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…

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Tweak your passwords to benefit from them

Editor’s note: This post is written by Heather Johnson, who writes for Bootstrapper blog.

If you find yourself constantly rushed to finish your day’s work, then you need to start spending your time more wisely. The harsh reality is, you probably have plenty of time to get your work finished. With the following little tips, you will soon be spending that time much more wisely:

1. Maintain a Professional Calendar – Stop scribbling things down on sticky notes and start using a professional calendar. Whether it’s an electronic planner or a bound appointment book, you need to get organized.
2. Stop Overscheduling – Be sure to leave at least a fourth of your day open and free of appointments. You never know what will arise, so give yourself a little wiggle room.
3. Don’t Surf the Net – While you may need to check your email at work or do some other online tasks, steer clear of time-wasting sites. The Internet is one of the biggest drains on work productivity in every office.
4. Socialize Less – It’s both a blessing and a curse when you work with people you enjoy. The more you want to talk with them, the more you fall behind with work. Even if it’s your boss who likes to hang out, politely excuse yourself and stay on task.
5. Learn to Delegate – Are you a control freak at work? Sometimes, it’s okay to let some work go to someone else. In fact, if you are seriously overwhelmed, you must learn to delegate.
6. Be Punctual – Do you routinely slip into work 15 minutes late? Take extended lunch breaks a few days a week? Even if you work at a place that is cool with that, your tardiness could be eating into your schedule more than you realize.
7. Relax – Anxiety causes massive brain drain, which will slow your productivity. If you’re stressed because you’ve fallen behind, then your bad mood will only compound the problem.

By following the above advice, you will quickly start to feel more relaxed and productive at work. This will not only make your life less stressful, it will get you out of the office on time and with a clear conscience.

Heather Johnson is a freelance business, finance and economics writer, as well as a regular contributor at Business Credit Cards, a site for business credit cards offers. Heather welcomes comments and freelancing job inquiries at her email address heatherjohnson2323@gmail.com.

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7 Little Timesaving Tips for the Workplace

• I learned that they’re useful when I use them
• I learned that they’re useful when I don’t use them (and wish I did)
• I learned that there’s a discrepancy between planned available time and reality
• I learned that some occurrences disrupt you’re planning to such an extent that you have to start all over
• I learned that most of those occurrences are out of your control
• I learned that the way you deal with those occurrences determines the extent of their effect
• And I learned to leave room for the eventuality of such an occurrence in case of activities with deadlines

Rocket science? Hardly, but obviously something I had to go through before understanding. Next step is to master this skill.

But first holidays! I’ve got one post for scheduled for next week for you guys. I’ll be back with a regular weekly review on March 9.

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So where’s that review?

Christine O’Kelly (Self Made Chick) was put “On Notice” by Dave Navarro (Freelance Folder / Million Dollar Leverage), when he decided to start a 30 trial by putting the lessons of Christine’s e-book into practice. Christine in return shouted out to Dave to “Show her the money“, taking up a similar trial with the time management lessons of Dave.

Both of them are pushing themselves to improve, and openly challenging, praising, questioning and discussing what they experience. It’s a lot of fun to follow and read and discuss along. More great people are following and discussing, like James Chartrand (Men with Pens), Monika Mundell (The Writers Manifesto), Michael Martine (Remarkablogger) and Naomi Dunford (Ittybiz).

E-books

I somehow missed the fact that Christine published a 26-page e-book “How I Built A Profitable Freelance Business for Under $50 (And How You Can Too!)”. I got my copy, but have yet to read it (probably tonight).

I did download and read Dave Navarro’s e-book “How To Turn Your 24 Hour Day Into a 30 Hour Day”. Sign-up for his newsletter to get your copy. It’s a small e-book as well, but it really rung a bell with me. Dave touches on some points that I had discovered in recent months as well. He talks about not getting started, about keeping focus and eliminating distractions, about keeping yourself accountable for your goals and about having too many goals. So he got my attention!

Now where’s the cash?

Well the C.A.S.H. is a four-step program Dave discusses in his book:

• Clarity - identify your top priority using a checklist
• Accountability - review progress on a regular basis
• Strategy - adjust your strategy until your done!
• Honor - honor the process, by starting over

That’s in a nutshell where the cash is, and how you can find your 6 hours. If you want to know more about it, download the book.

My top priority? Plan my days!

Well, it’s been staring me in the face for a while now. When I used the simple checklists of Dave, they pointed out to me that I’m doing pretty good at my time results management already. My single top priority is to plan my days though. Planning my days is something that I have not been doing, but with a tendency to overcommit and a tendency to underestimate the time needed to complete a task, it’s quite essential.

So I created my own daily sheet to plan my day. Basically it’s a sheet of paper with a timetable divided into 30 minutes segments, with a column for my planning, a column for my actuals and a column for remarks. I’ll put it up for download soon. Update: download the daily planning sheet (pdf) here.

I’ve only been working with it for a day and a half now, so it’s hard to say that I have achieved results with it. I have noticed some thing already:

• It has made me more aware of how I spend my time and on what.
• It works as a focus tool, reminding me when I’m not working on the stuff I planned.
• It’s going to be a great reference to learn about how much time certain activities actually require.

