As part of the Ready for Anything Yahoo! Group, I'm leading the charge to read a chapter a week of Ready for Anything. I will be posting my submissions to the group here.
Reading this chapter gives me a clarification of the purpose of the weekly review, and the idea of the levels (ie: runway, 10,000 feet, etc.). If you read into that that this chapter is somewhat repetitive - yeah, I kind of think it is, but in a good way.
I have it in my weekly review checklist that, on the first weekly review of the month, I am to review my goals. Really, anything above runway (tasks) and 10,000 (projects) is a long-term goal. So it is nice to have this one coming up a week before I will be doing that
review.
There are so many things that I need to look at, hard, both personally and professionally. And I need to do it all the time, not just more often. I need to nudge and push them along. I think that is the point - if we don't know what we are doing at the most basic level, how do we expect to push things along to achieve what we want in the long run.
Jan 18, 2009
Chapter 3 - Knowing your committments creates better choices of new ones.
As part of the Ready for Anything Yahoo! Group, I'm leading the charge to read a chapter a week of Ready for Anything. I will be posting my submissions to the group here.
Reading this chapter really helped crystalize how things have been going for me. I've done weekly reviews the last three weeks, and another one is to be done tomorrow morning. I do have a sense of anxiety about the fact that my e-mail wasn't clear on Friday, and neither was my inbox.
It was amazing though - Friday I spend clearing some old junk out of our offices, to make room for folks who need the space. It was really satisfying, but took most of the workday. It is as satisfying as cleaning a garage. And the whole time, I knew it was the RIGHT thing to be doing. I knew my other committments, and this was one of my projects and it was the right time to undertake it. It allowed me to clearly think through some of the things.
I have most of my committments, if not all of them, tracked in my trusted system - for work anyway. One of the "by the way" questions was where do I need more structure. I need it in my home. I need to really set GTD up in my house somehow, and stick to it the way I stick
to it at work.
Reading this chapter really helped crystalize how things have been going for me. I've done weekly reviews the last three weeks, and another one is to be done tomorrow morning. I do have a sense of anxiety about the fact that my e-mail wasn't clear on Friday, and neither was my inbox.
It was amazing though - Friday I spend clearing some old junk out of our offices, to make room for folks who need the space. It was really satisfying, but took most of the workday. It is as satisfying as cleaning a garage. And the whole time, I knew it was the RIGHT thing to be doing. I knew my other committments, and this was one of my projects and it was the right time to undertake it. It allowed me to clearly think through some of the things.
I have most of my committments, if not all of them, tracked in my trusted system - for work anyway. One of the "by the way" questions was where do I need more structure. I need it in my home. I need to really set GTD up in my house somehow, and stick to it the way I stick
to it at work.
Jan 14, 2009
Chapter 2 - You can only feel good about...
Unlike what is discussed in this chapter - the brain dump - I've done my brain dump in little chunks over the past month. Even that has helped to get my mind clear.
I find the discussion about checking which one you want to do next the most interesting part of this chapter. This week I am working on my second-largest challenge after the weekly review, which is actually WORKING from my lists. It is a terrible problem for me, as I often
write it down and still work from my head. Very rarely do I "review all of [my] options of what to do and make the best choices" - I'm working intuitively on work I know I have to do, but not often from my lists.
I try and do a minor brain dump during my weekly reviews, but it doesn't always work that way. I'm going to shortly be pasting the trigger word list from the book (it's on one of my lists) into my notebook so that I can get at it right beside my Weekly Review Checklist.
As to the by-the-ways, I'm using Outlook 2000. Sometime in the spring, I put in a vb script that creates a task from an e-mail. It gives the task the name "Follow up on:" and then tacks on the subject from the e-mail. All very slick. Except I was just clicking and saving, and the tasks were unweildy because a) there were many, and b) I wasn't giving them names that meant ANYTHING to me. I weeded a TON of those out this week, and will have a nice tidy to-do list by the end of this week.
You know, when I'm hoping to do another Weekly Review.
I find the discussion about checking which one you want to do next the most interesting part of this chapter. This week I am working on my second-largest challenge after the weekly review, which is actually WORKING from my lists. It is a terrible problem for me, as I often
write it down and still work from my head. Very rarely do I "review all of [my] options of what to do and make the best choices" - I'm working intuitively on work I know I have to do, but not often from my lists.
