Resolving resolutions
First of all, I think I should offer an apology for the holiday hiatus; I’ve been really busy doing two things which work generally leaves me unable to do: socialising with friends and travelling with family. Meanwhile, hyalineskies has continued on without me: since I’ve been away, Hacking a GTD Moleskine went somewhat viral; appearing on del.icio.us/popular, Lifehacker and lifehack.org, not to mention tens of personal blogs. It seems (in an ironic sort of way) that my modified, simplified version of David Allen’s GTD is gaining a tiny cult following of its own.
Back in the same article, I promised to check in at the beginning of 2007 to say whether or not my system ended up working out for me, and I’m rather disappointed in myself. In the lead-up to finals, I wasn’t disciplined enough and let the GTD Moleskine collect dust on my desk. Oddly enough, however, I picked it up after finals, and the book has made itself into a staple in my life. The Moleskine now tags along on most of my ventures in my coat pocket, and it has proven invaluable in helping me manage my freelance load. It’s really very useful.
The Moleskine method has not been without its pitfalls. I have been lax on processing tasks into their proper positions, processing the inbox only every three days or so. That said, my productivity has greatly increased; the reason I find myself so lax on processing is that by the time I actually get around to process, I’ve got most of the tasks completed. I’ve also taken down to writing just about everything in the list, from mundane tasks such as “vacuum kitchen area” (note: my kitchen is really small) to much more complex things involving freelance projects. I’m certainly busy, but GTD is leaving me with schedule-able time to meet with friends or go to parties/clubs, something that become largely impossible at times when I juggled multiple projects.
The GTD system has also helped me with something else: making my new year’s resolutions. With “become more organised” on the list, it’s obvious that the system is helping. However, I have two more resolutions that GTD can’t help me with, and that’s where I’m turning to the experiences of, well, more experienced “lifehackers.”
Resolution Two: Be more punctual.
I am one of those absent-minded, easily-sidetracked people that will be late for my own funeral. I consistently arrive everywhere 15 minutes late; in fact, my doctor has taken to scheduling my appointments later than they tell me so that I arrive on time. While I always make it somewhere, I rarely make it there early.
I’m not sure what it is that causes me to be late to everything, and for that matter I doubt that one thing can be held responsible. It seems that however much I plan ahead or try my best to be early, the stars align to stop me from getting where I need to be on time. In one example, I left for a meeting at work an hour earlier than was necessary to be there on time; I happened upon a massive traffic jam and got to work roughly ten minutes after my colleagues had left in the carpool to corporate headquarters. None of us were particularly pleased. This trend still continues on a daily basis, and I am not sure what — if anything — I can do to be more punctual.
With that said, I’m still trying. I’ve started setting my alarm clock an hour and a half early in the morning (as opposed to one hour) to improve my chances of punctuality to the first of my day’s tasks, to which I am always the latest. I’ve taken to trying (rather unsuccessfully) to go to sleep earlier than my usual 2-3 AM, although in doing so I only seem to lie awake until that time range, regardless of the sleep I may have had the night before.
Resolution Three: Be healthier.
This seems to be everyone’s resolution in some way or another; after all, the biggest New Year’s Resolution is to lose weight. Oddly, my resolution is the exact opposite: gain weight. My ultra-fast metabolism, be it a curse or a blessing, leaves me much thinner than most my age; in some cases I could still pass for a high-schooler at 21 and a half. I’m not really sure how to resolve this other than to do the same thing the fat burners are doing: eat well and work out a lot.
I’ve certainly been eating healthier. I’ve been working on a high-protein, high-vitamin diet and have almost entirely cut trans fats, the supposed leading cause of ischaemic heart disease in the United States. Much to my own surprise, I even gave up my usual grande no-whip mocha for a papaya protein shake.
Like most other Americans, I find myself horribly non-committal to the gym. The oddity of the situation is that if I can actually get myself to go, I have plenty of fun; the issue is motivating myself to walk the 3/4 mile to the recreation building. However, like most people, American or otherwise, I also greatly dislike losing money. That’s where my plan comes into play: instead of just schlepping to the gym, bag in tow, I’m actively investing in athletics. I’m buying the proper nutritional supplements, gear and locker fees in hopes that I’ll deter myself from being lax on my gym attendance. After all, it’s really simple microeconomics: if I can make the cost of not going outweigh the benefit, I’ll inevitably go. Once I get there, I don’t want to leave.