And Dave’s convinced that most people who feel that they overcommit, are actually underplanning. So if I get this down, maybe I don’t feel overcommitted anymore.

I’ll keep you posted!

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Free C.A.S.H. can buy you 6 hours a day

If you don’t crack the shell, you can’t eat the nut. - Persian Proverb

Cracking the shell is a necessary activity to find the nut and eat it. The same goes for theories and concepts. Applying it to a real life situation is like cracking the shell of that theory. And the lessons you learn are the golden nut of insight you find inside that shell.

Cracking the shell is exactly what this post is about, and the nut we’re cracking is the theory of the Time Leadership matrix (or Eisenhower matrix). In this article, I’m going to present a case study on how to use this technique. I took my own blogging activities as the subject.

Time Leadership - a short recap

Time Leadership is a term coined by Stephen Covey and it’s about taking control of your activities by determining their relative importance and urgency. I’ve written about this concept before when I discussed Covey’s habits and I even made a sketchcast about it.

For a quick recap: The Eisenhower Matrix has two axes:

• Importance
  Do you regard the activities as important? This is defined by you: What’s important with respect to your values, ambitions and goals?
• Urgency
  Is there time pressure to do the activities? Time pressure is often applied by others, or by circumstances.

Combined, these two axes create a matrix with four quadrants:

• I: Quadrant of Stress
  Activities are both important and urgent.
• II: Quadrant of Value
  Activities are important but not urgent.
• III: Quadrant of Deception
  Activities are not important, yet they are urgent.
• IV: Quadrant of Regret
  Activities are neither important nor urgent.

The Time Leadership Matrix for my Blogging Activities 

I’m going to discuss all the topics in the matrix briefly, but for your overview I present the entire matrix beforehand (click for a larger version).

I: The Quadrant of Stress

Upgrading blogging platform to latest version 

Why it’s important:
Having my blog up and running is important to me. The blogging platform is an essential part in accomplishing that, and having the latest release is essential in security.

Why it’s urgent:
I use WordPress as my (self-hosted) blogging platform and most of the releases are security releases. I don’t want my blog to be vulnerable to attacks, so there’s some urgency.

Responding to comments 

Why it’s important:
Interaction with readers, especially the active ones, is important to me. I like interacting about the topics I write about, because I want to learn and grow. And besides that, it’s good for building a sense of community, which in turn helps grow the blog.

Why it’s urgent:
The time gap between the comment and the response shouldn’t be too big, to keep the discussion alive.

Making value comments on relevant articles on other blogs 

Why it’s important:
Learning from other bloggers helps me grow. Adding value content in the comment section lets me add to that learning experience, both for me and others. And value comments are good exposure for you and your blog as well.

Why it’s urgent:
The most effect will come from comments made early on new articles. Being there as one of the first is important in securing the exposure and for setting the tone of the discussion.

II: The Quadrant of Value

Writing pillar content 

Why it’s important:
Pillar content is the foundation for your blog. Quality articles that are well researched and well thought through and add to the main focus of your blog are real assets. They satisfy your writing need, they satisfy your readers, they attract new traffic, readers and links.

Why it’s not urgent:
Quality is far more important than timing in this case. It’s better to post a couple of days later and do it really good, than to post early with less quality.

Tweaking design and SEO 

Why it’s important:
I want to grow my blog. Having an accessible and appealing design of your blog is an important factor in the conversion of first time visitors into returning or even into loyal visitors. SEO work on the other hand, makes sure that search engines like your site, and that in turn makes them send new visitors over.

Why it’s not urgent:
There’s simply no time pressure to do this. Search engines are not going to cross you out of their lists for not doing SEO. And improving the conversion is a nice bonus, but there’s no time pressure in doing it.

Reading relevant blogs 

Why it’s important:
This is important to for several reasons. Other people’s ideas help you grow, they might inspire articles you want to write and they provide context links for further reading for your readers. And by doing so, you add to your network of blogging friends.

Why it’s not urgent:
Relationships grow over time. And it doesn’t really matter to other bloggers that there’s a period of silence every now and then. And if you have plenty of inspiration, you might just be writing instead of reading.

Analyze statistics 

Why it’s important:
Understanding where your traffic is coming from, knowing who your visitors are, where they live can help you to adjust your articles a little to make them even more appealing. But also on a technical level it’s important, what’s the distribution of browsers and screen resolutions. Do you know what your site looks like in those browser/resolution combinations?

Why it’s not urgent:
This is an activity that tweaks and optimizes your blog. It makes things more professional, more appealing. But there’s no real time pressure.

Building strong profile on one or two social media sites 

Why it’s important:
Having a strong profile on one or two social media sites, gives you great contacts and enables you to send a lot of traffic to other blogs and to your own blog every now and then. Sending a lot of traffic to other blogs will often lead that blogger to your site, with a possible new contact, new reader or a link in one of the upcoming articles.

