I had a similar idea, putting the main subjects of my job on my bulletin board scatterplot-style, with the X axis representing long-term importance and the Y axis representing short-term importance (urgency, basically). This is bodies of work as opposed to specific tasks, though, which I still have in a list on a whiteboard.
My life is categories 2 & 3; there's not much 1, and I never get to 4. I'd be much happier with more 1.
The great thing about cat 1 is that if you leave them alone they tend to resolve themselves. (Sometimes they turn into cat 2.)
This link is neither urgent nor important.
Pakistan's telecommunications agency has issued a list of words that it considers obscene or offensive, telling mobile phone companies to block text messages that contain them. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) deemed 586 Urdu words and 1,109 English words offensive or pornographic, according to reports in local media. Some are expletives or sexual words while others are medical terms, but some entries have left many scratching their heads.
Included in the list are words such as "intercourse," "condom" and "breast," as well as seemingly ordinary words like "period," "hostage" and "flatulence." Among the more bizarre are "monkey crotch," "wuutang" and "Jesus Christ."
As someone who also has a mostly teaching-lots of service-not much research university faculty position, I think the categorization is fantastic and totally agree with the followng description. But I'm creeped out by the feeling that you have a secret docu-cam capturing my pathetic life.
Given time, cat. 4s tend to mutate into 3s and 3s into 2s. Most 1s cease to exist if not attended to. Therefore it's wise, if you get any time for it among the 2s and 3s, to attend to 4s as soon as possible. If you strongly feel you should be working on a cat. 1 at any time, you've probably misidentified it and it's actually a 2.
I classify my tasks along three dimensions: important vs. unimportant, interesting vs. uninteresting, and taxing vs. non taxing. Stuff like entering attendance and uploading lectures is important and uninteresting, but also untaxing. I generally keep up on that sort of stuff.
Grading essays, however, is important, uninteresting, and taxing. That's what I'm doing now. I hate it.
Reading philosophy books is unimportant (because I don't have a research position) intersting, and taxing (I need my whole brain to be working to do it.) That's really the stuff I like to do.
4: An unverified list of the banned English words (the article you link, apo, just links to a letter explaining the changes and without the attached list).
The trouble is that even a project which originates as category 3 tends to spawn lots of category 1 tasks.
With appropriately managed expectations, it's fairly easy to clear out categories 2 and 3.
I've been experimenting with several different to-do list tracking and time management ideas in the past three or four months.
The primary conclusion I have come to is that externally-driven work is monumentally disruptive, in a way that most of the time-management materials I come across simply don't acknowledge.
I mean, they acknowledge that switching back and forth between tasks is inefficient. But they don't seem to be written for people who come in to the work in the morning and have to cover the phones because the receptionist is out, and then have to run down to the lobby to defuse a situation with the security guard, and then have to take the copier repair person over and show him the broken machine....
I mean, I get why it's good to block out time for specific projects. And I get that closing your office door (metaphorically) and focusing for an hour or two can be really valuable. But I just don't think that most of this stuff is written for people who work with the public in any meaningful way. And so I end up getting disproportionately exasperated with it, which is uncharitable of me but there you go.
My dad's civil service workflow method was triage - incoming paper got classified into "immediate action", "immediate dustbin", and "leave to mature". Stuff in the pile maturing would be given first half a day, then a whole day, then a week, then a month to develop into one of the other categories.
11. Nails it. Time management theories, and most similar "business" writing is mostly about 'spherical cows', and I don't think it's at all disproportionate to be exasperated by it. Either the people who write this stuff get paid handsomely for adding no value whatever, or most of the people who read it are so dumb it's a miracle they can find their office in the morning. Whichever explanation is true, it's a bit depressing.
And I get that closing your office door (metaphorically)
Having an office door would be a huge step forward, here.
I was taught the approach in 12 by an employment advisor when I was a teenager. It's practical, efficient and unrecognised.
Fuck yes, at 14. They keep moving more people onto our floor, and I've gone from effectively my own office [big private space made of partitions, rather than a proper office], to being in much the same space but with 3 more people.
"immediate action"
What is this crazy moon language?
14: In all fairness, I have to say that I've worked both ways, and I'm substantially more efficient with a cubicle. But I do use headphones and RainyMood.com when I need to concentrate and write. Best $13 I've ever spent.
"immediate action"
What is this crazy moon language?
"ACTION THIS DAY", IF YOU DON'T MIND.
If you strongly feel you should be working on a cat. 1 at any time, you've probably misidentified it and it's actually a 2.
I have a lot of tasks that are only important in aggregate - no one class meeting is that important, no one homework assignment, committee meeting, email, student question, etc, is itself super important. I'm putting all these in category 1, because they are all on strict schedules.
(How you habitually respond to these ends up being important, though.)
I classify my tasks along three dimensions: important vs. unimportant, interesting vs. uninteresting, and taxing vs. non taxing.
I'm really enjoying the mental image of nine physical inboxes, arranged on your desk in a 3x3 square, with each incoming task being meticulously sorted into the appropriate box in the grid.