Meanwhile, I’m attempting to learn a lot about exercise methods. While I’m looking to build some mass, I also have the seemingly counterproductive goal of increasing physical endurance for medium-distance running. Hopefully I’ll be able to balance the two.
The resolution resolution
To help me achieve these goals, I have started a log for them; seeing progress seems to be the best motivator for me. I’ve realised that the GTD Moleskine seems to cater to this almost superficially: while I do get plenty done, I’ve taken to writing small next actions which solve little necessary purpose and exist more to make it seem like I’m doing a lot.
On the punctuality front, my school notebook now contains a record of how late I am to each class every day, giving me a metric that I can see trends in. Out of all this metric obsession-compulsion, the exercise log is the most swamped. I am keeping a record of total caloric intake and weight just as a weight-loss dieter would, trying to sway myself away from the screw-lunch-let’s-have-coffee mentality to eating the proper foods.
Just as I did with the GTD Moleskine, I’ll post about my results of my newest “life hacks;” this time, however, I’ll check in in May due to the long-term bias of these goals. Meanwhile, hopefully this post will serve as some inspiration: will you stick to your own goals this year?
Article Abstract
Posted 5 January 2007. Approx. 1,177 words.
While my GTD Moleskine grew popular, I spent some time re-thinking my own productivity and organisation just in time for New Year’s. With resolutions being the usual January craze, I’ve got my three resolutions for the year; what are you doing to improve yourself, and how are you going to really accomplish your goals this time?
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There’s nothing unhealthy about being thin. You need to maintain a BALANCED (i.e. moderate!) diet, not go crazy on protein.
Thin people live long happy lives.
Also, your Hacking GTD article leaves a lot of questions open. Can you write a more detailed overview of your system?
–Steve
Stephen:
Not so according to my nutritionist, who says I should be eating a healthy diet, but should be pretty much taking in 1.5x more protein than is normal.
About GTD: I’m not sure what else needs to be said about implementation. What is it that you guys are looking for? I can certainly expand on it, but I’m not sure what needs to be expanded upon.
Maybe some more pictures of what it should look like?
Well, you might want to find another nutritionist for a second opinion.
Anyway.. re: the article. The original simply lacks any amount of concrete detail on the implementation. If you write more articles, expand each section in detail, I believe it’d go a long way. Furthermore, the amount of traffic you’ve receive from a detailed explanation should be fantastic.
Yes, you put up a few pics. One of the tabs, one of the page, and one of the closed book. But how do you actually use it? What’s the lifetime of a task/project. In detail, what do you do differently from or leave out of GTD, and exactly, how do you implement it in your system?
Plus there are a number of these types of questions in the comments of your original post.
I appreciate it!
Thanks,
Steve
is there a way to get a full shot of one of your completed pages? i like your system, but i’m a newbie to all of this and i’d like to see how it goes together.
Update
Okay guys, I’ve posted a full completed page over on Flickr for everyone to look at.
@Stephen: I’m no nutritionist, but if you’re a fast burner and your body tends to be highly ectomorphic you’ll have less fat than is healthy for you. I have a friend who is like this and he has 4% fat on his body, though he eats at least twice as much as me – and that’s just to maintain his weight, not increase it. His nutritionist has him on a high-protein diet too. In fact, a different nutritionist has me on one too (but instead of trying to gain weight, I’m trying to lose it). I guess they’re fairly standard…
@Eston, I’ve just made a GTD Moleskine just like yours. I’ve tried other GTD mechanisms like the Hipster before, but they usually turned into an ugly folded up pack of paper within 2 days. I’m very interested in seeing if the Moleskine makes any difference.
@Estion, @Guy.. rubbish. Sorry, but eating an unbalanced diet is not healthy (for anyone, fat or skinny).
Eat some of everything, eat good food. Simple as that. Some one who’s thin/wiry, a hard gainer, should probably be eating plenty of good fats (i.e. avocado), oils (look for mercury-free fish oils), carbohydrates (low glycemic, complex [fruit!!!, whole grains]), and yes, good protein (some meat, fish better, or even hemp – like gorillas!). Problem is that today, “carbohydrates” and “fats” means white bread and animal fat/oil and junk food – which are empty carbs and empty fats, that really aren’t great for anyone.
I assume you understand you must consume more calories than you burn right? [People want to make rocket science out of this.. it's simple]. Yes, you’ll need to experiment to figure out what you’re burning, because it sounds like the standard rules-of-thumb are going to underestimate for you (i.e. you burn more than average for your age, gender, height, weight, etc.). But increase your caloric intake until it works, it will work.