Why it’s not urgent:
You can’t build a strong profile overnight. It takes time to build it, and it has small increments. Nobody will really care if there are gaps in your profile, as long as you’re a sustained and participating member of the community.

III: The Quadrant of Deception

Keeping up to date on the latest and greatest in blogging 

Why it’s not important:
Building a blog and a readership is something that takes time. In the end it’s all about the content of your blog and a sustained rhythm of publishing new content. The latest and greatest often hold promises that are likely to go unfulfilled.

Why it’s urgent:
Well the fact that you want to be up to date implies time pressure. News is only news for a short period of time.

Commenting on other blogs for the purpose of commenting 

Why it’s not important:
Commenting for the purpose of commenting doesn’t really add value. It’s not a bad thing to leave a small comment every now and then, when you don’t really have something to add to the article, but you really liked it anyway. Comments like “great article, very inspirational” simply don’t really add to a discussion, and should be used in moderation. They most certainly won’t make people visit your blog for your insightful comment.

Why it’s urgent:
For the same reasons as described in quadrant 1 (Making value comments).

Most blog memes 

Why it’s not important:
Most blog memes are unrelated or only slightly related to your main topics. Posting off topic is not a sin, but should also be done in moderation. Once in a while there’s a meme though that hits your topic dead on, and it would be a shame not to participate. They can be very beneficial if used in a good way.

Why it’s urgent:
Since you’re asked directly by another blogger, there’s a barrier to say you’re not going to participate. And being early in a blog meme is important, because they will get the most traffic and links.

IV: The Quadrant of Regret

Excessively checking stats 

Why it’s not important:
Looking at stats doesn’t drive visitors to your site. It also doesn’t add content to your site. It also doesn’t optimize your site. And when you look too often and too close, you won’t be able to see the big picture (hint: that’s where the information is hidden).

Why it’s not urgent:
The fact that the traffic is happening now (there’s even a WordPress plugin for watching your traffic live) doesn’t make it urgent. Nobody applies pressure on you to look at your stats so often.

Reading too many blogs 

Why it’s not important:
Having a real interaction with a couple of bloggers and adding value to their sites is beneficial. Following and reading too many blogs makes the dangers of information overload very imminent. Following 100 blogs can give you over 500 unread blog posts in a week, and if you need to divide your time over so many blogs to follow, comment on, build relationships with, you’re going to fail just because of lack of time (I would anyway).

Why it’s not urgent:
Nothing bad will happen if you don’t read all those blogs for weeks in a row. It simply won’t affect your blog, you’re not going to miss out on a lot, nobody will get angry. It does free up time though.

Building profiles on all social media sites 

Why it’s not important:
Most social media sites have a user base with specific characteristics. If the main characteristics of that userbase don’t match with the audience you are targeting, than there’s no (mutual) benefit in building a strong profile on that site. Reddit for instance has a mismatch with my topics, political and news value items do good over there, and I don’t write about those. I have nothing to add, they have not a lot to give me.

Why it’s not urgent:
For much of the same reason that building a strong profile on a relevant site is not urgent as well.

Implications of this analysis

Applying the matrix to these activities is half the lesson already. Placing them in context and discovering that something is unimportant to you, is the first step in changing your behavior. Specific lessons I learned:

• Checking stats is a pitfall for me.
  It’s not a coincidence that I know about that particular plugin in WordPress. I deactivated that plugin and removed it from my WordPress installation recently.
• Most Social Media profiles are in Quadrant IV.
  I didn’t spend time on most of them anyway, but now I can be proud for not spending time on them That was very refreshing, my lack of activity just changed from a nagging feeling into a proud feeling.
• Identifying urgent stuff in Quadrant III.
  This discovery effectively cuts my urgent activities in half, leaving me plenty of time to do the Quadrant I activities better (like responding to comments on my own blog), with probably time to spare for more Quadrant II work.

And those are definitely nuts I’ve cracked the shell, and I hope this helps you in applying this wonderful theory as well. Don’t hesitate to ask questions if something is unclear or if you want further explanation. I’ll be more than happy to answer them or to help you think along.

Further reading elsewhere:

• Scaling yourself by Chris Brogan (he touches on a lot of points I wrote about recently in his post)
• The Curse of the ProBlogger - Time Management and Scaling Yourself Up (Darren Rowse’s take on Chris’ post)

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Time Leadership for Bloggers - a case study

If you don’t recognize this state of mind (or body), you’re lucky! I talked to quite a few people and this seems to happen to the most of us once in a while, and a lot to some. There are a lot of reasons why this might happen to you. In this article I’m making a list of helpful tips that have helped me overcome this phenomenon. The tips are both short term (immediate) hacks and habits that prevent it from happening.

Drink a glass of water (or two)
Mild dehydration takes away your energy to a great extent. To quote the Wikipedia page on Dehydration: 

Symptoms of mild dehydration include thirst, decreased urine volume, abnormally dark urine, unexplained tiredness, lack of tears when crying, headache, dry mouth, and dizziness when standing due to orthostatic hypotension.

