Matthew Lang

I’m resetting my systems right now. It’s a chance to review a few of the tools I’m using and decide what works and what doesn’t.

Why now? Goals can wait for a date. A year gives you a clean line to measure against. Tools can’t. A broken system costs you something every day it stays broken, and there’s no reason to keep paying that cost until the calendar says it can change.

My experience with digital tools hasn’t been great. I find they add friction instead of removing it. So, what’s mostly changing is a switch from digital to analogue.

I’ve been using a loose version of bullet journaling for my workday for most of the past two years, and it’s worked quite well, so it makes sense to expand it into my own side projects and a few other things.

Fix it when it’s broken. Not when the calendar says you’re allowed to.

I’ve tried a lot of different systems for note-taking and task management over the years, but one downside of each has been the time needed to maintain its organisation to a level that keeps it useful. I have lost track of how many different systems and methods I have tried, but I always ended up with a small collection of notes until I settled on the Bear notes app a few years ago. Even using the Bear notes app, though, I was still not 100% settled on using it and wanted something more from my notes. And that’s where the LLM wiki pattern came in.

The LLM wiki pattern, described here as a GitHub Gist, has been an absolute game-changer since I started using it last week. The gist on GitHub explains the system and how the LLM can help maintain your wiki over time.

The migration

It hasn’t taken me long to migrate my Bear notes and Instapaper queue to Obsidian, and, coupled with the ability to automate parts of the schema and for the LLM to handle management of concepts, entities, and summaries, I have managed to get my current notes in Bear to a better shape than I have ever had them in before. Migrating my Bear notes and Instapaper queue to this new system was quite expensive in terms of LLM usage, but I managed to spread it out over a few days.

What I am left with after this initial migration is a list of 150+ articles from my Instapaper queue that I need to vet and decide whether to keep in my notes. I’ll be doing these in batches of five or six each morning to avoid burning through my Claude Pro subscription. I found out early on that this process of fetching and summarising articles can be quite expensive in terms of token usage.

The benefits

My notes are now plain text Markdown files once again. Many note-taking apps use Markdown, but not many of them allow you to access your notes as files and update them outside of the app. Having plain-text files means I am not tied exclusively to Obsidian, and I can use other tools with them if I want to. They might not always be in the right format or syntax for linking between notes, but they are in a fairly common format that is easy to update and migrate.

I am also choosing not to sync these notes to my phone. The intended outcome is that anything I need to do with my notes should be done on my laptop during a dedicated time slot for that task. This should also reduce the amount of time I spend on the phone, which is never a bad thing.

I am migrating my tasks from Things to a separate section of the wiki, still within the same vault in Obsidian. The structure of these files is based on Nicholas Bate’s six compass points, and is a mixture of projects, notes and next actions. The six compass points allow me to allocate a project or task to a specific compass point and make organising such items much easier. The big benefit of this system is that, while I can allocate tasks across different compass points, I can bring all of them together into a single view in Obsidian using the Dataview plug-in.

So far, so good

The LLM wiki pattern is great because it does most of the work for you. It maintains the index, summaries, fetches and breaks down sources for you. I’m quite happy to review additions as they come into the system, but the self-organisation of the information is what makes this a quite powerful tool.

There are other benefits to this, but the big one for me is that the information across my wiki is back to plain text again. I’m happy to have a collection of files I can maintain myself if needed.

I admit it’s early days with the LLM wiki pattern, but the gains from it over the first week have been impressive. In a few months, I’ll touch back on its usage, what I have changed with it, and whether I will continue using it.

Chris Done’s estimation method is brilliant because it allows for flexibility and grows with the complexity of what you are estimating.

I call it “less than estimation” because if a given piece of work is obviously under an hour, your estimate is <hour. If it’s not obvious, you bump it up to <day. If it doesn’t obviously fit within a day, bump it up to a <week. If you’re not sure it’ll fit into a week, my experience says that it could take even three weeks, so bump it up to <month.

— Less-Than Estimation

This should also work well with your preferred task manager if it allows you to use tags to add meta-data to tasks.

For the last weeks, I’ve been back to using bullet journaling. It works well, especially for my day job, for which I use a separate notebook. For everything else outside of work, though, it’s been working okay, but I feel I still need something digital-based for long-running projects.

Keeping a long list of tasks in a notebook is fine if you have one or two long-running projects, but I have a couple of web applications to keep track of and a growing project that now requires multiple lists.

I’ve tried almost every known task manager, and none of them has worked. Every task manager is different, so they usually don’t work out for me for various reasons. One task manager I haven’t tried though is TickTick.

First impressions are good. Tasks can be put into lists and even folders. They can also be tagged so that they can be filtered. A couple of extras I didn’t expect to see are the baked-in Pomodoro timer, an excellent addition to a task manager, and the ability to track habits.

It’s still early days, but it’s clear to me now that I need a digital task manager to keep track of these long-running projects. We’ll see how TickTick works out in the long term.

After reading Nicholas Bate’s latest powerful productivity post, I thought I would share a few of the people and apps that have influenced me.

• Patrick Rhone - Patrick’s dash/plus system has been part of my own processes since I read about it.
• Nicholas Bate - I’ve been reading Nicholas Bate’s blog for over 15 years. I’ve been using his master list idea for some time.
• Ryder Caroll - Creator of bullet journaling, the only productive process that I have stuck with recently. It also works for me because of it plays nice with Patrick’s dash/plus system and Nicholas Bate’s master list. The fact that it’s also analog is a huge benefit to me. I spend enough times on screens. The last thing I need is another app just to stay organised.
• 37 Signals - Over the years I’ve long been a fan of the way the 37 Signals company work. All of their books are recommended, but the real changers for me were Rework and Remote are great books that really do make you question the traditional methods of working. Short, sharp and straight to the point.
• Trello - Although I use pen and paper most days, there is times when you need a digital tool to manage a project. I’ve flip-flopped between Things, Todoist and Trello over the years. While freelancing I used Trello for managing client projects, but when I returned to full-time employment I started using Todoist and Things to manage projects. I’m back to using Trello now. It’s the visual aspect of the app that really helps me.

I could have probably added another dozen or so people and apps that have influenced how I work over the years, but these five are the ones the I keep going back to.

Who influences your productivity?

