Language is the source of misunderstandings.
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Language is an art. Most languages are, but especially in the Anglo-Saxon world it is highly valued if you are a proficient artist in the beautiful language that is English. Being eloquent and using prose-like languages full of quirks and subtle jokes or references is a skill enjoyed by many. The Anglo-Saxon world is proud of its language and the heritage that’s intertwined with it. More so than other languages, and especially more so than the Dutch (but that’s another story).

However, that same language can be the cause of a lot of misunderstandings. Even between different variants of the same language, British English and American English, a lot of confusion can arise. If an American wants to table a topic for instance, they mean that they want to let it rest for a while and postpone the discussion. The British on the other hand will table that topic if it needs immediate discussion. The same expression, but a world apart. Winston Churchill once said about it: “Two nations divided by a common language.”

Eloquent can be simple as well

Eloquent speech is not from lip to ear, but rather from heart to heart.
~ William Jennings Bryan

Being eloquent doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to use uncommon or unknown (but often beautiful) words. There’s a time and place where we enjoy that kind of language. A time when we indulge in the richness, and wish we could write or speak like that.

But there’s also a time where being eloquent means that you use simple words, and avoid that rich language. As William Jennings Bryan said (so eloquently) it’s not about getting from lip to ear, but from heart to heart.
Click to continue »

Last week I was interviewed by the University of Manchester about user experiences with Getting Things Done. I’m not the perfect GTD adept, because I’ve changed my system and adapted it to fit my needs. So technically I’m working with a GTD-inspired personalized productivity system.

During the interview it dawned upon that I could only do this effectively, because I had learned and adopted the GTD system before I adapted it. Starting GTD was a huge job, but still it’s one of the best things I have done in the past two years. It has brought me peace of mind, and it keeps me from forgetting stuff.

10 steps to get started

Starting GTD can be an arduous task, especially to those who need it the most. For those of you who have yet to start (or for your friends and colleagues who should start), here’s how to get past that first hurdle:

1. Read the book
   There’s no starting with Getting Things Done if you haven’t read David Allen’s book. So go to your library, or if you can’t wait buy Getting Things Done.
2. No seriously…read the book!
   You can’s skip this step, it’s essential. You won’t be able to fully comprehend or appreciate the modifications people make to GTD, without knowing the system. So read that book!
3. Buy a lot of manilla folders and labels.
   Buy a lot (no even more than that!) of manilla folders, you need them for your filing system and tickler file. Buy labels too. Buy a labelling machine too if your handwriting is illegible.
4. Block 2 days in your calender.
   Yes. 2 days. The entire day. I know that’s a lot of time for busy people like you, but you’ll regain that time in the weeks to come.
5. No seriously…block 2 days in your calender to start.
   You can have lunchbreaks, but no appointments. You will need your focus!
6. Collect everything and put it in your inbox.
   Physical stuff in a physical inbox, digital stuff in a digital inbox. If you’re anything like me, this will make piles. Huge piles of paper and immense inboxes. Don’t worry about it, that’s where you need it to be right now.
7. Process stuff.
   Start at the top. Follow the GTD rules! But, if you’re really unsure about something, put it on a new pile. This is your purgatory, your easy way out (for now!). By now you’ll be glad you blocked 2 full days in your calender.
8. Making a pile “To archive” is a major pitfall!
   As soon as you have something to archive. DON’T PUT IT ON A PILE! File it immediately, there’s something really gratifying about filling a filing cabinet. And there’s hardly anything more depressing than a huge pile of stuff you need to archive.
9. Read the book again, but this time selectively.
   Going through this 2 day process has shown you which parts you need to re-read. Now you have some experience, and you’ll understand those parts better.
10. Focus on the purgatory pile.
    Don’t procrastinate working through the purgatory pile. It’s still going to be a difficult one. My experience is that whatever lands on that pile is either something that should be tossed away or something that’s not important to you, but possibly important to someone else.

That’s how you start. Keeping it up is another process. In that process you’ll work on applying the GTD rules in processing your inboxes on a daily basis. You’ll work on adopting the weekly review. And you’ll work on adopting the tickler file. And once you’ve adopted those, you’ll keep what works for you, and drop what doesn’t.

But for now, go on and read that book!

Image by Foxtongue.