Recognize some of these? The solution is simple, drink a glass of water or maybe two. Wait for 10 more minutes while you’re body rehydrates, refreshing you and releasing energy to go do stuff.

Since a couple of weeks I adopted the habit of drinking a big glass of water first thing in the morning. And about two hours later, when I have my first coffee I drink another glass. It really works.

Take a short nap
Another cause of inertia may be that you’re just tired, or even edging on sleep deprivation. The cure for this is simple, take a short nap. You can try a meditation nap, a power nap or use the salesman trick.

The latter you can use when you don’t have the time to take a long nap, but do have a spare moment. Just sit in a chair and take a your keys in one hand, now let the hand with the keys dangle over the side of the chair and doze off. When you get to deeper stages of sleep, your muscles will relax and you will drop the keys. That in turn will wake you up again. A simple yet effective way of taking a short nap. But it’s best to avoid the need for napping altogether.

Exercise in the morning
Doing a workout in the morning is very satisfying and helpful to maintain energized throughout the day. Even having done the exercise makes you feel good about yourself the rest of the day, but your body is also powered up and ready to go (that is, if you don’t overexert yourself).

Be sure to replenish your body after the workout, drink water, eat some fruit (if the exercise was cardiovascular) or eat some protein (if it was about building muscle mass).

(I really should do this more often…I’m no star on this habit)

Tell others
Make a public commitment of the things that you’re going to do (like your goals). This makes sure that you have an external and internal motivation to get going.

Avoid sugar rushes
When you’re feeling low on energy it’s tempting to take a dose of sugar, often in the form of a candy bar, or a high energy ’sports’ drink. It helps, but the effect is only temporary and aggravates matters mostly. Since they are ‘fast’ sugars it will result in a sugar rush. It will release a lot of energy in your body, and it will induce a spike in insulin to transport that sugar throughout your body. But as fast as the supply of sugar appeared, it disappears. This short spike leaves a surplus of insulin that needs to be fed with sugar.

Avoid this by eating foods with the right carbs: the ones with a low Glycemic Index. One of the ideal snacks in my opinion is a banana.

Just take the first step
Sometimes getting started is as simple as taking the first step. Stuck behind the television, just decide to turn it off (and do it!). It’s a small step, but it breaks the cycle in which you’re stuck. Stuck playing games on internet? Just hit that little red cross in the upper red corner, or the red dot in the upper left corner (if you’re on a Mac). Nobody cares about that high score anyway.

Have some tips of your own?
These are just six tips that I use regularly, but there are plenty other possibilities. What do you do to break out of idle mode? Please share in the comments.

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How to get started (even when you don’t feel like it)

1. Email 

Email is a major disturbance. Every visible or audible notification (no matter how subtle) is a direct disturbance, because you are distracted by a signal taking away the focus from the task at hand. And unread messages are like small little voices whispering “Read me! Read me! We need your attention. Someone thought of you. Read me!”.

So even if you have the discipline to not read the new email, you will get distracted nevertheless. You will put energy in sustaining that state of discipline, when you need to put that energy in focusing on the task at hand instead.

Solution: Disable all notifications for new email. Done? Now close that client too!

2. Phones 

Phones are so intrusive. When the phone rings or vibrates it draws all the attention to it, even if you’re in the middle of a conversation. And if you don’t pick it up, it persists in disturbing you for half a minute or so. And you know there is someone, right at that very moment, putting in time and energy to get in contact with you. It takes discipline not to pick it up, not to listen to the voice mail afterwards and not to look at the text messages that are coming in.

Solution: Switch it off. Or if you can’t: relay your calls. If that’s also no possibility: find a phone-free location, or unplug the phone.

3. Instant Messaging (IM) 

This is like the phone but even worse. With phones you might not know who is calling and about what, but IM answers that instantly. Out of nowhere a message pops up in front of your work (if you’re behind a pc), and you see who it is and what they need you for. Your focus is gone instantly.

Solution: Switch off those IM clients.

4. Twitter 

I like Twitter, but it’s a major disturbance when you want to focus on a task. Twitter lets you update 70 times per hour and if you follow a lot of people, there are bound to be new tweets every time. It’s really fun and can be a very powerful tool, but not when you need to focus.

Solution: Close that client. You won’t miss a thing.

5. Radio 

At times music is very powerful to get you in a state of focus. But radio is not the best way. Radio can disturb in several ways, by means of a radio host babbling about stuff, commercial breaks that loudly scream for your attention or simply by playing a song that you really don’t like. Or it might also be a song that brings back all kinds of memories. Very detrimental for your state of focus.

Solution: Play a CD or a playlist of your mp3 player with music that you know will assist in getting and staying in a state of focus. Otherwise, turn off the radio.

6. Television 

Television is like the radio, only with images. Some people like to work with the television on, with news programs on or with music channels on. And while these might be a welcome distraction when you’re doing tedious repetitive work, they are a major interruption when you need to focus. Besides the reasons mentioned under Radio, there are also visual distractions. A flash of white light, or especially a flash of red light can draw your attention to the screen instantly and subconsciously.

Solution: Switch off that television.

