No, but I liked these 7 habits of highly successful people (via kottke).
That's pretty funny. Reminds me of the line in Wedding Crashers where Vince Vaughn says that "sailing is like sex to these people."
In a non-funny vein. Am I the only person who occasionally gets so overwhelmed by anxiety that you just shut down, can't focus on what you're doing. It's really frustrating, because every time it happens, I vow that I won't take on too much. But then I wind up doing too little and am bored. I've never found a happy medium.
And does anyone know of good software to help with organization of one's non-computer stuff?
Apo, that was great. It made me smile.
Sorry to double post, but I just wanted to add that the guy's got a web site with a blog and everything.
BG, my girlfriend suffers from the same malady. For her, only physically getting out of town does any good.
I have heard of it. Many recommend it.
On productivity--when my sister was writing her dissertation, she found the book The Clockwork Muse very helpful. It's about managing your time and producing on a schedule when you have a long, open-ended writing project. She keeps thrusting it on people, telling them it solved all her problems.
I get pretty ineffective sometimes, though I often muddle through with the things that have to be done right now. (For instance, I was completely unable to concentrate on my prep last night and woke up before 6 am to prepare my slides for today's class. Fun!)
The notion of a guy who talks about Getting Things Done and has a blog beggars belief.
It was on LibraryThing's top 25 most-owned books (#25) until a few days ago.
This is funny, but sad and true. But I bought a copy of GTD a year and a half ago because I was overwhelmed in a manner similar to bostoniangirl.
True to form, I've never gotten around to reading it yet. Talk about taking the first action step...
I'm interested in reviews of Clockwork Muse, now.
What are the top 25 most-pwned books?
Yeah, I agree that it's pretty funny, but he's trying to sell his services. So, why not?
My wife is a big fan of GTD. Having only skimmed the book myself and picked up the odd hint from her, I can only say that the book is a relatively inexpensive way to get lots of good advice on being more productive. (Inexpensive, say, in comparison to attending one of his seminars.) You can get most of the same advice for free online, from sites run by GTD cultists. Try starting at 43 Folders.
Oh, is that what that site's about? Thanks!
If anyone has other books that they recommend highly, please feel free to e-mail me. My parents were both incredibly disorganized, and it's only through sheer force of will that I've managed to impose any order at all. Ways to make that easier are always much appreciated.
Hammersley gets things done.
My god, what a fucking slacker I am.
Agreed that it does sound reasonable and I could use a does. I mock because I envy.
I'm going to go pay the rent now and let you all tear that one to shreds.
I'm skeptical of the GTD phenomenon because the evangelism for some of its techniques willfully ignores the reality of the solutions. Take the Hipster PDA, for example. Someone -- kottke or haughey or one of the boingers, I think -- started this meme where he wrote important addresses and phone numbers on a 3x5 index card and called it a Hipster PDA. That in itself is pretty funny. What's not funny is that it begat a six-month (and counting) frenzy of people devising intricate formatted 3x5 address book pages, calendars, and to-do lists to be bound together into one's own customized Hipster PDA. That's not funny. That's not even a Hipster PDA! It's just a bunch of index cards connected by a binder clip. And just by calling it GTD, people think it's some magical solution to a problem.
Then again, the self-help book section at most book stores is like the 3rd biggest section, so there's obviously a market in telling people "you need a complex solution to a simple problem."
I wish someone smart would look at the whole time-management issue. It's pretty clear that in a lot of ways, humans aren't really wired to live in the kind of world they're created. I'm sure there are a lot of insights into how our minds work buried in self-help books, and the question of how much a time-management program needs to be quasi-religious in order to get people to change their habits is pretty fascinating.
I don't think that really happened, Ben.
Ogged, that was more insightful than any comment baa has ever made.
I was meant to be rich, with a personal secretary, a nanny, a housekeeper and a cook, but it's never going to happen.