I try and do a minor brain dump during my weekly reviews, but it doesn't always work that way. I'm going to shortly be pasting the trigger word list from the book (it's on one of my lists) into my notebook so that I can get at it right beside my Weekly Review Checklist.
As to the by-the-ways, I'm using Outlook 2000. Sometime in the spring, I put in a vb script that creates a task from an e-mail. It gives the task the name "Follow up on:" and then tacks on the subject from the e-mail. All very slick. Except I was just clicking and saving, and the tasks were unweildy because a) there were many, and b) I wasn't giving them names that meant ANYTHING to me. I weeded a TON of those out this week, and will have a nice tidy to-do list by the end of this week.
You know, when I'm hoping to do another Weekly Review.
Jan 10, 2009
New year, new direction.
The new year always fills me with some kind of excitement. Planning (sometimes for the first time, really, in months), being creative, being filled with energy - nearly overwhelming. The new year is always a fun time.
This week, I managed to do some planning last weekend, including goal setting and cleaning up. I was coming off two weeks of vacation. When I got to the office on Monday, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it wasn't a gong show. I cleaned up, I did some organizing, and having done a mini weekly review on Sunday, I hoped to do another Wednesday.
The week flew by. I got stuff done. I didn't do a WR on Wednesday, like I hoped. But I got some minor projects completed, lots of tasks done, and was even in training for a full day on Thursday. Never did I get overwhelmed (maybe because so much of my staff was in training throughout the week), never did I get overworked. I had relaxed control.
I did do a Weekly Review, Friday afternoon. I did a thorough one. Sometime last year I put a VBScript into Outlook 2000 that lets me make a tast from an e-mail, and I had lots of those there that were stale, outdated or done, but poorly named. Weeded 'em all out. I weeded out old stale phone calls. If they need me, they will call back, but I know I had returned many of those. I got a lot of stuff out of there that had started to rot. I worked through two e-mail folders - on for Next Actions, one for Waiting Fors - that was holding stuff that may or may not be on the lists, and put it on the list, or deleted what was done.
It took a long time on Friday, but I did it. Then, I started to plow through them. My calls list was too long, as was my follow ups and waiting fors. Oh my, I felt so good knocking them off. And I did get more creative. And when I got home, I felt like it was ok to be home, that nothing needed to be done this weekend from the office end of things.
Just like the post below, it is true - cleaning up does create new directions.
By the way - I heard a little suggestion about using Baroque music as a way to shut out the background noise during the weekly review. I loaded some onto a CD (you kids should look up what those are), along with several other instrumental albums including the iconic Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield, and it was remarkably calming and useful during the weekly review. I recommend it!
This week, I managed to do some planning last weekend, including goal setting and cleaning up. I was coming off two weeks of vacation. When I got to the office on Monday, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it wasn't a gong show. I cleaned up, I did some organizing, and having done a mini weekly review on Sunday, I hoped to do another Wednesday.
The week flew by. I got stuff done. I didn't do a WR on Wednesday, like I hoped. But I got some minor projects completed, lots of tasks done, and was even in training for a full day on Thursday. Never did I get overwhelmed (maybe because so much of my staff was in training throughout the week), never did I get overworked. I had relaxed control.
I did do a Weekly Review, Friday afternoon. I did a thorough one. Sometime last year I put a VBScript into Outlook 2000 that lets me make a tast from an e-mail, and I had lots of those there that were stale, outdated or done, but poorly named. Weeded 'em all out. I weeded out old stale phone calls. If they need me, they will call back, but I know I had returned many of those. I got a lot of stuff out of there that had started to rot. I worked through two e-mail folders - on for Next Actions, one for Waiting Fors - that was holding stuff that may or may not be on the lists, and put it on the list, or deleted what was done.
It took a long time on Friday, but I did it. Then, I started to plow through them. My calls list was too long, as was my follow ups and waiting fors. Oh my, I felt so good knocking them off. And I did get more creative. And when I got home, I felt like it was ok to be home, that nothing needed to be done this weekend from the office end of things.
Just like the post below, it is true - cleaning up does create new directions.
