Do More. Blog Less.
Posted on 29. Sep, 2009 by Brad Kamradt in Blog
There’s a bumper sticker in my day-job cubicle that says “Blog Less. Do More.” At this point, I’m convinced it should read the other way around: Since my last post over two weeks ago, I’ve been chugging the Getting Things Done Kool Aid, and it tastes fine. Delicious, even. Nutritious. Blog free.
Don’t get me wrong: I really like the idea of communicating this way. Writing in any form can be productive and valuable, fun and rewarding. But blogging, in and of itself, just isn’t a critical part of my health and happiness regimen right now. At the risk of sounding like a zealot, the truth is I’ve been too busy getting things done to worry about a blog.
My personal agenda at the moment seems to have room for the following and not much more:
- handle the day job so it doesn’t encroach on my evenings and weekends,
- use my evenings and weekends to develop Sweet Lid and serve clientele, and
- take care of myself and my wife — mentally, physically, and spiritually.
Accordingly, about two-and-a-half weeks ago, I marched into work focused on one singular goal: Beat 300 unread emails — some dating back several months — into submission as quickly as possible. Armed with armed with a few, simple GTD-inspired strategies, I managed to whittle a mountain of emails down to a molehill in just a few days. And then, miraculously, even the molehill was gone.
Not long afterwards, one of my colleagues remarked that I seemed to be in a good mood. Now I enjoy what I do, but I’ve never really been a “whistle while you work” kind of guy. The fact that my coworker noticed an almost immediate difference in my workplace mood and demeanor seems to confirm the promise of GTD: A sense of sense of accomplishment, empowerment, and freedom from the psychic baggage of carrying too much around in one’s noggin.
The GTD-inspired concepts I applied to tame my virtual workspace are simple and have become my own trusted mini system:
- If an email communiqué or related task can be dealt with in just a few minutes, handle it immediately. Intuitively. Proactively.
- As soon as an email has been dealt with, delete it. Without hesitation. No mercy!
- If an email doesn’t require any action, delete it. On the spot. It’s noise at that point, an unnecessary distraction.
- If an email seems necessary for future reference but requires no immediate action, file it away … and fast. (And don’t worry about an elaborate folder system; odds are the email will end up in one of only a few places. Odds are it won’t be needed again anyway.)
- If an email requires follow up at a later date, create a “tickler” event in the good ol’ Outlook calendar so it can be dealt with at a future date and time. Copy important information from the email into the tickler, and delete that sucker.
This kind of approach to work — and living — may seem elementary or second nature to some, but it’s been revelatory for me. Bottom line: I feel more productive, more creative, and more in control of my workload than I have in ages.
GTD hasn’t been some kind of panacea, and I’m a long way from having a system that spans all facets of my busy life. I still need to subdue my physical workspace at the office, finish reading “Getting Things Done,” and apply the above and other new principles to my homestead and Sweet Lid endeavors. It will take time, energy, and the continued development of a whole new system, a whole new set of habits. But the promise is there, and I’m excited to see where it all goes.
My next big step is OmniFocus, a software application for “personal productivity and peace of mind.” Designed around GTD methodologies and ideas, I’m hoping it can help me start to apply these concepts outside of the office, outside of the context of Outlook.
Should be fun. “See” you in a couple of weeks with an update.