Very Simple GTD
This post provides you with a version of GTD that anyone can do, that requires basically no implementation, that will provide massive benefits versus having no system. This is not a full version of GTD. There are important things missing. The motivation for writing this post is that I have heard people say they tried GTD and gave up because it was too complicated and/or they didn't want to do all that work. The truth is that GTD is extremely simple - it removes things from your life rather than ...
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Time for a Review!
How do I know it's time for a review? I have lots of things that have to get done. (Seriously, who doesn't?) I don't know what the hell to do right now. I can tell you lots of things I should be doing but am not. I can't bring myself to do any of them because I'm terrified that I'm not doing something more important. Yep. Time for a full review. I don't care if it takes two hours. I have to get my house in order before taking any action. First step: Do a brain dump. Second step: Go through...
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I have no projects list
Here I sit without a complete list of projects and next actions! I don't know what I should do! There are so many things, but I don't know which one, and maybe I'm missing something that I should be doing but am not thinking about. Ugh. ...
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The Importance of Easy
I recently noticed that my usage of apps and systems is cyclical. Sometimes I use them heavily, because they're designed for a particular task that I'm doing at that time, and then I let them sit for a while. I will at some point return to the app or system when that item is again prominent. I started to think about why in some cases I went back to the old framework and in some cases I used a new one. The answer is that I always return to an old app or system if it's really easy to do so. A sim...
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What Are My Disasters?
One of the difficult choices you have to make in life is putting a relative value on all the different possible outcomes that might come your way in the future. In a very simple case, let's say there are three possible events that might happen in the future: Your car breaks down, requiring you to pay for the repairs or go without a car. You go on a vacation to Europe. You buy lots of beer, candy, and premium latte drinks every week. It's difficult because you need lots of information about...
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Pushing Forward Anyway
This is one of those mornings that I don't really want to do anything. I have so many things to do, but for each task I ask myself "How about this?" and the answer is "No!!!" On a morning like this it feels like there's no benefit from doing any of these tasks. Rather than doing nothing at all (or more likely, wasting a bunch of time on the internet) I pick something and do it. Just because I don't feel like doing a task doesn't mean I can't do it. I give myself permission to do things that are...
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Understanding the Importance of Defaults
People wanting to achieve goals use all kinds of tools: to do lists, writing in a journal, talking to others, and willpower just to name a few. One of the most powerful of these tools, but seldom used, is setting defaults. What is a default? It's something that you do automatically when you don't want to make a decision. Defaults have a massive effect on behavior, because they require no thought, only doing, and the doing becomes quickly becomes a habit. For many, the default for spending time...
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Your To Do List Is Not An Inbox
I regularly abuse my to do list. It doesn't help me to get stuff done because I use it as an inbox to capture things. It's a long list of things I have to do today, things I have to do this week, things I maybe should do sometime or maybe won't, reference information that doesn't have any value to me right now, and scattered thoughts that may or may not be coherent related to a project that may or may not currently exist. What a to do list should be. My to do list should be The outcome of car...
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How to design a work system
Once you have to do more than a handful of tasks (i.e., once you have a normal white collar job) you need to adopt a system in order to get your work done on schedule. Your system will ideally remind you to do the things you absolutely have to do, prevent you from working on things that aren't important to you, facilitate constant review of all your projects, make it easy to capture all thoughts, reference material, and interactions with others, compel you to make a decision about each item yo...
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Project Management Software Advice
You really only need five things for project management. You can be productive using any app or combination of apps that provides this functionality. There's no need to go hunting for the "best" project management app, or to check out the latest and greatest new cloud app that's loaded with features for only $7.99 a month. These are the five things you need to manage projects: Note Taking You need to capture ideas, make outlines, keep records of meetings, and draft documents. It has to be...
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Building a website with Zim Wiki
Zim Wiki is a pretty impressive piece of software. I used it many years ago, but back then it had a more limited feature set, and not everything worked as expected (I don't remember all the details). So I gave up after a few months of heavy use. I've been using Zim an increasing amount over the last several months. One of the things I like is the ability to export a wiki as a full-blown website. I use the Ecodiv-responsive template. I can't stand some of the font choices (they're too light, wh...
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Something you don't need: a perfect system
I've seen countless people not start working because their "system" isn't quite what they want. They don't want to write on paper because then how do you search for something in the future. They want to get their tags right in Evernote. They want to get some additional background knowledge before they start. This is all BS. Working imperfectly is better than doing nothing perfectly. You can always redo, edit, and fix something done wrong. You can always go back and retag your six dozen Evernote...
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MyBB setup - one critical missing instruction
I ran across MyBB this weekend and decided to give it a try. It looked cool because: It's a PHP app, and thus simple to install and keep it running It uses SQLite as a database, which I find much easier to work with It has all the features I would want Easy to customize There was one missing critical piece in the instructions. If you're going to use SQLite as the database, you'll be asked for the "path" to the database. Well it's not really the path as we usually use that term. It's the path...
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Kanboard with a single column
Kanban apps have taken off following the success of Trello. One of them, Kanboard, is easy to install on a web server, and is quite easy to customize. To be honest, I have never liked Kanban that much for most projects. It's my preferred approach for projects where being able to visualize things in two dimensions is needed, but most of the time I just want a list. It doesn't take much to turn Kanboard into a list-making app. First, you delete all but one column in your project. Then you add th...
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A tutorial for getting a local installation of Trac running quickly
I decided to give Trac a try on localhost, just to see if it's worth installing on a Digital Ocean droplet. I found the instructions to be imperfect in places - being an intermediate user of web technologies, I figured it out, but many others would give up. The first step was to install. I'm running Ubuntu 16.04, so that's easy: sudo easy_install Trac No problems. The documentation then said to create a project environment. I created ~/trac and used a modified version of their command: trac-ad...
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Academic collaboration
I was surprised when I recently looked at my options for collaborating on an academic research project. The surprise was that there are so darn many cloud apps available, and so darn few apps that are helpful. Obviously this isn't true for everyone. We all have our own workflows, and mine just happens to not fit into the typical collaboration app, which is designed for business use rather than academic research collaborations. What I need: Document sharing Ability to comment on documents Dis...
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Giving Standard Notes a Test
I don't know anything about Standard Notes. I see that it can be used as for blogging, so I'm going to give it a try. Experimentation shows that I can type in markdown directly: *hi* becomes hi ``` print("hello world") if (5 == 3+2) { print("equal") } ``` becomes print("hello world") if (5 == 3+2) { print("equal") } Unfortunately there does not seem to be any easy way to add math support through MathJax or anything else. Edit: This is not correct. Just by chance, based on what I was...
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