hardest habit for me to break (and something I’m still working on) when trying to streamline my work environment was that of checking my email every 5 minutes. It was something I’d done for so long, that I almost felt bad about it. But, after a few weeks of trying I’ve been able to cut my email-checking down to about once every hour or so (or much less than that, depending on what I’m working on). However, instant messaging (IM) is a completely different beast. It is, by nature, immediate and synchronous. This can be a nightmare for folks who do their best work when they can spend 2-3 hours just cranking away, uninterrupted. How often have you been totally zoned in on whatever you’re working on, only to have your concentration ripped asunder by a little flashing icon in your system tray or in the task bar? Bob wants to know if you’ve gotten those TPS reports or maybe Timmy is inquiring about your lunch plans. Either way, your focus has been lost and you’ll now have to spend several minutes getting it back. There must be a better way!

Well, I think I’ve found one. This is for the folks who, at work, are required to use IM as well as email for work-related communication (as I am):

  • Use Meebo instead of a locally-installed client application - If you’re unfamiliar, Meebo is a web-based IM site that allows you to connect to most major IM networks (Yahoo, AOL, MSN, Google Talk/Jabber) right in your browser. If you are using Firefox (and you should be), create a new tab just for Meebo. If the tab is active, then the Firefox button in your task bar will flash when you get a new message, but it won’t if the Meebo tab isn’t active. You can now receive messages without anything flashing!
  • Perpetually mark yourself as Busy or Away - This is a little trick I learned awhile back when I was faced with a constant barrage of incoming messages. Even as I write this, I’m marked as ‘Busy’ in Meebo, and you know what? I get probably 25% of the volume of messages I was getting before implementing this practice. For some reason, if you’re ‘Busy’, people have a much harder time interrupting you with unimportant stuff. And, really, it’s not being dishonest or misleading - I’m at work, so I’m doing other things besides waiting for Harold to tell me a dirty joke.

So, if you can have IM communication available without the annoying blinky things and (ostensibly) cutting your incoming messages down by a large percentage, I think you’ll find that you actually can find IM useful without it becoming a nuisance.

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December 11, 2006 | Filed Under Distractions, Productivity | Leave a Comment 

My Current GTD Toolbox - Pictures

As a follow-up to the previous post (and per the request of some readers), I’ve got some pictures of the items described before:

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December 8, 2006 | Filed Under GTD | 1 Comment 

My Current GTD Toolbox

Having “found the light’ only somewhat recently, I’m still working the kinks out of my trusted system. Having said that, I thought I’d share where I’m at so far. As I am not rich by any means, this list will be a good example of “budget GTD”. I give you the current contents of my GTD toolbox:

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December 8, 2006 | Filed Under GTD | Leave a Comment 

Introduction

As if there weren’t enough productivity related blogs out there, welcome to the Cranking Widgets blog!

This blog will deal primarily with productivity, specifically the Getting Things Done methodology described in David Allen’s book of the same name.  The difference is, this blog will be more about cataloging my quest for the Mind Like Water, as well as helpful tips and tricks I pick up along the way (one might even call them life hacks).

Stay Tuned!

December 7, 2006 | Filed Under Administrivia | Leave a Comment