Work & Play Creatively
Getting Things Done, 7 habits and Mind Mapping. I am a productivity buff, and love to tweak my workflows.
A couple of days ago, I wrote about my top 10 knowledge audio sources. And yesterday I found this blogpost from the blog pickthebrain by John Wesley. He writes:
To help you find the best audio content the web has to offer, I've compiled a list of resources for free audio books and podcasts on a wide range of interesting topics.
Free Audio Book and Podcast Downloads to Juice Up Your Workout and Commute | PickTheBrain
Enjoy...
- Jens Poder
If I look at the leadership style of my brain, it reminds me of WWII movies that have clueless officers that lead through theory instead of habit shaped by the reality of survival. My brain is preoccupied worried, really about a lot of things. It doesnt want to be bored. It is constantly looking for meaning and things that feel right. But because its my brain, Ive assumed that it knew what it was doing. Perhaps not. Im promoting the Foot and the Hand. The brain will retain its analyst function.
David Seah : Getting Focused 04: Firing My Brain
This is really funny. David Seah is firing his brain and giving responsibility to his hand and foot :) The reasoning behind this is, that the brain tends to overanalyze before getting anything done. The foot and hand is where action happens; in movement and doing.
If your thinking about a problem isn't tied up to any actions it isn't really accomplishing anything. It's just wasting a lot of mental energy. Sometimes though charging ahead without thinking will get you into serious problems.
So you need something to bridge the gap between thinking and acting. Some tools, that will let you feel you're actually accomplishing something, even though you're not solving the main task.
For me tools like this would be:
These tools lets me involve my brain and body at the same time, and lets me bridge the gap between worrying and acting.
Today I want to share my favourite knowledge audio. I just love listening to an audiobook while doing something manual and boring. Anything like cleaning, gardening, shopping or being stuck in traffic. If I have someone clever in the ears, I'm happy!
Having a reservoir of knowledge audio on your ipod transforms wastetime into an opportunity to hear someone passionately talking about something they're really good at.
It's slower than reading books, but then again, it's so much more compelling to hear something told by the author. When William Zinsser hammers through the sentences in his audiobook On Writing Well, you're not for one moment doubting, that he's passionate about writing!
I must admit to be a late adopter of podcasts. I think the problem was always finding quality stuff. I got into listening to audiobooks from day one, and along the way I have stumbled upon a couple of nice podcasts.
So for those of you, who haven't tried out this great source of information out yet, here's the top 10 sources on my audiobookshelf:
So! A couple of podcasts and a handful of audiobook titles. I hope some of you will find as much enjoyment in having knowledge audio in your pocket as I do. Please share some of your own by commenting.
Technorati Tags: audiobooks, podcast, productivity
Oh man have I been punishing myself lately! I have sinned against my basic "rules of engagement" at work. I have been through a demanding period of "mid project blues". It's the worst!
For me this happens when projects are well underway and my initial passion cools. This time it happened to a couple of projects at the same time. This is when I am most vulnerable. This is when selfdoubt and anxiety sets in. My usual strength in maintaining my OWN way of working, the way that I know creates value, the way that works, this strength is weakened. For me this is a humbling experience.
In times like this, I have to remember myself of the importance of workplace bravery, if you want to create something out of the ordinary. Here are my 4 basic rules of bravery.
Yesterday I made a couple of handy tools for tracking my new Pull-based system for maintaining my GTD-system.
Having split up my 3 hour weekly review routine into bit and pieces, that I perform on demand, made me want to have something to assist my focus on the new system, and help me track my progress.
So I made a template for my Circa Levenger Notebook and a Wallpaper for my desktop.
With this, I can tick off, every time I perform one of the new routines. This means I can keep up giving myself little rewards for completing weekly reviews.
This is to help me remember each part of my new system. When I sit at the computer, and my mind is frying, then looking at the desktop will help me start clawing my way out of the darkness into "Mind Like Water."