I was also meant to work 40 hours per week on job stuff and then spend the rest of my time on community stuff. That is, however, incompatible with being rich enough to afford help.
I like the book, although think the fandom/fanaticism is a little hard to understand, as are the high-priced seminars.
What's the best about the book is his understanding of human nature, and why we leave things undone, and how we feel about those things we leave undone. There is a tremendous feeling of relief from tackling those things, and from a couple of the approaches he recommends to dealing with things in an ongoing way.
But I've read the book twice, and each time adopted only parts of his system, and those only for a little while. So I don't know if it's really a simple solution for very much. I'm left with the sense that if I used it, really and truly, it would be a sensible and good system for managing stuff.
baa's the gold standard around here for insightfulness. But, he votes Bush. This requires hating on.
Yeah, Sherry, as I contemplate buying the book, I'm wondering how much I truly want to get things done, and how much procrastinating and having things hanging over my head satisfy some need I don't understand. Which is to say, I'd guess that books like this work much better for people who don't know how to organize themselves than for people who can't bring themselves to.
Joe, I don't know if you were around, but a while ago I made a big mistake and called baa the "most incisive" commenter, and no one has forgiven me (or him) since.
If I weren't afraid it would take me through an hour of traffic, I would drive over to the bookstore to look it over. Oh wait, there's another bookstore closer by which I rarely use. Nevermind.
I don't think that really happened, Ben.
I'm rather positive it didn't, myself.
At first, I thought this post was sarcastic.
Anyway, Merlin Mann of 43folders started the hipster pda thing. His site and wiki are really interesting.
What I'd like to see is a book called "Putting Things Off" that explained how to minimize consequences for not doing those things that you know you should do and could do and will be relieved once you have done but just somehow can't bring yourself to do.
I know ogged which makes it kinda funny to me.
Putting Things Off
1. Acquire one-way ticket to Tibet.
2. Plan next trip.
how to minimize consequences
I think I could write a book about this. Or, I know that I could write it, should write it, and would be relieved if I wrote it, but I can't bring myself to do it.
Pity.
Simply knowing that you could do it is basically doing it, anyway.
Gaiman's Dreaming world had an expansive library of books which authors never got around to writing. A neat concept.
Re: 43 -- love it. Thanks, Ben.
Also, re 26, I've thought that about a lot of our human endeavors. In the big-picture sense, in order for us to sustain this massive machine we've built, the vast majorityof people are required to do jobs they don't like, as literal cogs in the machine. If everyone really followed their colorful parachute or whatever, the whole system would collapse, because we'd have an abundance of bad poets and handbag designers, but no one to sit in the cubes and crunch the numbers. It's an extremely inhumane setup, especially because of the lies required to sustain it ("You are special! You can be anything your heart desires!")
I honestly do believe that the rise of mental disorders (along with our recognition and naming of these mental disorders) is a result of knowing, deep down, that you're a very, very small part of a very, very big machine and your purpose is to turn your little crank until you die. For the most part, we wouldn't need ritalin and paxil and whatever else to get through the day, if we were part of a smaller system in which everyone's role seemed valuable and essential. But that's not going to happen anytime soon, unless you believe the dire predictions of the Kunstlers of the world. (Which I sort of do.)
It's frustrating; no one knows what the purpose of their lives is anymore. I mean, it can't be to make speadsheets for an insurance company, can it? That's not a "life purpose." So we put in terrible hours to pay for two weeks of respite a year, and dream of the day, 30 years down the road, when we can finally excuse ourselves from the treadmill. It's no way to live a life, and yet it's absolutely essential to the well-being of our great societal machine that the vast majority of people continue. So we look to things like television to tell us how to achieve "meaning" and "purpose", believing the ads that instruct us to free our spirit with the new Chevy Tahoe or something. Consuming and consuming because we don't kow how else to define our own happiness.
This stuff really gets me down when I start to dwell on it.
Time to move to France.