• The more complex your system is, the more likely you are to abandon it.
• The more complex your system is, the more time you’ll spend maintaining it.
• Working on your productivity system is NOT productive time.
• Simple systems are no guarantee for productivity.
• It’s not about the system.
• No system will make your list shorter, only finishing tasks will do that.
• When you start a task: finish it!
• Writing down tasks you have already finished just to tick them off the list again, doesn’t make you any more productive.
• Finished tasks are not a trophy. Discard them when done!
• It doesn’t matter if you forget a task, you’ll think of it again.
• Write down things to do, as soon as you think of them.
• Not writing tasks down, doesn’t make your list any shorter.
• A short list doesn’t make you productive.
• A large list doesn’t make you important.
• A large list also doesn’t make you busy.
• It’s not about the list either.
• Procrastination separates the urgent from the non-urgent tasks.
• Non-urgent tasks will get urgent, if you allow enough time to pass.
• If you procrastinate a task for a month or more, discard it altogether.
• Failing to discard unfinished tasks separates the important from the non-important tasks.
• If you hesitate to discard a task, get some balls and finish it already!
• If you can’t finish a task in a day, break it down into smaller parts.
• Detailed tasks are only useful in the short term.
• Breaking down projects in detailed tasks for the entire project span is a waste of time. Two weeks down the road you know better ways to do it anyway.
• It’s also not about the task.
• It’s not about the system.
• It’s not about the list.
• It’s not about the tasks.
• It’s about the results.
• Finished tasks are NOT results.

Will you finally get some stuff done already!?

Photo by tracitodd

Over the past two weeks I have been reading Todoodlist, an e-book by Nick Cernis of Put Things Off (the laid-back productivity blog). It took me two weeks for three reasons:

1. it was a spare time activity (and I did not have a lot of spare time)
2. I couldn’t wait to start todoodling and sudoku calendering
3. it inspired me to re-read Zen To Done again

Although Nick mentions Leo Babauta of Zen Habits and his ideas on productivity, he doesn’t tell you to read Zen To Done. But Nick’s ideas on productivity and the simplicity they radiate, really reminded me of Zen To Done and the message it brings across (in a word: simplify!).

Now I have to tell you that I was already a little biased. At the end of last year I wrote about my switch back to paper, after trying several electronic devices and various online services for dealing with my to do’s, notes and appointments (the Getting Things done stuff).

One of the things I rediscovered is that I really (I mean really!) like to write stuff down by hand. And after some time I found myself drawing more and more in my little black moleskine and little red calender. Now why am I biased because of this? Well the tagline for Todoodlist is: “Technology is great. Pencils are better.”

Todoodlist

The e-book consists of three parts. The first part is a series of essays with funny titles like “Parrots in Space”, “Einstein Shaving” and “Zen Kitten in a Box”. The essays are an introduction to the ideas behind going back to paper and pencil.

Those ideas are presented in the second part of the book. You’ll learn about how to make todoodlists (yes they are special to do lists, and yes they kinda incorporate GTD’s projects and Next Actions), what Sudoku Calenders are and how nice it is to write on a banana. Allthough the last part is better performed with a ballpoint pen, instead of a pencil. All of them are rather simple ideas that make things easier and more fun (Sudoku Calenders are a lot easier than actual sudokus).

The third part of the book deals about how to embrace simplicity using several concepts. To be honest, most of these concepts I was familiar with (so I skipped some parts of that particular part of the book). Some of the concepts I have written about myself, and if you read The four hour work week by Tim Ferriss, you’ll recognize some of them too. Don’t get me wrong, they are valuable ideas and if you haven’t read about it, they’re simply gold.

I loved reading the first part of the book. I started reading it as a relaxing activity in spare time, and that part perfectly fit the need I had. I had some laughs, and some stories to help me in explaining concepts (thanks Nick!). The second part was so inspiring that I often stopped reading to get my moleskine and a pencil to start using it. And the third part I was skimming for the most part. All in all a very valuable e-book, well worth the $14 it sells for.

Zen To Done + Todoodlist = ZenToDoodlist

So it took me over 500 words to get to explaining the title (but you probably figured it out already). Why ZenToDoodlist? Because they are perfect additions to eachother. Zen To Done is a series of habits that will lead to a simple and effective productivity. The 10 habits are:

1. Collect



2. Process
3. Plan
4. Do
5. Simple Trusted System
6. Organize
7. Review
8. Simplify
9. Routine
10. Find Your Passion

In habit 3 Plan, one of the things to do is to plan your Big Rocks for the week. The Big Rocks are the things you really want to accomplish in that week. The same things goes for the daily schedule, but then they’re called MIT (Most Important Tasks). I find myself working with projects (GTD-style) as Big Rocks and the Next Actions in those projects as MIT’s. And the Todoodlist is the perfect tool to divide a project (big rock) into smaller actions and decide on the Next Action. And as soon as the context of these projects and actions is clear, planning them is a lot easier.