7. People

People walking in are a major source of interruption as well. Whether they come in to simply ask a question, or to dump one of their problems on your desk or to have a social chat they are interrupting. Even if they are polite enough to ask if they can interrupt you (Sorry, you already have…).

Solution: Close the door to the space where you’re working. Make a “Do not disturb” sign, or take one home from a hotel, and put it on the door.

8. Visual clutter 

While you’re working on the task you’re focusing on, you get distracted by visual clutter in the space you’re working. At some point in time, your eye will catch that piece of paper that you thought you lost. Or it will catch a headline of an article in a magazine that makes you curious. Or … (fill in the blanks yourself).

Solution: Have a clean and orderly space where you work. If it’s an office, clean the office. If it’s the kitchen, clean up before you start. If it’s a workshop, have the right tools ready and the rest stored away. In short: have what you need in sight and the rest out of sight.

9. Mental clutter 

Mental clutter is a special kind of clutter. You can’t see it, but it’s there anyway. You’ll notice it when you’re working on a task and thoughts keep popping up in your head about stuff you want to do, need to do or should’ve done already. These thoughts interrupt you and make you lose focus. If you shrug them off though, you mind will only remind you of these things a little more often.

Solution: Get these thoughts out of your head and into a simple system you can trust. Start by reading Getting Things Done or Zen to Done to get you started. If these thoughts are in a system you trust, they miraculously disappear out of your mind.

10. YOU! 

Let’s face it, the single most important factor for disturbances and interruptions is you! Whereas a lot of the previous interruptions are initiated from outside you, there are many many more that are started from within you. You decide to check the internet to surf some pages, or to check that feedreader to catch up on the blogs, or to take a quick look at the stats (if you’re a blogger), or to login to online banking to check your financials, or to get that cup of coffee, or to send a text message to a friend, or to … Get it?

This truly is the hardest to solve, there’s not really a “hack” to prevent yourself from doing this. You can reduce the chance it happens though. Define what end result you want to see and prepare your work.

Further reading elsewhere:

• Keeping Focus While Beating Back Distractions @ LifeDev
• Adopt a 50/10 working rhythm @ Dawud Miracle
• 18 Productivity Haikus - Get Things Done and Achieve Inner Peace through the Power of Poetry @ Joshua Clanton
• Tips and Tricks for Distraction-Free Writing @ Lifehack
• 15 Can’t-Miss Ways to Declutter Your Mind @ Zen Habits

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Focus is Fragile: 10 Disturbances to Eliminate

Time for a brand new start, and I’m switching back to paper. I know, I couldn’t believe it myself either, but it’s true.

Drawbacks of the PDA-based system

On my PDA I mainly used the standard software to manage my contacts and appointments. For my GTD system I used ListPro and SOTI pocket controller (a setup inspired by gtdfrk) and it worked out quite nice, but it had some drawbacks that made me dislike it:

1. Entering data was painstakingly slow. (tap - tap - tap - tap -…)
2. The screen was too small. Both for displaying lines of text as for getting an overview of the lists.
3. Synchronizing was a horror. Two-way synch errors made me redo all kinds of work.
4. Loss of ALL data when it got stolen. To overcome #3 I had decided to keep all data for GTD on the PDA
5. No battery = no system. No system = no ubiquitous capture tool.
6. Calender and contacts did synchronize with Microsoft Outlook at home (which I do not use), but not with Lotus Notes at work (which I do use).

To solve most of the issues, I’m switching back to paper. That obviously won’t solve #4, all data is still in one place, nor #6, but I did that by hand anyway. And I discovered that I like writing a lot, old-school handwriting. It’s a lot better than tapping on a screen with a stylus anyway. 

Requirements for a paper based planner

Before starting to look at the different options, I made a small list of requirements for my new planner.

• Must fit in my pocket anytime
  So it must have a small size (about A6-size) and it must be thin.
• Week in one overview
  I don’t have a lot of appointments, so I don’t need a lot of space for them. Preferably there’s also no timescale to the day, let me decide myself upon my working schedules please.
• Ample space for notes
  I do have a lot of thoughts and things to do, so I need a lot of space for them.
• Simple and no clutter
  I don’t need inspirational quotes, pictures and other clutter. I need a simple system as one of the ZTD habits prescribes.
• Not expensive
  I prefer not to spend a lot of money on it. The PDA was expensive, but it had navigation on it too

So the best solution is small, simple and cheap.

Comparing different planners

I’ve limited myself to commercially available ready made systems. There are a lot of DIY planner systems out there as well, but I left them out of the scope. Partly because a lot of those systems assume you have a binder available, because you owned one of the systems already. And partly because I just didn’t want to go DIY on this one, I have already enough on my mind as it is.

Before I dive into the details, I’ll give you the table with the final results. Scoring is pretty easy: Get a requirement right, you get a point. Only the first and the last requirements are a little different:

• Fitting in my pocket is divided into two sub-requirements: Small and Thin. Both score half a point.
• Price is divided in two scores: Cheap ($0 to $50) and Average ($50 to $100). Cheap scores a point, Average scores half a point.