A 35-hour workweek and scads of vacation? Why doesn't everyone move to civilized countries?
No spreadsheets in France?
They mostly spread other things, like cheese and syphilis.
I would have applied for grad programs abroad, because I love Europe so much. I could easily see myself at Oxbridge, going to evening prayer every day, but I lacked the passion for any one discipline. I didn't want to accomplish anything in particular. I just wanted to be a certain sort of person surrounded by clever people with beautiful gardens.
If anyone knows of a way--without being an investment banker--to get a visa to work in Europe, please feel free to share.
How do you do that without being a Republican? Also, my parents live abroad, in the Caribbean. I've heard that having family abroad can screw up your chances.
I'd be a bad ambassador. The foreigners would love me, but I'd run the risk of going native. I wouldn't be a good advocate for the U.S., because I tend to think that we're bullies and generally in the wrong.
I feel so much more at home when I'm abroad. It's a weird state, and it makes me feel guilty. There's something sort of pathetic about Anglophiles. Is it affected or real?
"How to Win Friends and Influence People" is a good book too. Most of the things the book says are clearly correct.
The best thing about the book is that it isn't about positive thinking or changing your personality. It just gives techniques for interacting with other people. It is pleasingly superficial.
You can get an older editions from ABEBOOKS that includes chapters that have been removed from newer editions. One removed chapter that concerns the importance of sexual compatability for marriages and recommends sex guides.
ac--I'm not planning to take you up on your suggestion, but where are you?
It's frustrating; no one knows what the purpose of their lives is anymore.
I don't know that it's that much worse than it's ever been since societies got bigger than small egalitarian bands. What was the society in which people knew what the purpose of their lives was? The purpose of my life is to subsistence farm to attempt to stave off death from exhaustion at 40? The purpose of my life is to grind mill for the feudal lord, and I'll get my reward in Heaven?
can I get in on this marriage? so long as we are in europe, I'll bet it would fly.
I'm not really marriagable material, text. My family is too crazy.
Why doesn't everyone move to civilized countries?
Because a barbarian who moves to a civilized country finds out that he is still a barbarian. In my admittedly limited experience, this is an occasionally unpleasant sensation; ymmv.
NB: if the barbarians in question are Anglophile USians who adopt a British accent, they seem more rather than less barbaric.
well you let me down easy, bg, so thanks. ac?
well I guess we've got to have a duel or something.
Oh I'd never try to adopt a British accent. I speak pretty much standard American with a few New England-isms, e.g., aunt NOT = ant.
I think mid-atlantic accents are nice, although totally unnatural.
A big reason why people don't move to civilized countries is that the civilized countries don't want us.
the civilized countries don't want us.
What I was trying to say, only less well.
Some people have a way with words, others ... not have way, I guess.
I'll meet you at dawn at the town square, text.
Wait, never mind, I think we both know where the other lives. I'll meet you at Ogged's house. Then we can PARTY!
I'm not really marriagable material, text. My family is too crazy.
This in no way disqualifies you. Trust me on this one.
Well, My Alter Ego, I would never marry someone whose family is as crazy as mine. Stability is a wonderful thing.
So what you do is find a marriage partner from a non-crazy family. Not having had direct, personal experience of how crazy crazy families can really be, they will have no idea what they've gotten themselves into until it's too late! Mwahahaha!
Ogged's house it is! I'll bring the kiddie pool.
The kiddie pool is for … gin?
Yeah, yeah I know. I'd feel sort of like I was deceiving someone.
the kiddie pool is where I stir my bath, sitting with weighty gams. And for gin.
The fun part is when my zebra stripes swell to maculate giraffes.
Speaking of marriage, as Ogged did the other day somewhere, how many of your friends are all pairing up. I turned 30 today, and I realized that when my mother was 30, she had a two-year old.
I'm not sure that I even want kids, but I do feel sort of behind---even though I always told myself that it was important to want to marry some one person rather than simply feeling that you had to get married.