11: That's what I like about GTD. Not a lot of unreasonable expectations. All that's asked of you is that you have a list, and you don't let new items "mature" and rot away. Either you can do something now, or it goes on a list you will check in the future, or it gets thrown away. The main problem it solves is not remembering to work on the important-but-not urgent stuff once you've finished putting out fires for the morning.
Then you just have to get into the habit of checking your list when you have time.
21: Your mental image is faulty. Make it a 2x2x2 cube. Much more fun.
21: I might construct one as a way of avoiding doing some important, taxing, and uninteresting tasks.
I just realized that the taxing and importance dimensions interact. The more important a task is, the more stressful it is to complete.
If I separate out "urgent" from "important," I could make it a hypercube.
21: no, I like the 3x3 square. You just put a big "X" in red tape on the boxes that run along the diagonal, so you know not to put anything in those. (To avoid logical inconsistency.)
so you know not to put anything in those
Except Paul Lynde; he goes in the middle one.
Wait, that's not right. Dammit, now I'm going to have to get out a piece of paper.
Dammit, now I'm going to have to get out a piece of paper.
Done. I wrote on it, "figure out how many boxes I'm going to need to categorize my tasks." If I had an "unimportant, interesting, nontaxing" box, I would put it in there. As it is, it just got thrown in my general purpose to-do pile, where it will probably sit undisturbed until I throw out the whole pile several months from now.
I meant to link to this earlier.
||
OT, this seems like it may be of interest to unfogged: "Children with high IQs more likely to use drugs as teens, adults"
The results may seem surprising at first glance, but the researchers noted that they do fit some established patterns. "High-IQ individuals have also been shown to score highly on tests of stimulation seeking and openness to experience," they wrote, and it could be that "illegal drugs are better at fulfilling a desire for novelty and stimulation."
Two other traits linked with childhood intelligence -- boredom and a tendency to be teased by one's peers -- could also fuel an interest in "using drugs as an avoidant coping strategy," the researchers added.
|>
7 & 11 and the OP all resonate. I'm sitting here with a couple of months worth of filing -- filing which I have tried to sort and file twice now -- plus a file room full of miscellaneous junk.
And I still haven't figured out exactly how I am reimbursing people for their recent mileage expense. Hmph.
I quite like category 1! You get to check things off and feel productive!
I have trouble with this. I spend too much time on teaching duties and easy classes, and not enough on real work, because I hate the feeling of having worked all day and not accomplished anything. This probably means that I should not be in a Ph.D. program. Whoops.
Just so I'm clear, what kind of tasks are you placing in category 4? Housework? Scheduling dentist appointments?
Task: Bookmark Kevin Drum, promise self not to read Yglesias at Slate.
Done!
The final straw was, just the other day, MY slathering worthless hack Tyler Cowen with love. I know that the guy reviews ethnic restaurants in strip malls, and therefore has impeccable SWPL credentials, but he's an absolute hack who took the opportunity of the 2008 crisis to avoid every mirror in his house and double down on the rightwing economic bullshit that led directly to the crisis. He's as credible as Instapundit.
This thread inspired me to finally get off the couch and stop drinking coffee, pay all my bills for the month, do the lunch dishes, and go running. Now: shower and then band practice and then dinner.
But I can't tell which category these things really fit into.
Witt, _Time Management for System Administrators_ is entirely about a much-interrupted-by-the-customers job. I don't know if you can use the techniques they recommend, but at least they assume the contradiction is inherent in the system.
36: But that's not enough to bring you to unbookmark him where he currently is?
Task: Bookmark Kevin Drum
What?! How did this happen? Last I knew he was problematically boring!
Cowen showed up on some public radio thing I was listening to the other day -- erm, can't remember what exactly (Diane Rehm maybe), but the other commentators invited to make remarks were OWS people on the ground -- and Cowen was introduced just as Professor at [wherever he is]. I was quite gratified to hear one of the OWS people in response flatly identify Cowen as libertarian, and therefore, you know ....
OT: Directed mostly to Flippanter, but others obviously welcome to reply if moved: we have at the shop a box full of P.G. Wodehouse. I have never read Wodehouse. Which title would you recommend first and foremost? Or does Wodehouse not work that way?
Hm, having just looked at the Wikipedia entry, I see he writes what might be called series. I don't know where to begin, then.
I'm partial to The Code of the Woosters myself.
Hm. Noted, thanks. I don't really recall what's in the box -- maybe 25 titles, miscellaneous. I sifted through and didn't know what to make of any one over another.
I've never read a Wodehouse book that wasn't awesome, but I'm not sure I've read a very large sample, so maybe the people who bought the books that got left at the place where I read them only picked the winners.
Definitely Code of the Woosters.
I'll leap on that one if it's there.
This is one of those not urgent, but important things. That is, we're moving the shop, with a deadline of June of this coming year, so boxes are making their way to the new location on an ongoing basis, and yo, if you want to actually pluck something from somewhere, you'll want to do that soonish, because it's going to be sealed in a box for the foreseeable future. Maybe that makes it urgent but not important. Possibly not urgent, not important. Still, small window of opportunity. So I remark to myself every time I walk by that box.