The color scheme for these designs was found on the wonderful website colourlovers. Here you can find 5-part color palettes, that can inspire you when you create presentations and design.
Technorati Tags: lean, leangtd, gtd, wallpaper, diyplanner
Sometimes I wish I had learned more languages in my life. I have studied french, german and english, but sadly my german and french skills have detoriated over time. So now i'm only fluent in english, besides my native language danish.
But now there's a glimpse of hope! I stumbled across this great site today. A free language teaching service on the web called Mango.
So now I'm brushing up on my substandard German before heading to the european Web2.0expo in Berlin. There's tons of languages, and every course have 100 conversations explained in detail. Wunderbar!
- Jens Poder
This is a great little computer trick for people who listens to Itunes on their computer, while working. In my company this is pretty much the only way to be left undisturbed, wear a huge pair of headphones! And
So this is just a neat trick for those of you, who use Itunes on a Windows PC.
This lets you listen to music from Itunes, and have a micro player embedded in the Windows Task Bar, like this:
This little player control pops into your task bar when you minimize the Itunes player. I let's you control the music, rate it, adjust volume and basic things like that.
When you have Itunes installed you can turn this feature on by right clicking your task bar i Windows. The top choice in the resulting pop-up lets you select a number of embedded tools to your taskbar, a desktop dock, a windows media miniplayer, and here Itunes should be available for you.
- Jens Poder
This is post 3 in a series of articles on using LEAN to streamline your GTD system.
To map a value stream is quite an experience. Doing it with something as personal as your GTD system is a real eye-opener.
In this case, I started with the benefits that I want to get from my GTD-system, described in yesterdays post.
My method was very simple, and not at all as sophisticated as the usual ways of mapping production systems in LEAN. But I figured this was okay for this experiment. I welcome suggestions from experienced LEAN people.
Just grab a bunch of memos and start mapping. Get all the things up there. Your project list. Your capture tools, get them up there. It took me about an hour, and the result was this:
The text is in danish, and quite small, but you can check it out on Flickr, where I have added notes, describing the flow in detail. Just click the picture.
In a simplified way, the flow can be viewed like a connected stream that splits up into smaller streams, each representing a unique benefit. The components upstream at the start (like capturing) are beneficial for the whole system, but some of the components (like the tickler file) is closely connected to one stream (in this case the benefit of uncluttering).
This image describes the 4 streams of my GTD System:
There are four streams of benefit:
Having this map of my GTD-system made it possible for me to make a couple of immediate changes, where the system wasn't flowing.
Most obvious was processing. Originally I made the processing of stuff at my computer. This was made in a typical batch & queue proces. I would capture and collect lots of stuff, and then proces once a day. I would type everything into my todo-lists in outlook at the computer and then print a list and put it in my organizer.
The LEAN principles teach us to get rid of these waiting areas in the system. This is because it is wasteful to have inventories of stuff along the way. It also ads lead-time.
This makes sense as it becomes obvious that the stream of efficiency is running through the area of processing. If processing isn't totally up to speed, then the overview and focus at the end of the stream of efficiency is out of sync with reality. Critical actions will get stuck in the queue, waiting for processing, while you're picking actions from an outdated actions list.
Under normal circumstances, when the normal processing routine is functioning... no problem, but in times of stress, this is bad, because one of the most basic benefits of GTD, namely the overview and being able to pick relevant actions in the moment, gets out of sync with reality.
The Uncluttering and Purpose streams also run through the processing area, but the value of these streams were less connected with speed. But the stream of efficiency needs to flow FAST!
So I began to consider how to break down the first in first out, queue and batch mode of my processing. I decided to use another LEAN principle: The introduction of flow.
So I decided to break down the waiting area in the stream of efficiency. And this is how I did it.
Up until now, my primary actionlist had been on the computer, with a paper copy in my levenger circa organizer. This paper copy was handy, when I was on the move.