Now onto the details and the final result.

Time/System
Time/System has a ring-based binder system for their organizer solutions. Time/System is a well established brand for organizers and has a great choice of fillings available. They claim that you gain 18.4% productivity while reducing stress by 13%. But that test was conducted over 10 years ago, and the landscape of productivity has changed immensely over that period of time.

• Fit in pocket
  There are a variety of sizes available, going down from A5 to almost A6 size (Compact Planner ). I’m looking for A6 size, so they’re still in the race. The ring-based binder system does make the planner thick and uses a lot of unnecessary space.
• Week in one overview
  If you buy the right pages, then you’re good.
• Ample space for notes
  There’s space for notes or tasks for every day, even when you buy the weekly planner pages. Pretty nice.
• Simple and no clutter
  They refrained from putting quotes and pictures in their system, so it’s clean and simple.
• Price
  Ouch. Here’s one expensive system, a full system starts at $129 and a refill costs $50.

They do have a very nice feature with the to do list. You can fold it over the planner pages, making it possible to have all your actions in a central place and have them in sight all the time. Pretty clever thinking!

Final score: 3.5 

FranklinCovey
FranklinCovey have both ring-bound and wire-bound systems. The system is based upon the principles of Stephen Covey as he described in his book The 7 habits of highly effective people (read more about those habits here).

• Fit in pocket
  There are a variety of sizes available, in both systems. The wire-bound systems are pretty thin, however the ring-bound system is not.
• Week in one overview
  If you buy the right pages, then you’re good.
• Ample space for notes
  There’s space for notes or tasks for every day, although this could be more in my opinion. It’s there, but it’s minimal.
• Simple and no clutter
  Nope. The simplest system still has quotes splattered around the pages. The bigger the system gets, the more space is used for decoration and clutter.
• Price
  Small wire-bound planners are available for less than $50.

Somehow I expected more. I love the Eisenhower Matrix that Stephen Covey uses in his book, but I can’t find it implemented in the planners.  

Final score: 4.0  

Filofax
Filofax is the name with respect to organizers, at least for me it is. That might have to do with the 1990 movie Taking care of business with James Belushi. It was released in The Netherlands with Filofax as the title. 

• Fit in pocket
  Filofax also has a range of size available. The Pocket size is the size I’m looking for. Unfortunately the ring-bound binder makes the planner kind of thick. The thinnest system is an inch thick.
• Week in one overview
  As with most loose leaf systems: if you buy the right pages, then you’re good. They also have my favorite layout: Week on one page, and a full page for notes.
• Ample space for notes
  Like I said a full page for notes…every week!
• Simple and no clutter
  Yes, no quotes or pictures to fill up otherwise usable space.
• Price
  This surprised me, the small system with the basic binder is very affordable.

The binder systems only encourage procrastinating I think. If you have so much space to dump scraps of paper, business cards and other stuff, there’s hardly an incentive to get a smooth system. The movie made that clear to me (it was on television a month ago). 

Final score: 4.5 

Daytimer
I never heard of this brand before I have to admit. I guess they’re not so big in Europe as they are in the USA.

• Fit in pocket
  Pocket size is the size I’m looking for (gee, I wonder how they found that name). The wire-bound system ends up being fairly thin, so it’s a full score on this requirement.
• Week in one overview
  Yep, sweet overview on two pages.
• Ample space for notes
  There’s space for notes on every day, although it’s rather small.
• Simple and no clutter
  They refrained from putting quotes and pictures in their system, so it’s clean and simple.
• Price
  The Pocket sized planner with weekly pages comes to a little less than $50.

A full score on all requirements. It would be nice if the layout for the pages left more space for notes though.

Final score: 5.0 

Moleskine 
Moleskine is known for their notebooks and sketchbooks, that have apparently been used by Picasso, Van Gogh, Hemingway and the likes. Unknown to many is that they also have a range of calender and planners solutions, in similar sizes as the notebooks.. 

• Fit in pocket
  They come in various sizes, ranging from pocket size (9 x 14 cm or 3½ x 5½”) to extra large (19 x 25 cm or 7½ x 9¾”). The books are bound as books, so there’s no rings or wire in the middle. I kind of like that!
• Week in one overview
  The “12 month weekly planner notebook” has my favorite layout: Week on one side, space for notes on the other side.
• Ample space for notes
  Yep, every week an entire page. And then some in the back.
• Simple and no clutter
  Only in the early pages are some unnecessary pages with timezones and stuff.
• Price
  This is great! These little books are not expensive at all, around 10 to 20 bucks depending on where you buy (Amazon has them too).

A full score on this one as well! I have the luxury of choice now.

Final score: 5.0 

X47 
X47 is a German company that has a nifty solution for their organizers. They have a binder system, but without the rings. Instead they use small booklets that are held in place by a rod that slides into position. They have it animated on their site. 