One thing I have wanted to do for a long-time is to have a single checklist for the day that I can check items off for and then reset it for the next day. It doesn’t sound too difficult to do, but it never works entirely the way I would like it to in the various task manager apps I have used.

Many task manager apps re-create the tasks as they are crossed off the list. Now, that sounds fine for a single task, but when you have a bunch of tasks that you want to do daily, it can start to look slightly chaotic depending on the app. You may end up with tasks not completed from the day before, tasks completed for today, and some already completed for tomorrow.

I would like my list of tasks to stay completed for the day but not re-create the tasks for the following day. When the next day does come around, I would simply like to reset the checklist to start over again. I suppose the behaviour here is not to re-create the tasks but reset the list into a state so that it can be used again.

I created a page on my website that I can visit that contains a list of tasks with checkbox input elements that, when checked, are saved in the browser’s localStorage. There’s also a button there that, when clicked, resets all checkbox input elements back to unchecked. This allows me to start the list all over again.

After a couple of passes, I finally have it working now.

I have followed several high-volume technology RSS feeds for so long that I can’t even remember when it started. Maybe in the Google Reader era? I don’t know.

It feels that catching up with these feeds through Feedbin is becoming more of a chore than I would like lately. It’s now come to the point where I barely read these feeds anymore and simply mark them all as read. I don’t want to still read, but perhaps just not as an RSS subscription.

I have re-located these feeds this week in my daily newsletter on Mailbrew. The latest newsletter just dropped into my inbox. I have to say it’s a much better reading experience just having a limit on the posts from these feeds. Although I’m only getting the last few posts for each feed, I find it easier to scan through my newsletter and pick out the links I want to read later. This may be a permanent change.

This morning I put the final touches on a Rails application that I planned to move from DigitalOcean to Render whilst upgrading it from Rails 6 to Rails 7. The actual change of platforms wasn’t too much of a problem, but the upgrade to Rails 7, and the third one that I have done, still presented me with a few issues. These problems were not too difficult to fix, and after an hour or minor tweaks, I managed to get the application up and running on Rails 7.

With this being the third Rails 7 upgrade I have done, I’m gradually building up a checklist that uses the Rails document as a base and includes a few other steps when it comes to moving away from Webpacker as well. This checklist will prove invaluable for another couple of Rails 7 upgrades that I plan to do over the next couple of weeks.

With a checklist, you know where you are and the steps you need to take. It allows me to do these upgrades in sections as well, so that I can do a few steps, take a break and then pick up where I left off, knowing what the last step was and what the next step will be. It’s a wonder I don’t use checklists a bit more. I know a few tasks are coming up over the next few months where a couple of checklists will be invaluable once again.

More checklists, please.

I’ve been trying to get more out of my Todoist setup recently by using labels to tag more of the tasks that I have there. It’s similar to the previous setup when I used Todoist a few years ago. I have labels for the duration of the task, labels for the context of the task, and some GitHub style labels that provide some further context to tasks related to building web applications.

It’s working well so far, and now the next step is to use Todoist’s filters to pull together some tasks from various projects. It’s at this point where I fell away from Todoist last time. I ended up with far too many filters that split all my tasks into multiple lists that were too hard to maintain.

This time I have vowed that things will be different. This time I am starting with just a single filter of minor tasks that I can pick off through the week.Most of my tasks are scheduled throughout the week. So there’s no need to apply additional filters to these tasks. It will get done on the scheduled date and time. For those minor tasks that can take me up to 15 minutes, I’ve decided to allow them to sit in Todoist and get done when I need to do them. With them spread over several projects, the new filter will bring them together under one view.

I’ve been intentionally slow on my uptake with Todoist this time. It can become overwhelming to try and use everything from the get-go. However, this time, I decided to pace myself and try out different parts of Todoist when I needed to. It is working well so far.

Jason Fried recounts a tale showing that time and attention are unrelated.

What I don’t have – and what I can’t squeeze in – is more attention. Attention is a far more limited resource than time. So what I should say is “I don’t have the attention”. I may have 8 hours a day for work, but I probably have 4 hours a day for attention.

— The difference between time and attention

Adam Keys reminds us of the effectiveness of the humble checklist.

Checklists are great because they are an easy way to get my brain thinking about the details. They force me to think about all the things that need to happen. They force me to think in time and sequence: this needs to happen before that and this other thing will take a while so that’s probably another checklist. Checklists force me to think about dependencies and who is going to do what part of a project. For example: Bob has access to all the welding tools, so he needs to do all the metalwork which means Alice and Chris are stuck with all the woodwork and painting.

— The unreasonable effectiveness of checklists

I love a good checklist, especially when I’m going through a process that I’m not familiar with. You have the steps to go through, and if the checklist is well written, each step validates the previous step.  If something goes wrong, it has to be in the previous step or two.

Nicholas Bate gives us a productivity system so simple it can fit on a single index card.

A fresh 3 by 5 card taken from the stack. One side is work. One side is home. Each side is divided in half with a vertical line. On the LHS side are things you need/have to do. E.g. at work return a client’s call; at home buy some pasta. On the RHS are things you don’t have to do but you will do because they will make your future life easier by reducing the things you have to do on the LHS.

— The Tools of Excellence for a Brave New World, 8: The 3 x 5 card

Curtis McHale breaks down the process of getting work done in a world of distractions. I particularly like his argument for analog task managers over digital ones.

One of the big principles of Bullet Journalling, is that paper creates friction and this is a good thing. If it feels like a significant pain to move your tasks forward, then they likely weren’t worth doing anyway. You didn’t get to them the first time, so apparently, they weren’t important.

Just drop them.

Digital task managers make it far too easy to move things forward that we’re never going to do. You push the date forward and make the task a problem for future you. Maybe you take the date off and then continually have to decide during your review if the task is worth doing.

— How Do I get Deep Work Done in the Midst of Random Priority Distractions by Curtis McHale

Proof that your business can survive without email.

In short, Schwarz is a classic craftsman. If you want to ask him about his trade, however, you’ll have a hard time getting in touch. In 2015, he stopped using (public) email. And he has no intention of going back.

— The Woodworker Who Quit Email by Cal Newport

I can’t say that I’m a fan of seeing high-speed Internet access being rolled out onto airlines.