By the way - I heard a little suggestion about using Baroque music as a way to shut out the background noise during the weekly review. I loaded some onto a CD (you kids should look up what those are), along with several other instrumental albums including the iconic Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield, and it was remarkably calming and useful during the weekly review. I recommend it!
Jan 4, 2009
Ready for Anything!
I have always tried to make a chapter of "Ready for Anything" a part of my weekly review. There are 52 chapters. Huh, there are 52 weeks. Maybe this goes together?
As a reinvention of my GTD Self, I lead the charge to read a chapter a week on the Ready for Anything Yahoo! Group, and I will be posting my posts to the group here.
Cleaning up Creates New Directions
Here I go and get everyone hyped up, and what happens? No post from me! I've been doing my weekly review and my build up, so here's what I got from this chapter.
Really, this is about the importance of the weekly review. I will spare everyone the too-oft repeated "if you aren't doing the weekly review..." admonishment. Most of us aren't doing it every week. Doing one once in a while deserves a pat on the back. I'm not "black belt" and am fine with that.
I weeded out my list tonight, even killing some categories that I had, which were frankly stupid. I didn't need separate projects lists, I just needed one. I definitely only needed one Someday/Maybe list! (Don't even ask.) So I managed to get current - sort of.
Tomorrow I go back to my office for the first time since December 19th. It will be busy - catching up, sorting through my physical inbox, as my e-mail box is clean as of tonight. Fortunately I have some staff development going on with many of my staff members, and
that will occupy most of them for the day, so I will get some ability to get things caught up and into my system.
I'm going to peg Wednesday afternoon to do another weekly review, once I've got all the new work stuff in. I hope I stick to that. What I did really take from this, and the most powerful part I have found, is something I already do - when I have no idea what to do or where to
turn, when I'm feeling totally ineffective, I pick up the first thing in front of my nose and I deal with it. I concentrate on dealing with it, and it gets done. Then the next. After a few, I'm productive as anything.
As to the "By the Way" questions, it was good to pull back a touch and think about the areas where I do need to do some cleaning up - areas where I have outstanding projects that I haven't recorded, that sort of thing. (I don't intend to treat this as a book report, so I'm not
telling where these are!.) It also helped me to clarify which the next one to tackle is.
As to "what can I forgive" - a little bit hokey, I always figured, but then again, there is always something I can forgive too.
Have a great week!
As a reinvention of my GTD Self, I lead the charge to read a chapter a week on the Ready for Anything Yahoo! Group, and I will be posting my posts to the group here.
Cleaning up Creates New Directions
Here I go and get everyone hyped up, and what happens? No post from me! I've been doing my weekly review and my build up, so here's what I got from this chapter.
Really, this is about the importance of the weekly review. I will spare everyone the too-oft repeated "if you aren't doing the weekly review..." admonishment. Most of us aren't doing it every week. Doing one once in a while deserves a pat on the back. I'm not "black belt" and am fine with that.
I weeded out my list tonight, even killing some categories that I had, which were frankly stupid. I didn't need separate projects lists, I just needed one. I definitely only needed one Someday/Maybe list! (Don't even ask.) So I managed to get current - sort of.
Tomorrow I go back to my office for the first time since December 19th. It will be busy - catching up, sorting through my physical inbox, as my e-mail box is clean as of tonight. Fortunately I have some staff development going on with many of my staff members, and
that will occupy most of them for the day, so I will get some ability to get things caught up and into my system.
I'm going to peg Wednesday afternoon to do another weekly review, once I've got all the new work stuff in. I hope I stick to that. What I did really take from this, and the most powerful part I have found, is something I already do - when I have no idea what to do or where to
turn, when I'm feeling totally ineffective, I pick up the first thing in front of my nose and I deal with it. I concentrate on dealing with it, and it gets done. Then the next. After a few, I'm productive as anything.
As to the "By the Way" questions, it was good to pull back a touch and think about the areas where I do need to do some cleaning up - areas where I have outstanding projects that I haven't recorded, that sort of thing. (I don't intend to treat this as a book report, so I'm not
telling where these are!
As to "what can I forgive" - a little bit hokey, I always figured, but then again, there is always something I can forgive too.
Have a great week!
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