I don't get why the Jeeves-Bertie ones are the most popular of Wodehouse's books. Maybe it's only because I read the Psmith books first, but I definitely prefer his third-person stuff.
I need a free desktop-capable task list/manager program. I know from experience that I'm not going to use paper lists and things that require the browser to be open are too easy to hide - I don't like having a browser window open if I'm not going to be using it. I've tried a few things, not many though, and haven't liked them - or liked them but don't use them (cough Remember the Milk cough).
I suppose I could try outlook again, it might even make me more employable to say I can use it, but I don't really want to have a program always running that uses that many resources just to have a task list. Also, I'd like to sync the list to another computer, but that's not that important. I have no idea why I'm posting this here instead of searching the internet.
Scheduling dentist appointments?
This has been on my to-do list for at least three months.
I suppose I could try outlook again, it might even make me more employable to say I can use it
This sentence confuses me. People actually list that they can use *Outlook* on their resumes?
No, but they don't like to have to train people in it. Actually, I've seen it listed as a qualification required for some low level jobs, but not for a while.
I find org-mode totally the thing, but if using emacs would make you more employable you'd probably already know about org-mode.
Lifehacker.com talks about these things ever so much, and one of their favorites is a plain text file (and then they recommend ways to work with it).
54: People sometimes have to put Powerpoint and Excel down. I've never used Outlook much, but I can.
Putting End Notes down can be useful for research jobs.
58: Powerpoint and Excel (Excel in particular) I can totally understand; they have some very useful advanced features that really do require training. But Outlook? It's a freaking mail reader! (With a calendar/task list built in. But still!)
I've actually been trying out vim for notetaking, but still haven't gone to the point of actually using some kind of markup yet. It feels kind of pointless to just go into insert mode and type away.The little coding I do has been easy enough to take care of in Notepad++. (Well, except for some XML/XSL, but a software free trial covered what I needed for class.)
Actually taking plain text files and putting them into some kind of task system that will give me reminders and checkable lists seems not possible while keeping to a purely plain text system.
Rationally, it would make sense for me to read lifehacker as I've found useful stuff there on searches. But for whatever reason, I can't get myself to follow any of the -hacker suffixed sites.
The lifehacker list, and the org-mode koolaid.
The lists are in plain text and simple syntax. You do have to run a script, or set one up to run, etc., for checklists and agendas and so forth.
Mulliner's Buck-You-Uppo is the single funniest story ever written in human history. the nurses on my grandmother's ward when she was getting a hip replacement ended up all having to come in and see what was going on, because both she and my dad were so paralyzed with laughter that the nurses thought these strangled grunting sounds must mean someone was in serious distress.
re: 56/57
All of the VMs on our work systems come with Vi/Vim installed as default, and not emacs. This can drive me to howls of inchoate rage. Especially when some of them only have Vim, and not nano/pico or any other small, not-insane editor.
Not that I completely disagreeg with 42, 44, 46, 47, but Leave it to Psmith has my vote.
Avoid the early school stories and the golf ones. Anything else is awesome. The Mike and Psmith stuff is a good introduction because they link back to the early school stories (which you won't read) and give some idea of where he was starting from. I personally prefer Blandings to the Jeeves/Wooster books because Lord Emsworth is adorable, but gusty bus.
(I like the school stories.)
And speaking of Bertie, I see an OWS protester got his skull cracked (literally) and was charged with grand larceny for stealing a policeman's helmet hat.
My latest work to-do list process (primarily for type 3 tasks) is a chain e-mail to my self. Sooner or later I stumble upon it, or remember to look for it (usually late on Friday afternoon).
68. I like the school stories too, but I'd advise a PGW novice leaving them until they were well into the more typical stuff, unless they happen to be an Englishman who went to boarding school before WW1. They're an acquired taste, I think.
I just read a few Mulliner stories and liked them, but not much more than that. (Buck-You-Uppo, in particular, I found contrived beyond the point of enjoyment.) The greatness of the Jeeves stories, I think, is how PGW pulls off such a dimwitted character being the first-person narrator; it drags you into the ridiculous world and its logic.
MINIVET IS A HERETIC! BURN HER AT THE STAKE!
The greatness of the Jeeves stories, I think, is how PGW pulls off such a dimwitted character being the first-person narrator
By not really doing that? If you read carefully, Bertie isn't nearly as dim-witted as he seems; sometimes he's extremely resourceful. Many of his friends, however, are seriously challenged, and because they all talk the same language they all appear equally thick at first glance.
(/pushing my luck)
a chain e-mail to my self
I do this a lot.
If you read carefully, Bertie isn't nearly as dim-witted as he seems; sometimes he's extremely resourceful.
--chris y is the UK culture and literature correspondent for Slate.
And "Buck-U-Uppo" is one of the great drug culture stories of the English language - in terms of sheer unabashed pro-getting-out-of-your-skull-ness, it's right up there with "Whisky Galore" and Thomas De Quincey.