Why is it that flights often make for good working conditions? In spite of all the discomfort, there’s something zen-like and cloistered about being in an aircraft and incommunicado. Particularly when lights dim and people are sleeping or absorbed in their movies with headphones on, it’s easy to get in a zone with the material you’re looking at, on a laptop or from a printout.

— Free in-flight wifi means we’re quickly losing an unexpected haven for deep productivity

If this happens, why bother putting windows in the aircraft? No-one will be looking out them anyway.

… defined by Nicholas Bate.

Productivity is no longer simply about ‘the things to do’, it is about tough, balanced, focused decisions on what not to do.

— Jagged Thoughts for Jagged Times 236 by Nicholas Bate

Update: Some links in this post pointed to pages that no longer exist and have been removed.

Not your usual productivity hacks. I do think I could be doing with less distractions during the day.

If you’ve found yourself distracted by meetings, notifications, and phone calls, it’s important to put the brakes on that vicious cycle. Don’t allow time to slowly melt away and put off today what you believe can be done tomorrow.

— 3 powerful ways to hack your life, find focus, and get more done by The Verge

… with Nicholas Bate.

I’ve been wrestling with my inbox for a while now but last month I started batch processing my emails again, and although it has taken a few weeks I’ve got my inbox down to a handful of emails this morning from the 100+ that were sitting there a few weeks ago.

Update: Some links in this post pointed to pages that no longer exist and have been removed.

Basics or essentials? Either way, these are the foundations for anyone looking to level up.

Bonus content at the Deep Productivity seminar in June for those interested. Highly recommended.

Update: Some links in this post pointed to pages that no longer exist and have been removed.

… with Annie Mueller.

Update: Some links in this post pointed to pages that no longer exist and have been removed.

Yesterday I attended the Nicholas Bate’s Deep Productivity seminar in Oxford. It was a great chance to meet a fellow and much respected blogger and at the same use the course to gather up all the important bits about productivity.

The venue of the seminar was in the Magdalen College School. It was unlike any school I’ve ever visited and is also the oldest school that I’ve ever been in. If you like Harry Potter you will love this place.

I arrived a bit early being just around the corner for accommodation. I got speaking to Nicholas and a few other attendees to the seminar and then the hard work began at 9am.

The seminar was extremely valuable and it was a good opportunity to re-visit some strategies to help stay focused and productive. I also walked away with a number of books from Nicholas that have been added to the top of the reading list.

So what did I get from this seminar then?

Well, the whole point of this wasn’t to learn something new. I’m a big fan of Nicholas Bate’s blog and his material so I was already familiar with a number of strategies, but where I previously got this information over a long period of time, the seminar provided the opportunity to consolidate all of this information into a single form that I could digest more easily and refresh my brain.

It was also a great opportunity to meet Nicholas and other attendees.

All in it was a great investment of my time and I hope that it can yield some great results in the weeks, months and years to come.

Thank you Nicholas for putting on a superb event and it was great to finally meet you good sir!

For the attendees, I’ve managed to go my first 24 hours without bread as my first actionable item. Started yesterday during the seminar (thanks for the nudge NB) and made it to this morning by having cereal and a smoothie rather than toast. Yay!

Driving down to Oxford this afternoon for tomorrow’s Deep Productivity seminar with none other than Nicholas Bate himself.

A great chance to meet and a great opportunity to learn.

If you’re attending, say hi!

Update: Some links in this post pointed to pages that no longer exist and have been removed.

Cal Newport touches on single root commitments and productivity.

The solution to these issues is simple: maintain a single root commitment, that you’ll stick to no matter what, which will in turn help you get the most out of all the other productivity commitments that come and go in your life.

To be more concrete, create a single page document that describes the key productivity rules, habits, and systems (which I’ll summarize as “processes” in the following) that you currently follow in your life.

— On Rooted Productivity by Cal Newport

Todoist has just anounced a new feature to their task management platform, Smart Schedule.

Smart Schedule uses predictive modeling to help you easily plan out your tasks for the day and week to come. It learns your personal productive habits, and takes into account patterns across all Todoist users, to predict the best possible due dates for your tasks.

That means those 50+ overdue tasks you have hanging around can be quickly rescheduled en masse, while new and unscheduled tasks can be easily assigned to the best due dates. In this way, Smart Schedule makes it much easier to stay on top of your to-do list and roll with the punches when your day doesn’t go as planned.

— Introducing Smart Schedule, a more intelligent way to plan your day

I stopped using Todoist a number of weeks ago due to the fact that I was just going through the motions of ticking off boxes. It got to the stage where I was micro-managing myself.

This is an interesting move in the market of task managers and no doubt there will be a few other task managers following down this road.

To get yourself into the groove of batching, try blocking out two to three daily email check-in times on your calendar, perhaps 30 minutes a piece. If at all possible, schedule an additional 45-90 minutes for creative work before you check your email for the first time. Then, when you do turn your attention to your inbox, no matter what you find there—what fires you have to put out, what unwanted questions you have to respond to—you’ve already gotten some good work done that day.

— Don’t Let Email Zombies Eat Up Your Day by 99U

I’ve been using Quitter as well to automatically close my email client after a period of time. Out of sight, out of mind and all that.

tips by Nicholas Bate.

Update: Some links in this post pointed to pages that no longer exist and have been removed.

… with projects. Pick one today and start. Simple.

Update: Some links in this post pointed to pages that no longer exist and have been removed.

… for everyone.

Update: Some links in this post pointed to pages that no longer exist and have been removed.

Or is it just common sense?

During his 15 minutes with each executive, Lee explained his simple method for achieving peak productivity:

1. At the end of each workday, write down the six most important things you need to accomplish tomorrow. Do not write down more than six tasks.
2. Prioritize those six items in order of their true importance.
3. When you arrive tomorrow, concentrate only on the first task. Work until the first task is finished before moving on to the second task.
4. Approach the rest of your list in the same fashion. At the end of the day, move any unfinished items to a new list of six tasks for the following day.
5. Repeat this process every working day.

The strategy sounded simple, but Schwab and his executive team at Bethlehem Steel gave it a try. After three months, Schwab was so delighted with the progress his company had made that he called Lee into his office and wrote him a check for $25,000.