Weight monitoring should be done on a sort of moving average basis. In other words, log your weight each day. Consider your “actual weight” to be something like today_actual = yesterday_actual + ((today_scale – yesterday_actual)*0.1). Repeat every day and after a week or so you’ll have the BEST idea of your actual weight. If you don’t do this, your mind will be constantly tricked by the normal deviation in your weight.
And, especially, you better not be consuming any stimulants like caffeine or tobacco!
And, umm, slow (lower heart rate) exercise, such as walking, light jogging, tends to burn fat. You need anaerobic exercise. You’re gonna gently tear your muscle fibers apart when you work out. Let them recover. Repeat.
Seriously.. don’t fuck your body up. Eat normally. Eat good foods.
I hope all that helps you keep from hurting yourself more.
Oh, and I made my own GTD Moleskine, loosely based on yours. Thanks!
As one who can appreciate the “problem” of showing up 10-15minutes later than others would prefer I do have a possible solution. Try setting your cell phone alarm to go off 5-10minutes before you actually need to leave. If it takes you longer to wrap things up then give yourself more time. I’ve found this helps tremendously as it gives me the extra bit of time to wrap up whatever it is I’m doing before I need to be out the door.
Good luck with the “be on time” goal. I have been trying to figure out how to be punctual for at least five years (before that I had school and detentions if I was late…never got a detention thankfully). Anyway, if you find the answer, post about it. I have tried the “go to bed earlier” thing, the “set the alarm earlier” method, the “multiple alarms” trick, and several others. I always find a way to make myself late for everything. My fiance says I am going to be late to our wedding in September. Let’s hope she is wrong! Good luck with your goals!
I am one for being late to almost everything. I have noticed that much of my time is lost while I am getting ready in the bathroom (yeah, it can also be considered a girl thing) because there was no clock to look at while I showered and did other things. So, I simply got a shower clock/radio for Christmas and it has helped manage my time so much easier when I’m getting ready.
My point is, if you always find yourself losing track of time when you’re in a certain area or doing a certain thing, make sure you have a clock or a watch on hand, and remember to look at it (it’s easy to forget when you’re caught up in something). And go with saeder’s idea: set off an alarm that’s set to the time on when you should leave.
First let me say thanks for the info on your GTD Moleskine hack which I plan to implement within the coming weeks. Regarding nutrition you need to eat LOTS of food and drink LOTS of water. You are probably not eating as much as you think you are right now. I am talking about eating 6 meals a day spacing them out every 3 hours. Being an ectomorph myself I have learned that this is the only way to put on mass. It takes a lot of work initially but once you get into a routine it becomes fairly easy. I have tried several different programs and all worked to a degree, but I highly recommend you pickup the book Scrawny to Brawny. I found the book to be very thorough and the author on nutrition, John Berardi, mainly recommends eating whole foods while most other books consistently pushed supplements.
I will never go to the gym. However, I have found that shovelgloving works well, and I don’t have to go anywhere.
Shovelglove
Can you post a pic of a project page out of your moleskine that has some interesting content on Flickr?
Well, the comments are all over the board here, but I don’t care about nutrition. I’m here for my GTD fix.
I’m curious. Your INBOX picture looks like what I expected, but do you keep area for… ah crap what does GTD call it… a braindump, capturing, whatever… I’m thinking in terms of this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pigpogm/38260403/
How do you do you capture->process->inbox cycle?
What Jermaine said.. it’s the truth.
I would definitely read something more about using ref. and iterations numbers.
Thanks again for your posts about gtd and moleskine!
Just a quick logistical question on your system. Where do you keep the Next Actons? In the Inbox or the Project area? I am contemplating a separate section for them but I want to keep the rewriting and multiple-crossings-out to a minimum. Any thoughts?
Thank you for the How to… Two suggestions
(1) Post-it notes for next actions, can be moved around. Saves on rewriting, scratching out, and so on. Makes the pages behave more like folders than lists. Better than a three-ring binder. And you can throw out the item as suggested in Norman’s _Things that Make Us Smart_, or keep them on a prject page.
(2) I re-read Allen’s _GTD_ after a year of using a notebook; it’s amazing what one gets from a second read through—Mortimer Adler style, as described in _How to Read a Book_, the older edition, available online (much better than the one currently in print, rewritten by a Mr. Van Doren).
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Related: Follow up post on HylineSkies Jerry Brito PigPog Introduction of GTD PigPog Method…
Were you planning on doing a more thorough review of your GTD moleskine with more details regarding implementation and issues with the system? I would certainly like to read it.