• Fit in pocket
  One of the sizes is even called A6 (Germans just love standards). And due to their binding system, the planner is very thin as well! And quite elegant at the same time.
• Week in one overview
  If you buy the right pages, then you’re good.
• Ample space for notes
  If you buy the right pages, then you’re good. You get a booklet (in the binder) for notes.
• Simple and no clutter
  Clutterfree, and only whitespace to be found.
• Price
  Ka-ching! This is very expensive, the basic system is available for around €150, but a typical system is around € 210 ($220 to $320).

Unfortunately the site is only available in German, French and Chinese (I think). English is still under construction, which frankly is kind of stupid in my opinion. If not for price, this system would be on top.

Final score: 4.0 

Quo Vadis 
Another unknown brand for me. I stumbled on this site, through comments on an article I found somewhere (nope, can’t remember which). I doubt that they’re available in Europe, their site doesn’t even have a shop. 

• Fit in pocket
  Quo Vadis has a lot of different systems and different sizes. I looked at the Space17 in particular, due to size and thickness. It scores on both accounts.
• Week in one overview
  Space17 has my favorite layout. I could do without the time schedule on the days.
• Ample space for notes
  A page for every week, gotta love that.
• Simple and no clutter
  It’s so clean, it’s almost boring. I don’t even think they have international holidays in there.
• Price
  And it’s available for a bargain as well.

The only setback? It looks cheap too!

Final score: 5.0   

Succes Organizing system 
This is a system that’s in stores in the Netherlands. The site is strange though, the focus is primarily on leather and it seems like the fillings are only accessories.

• Fit in pocket
  There is a small size available, I looked at the Compact system. But every system is a ring-bound system, which makes it too thick.
• Week in one overview
  If you buy the right pages, then you’re good.
• Ample space for notes
  There are separate pages for notes…if you buy them.
• Simple and no clutter
  Another clean and simple system.
• Price
  Due to the expensive binders this system scores only half a point. But it’s available for under $100.

Final score: 4.0 

Rite in the Rain
Rite in the Rain has one distinctive feature. It’s contents are made on water resistant paper. This makes it a perfect solution if you need to take notes while you’re outside and when it rains. And it’s environmentally friendly as well, no chemicals or plastics are used on the paper.

• Fit in pocket
  Nope. The smallest size for planners is simply too big for my purposes, and because it’s a ring-bound system it’s also too thick.
• Week in one overview
  Yep, that is if you buy those pages. There’s not an awful lot of choice, but it is available.
• Ample space for notes
  Yes, but that is if you buy those pages.
• Simple and no clutter
  Nothing but lines and date numbers.
• Price
  It’s not overly expensive, but it’s not cheap either. Water resistant pages drive up the cost I guess.

This system deserves a place here, because it’s unique. Co-developed with soldiers, it’s a perfect solution if you work outdoor and might need to check your planner in the rain. That won’t happen for me. I now realize that size is a knock-out criterion…

Final score: 3.5   

Planner pads 
The site looks amateuristic, but the product is quite nice. A lot of though has gone to the page layout, and it shows. They use a kind of funneling technique to draw your attention to all the relevant stuff that you might need in a planner.

• Fit in pocket
  The system is thin, but the size I’m looking for is not available.
• Week in one overview
  Yes, the design has the week in one overview. Along with other relevant stuff.
• Ample space for notes
  That’s incorporated in the design too.
• Simple and no clutter
  Only the elements of the design are on the pages, nothing more.
• Price
  The price is in the Cheap section with $25 to $30.

My fellow GTD-blogger Stephen of HDBizBlog has made DIY planner pages, inspired by this design (amongst other inspirations). Take a look at the pages through the ad on the right “Raw data in. Information out.” if you’re interested. If you decide to buy them (for a couple of bucks) I earn some change as well

Final score: 4.5 

Top 3 and the final choice

There are 3 systems that have a perfect score of 5.0. They are:

• Daytimer
• Moleskine
• Quo Vadis

In the end I chose the planner by Moleskine. It won the race from Daytimer because it isn’t a wire-bound system and it won from Quo Vadis on aesthetics.

As soon as I made the decision I went out to find the planner, but around Christmas planners for 2008 are mostly sold out. As was the Moleskine planner, but in the end I found one (the last one) in a local shop. Two weeks in, I’m using it a lot and I particularly like the notes page every week, it’s a great place to store next actions and put down some thoughts.

Now to see if I’m going to miss the digital benefits. Moleskine is pretty analog after all.

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Techie goes analog again: comparison of paper based planners

In the show last night he was working with a three year old that did not talk or walk yet. One of the messages he got through went something like this:

“There are so many words in your house…so many words, but nothing gets done.”

“It’s making your son confused, he thinks: if you want a new car, get a new car! If you want the house redecorated, redecorate it! Don’t talk talk talk, but do.”

“So many words, you talk but don’t decide, the words… YOU ARE WASTING WORDS!”

“There’s no fun in words, they get wasted and lead to nothing…”

Wasting words

The scene struck a chord in me, and especially the phrase “wasting words”. As a writer and a NLP enthusiast I know the power of words, and I use and choose words deliberately. What words you choose to use can make or break a message or result in an entirely different response than intended.