— This 100-Year-Old To-Do List Hack Still Works Like A Charm by Fast Company

For a while, there has been a nagging question in the back of my mind: Am I really getting the full use out of my to-do list? Two people have made me question this in the last couple of weeks.

The first was by Patrick Rhone after re-reading a post from a while back:

You see, when the things you hope to do are on some long wish list of things you hope to do, they are telling you a lie. They are telling you that you that every single thing on there is of equal importance.

— Better Things by Patrick Rhone

The second was CJ Chilvers on the idea of killing your to-do list:

I’ve slowly become a convert to the idea that we need to concentrate on our calendars a whole lot more to achieve what we want in work and life. If you want it done, it must be scheduled. If it’s not scheduled, it’s just another item on your wishlist that will never be completed.

— Kill Your To-do List by CJ Chilvers

I work from my calendar throughout the day for high-level things like client work and more significant projects. I use Trello and schedule cards, which I’m working on in my calendar for this. For low-level stuff like errands and such, I use Todoist. Lately, though, I’ve found that Todoist has been holding nothing more than smaller tasks, which has led me to question my value in using it.

So, I’ll stick with Trello for more significant projects and schedule work for the next few weeks into my calendar. With Todoist dropping, I’m going to look for an alternative. It might be Trello, a pocket notebook, or an index card. I haven’t decided yet.

If you want it done, it must be scheduled. If it’s not scheduled, it’s just another item on your wishlist that will never be completed.

— Time To Kill Your Todo List by CJ Chilvers

Words by CJ Chilvers that for a few minutes had me questioning my own todo list’s life expectancy. CJ’s words make sense but what he is advocating isn’t killing your todo list. Well maybe he is but I see it in a different way.

You see the todo list isn’t the problem. The problem my friend is you.

If you’re using your todo list in the most effective way possible then you’ll be doing two things:

1. Continually reviewing your todo list
2. Syncing your todo list to your calendar

Rather than thinking of your todo list as just a list of things to do, think if it as more than a list. It’s a capturing point, a staging area, a place where things go before they are scheduled to be done.

Your todo list items should only be in this staging area for a short time until a window of opportunity opens up in your calendar. Then you can schedule the item at the most appropriate time.

As with most processes, it’s not the tools that are to blame, it’s how you use those tools.

I do a weekly review to ensure that I don’t have anything in my todo list that is stagnating. If it’s been there for a while, I delete it or schedule it for the most convenient time possible. That way it gets done.

My todo list is also linked to my calendar so that when I give a todo item a date and time it appears in my calendar.

My todo list isn’t just a list of things to do, it’s a capturing point, a place to review and a log of just about everything I have done. It’s more than just a list. It’s an essential part of my workflow.

The easiest way to get your head round this is to work from your calendar rather than your todo list. Your todo list just tells you what to do. The calendar tells you what to do and when to do it.

Hint: Did you know Todoist can feed your todo list to your calendar? It also includes a link back to your task so that you can mark it as complete when it’s done.

NB’s Productivity series continues …

Among competing tasks the one with the highest long-term pay-off should be selected.

— Productivity 12 by Nicholas Bate

Update: Some links in this post pointed to pages that no longer exist and have been removed.

Of course. Get the big picture.

Update: Some links in this post pointed to pages that no longer exist and have been removed.

This is it. The last part of the Grass Roots Productivity process. Doing the work. Unfortunately there’s no quick fixes or hacks to this one. You either do the work or you don’t.

It doesn’t need to be as black and white as that though. There are things you can do to help you have a productive day. I always come back to Peter Bregman’s book, 18 minutes. He has a simple rule for getting something done.

If you really want to get something done, decide when and where you are going to do it.

— 18 minutes by Peter Bregman

When you decide where and when you’re going to do something you add structure to your day. This structure leads to a plan day for the day is more manageable. If you’re like me then the location will rarely change for most of your work. Time though is one thing that’s a big impact on our day. So decide when you want to do a task so that you can split your day into more manageable chunks.

I’ve tried in the past to pick off items from the top of the list at the start of the day. This is the wrong thing to do. It often leads to confusion and the wrong things getting done at the wrong time. I’ve learned now that scheduling actions into my calendar ahead of time is a better way to get things done.

Doing the work is all about self discipline and honesty.

Discipline yourself so that you do the work set before you. Schedule in your calendar the tasks that matter. For every one task that needs to be done, there’s four other that could be done. Never mind the other four and focus on the one.

And when it comes to reviewing your progress, be honest with yourself. If you could have done better then aim to improve your work and your progress on the next block of work.

This is the step where many people falter when it comes to using a process, but only you can make it work. So do yourself a favour and do the work.

We’ve looked at capturing and scheduling already in my little productivity process. The next step (not in order though) is the review.

For hundreds of years travellers have used different navigation techniques. The stars, maps, compasses and now the trusty smartphone can even help us get to our destination.

How do you get to the goals that you are working towards though?
Completing the items on your master list is one thing, but it’s all for nothing if there isn’t a goal to work towards. Most of us can remember to do the little things without the aid of an ongoing list to help us. If you’re keeping a track of your master list though, then you are most likely working towards a goal. How will you know though if you’re working towards that goal and making progress?

If the goal is the destination then the review step is our compass that steers us towards that goal. A regular review will help you ensure that you’re making progress towards an that goal.

My review process involves three stages.

1. Clearing the decks

In this stage I work through each of my various inboxes and convert any items into actionable tasks. It might be emails in my inbox, tasks on my CRM, or items I’ve captured in my notebook. I use this stage to bring everything together into my master list.

2. Review projects

I use the term project to review any amount of work that involves ongoing work. It might be generating content for my blogs, client work, or work for DailyMuse. This is where I review the progress of each project and ensure that I’m making progress towards it.

3. Planning ahead

Now that I know the progress made in the previous week or month, I can look ahead and plan for a similar timeframe. This involves scheduling actions into my calendar and setting reminders for the important ones.

Only my freelance work gets reminders as this is more important than most of my other projects.

---

And that’s all there is to it. I find it best to block off an hour a week to do my weekly review and three hours a month to do my monthly review. Done on a regular basis, the review step will help ensure that I’m working towards my goals.