Now I made the levenger paper copy the primary list. This gave me the benefit of being able to enter things into my action list everywhere.
So from now on, when an idea popped into my head, instead of capturing it onto a notepad or into my memo-recorder on the phone, I instead ask myself: "is it acitionable?" If it is a discrete task, then it goes onto an circa-punched index card, with a relevant context, this goes directly into my actionslist in my paperbased levenger organizer.
So instead of putting somewhere in an inbox, for later processing, I immediately decide if it's actionable, and if it is, it goes straight into the efficiency stream and onto my actionlists.
I still use the computer todolist. It's handy for tasks originating from the computer (mails and such), but it's not a plug in the system any more. I now primarily use the computer to tidy up the handwritten lists. Sometimes it's nice to have a neat fresh actions-list to churn from.
It was a small change, but a significant one. Now I have the benefit of efficiency and overview all the time. And since this stream is one of the key values in my system it was well worth the change.
Having my GTD value stream on this map also made use my project reference material differently, and store it in another way. And there's a couple of other minor things I have mended as well.
Tomorrow we'll look at introducing another lean principle in the GTD system. The principle of PULL. Never making anything until it's needed.
This is part 2 of a series of articles on how to trim your GTD system with LEAN techniques.
First step in any LEAN proces is to define customer value. Only then will you be able to know what is value-adding and what is waste, MUDA.
This might seem trivial, but in fact it isn't. Very few companies manage to make customer value the sole measure on the scoreboard. And a terrifiing number of companies go along without ever getting really close to the need of the people they produce for. This includes a lot of companies that spend heavily on market research. It is a mindset thing.
So what is actually the customer value of a GTD system? I have given that some thought. I am the customer of my own system of course, but what value should the system create? Here is my view on the value that a GTD system should give:
That's it basically. When I achieve this, I feel in control. The next step is to map the stream of actions that generate this value. So tomorrow: LEAN GTD 3 - mapping the value stream.
Technorati Tags: gtd, lean, leangtd, productivity
I have been on the Getting Things Done wagon for well over a year now, and I'm a happy GTD'er. It's a great productivity framework for knowledge workers, because it let's you get stuff off your mind, so you can focus on the job at hand.
But I find myself thinking, that my personal version of the system is overly complicated, especially in stressfull periods. When the going gets tough, my GTD habits gets skipped. Piles start accumulating and the only routinely thing about my weekly review routine, is that it gets cancelled routinely.
This results in frequently having a "Mind like boiling Water" instead of the wanted state of "Mind like Water".
The problem is this: The journey from the perspective of every piece of information through my system simply takes to long. There's a couple of queue and batch areas along the way, and these require me to sit down at the computer and process. When "sitting down in front of the computer time" is scarce, these queue and batch pools in the system gets totally out of hand. And then you have the pain...
So I have decided to fix this. And I'll use LEAN methologies to do it, and make a LEAN GTD system.
Lean thinkers and GTD'ers have a lot in common. Both parties obsess with system management, the difference is, that Lean Thinking is used in production companies, like car manufacturer Toyota, where it was first invented.
The objective of Lean thinking is to eradicate waste in the production process, or MUDA, as Lean Thinkers call it. MUDA is everything in the production proces that doesn't create value. This could be unnecessary storage and inventory. Unnecessary handling and transport.
Lean production systems are typically build very integrated, with no stopping once the process of building a product is started. Products are produced just in time, so no parts are made before there's a request further downstream Lean systems gets the production flowing with a minimum of waste and waiting. This is how I want my GTD system to be.
So I'll start the process of slimming my GTD system with the 5 basic LEAN steps.
So that's what's in store for me. Tomorrows post: LEAN GTD - defining customer value.
LINKS:
Technorati Tags: lean, gtd, leangtd, productivity
I am a web professional and organizational psychologist. I lead strategy and analysis as part of the management of my web bureau Peytz & Co. These pages journals my journeys into geekery, lifehacking and the pursuit of perfect creativity.