But I never thought of words as an asset that can be wasted. When people talked too much and do not get things done, because they fail to reach an agreement or fail to make a decision, I thought of that as a waste of time. But it is a waste of words too! Words have so much power, but when words lead to nothing, that power does not get used. It gets wasted.

There’s no fun in words if they get wasted

You’re a little kid, you want to make things happen. Make things, break things, throw them around, make a change in the world surrounding you. You want to do something, and experience that the world is different, because you did it. Even if it’s as simple as throwing a spoon from the table to the ground. It’s somewhere else and it’s there because you did that!

One of the things that was holding the kid back (apparantly) in starting to talk, was his experience that words lead to nothing. They lead to more words and not to action. What’s the fun in that? His solution: shut up and do something else…

Adults waste words professionally

My mind wandered of to meetings I have had in many different companies, and the stories people tell about meetings in corporate life. People waste words there!

1. First we waste them by putting them on paper (or in a word processor).
2. Then we waste them by putting them in email announcing that there are words on paper.
3. Then, as the meeting approaches, we repeat them in powerpoint and project them on a wall in a darkened room.
4. Then when the light turns on again, everybody starts wasting them by talking.
5. In the end nothing gets decided, and we waste more words documenting that in the minutes of the meeting.
6. Some more words get wasted, reviewing the minutes of the meeting.
7. Then we start over again…
8. ARGH!

Can you tell I don’t like meetings? There’s one exception: when there’s a clear objective to the meeting and decisions need to be made on a short notice weighing several viewpoints. In most other situations, things can be solved in another, more efficient way that’s more fun too!

Be like that kid!

Kids want to make things happen, they want to experience that they have an impact on the world surrounding them. When they discover the power of words, they experiment a lot with that. Parents remember it very clear when their kids discover the word “No!” and the question “Why?”. Parents start acting all crazy if you just repeat them often enough…

Be like a kid, but choose another solution than the kid in the show. He decided to not talk, because it didn’t lead anywhere. That’s the negative option that halts progress. The positive option is to choose to make things happen, to use the power of words and to choose not to waste them.

Ask yourself: What do I want to accomplish as a change to the world? It can be large, huge even, but also very small. The main point is to focus on the effect you want to accomplish. If you got that clear, then focus on how to accomplish it. And use your words wise and deliberate. They’re too powerful and too much fun to waste.

Want to read more about the work of Derek Ogilvie? He has a book Baby Mind Reader that sells for only a couple of bucks.

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How adults are wasting words professionally

Productivity systems are a series of habit changes
Leo states in this e-book that adopting a productivity system is in fact a series of habit changes. Usually this is true, you have a couple of habits that are not compliant to sticking to the system, and you have those habits for many years already. The system won’t change them, you have to.

If you fail to change the habits, the system won’t work and you’ll get disappointed. Yet another system that looked promising and doesn’t deliver. Back to square 1. I should know, I’ve been there (and it sucks!).

One habit at a time
Leo advocates to change only one habit at a time, using habit changing techniques. Changing multiple habits at the same time can be done, but takes a lot of determination and energy. I tried it when I started with GTD, and subsequently did not manage to keep up with all the aspects of the system.

I have experienced first hand that this is the best way to change habits. So I did try to change all my habits at the same time when implementing GTD…and failed. After a month or two, I noticed that I picked up one habit of the system though: Keeping my inboxes empty. And I was getting pretty solid at this too! One habit changed, and other habits followed. One at a time.

Zen to Done: changing habits to be productive
Zen to Done, how is it different from GTD? Well GTD focuses mostly on the system for productivity and ZTD focuses more on the habits needed to sustain that system. There are more differences, but this is the most notable in my opinion.

Here are the 10 Zen to Done habits:

1. Collect
2. Process
3. Plan
4. Do
5. Simple Trusted System
6. Organize
7. Review
8. Simplify
9. Routine
10. Find your passion

And being the minimalist he is, Leo also provides a short version, ‘ZTD light’ if you will. This version consists of the first 4 habits only, combined with an ultra simple tool.

I like habit 10 a lot. If you have the time, you might want to focus on that habit first. Finding your passion is the best way to achieve authentic success. And if you know your passion, habit 8 gets easier to do.

Am I sticking to Zen to Done?
I’m working on getting more productive for quite some time now. And focusing on what it is that makes you happy, that gives you fulfillment and what brings you authentic success is what this blog is all about. Reading the e-book reminded me of some habits that I have to adopt yet.

Some of the habits I already have to an extent that satisfies me (for now anyway). They are: Collect, Process, Do (well most of the time), Review, Simplify and Finding your passion. The other habits need work, and there are many guidelines, tips and tools to make any of them work. The next one I’m taking up is Plan.

How to get the e-book
Even though you can find a lot of the material on ZTD on Zen Habits, the e-book Zen to Done adds powerful concepts to complete the system. Having it all in an e-book, in a simple and pleasant design, serves as a great reference. It will only cost you $9.50.

You can buy Zen to Done directly from this site:

Or click on Zen to Done to visit Leo’s site and read some more.

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Zen to Done: Changing habits to be productive