The party at ogged's house is way debauched.
Debauchery is good. In college, we had a debauchery dance.
I'm not sure that I even want kids, but I do feel sort of behind
Move to NYC. I had my first at 27, and felt like an unmarried teen. All the other women in the playground with their toddlers were 40.
And I'm all in favor of debauchery.
I've got a debauchery dance, as I will perform at ogged's house.
Happy Birthday!
You get the first turn at jello wrestling!
Thanks Tia. I'm going out tonight with a friend of mine who works for a law firm where she can get off. She only works about 65 hours per week, unlike poor Lizard Breath; her firm is slow to hire and doesn't lay people off.
I hear Boston is also more relaxed than NYC (assuming that your moniker accurately describes your location.)
a friend of mine who works for a law firm where she can get off
Is this what they mean by "lifestyle firm"?
on the contrary, sounds like quite the sweat shop.
My birthday is next Tuesday. It's a common time to have a birthday, I guess because of all the New Year's sex.
(assuming that your moniker accurately describes your location.)
It does. My friend is from D.C. and went to law school at NYU, but she chose to move back to Boston, because she watched her law school roommate, a French woman in the L.L.M. program at NYU, live the life of a New York associate, and she knew it was not for her.
She does real estate stuff.
Is this what they mean by "lifestyle firm"?
I meant to write "get off from work," but of course the unfogged readership would see alternate meanings.
well happy birthday to bg, and happy almost-birthday to tia. Now fight it out in the jello.
What was the society in which people knew what the purpose of their lives was? The purpose of my life is to subsistence farm to attempt to stave off death from exhaustion at 40? The purpose of my life is to grind mill for the feudal lord, and I'll get my reward in Heaven?
I get the sense that the struggle for survival for onself and one's family is rather meaninful. It's in a sense the most real of accomplishments. And, if you really believe in heaven and the order of things, then yeah, there's a certain comfort in knowing one's place in the universe. And being loved by god and watched by angels and envied by demons sorta takes the edge off mendacity. Oh, and there's fighting each other. I was just reading some Gogol the other night, and his Cossack character was lamenting the loss of meaning now that he didn't have pollacks and turks to kill.
That's funny -- early August/late July birthdays run in my family. I guess it depends on which works better for you -- champagne or silly costumes.
I have to fight it out in agar agar. Can I bring an extra kiddie pool?
blame not he who plucketh fruit that hangeth low, but the one who hung the fruit so very low, that is the one ripe for punishment.
It's in Leviticus.
(my b-day's tomorrow.)
(i wasn't conceived on new year's.)
Thanks all.
text--I think she's got a lot of work now, because they thought that these would be lean years, hired accordingly and found that they had a ton.
Anyway, she does work weekends sometimes, but the people are nice, and sher can meet people for things.
My friend is from D.C. and went to law school at NYU,
What year? Although I didn't even know most of the people in my class, so there's no real point in asking.
I have to fight it out in agar agar.
Mud's vegan -- would that be an acceptable compromise?
Did you all know that it's also Michaelmas today, the Feast of St. Michael and all the Angels? If one has to have a funny September birthday, i think that's a good holiday to have it on.
We were H-R class of 97, and she went straight away. So 2000.
I meant my comment in the same way as Standpipe. Sweating! Getting Off! Ho Ho!
mud is an acceptable alternative. also, vegetable oil.
I should clarify the flippant last part of my 99, since I think Gogol is a terrific judge of human character and I wouldn't want to misrepresent him. The Cossack (Master Danilo) didn't simply lament the loss of his chance to kill (or carouse, as he called it), but the brotherhood that such activity brought about. What Danillo missed was fairly robust: living life as if one might lose at tomorrow, fighting for one's brothers and one's people, plundering objects (fine clothes and gold) which brought aesthetic pleasure, and of course, the sensual pleasures of women as one calmed down from the day's "carousing."
A year after me -- odds are I don't know her.