We’ve got a list of actions from a few days of capturing. Now what do we do? We schedule. And not by just putting whatever we want to do in any free space on our calendar. We schedule by putting the right tasks in at the right time.

Take a moment to look back at the last few days or even weeks of work you have done. When do you peak and when you do you plummet?

I work better in the morning. It’s during this time that I like to work on more creative tasks. Building new features, sketching screens and of course wrditing. For these types of tasks, this is when I am at my sharpest.

In the afternoon I prefer to work on more problem-solving tasks. Debugging, refactoring and general problem solving through code. I find this type of work less intensive than creative work so I prefer to do this in the afternoon.

How you work is down to you. But you need to be able to identify when you’re most productive. It’s important to ensure that you are scheduling the right tasks in at the right times. Dropping tasks in your calendar is going to lead to unproductive days.

Now that you know when it’s the right time to do the right tasks, you can start scheduling those tasks in. I’ve tried many ways of partitioning my day but the one for me that sticks the most is being able to work in 1 hour blocks. 50 minutes of work with a ten minute break. It’s almost same as the Pomodoro Technique, I just opt to work in longer chunks of time.

I also only schedule in tasks that take no more than an hour. When it comes to any kind of work I break down tasks into one hour chunks of work so that I’m focused on one thing at a time. Once a task is complete I can move onto the next task for the next hour.

Scheduling is an important part the productivity process. Done right, it will help you work through the right tasks at the right time and give you the sense of making progress. And that’s what being productive is all about.

Everyone has their own preferred system for getting things done. Whether it’s GTD, maintaining chains, the pomodoro technique or some other method there’s something out there for everyone.

Having tried just about every technique possible and a few hybrids of I’ve come to rely on four basic actions that help me get things done. I’ve come to call this Grass Roots Productivity.

The first step in this system is ensuring you know what you want to get done. This starts with the process of capturing.

Most productivity systems have the idea of an inbox. A place to collect the stuff you want to do. Without this inbox you would be as well just plucking stuff to do out of thin air. Capturing is an essential habit to get into because without it, there’s second step to getting stuff done.

The capture process is something I go through numerous times a day. Links, actions, documents, text and other bits of data. Each of these types of data have their own respective inbox. On the digital side there is Pinboard, Instapaper, Todoist and a few other places. On the analog side I’ve got a notebook and a planner. While the digital inboxes have very focused types of data being captured, the notebook and planner act as loose fitting items that don’t quite fit anywhere else.

The way I do this is to have easy access to each of those inboxes. For the digital inboxes I have either email addresses or keyboard shortcuts setup to quickly save to the respective inbox.

For the analog inboxes, I simply leave my notebook and planner left open on my desk, ready to record whatever I need to. I use the notebook for capturing items on the go. The benefit of this is that it’s a simple action of recording the task and moving on. No distraction by other apps or notifications or any other distraction that digital devices are famous for.

Capturing is an essential but often overlooked step in any productivity system. Without capturing we don’t have any sensible place to start and we always need a place to start.

… for the career you love.

Thanks NB!

Update: Some links in this post pointed to pages that no longer exist and have been removed.

And so is productivity revision time with Nicholas Bate.

Update: Some links in this post pointed to pages that no longer exist and have been removed.

Belle Beth Cooper’s in-depth write up about how she manages tasks and projects is recommended for those looking to get more from Todoist.

Update: Some links in this post pointed to pages that no longer exist and have been removed.

Finding a great task manager can be a daunting affair. Aside from the fact there are so many of them, there’s only so much time that you can dedicate to trying them out. You’ll never pick the right one first time, so how do you find a good matching task manager?

After three years of using Todoist I know that it works for me. A week ago I dabbled with Wunderlist out of curiosity, but I couldn’t adjust to the different interface that Wunderlist offered. It’s nothing to do with Wunderlist itself, it’s a great task manager but it just didn’t work for me. That’s the key thing to look for when assessing task managers. Find the right one that works for you. Here’s how to do it.

Ask yourself what’s the three critical features that you need from your task manager. It might be portability, it might be integration with other services, it might even be important to you to use a hand-written notes. Whatever is important to you then add it to a list.

This is important because if you’re blindly testing task managers without knowing what works best for you, then you’re going to find it hard to find one that works for you.

I chose Todoist because it has three features that I think are essential to how I work.

1. Todoist has great email integration. The inbox and each project includes their own email address so that I can quickly capture tasks on the go and while I work.
2. Todoist has a minimal user-interface. This is important to me because it lets me focus on reviewing tasks, picking the next one and moving on. Todoist’s user-interface is simple and offers little in the way of distractions.
3. Todoist is easy to use. Click, drag, type. The hallmarks of any desktop or web based application, but Todoist makes it easy to move tasks, edit tasks and find tasks.

If Todoist was to close down overnight and I had to pick a new task manager then I would look for a new task manager that matched at least two of these requirements. Three would be a better match, but it’s not essential that the task manager you pick meets all three requirements.

By identifying the features that are essential to me, I’ve been able to find a task manager that doesn’t distract and gets the job done. Your requirements might be different though so that’s what you need to look for. Find your own essential requirements and you’ll find it easier to find a task manager that works for you.

Yes please!

Another great new series from NB.

Update: Some links in this post pointed to pages that no longer exist and have been removed.

I’ve been a fan of email subscriptions for a long time. The direct delivery to your inbox might not be everyone’s idea of digital heaven but for the content that matters the most, it’s the best way of receiving it. I used to use RSS for everything but even RSS has its limits. I’ve got a large number of feeds in my list which makes it hard to filter out the great content you want to read every day from the good content that you will get to at a later time.

And while email subscriptions are nice (when managed with rules in your inbox), there comes a point where you just end up getting too much email. That my friends was today.

I flicked through my newsletters folder in my email client and was astonished to find a number of high quality subscriptions still lying there unread. Were they simply not worth reading? No, I subscribed to these for a reason. Some I even pay for, but when you don’t get round to reading them then what’s the point?

Everything in moderation. That’s the famous quote right? While I don’t stick with it for a lot of things (you can never spend too much time on a bike!), it does make sense when it comes to managing your digital inboxes and my newsletter inbox was running over.