Habit 5, Simple Trusted System are my two little moleskines (black notebook and red calender). Black works as my ubiquituous capture tool, and it contains my todoodlists. Red has my appointments (and soon my sudoku notes and glyphies) and it contains my scatter-to-do’s (the random stuff that’s not project related). They simplify my system tremendously (to hand - pencil - paper). The only downside is that there are still two moleskines. So there’s some area of improvement is left…

If you follow Todoodlist closely, you’ll also find several tricks (with sticky tabs) to speed up your review process (I haven’t implemented them yet). Then go back to Zen To Done again and adopt the habits. The most important one: habit 4 Do. After that, look into habit 9 Routine. These will really get stuff done, the others are just there to help you not lose time on stuff that doesn’t matter.

Conclusion

Both Todoodlist and Zen To Done are valuable e-books, well worth the price the authors are charging for them. The combination makes it even more valuable, because they really go hand in hand in creating a simple trusted paper based system that will boost your productivity, simplify your life and inject some more fun into it.

PS: My own e-book Personal Core Values can help you with habit 10: Find your passion. You’ll discover what your personal core values are, and how you can use them to build a personal mission statement.

Passwords! My God, don’t you need a frigging shitload of them these days? I have a love/hate relationship with Digg, I keep forgetting the password I have there (it’s because they don’t allow special characters like ? @ ! &), forcing me to go through the annoying process of resetting it, confirming that via email, rethinking a new password, working my way through all the errors caused by special characters, compromising me in a password that I’m bound to forget again.

I was listing the passwords I use online, and it was plain scary. The list is enormous, and I haven’t even finished it yet (scroll down for the list). Argh!

A lot of them share passwords, because my brain capacity is limited (or I’m just too lazy to have different ones for each site). Most of them I use only once in a while, but some of them I use daily. And these are where you can put your passwords to work for you. You can turn them into a fun and productive event, rather than an annoying but necessary event.

Passwords you use frequently, should change frequently as well (how annoying is that!?). And they should be strong passwords too, if you care about the content they are protecting (or to satisfy the IT guidelines). This can sometimes be a real challenge, but with these simple tips you can turn them into assets, instead of a nuisance.

List your goals

This is something I’ve used a lot. Whatever goals you have, use them for your passwords. I’ve used passwords like:

• Finish2ndFloor!
• GrowBlogNow
• Get2500RSS

They’re pretty strong passwords, and when you’re typing them you get reminded instantly of what you want to achieve.

Prevent pitfalls of bad habits

When you log into one of your biggest time wasters for instance (IM, gaming, Twitter, Facebook, whatever), remind yourself that it’s a time waster. Use a passwords like:

• OneHourIsEnough (upper and lower case, not too bad)
• RUsure? (special character added, pretty strong)
• 1h=Q2>1h=Q4 (yay, Covey in action with a very strong password)

Learn spelling

Pick a word you have trouble spelling word and use that as a password. The sheer repetition will make sure you’ll never spell it wrong again.
Examples: Definitely - Opthalmology - Massachusetts - Prolificacy

Learn (a couple of words in) a foreign language

It can be fun to add some foreign words to your vocabulary. Want to know how to say beer in 20 langauges? Just look them up and use them as passwords:

• Spanish:Cerveza
• French:Biere (okay, accents are a problem)
• Italian:Birra

Or use the real translation:

• Merde=Damn
• Giornale=Newspaper
• Freizeit=LeisureTime

Extend your vocabulary

Use a new word and it’s meaning as the password. The trick is to find synonyms here, because the dictionary meanings tend to be long.

• Prolificacy=Fruitfulness
• Defiance=Resistance
• Superfluous=Redundant

Use affirmations

Affirmations are a popular technique to get you (back) in a productive state, or a harmonious state or whatever state you want to be in. In a lot of self improvement books the use of positive affirmations is advocated, but how often are you going to sit and read them out loud to yourself?

But if you use them as your passwords, you will repeat them often. Some examples:

• I’mFinanciallyFree
• IAm@Peace
• MyBodyVibratesWithEnergy

Have fun!

Admitted, it’s only a microhack. It’s not going to massively change your world, make you more productive, increase your IQ, expand your network or whatever. But it turns passwords into fun, and you might also learn something.

The sites I need passwords for:
So far I have: StumbleUpon, Digg, LinkedIn, Plaxo Pulse, Facebook, Twitter, Twitterfeed (via OpenID), Reddit, Gaia (former Zaadz), MyBlogLog, WordPress.com, How to be an Original (admin interface), WordPress DIY (admin interface), Feedburner, Joe’s Goals, Flickr, iStockPhoto, several bank accounts (4), Paypal, Neteller, Dutch State Lottery, Gmail (google, thanks for sharing passwords across ALL services!!), Lotus Notes at work, Hosting at Argeweb, Hosting at GoDaddy, Cell phone account at Orange (2), Internet Provider, alumni network of former employer, bol.com, Amazon, Text Link Ads, Linkworth, YouTube, Revver, several online poker accounts (pokerstars, partypoker, and the likes) and counting…