I get the sense that the struggle for survival for onself and one's family is rather meaningful
I know, I guess I was just saying that the meaning most historical societies have dispensed to their memebers is overrated. The people I mentioned had a clear sense of purpose, but in one case, survival with very little room for anything else was that purpose, and in other, the meaning they found was awful convenient for the exploiter class. I am a secretary who's miserable in her job, but I get to start on the long road to becoming a psychologist in January, but even if I had to be this miserable secretary forever and ever, I'd have opportunities to read, draw, write, go to museums, eat a variety of foods, see movies, work to improve my community, and travel that would have been unthinkable throughout most of history. (I would die young without health insurance though.) As a matter of fact, I should quit my whining. Just writing this comment has made me feel better about my work situation, which had been really expanding its tentacles into the rest of my life. Thank you, Unfogged.
Bostoniangirl, it varies from country to country, I'm not sure by how much, but at least in the Netherlands most USians can simply move to the country, and live there as long as they want. You simply apply for a residence permit when you get there, and I think there's not much that would get you denied for one. The hard part is finding work. First you have to get someone to hire you, and foreigners by law get second pickings in the job market, and then your potential employer has to apply on your behalf for a work permit. I have no idea how difficult it is to find employment as a foreigner there, but knowing the local language is of course going to be a *big* advantage, and I hear (besides investment banking,) that technical skill, like computer programming, has been in increased demand, though that may be outdated info.
Tia--the health insurance thing is so awful. Damn, I wish that it were easier to change the system. I'm trying to do my bit in Mass, but a real solution needs to come at the Federal level. I hate that the Dems are so wimpy on this.
I mean they all say that they believe in it, but they never fight for it. They don't have a clear, simple plan that they'll sell to voters.
Also I hear it's hard to find housing in the Netherlands because it's so densely populated, though a resident of Boston or NYC or some such metro area will probably find it to be similar.
About the meaning thing. I think the biggest source of meaning people find is in raising children. It's really a very creative and wonderful act. Human lives are truly marvelous, and creating and shaping one can be very fulfilling. Also, religion. And more recently, technological/scientific meliorism (i.e. optimism) is a big one. See, for instance, the Extropian movement.
I see your point, Tia, especially when it comes to self-medication simply replacing religion in most people's lives, rather than cropping up because of a new type of existential crisis. Still, I can't help but think that this particular feeling of powerlessness in the face of the larger forces that shape our lives is new to this century. But maybe I'm giving too much value to the perceived uniqueness of modern life. I wish there was a real-life Highlander or something, who could tell us with authority what people were like 200 years ago or so.
Happy birthday, bostoniangirl. May you get lots of tea in your harbor. Or Tia, if that's your kind of party.
Joe, I wouldn't trust the memory of such a Highlander more than I would trust historical documents. Human memory sucks, and who knows how it would react to being alive for hundreds of years? But I do agree that the general feeling of powerless and alienation general to the population is an essentially modern phenomenon. After all, that's where postmodernism came from. Medieval religious beliefs saw the universe as very structured, ordered, and hierarchical. Everything had meaning. I'm not sure about the historical far east, though, or Africa.
I'm not sure about the historical far east, though, or Africa.
Who cares about them, though?
I remember when I saw the movie I was very jealous of Highlander, in that he bought real estate in New York in, like, 1710, and could just watch it appreciate until the present day.
That's basically what Trinity Church did. They own most of Wall Street.
being Highlander would be nice, but I'd rather be able to stop and/or reverse time, retaining my current life span.
Besides, you have to always be chopping people with your sword, because there can be only one, and all that.
Happy birthdays, BG, Tia, and Michael.
I just want to be able to peek down after I die to see how humanity/my loved ones is/are doing.
The best I can hope for is to peek up.
The side of your pants leg, to count your belts.
From hell. The hoary netherworld.
From hell.
Where each circle is a fallen Weinerbelt.