So if you’re reading this and I’ve unsubscribed from your list today, don’t be offended. The quality of the email subscriptions I removed myself from today are high but when these gems of content end up just lying unread in my inbox then I’m afraid there is little point in still continuing to subscribe to them. In the unsubscribe comments I did leave as nice a reason as possible indicating my reason for unsubscribing though. That has to count for something.

Forest is an app that tries to help you concentrate by giving you the incentive of creating a digital forest. When the timer reaches zero without you leaving the app, a little tree grows. If you leave the app before the timer stops, the tree dies. Certainly a fun idea, but how long before the novelty wears off?

via Tools & Toys

More wise words from NB.

There is another way: work from a 3 by 5 card which highlights your vital few, high-payoff activities. Ignore the trivial many. You can’t do it all: the predator is lurking, ready to pounce on the fatal human weakness; trying to do it all and being addicted to the unprotected and swampy by-ways of irrelevant minutiae.

— Jagged Thoughts for Jagged Times 154 by Nicholas Bate

Update: Some links in this post pointed to pages that no longer exist and have been removed.

This brings back nightmares of timesheets being used to measure performance. It’s a poor way of measuring any employees performance regardless of what they do.

What do you use to measure employee performance? For many years I worked in places where time was what I was paid for and so work time was what was measured.

This became a problem when I’d see other people spending the day on Facebook and still getting paid. They produced nothing, but production wasn’t measured, time in seat was. So by that standard, those employees were doing what was required.

— Measure the Right Things by Curtis McHale

Execupundit has you covered.

It can be difficult to predict the popularity of topics. Supervision may become a mainstay subject since new supervisors are always in the pipeline and even the senior ones need refreshers. I’ve had people in class who last attended a workshop on supervision around 30 years ago. Many, of course, were never formally trained. One day they were told, “Congratulations! You’re a supervisor.”

That’s why it is not rare to hear a senior supervisor exclaim, “I wish I’d had this class when I started in this job.”

— Booster Shot by Execupundit

I work four days a week when a client allows it and most usually do but I will make exceptions for projects that are on a limited timescale. Working five days a week for a couple of months is nothing to me but for full-time employees it can amount to a daily grind which can take its toll on employee productivity.

We’ve proven that you can take it from an experiment into something that’s doable for real companies and real people in highly competitive markets.

— The Case for the 32-Hour Workweek by The Atlantic

Watch the video at The Atlantic for more.

Be honest.

I’d be surprised if most organisations managed to even get three out of seven on Nicholas Bate’s seven point audit.

From my experience the best company I’ve worked in managed five of these points. However, each company has failed on the parking. For some reason the director had to be the nearest parking space to the door. Maybe he/she just wanted to be first out the door.

Update: Some links in this post pointed to pages that no longer exist and have been removed.

Interesting insights about how we can solve problems by disproving ideas rather than proving them.

This week I migrated my master list over to the Todoist service. I’ve been using Taskpaper for most of the year but one thing that is evidently missing from using this is that I have no way of easily reviewing the past week’s completed tasks. I could put together a script that would count the number of completed tasks on each day in the archived section, but I keep putting it off. The other half of the problem is the synchronising conflicts I was getting from syncing my master list to Dropbox.

In the end I decided that it was definitely time to try something else. That’s when I noticed Todoist while browsing the App Store. Unlike many cloud based task management services it does track the number of completed tasks for you while you work. As the end of the week draws near I am looking forward to seeing a healthy number of completed tasks for each day of the week.

Like Taskpaper, Todoist does support the concept of labels and projects which I still need. One last feature which is really nice is the templates feature. When you frequently do the same tasks over and over again, Todoist lets you export tasks as a template so that you can import them again.

It’s fair to say that I’ve given Taskpaper a fair go but my needs have evolved over the last few months. I’m hoping that Todoist fits my needs for the foreseeable future.

I managed to catch up on my queue of podcasts this morning and one of the topics on discussion on the Ruby rogues podcast was that of sharpening your saw. I know the term from Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. What it means is the continual act of making yourself better but it can also apply to other things like the tools you use.

It made me realise that of all the applications I have I have yet to learn the basic shortcut keys that make these applications easy to access from anywhere. The first thing I did after listening to the podcast was create a note in Evernote with a list of all the shortcut keys for the applications that I use.

Over the next week I’m going to familiarise myself with a few shortcut keys at a time. This little habit is only saving a few seconds at a time, but over the course of a year, all those little seconds and keystrokes add up. I’m not trying to steal time, I’m just trying to make more efficient use of my time.

For the last two weeks I’ve been using Trello instead of Taskpaper for managing projects like Journalong. It’s really an experiment to see if I can get more things done with a visual system. Previously I was using lists in Taskpaper. It worked to an extent but anything that was at the bottom of list would frequently be forgotten.

So what is Trello?

Trello is a generic organisation and collaboration tool. Yes it sounds like a vague description, but Trello isn’t tied to any one particular workflow. Basically Trello is a simple workflow and list manager.

A Trello board consists of several lists like so:

You create cards that you move through the lists from left to right. The lists themselves can be called anything you want and can be modelled after any iterative workflow that you can think of.

The cards are used to represent individual items of work. It could be a task, a feature for a product, an article you want to write or even part of your wild scheme to take over the world.

The cards themselves contain a title and a description but can also contain a set of tasks, attachments and even comments from yourself and other users collaborating on the same board.

How I’m using Trello

I’m using Trello in two ways at the moment.

Primarily I am using it to get my finger out on moving some development projects along. Journalong was first to get the Trello treatment and work on it as picked up again since I started using it. I use it mainly to mimick the Kanban way of software development as you can see from the board below:

As well as using Trello as a way of managing software projects, I’m also using Trello to manage my blog. In particular, my weekday posts to the blog and the writing process involved for each post.

I have a backlog of ideas that I want to write about. It ranges from software development to personal reflective pieces. At the weekend I pick five ideas from the backlog for the coming week and assign each of them a day of the week. Then I stick them in the drafts column and start writing each one.

As they are completed they get moved on to editing and then they are ready to be published. While the Journalong board is fine, I might change the process for my blog posts. I don’t want to get too bogged down in different steps for each post. I tend to write, edit and queues posts for my blog in the one sitting.

