Solo Technology

I just read a post over at GTD Wannabe called, “Check Out My Stack!” and I have to say, parts of it really resonated with me and how I manage myself. In particular, this section really hits home:

Let’s say that I’m writing a report. I’m going to be working on it solidly for a few hours, and if little things come up, I’m not going to actually create a next action. Instead, I’m just going to scribble it down and fix it later. The little things that I’m talking about are things like “Fix format of heading x”, “Double check spelling of Author x’s last name”, “center picture on page 5″, etc. etc. These are things that I can just collect on a scrap of paper. Things that I don’t want to forget, and I’m going to do in this session, but I don’t want to do *right now* because I’m actually in the middle of my writing flow. We all know what that flow feels like, eh? You don’t want to mess with it by changing mental gears and fixing something.

Spot on!

Now, the post goes on to describe how he manages stuff like that in a more complex fashion (with a very high Geek Quotient, I might add), but I wanted to focus on this bit here as it’s a nice lead-in to something I’ve discovered this year.

For years, I’ve struggled with how to track that “lower-level” type stuff. Breaking the chain of thought to pop up an application or web-browser to capture it would often (for me) result in a lost thought or idea. This year I finally realized that there’s a very real difference between “Next Actions” and all these little things and I’ve stopped trying to capture them with my major tasks or next actions.

Instead, I have an 8 1/2″ x 11″ pad of paper for every “major” project I’m working on. When I’m working on said project, that pad is in my portfolio. As things come up with the current project, I scribble them down on the pad. I even draw the little box in the left margin to check ‘em off as I finish (or draw a line through the box if I move it to the NA list (and other symbols for delegation of course)). When I’m not working on the project, the pad goes in a manila folder holding any related printouts or completed/full sheets of paper that were ripped from the pad (I hate to toss my notes so I file ‘em).

Doing this has saved me an amazing amount of time. Time that I used to spend digging through one all-inclusive notebook or whatever “GTD App” I was using at the time trying to find a quick note. I also feel a lot more organized. That in turn helps me feel a lot less stressed about losing small details as I jump from project to project, which is something that I do a lot.

There’s something about pulling one pad of paper out of the portfolio and replacing it with another that is an awful lot like switching gears. Mental gears. For whatever reason, it helps me make that transition.

Oh, and I scribble all my notes with a mechanical pencil and always have a “pink pearl” eraser nearby. A bit anal perhaps, but no more scribbled out ink blots.

3 Responses to “The Productivity Stack”

1. GTD Wannabe on March 30th, 2007 7:31 am
   

   Hear hear! I think there is definitely something a little smaller, a little more fine-grained than a Next Action. I like the ability to make use of a scratch pad (or my stack file ;)), or even a few EverNote notes to track the little things that belong to a project, but are not necessarily NAs. I can just see my NA list if I had things like “Change font colour” and “Center picture” on it

2. Chris on March 30th, 2007 7:51 am
   

   I can just see my NA list if I had things like “Change font colour” and “Center picture” on it

   For years I used OneNote and hierarchical task lists. Major tasks at the top level, indenting under them. I’ve had those tasks like “Change font color” listed. Ugh. It got so difficult to figure out what I should tackle.

   Thanks for the inspiring post.

3. » pingback » Getting / Staying Organized » Solo Technology on June 4th, 2007 10:00 pm
   
   

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