Weiner, I didn't dare to ask that question, but I was wondering the same thing.
*delurking*
I started looking at 43folders regularly about a month or so ago to deal with procrastination. So I've been leeching GTD ideas. Got my clip of index cards (hand-formatted) and everything, and I'm feeling more productive.
But I think that #33 is spot on. Thinking about this stuff made me realize I was procrastinating becuase I didn't really have a good idea of what I wanted to do. So I didn't really want to do anything. I'm working on fixing this with some success.
I think keeping track of the GTD things was most effective for me in making me actually think about what I wanted to do on a regular basis. And why. Now I'm trying to get the right balance between meta-stuff and doing-stuff.
Oh, hey, 33 was mine! Thanks for delurking!
Oy. Bought the book and read parts of it. Pretty good, I think. But it can't really promise you salvation. As for software programs - and this is GTD related - I love Ecco Pro. It's a bit of a pain in the ass, a little intimidating, unsupported, and hasn't been developed at all in the last 8 years. It's still the best PIM available by a long shot. And there are a few GTD-type templates that people have developed for it. I am a total convert, and I think i may have tried every PIM/Planner (inc., I am ashamed to admit, MS Project - massive overkill) on the face of the earth.
OTOH, I remain pretty disorganized.
Anything available for the Mac? All their stuff is Windows-Outlook centric.
I've never known anyone who uses a Mac (academics and "artists") to need to keep track of his or her schedule, so I'm probably not the best person to ask. Sorry.
I use a Mac, and I'm neither an academic or an artist. But i don't keep track of my shit. Not that I don't need to. But iCal is supposed to work well.
I use a mac! But I'm a physicist. And so far my org stuff is texts lists, calendar, and index cards, instead of specific software.
From what I've read GTD kind of assumes you already know what you want to do, and gets to the practical methods for doing it.
I use a Mac. And I'm pitifully disorganized.
GTD kind of assumes you already know what you want to do, and gets to the practical methods for doing it.
Yeah. See, if I knew that, I'd be organized.
Figuring out what you want to do is harder. Especially because it keeps changing. I've been working on it a lot lately (probably why I'm suddenly so verbose). I think taking some time out to just consider such things helps you figure it out, but slowly rather than as an immediate payoff.
GTD is a good book for you, then, LB, in that it extensively deals with the process of defining what projects you want to do and what the next actions for those projects are. Of course, the fact that it asks for a two-day upfront investment of time from people who are already struggling to get things done seems a little impractical. I read it over the summer and the only thing I've managed to incorporate into my daily worklife is the use of a label-maker to label my files.
I'd just like to note that today is also my birthday. I'm 21. That is all.
Congratulations. Go drink heavily, preferably someplace where you've previously used a fake ID.
Thanks. Unfortunately I have never actually used a fake ID, so that plan wouldn't really work. I did buy some beer, though.
Happy Birthday teofilo!! I hope you bought good beer, because 21 calls for good alcohol.
Moosehead. I'm drinking one right now.
(And thanks.)
Happy Belated Birthday teofilo.
Chopper, what kind of label machine did you get?
I'm a fan of the LabelDominator2000, myself.
I got the Brother machine that was in the office supply catalog.
LabelDominator2000
That doesn't have nearly the torque and horsepower I require. You should try the LabelViking; it'll change your life.
Does the LabelViking make juice too?
Yes, from the fruits of its pillages.
I'm reluctant to buy a glossy corporate-style self-help book with a picture of the author on the cover—there's a very real danger such books will choke all other forms of literature out of the bookstore ecosystem entirely. So I did what I always do in these situations: I went to the library.
...
What I found at the library was not David Allen's GTD, but another book on exactly the same subject, with exactly the same title, published in 1938: Getting Things Done, or G.T.D., by Captain P.R. Creed. Rock! Now I can get organized and read a musty old library book—two of my favorite activities—at the same time. How's that for GTD?