Great device support

What makes Trello great however is the support they have for different devices. It’s one of the few applications that I have installed on by my iPad and iPhone. Initially I was hesitant of how Trello was going to be implemented in iOS. However since using it for the last few weeks, It’s steadily becoming a favourite in my day to day apps category.

The iPhone UI is particularly nice as it lets you zoom in on a list within a board so that you can see all the cards for that list. Everything that you have available in the web UI is available here as well. Checklists, labels, attachment and comments are all there.

It’s free!

One thing that you thought I may have skipped over is that Trello is a free for anyone to use. I had reservations about this until it was pointed out to me that the makers of Trello, Fog Creek Software, wanted Trello to be a free product from the start.

There is a business plan that allows organisations to use Google Apps for authentication and to get all their users across without any pain. There is also paid plan called Trello Gold that adds a number of nice touches like changeable board backgrounds and bigger file uploads. The free version of Trello is ideal for most people.

A great visual tool

I’ve enjoyed using Trello over the last few weeks and I’ve decided to stick with it for managing projects and my writing. Whether I’ll use it for other things like sales leads, invoicing or anything else I can think of will be decided as and when I think I need something beyond a basic list to manage them.

I love the visual side of using a board. You get a clearer picture of where everything is and it means that you instantly know what you should be picking up next. Coming from a background of using mind mapping for a few years, I love systems that use visualisation to convey a message or intent. The nice thing about this tool is that it’s visual, portable and adaptable to just about any process that you can think of. It isn’t the silver bullet to everything, but if you’re having problems getting projects organized and trying to determine where the bottlenecks are then Trello just might be worth checking out.

This post contains a referral link for Trello for which I receive a free month of their paid plan, Trello Gold, for each sign up. If you don’t want to use the referral code, you can use this link to checkout Trello for yourself.

Update: Some links in this post pointed to pages that no longer exist and have been removed.

I’m halfway through Curtis McHale’s book on turning your freelance career into a viable business and one thing that has become clear through reading it is my lack of progress on products and projects. Given that I only use a single list for everything, sometimes projects and ideas get skipped at the bottom of the list. It’s the out of sight, out of mind thing. If I’m not reminded of something on a regular basis, I usually forget about it.

In order to make better progress, I’m going to start using Trello for managing projects and future products. I’ll still stick a high level task on my master list relating to the project, but all the details for it will reside in Trello.

The reason I picked Trello for this was my familiarity with Kanban boards and some experience I picked up working in an agile team a couple of years ago. Basically the idea of Trello is that you move cards (or tasks) across the board from left to right until the card is complete. In my case my this will be features, bugs, marketing and admin tasks.

Cards move through the following lanes that are typical of Kanban boards:

• Backlog - All cards start here. Cards are prioritised on a weekly basis with the next card to be done located at the top.
• Analysis - We do some background work on the card. What does it involve?
• Development - Let’s implement this thing with some nice tests and code.
• Testing - We test it out in a secure environment.
• Deployed - Once it’s tested and ready, we ship the code for the rest of the world.

Moving cards across the board is a great way to see progress being made, and also with work-in-progress limits, I can stay focused on one or two tasks at a time.

Also I’m currently using Trello with a couple of clients for project management, so the switch from their projects to my own when things are quiet is easy to do and I’ll already be familiar with the Trello environment. Seamlessly moving from client work to my own work is important. I don’t want to have to adjust too much to a different workflow.

My grass roots approach to work still stands with just a master list for capturing everything and scheduling actions in my calendar. I’ll capture a high level description of the project in my master list and defer the details down to cards on the Trello board. Any work I do will be blocked off in my calendar as just “Project X Work” and then when it comes to actually doing that work, I can pick up where I left off on the Trello board. When time runs out, I can leave a note on the card where I left off and move on without losing my place.

It all sounds well and good in theory, but putting it into practice over the next few weeks might not yield the positive results I’m hoping for. Still, I’ve got to give a try though, right?

Update: Some links in this post pointed to pages that no longer exist and have been removed.

… and everyone who wants a more productive year in 2013 is invited.

Update: Some links in this post pointed to pages that no longer exist and have been removed.

I know and I’m sure you know that networking is important, but I didn’t realise how important it was until a couple of weeks ago.

At the start of the year I made a choice to move away from what I perceived to be an in-secure job in an agile development back to my previous job in an ERP consultancy working with Dynamics NAV. Having resided myself to a career of working with Dynamics NAV, I deleted my LinkedIn account and stopped looking for work in the Ruby community.Fast forward six months and I have been paid off from the ERP consultancy due to budget constraints within the company and I have exhausted all leads in the west of Scotland for Dynamics NAV work. What to do now?

I had very few people in my network that I could turn to to ask about possible leads for freelance and permanent work.I fell back to Twitter for a couple of days to see if any of my followers were looking for a developer. It lead to one interview. The interview wasn’t successful, but it was still a potential job and that’s what having a good network is all about. Making sure that you are well connected to people that can help find you leads and opportunities. Even though I hadn’t posted on Twitter for a while, people were still reaching out with suggestions.

I decided to create another LinkedIn account again to see if I cold improve on my search for a job. The last time I had a LinkedIn account I didn’t use it to look for jobs or keep my profile updated with what I was working on. This time it will be different.Having spent the last couple of weeks looking for work I’ve started to see the benefits of using your professional network more regularly. In he last week alone I’ve had a number of messages from people I have previously worked with who have leads for potential jobs.

Don’t neglect your professional network, it’s important. Keep people updated with changes in your employment status and projects you are working on. You never know, it could lead to a great opportunity for you when you need it the most.

Michael Wade examines places where you achieve more work.

It is obvious that where we work can affect how we work. Consequently, we need to learn which settings are best. A certain oddness may come into play. I’ve found that my home dining room table is ideal for some projects and not for others. The reason why has not been discovered but I suspect it may have to do with its height and width as well as the nice amount of light from some French doors.

Our den at home is a place for adults only. It’s really just a second sitting room and office but I always find it a great space for working. Minimal distractions and clutter.
— Stacking Deck by Execupundit

… Zombie Style.

Who thought that zombies could be so educational?

Update: Some links in this post pointed to pages that no longer exist and have been removed.

… Productive.

It’s been a busy week of interviews for myself. Made easier from the fact I have simple plan like this.

Update: Some links in this post pointed to pages that no longer exist and have been removed.

… with Adam Keys.

No fancy hacks or software here. Just straight forward tips that anyone can do.

Update: Some links in this post pointed to pages that no longer exist and have been removed.

Ever get an email marked as important and then proceeded to wonder why it is so important?

I get them every now and again at work, but what amazes me is that people still send email and mark it as important. Do you really think that little red flag you put on it will automatically kick me into state of tunnel vision, where I stop until the issue in the email is resolved? Be honest, how many times have you received an important email asking you to complete a task and deferred the work to later rather than doing it now. It’s not your fault. You know the task is important, but how important is it really? I think we can all agree that most of the time, it’s not that important.

Email doesn’t convey how important a task is because there is no tone in an email to indicate this. Also, we’ve lived with email so long now that we question every important email that comes into our inbox. How important is it really?If something is so important why waste the time on an email that may or may not get actioned? That little red flag called ‘important’ doesn’t have any magical powers you know.

If you’re about to send an email with a task that you think is important, then stop.

Discard the email and find the phone number of the person you wanted to send that important email to.Phone this person, discuss the task at hand. Provide that person with the all the necessary information that they need to complete the task.

Not only are you conveying how important the task is but you can also clarify any details that you might be asked about it.Next time you’re mouse hovers over the important flag, decide whether the task is so important that it warrants a phone call. Most of the time it won’t be that important, but when it is important, you’ll be glad you conveyed the importance of the task yourself rather than relying on a dumb machine to do it for you.

For employees, the fundamental realization is that an employer who asks for more than eight hours a day or 40 hours a week is stealing something vital and precious from you. Every extra hour at work is going to cost you, big time, in some other critical area of your life. How will you make up the lost time?

— Salon Bring Back the 40 Hour Work Week by Salon

I’m a firm believer that all work should be done within a specified 8 hours during the day. No more. I’ve been in development teams where overtime was only used in extreme circumstances and even then there was no stigma attached to doing it because everyone else is. I’d like to think that if I ever owned a company or ran a team, I would adhere to the rule of limiting work to 40 hours a week, possibly less. However, I’ve never been in that position so who can say.

Try Nicholas Bate’s time management plan for a better day.

Update: Some links in this post pointed to pages that no longer exist and have been removed.

Jeff Atwood uses his brain, Curtis McHale has thrown away some of his list and I’ve completely deleted mine. Is this the end of the todo list?

Update: Some links in this post pointed to pages that no longer exist and have been removed.

I wish I read this list by Michael Wade last week when I was at my wits end with an issue at work. I probably shouldn’t have sent the email, but I did anyway. As soon as I read point three, I knew I shouldn’t have sent that email.

3. Are you so upset that you shouldn’t be near a computer? Don’t e-mail when angry.*

How many times have you heard these or words to this effect?​

Keep both plates spinning​

It’s really just another way of saying multi-tasking.When you do hear colleagues say this, remind them you’re not a circus entertainer or even the love child of Andrew Van Buren. Plate spinning, multi-tasking​ or whatever you want to call it, is a productivity killer. Instead of focusing on one thing, you’re given only a small amount of your attention to each task you are working on. What happens when you do this? Yeah, those plates will fall eventually. Trust me.

Instead, give each task your undivided attention and focus. Batch your work into related tasks and tackle them one at a time.​After all, multi-tasking is a myth and I’m not a circus entertainer.

​I have a love hate relationship with email.I love having a medium that allows me to communicate effectively with others all over the world. Being able to send some thoughts to a family member in Canada, or thanking your mentor for that little motivational book they sent you in the post. Yip, it’s hard to beat email as a form of communication.

Until of course you get to your desk at work at 9am on a Monday morning and the deluge of email in your inbox makes you regret that you didn’t just phone in sick that day. Yes there are ways of dealing with your email on a daily basis that let you work smarter and more effectively by implementing filters and such, but that doesn’t stop people sending email to you.You see, when you work in a team, department or in a small company, email is often that go to tool that let’s one person tell everyone else about something. That’s great, but when email becomes the standard form of communication for ideas, discussions and projects, that’s when you’re going to wish you never opened that your inbox again.

From my experience, I have found that email in the work place is an invasive form of communication that tries to grab your attention from the pressing, but productive work that you are doing. It aims to break your concentration. When you have processed that ‘urgent’ email, you then need to reset your focus and get back to what you were working before you were interrupted. Personally I can do without that kind of distraction.

So what’s the solution? Well it’s easy. Non-invasive forms of communication that let you see with others want you to see without distracting them from their work. Project and task management, customer relationship management, and intranets are all greats ways of communicating with others in your company without interrupting what they are working on. They let your team see the information they need to see and they can act upon that information in their own time.

And don’t be under the impression that the digital world is the only place you can communicate.

The daily stand up is a great way of communicating with your team and shouldn’t be thought as being for developers only. Anyone in a team, should consider the daily stand up where you want a status update from the previous day and to quickly plan what’s going to happen today.

Kanban boards are another great trick I learned to use from my days working in an agile development team. An overview of the work in progress is a great way for everyone to see what’s going on. It also increases verbal communication over work rather than team members continually pinging emails back and forward.

As a rule, email should be the last form of communication in any team, department or small company. There are so many other ways of communicating that are more productive and will also let your colleagues get their work done.

So next time you want to update the team on a project or want to discuss idea, find an alternative to the evil that is email.

Update: Some links in this post pointed to pages that no longer exist and have been removed.

Nicholas Bate is at again. This time it’s his winning career formula. You might want to mix some strategies for success in there as well.

Update: Some links in this post pointed to pages that no longer exist and have been removed.

Mullenweg said he’s concerned that Silicon Valley is creating products that are so engaging that they’re also incredibly distracting, to the detriment of creativity and productivity.

— Matt Mullenweg: I’m Worried That Silicon Valley Might Be Destroying the World by Pando Daily

It’s so refreshing to hear from a tech founder like Matt Mullenweg, that he’s concerned about the distraction that his product could cause. How many web companies consider this when they’re building their big product that will change the world?

Update: Some links in this post pointed to pages that no longer exist and have been removed.

Another fine list from the man himself.

Update: Some links in this post pointed to pages that no longer exist and have been removed.