m|power

Daily Tasks

I've been thinking recently about daily tasks. I use Outlook and my Palm (standard ToDo app) and don't currently use daily tasks in either one. In my Palm I follow David Allen's advice to have next actions with no due date, so all my categories, except tickler, don't use a due date. I've set Outlook up the same way with flagged items and search folders, rather than using the tasks module. I just email myself tasks and flag them as appropriate. But sometimes I would like daily tasks - the 3-5 things I would like to get done during the day.

Let's look at how tasks have been managed in different systems. The classic FranklinQuest system used daily tasks and they were then carried over from day to day if they were not completed. This had some of the benefit of the tickler file, in that you could write a task down on the day (in the future) when you wanted to be reminded to do it. All tasks that needed to be done as soon as you got to them went on the daily task list. Obviously in David Allen's world of 100+ next actions, this would be ridiculous, especially on paper, but also in PDA's or Outlook. What happens in reality is that most of a persons next actions are in the pseudo-tickler of future task lists.

David Allen's Getting Things Done and the FranklinQuest system come from a fundamentally different paradigms. Both systems are looking at tasks as actionable items. However, FranklinQuest values the "What should I do today?" view and David Allen values the "What should I do here?" view. Of course, both are valid and useful. Both views of your tasks lead to certain behaviors and attitudes, as well as to certain pitfalls. A Franklin planner guy will not be able to take advantage of the funny little intervals of time that are everywhere. A David Allen acolyte may put off certain tasks indefinitely because they're never important enough (one of my regular problems). Also, David Allen's strict delineation between the calendar and the next actions lists doesn't handle tasks with a due date very well - e.g. it needs to be done as soon as possible, but no later than next Monday.

Then there is the classic 7 Habits system, which focuses on the week. Daily tasks do show up though. They are placed on the day you'd like to work on them, either in the calendar or in a task list for the day. Here is merely another view put forth as an entire planning paradigm. The 7 Habits system has some of the same problems as the FranklinQuest system, in that items must be forwarded, at least each week. During the week they'll still be in front of you but you may tune out stuff that hasn't been brought forward to the current day.

Ulitmately, you want a system with all of these views. However, such a system is entirely impractical on paper because of the overhead of keeping everything synchronized. Enter my ideal task manager. Obviously it would have at the very least the views we've discussed already. I love having a context based view: what are all the things I can do right here, right now. So does David Allen. But I also want a view of the tasks I decided to do today. They're not appointments and they're not on my calendar, and they don't necessarily have to be done today, but choosing a specific set of tasks to do in a day gives me a goal to work towards and allows me to get into a groove of similar tasks (not just similar based on context). I also want a view of my week with tasks, appointments and upcoming tickler items. This is the context that the 7 Habits system provides.

Wait! you say. Each of those systems not only provides you with the view, but also a way to use the view. Now how are you going to use multiple views? When do you switch views? How do you know that looking at one view won't hide something important or possible in another view? It all comes down to one question - When you can look at and organize your tasks in any way you want, easily and quickly, how do you then use those views of your tasks to be even more productive?

Sounds like a good problem to solve.

Productivity Tips

A new link (though not so new anymore) on the FranklinCovey web site is titled "Productivity Tips." It showed up in the last couple of months, I'm not exactly sure when, and has been sitting there on the home page ever since, minding its own little business. Clicking on this link takes you to "Productvity Tip #1." Yep, that's right, their very first one. Only now, in 2003 has FranklinCovey, formerly FranklinQuest and the Covey Leadership Center, started coming up with productivity tips.

This is their business for crying out loud! At the very least they could have picked a random sampling of paragraphs from any number of their books (7 Habits, 10 Natural Laws, 23 Fun Ways to Spend Your Afternoon) and had people go to Productivity Tip #34 on their first visit - and then a new one every time after that. Their web site already offers very little reason to return on a regular basis. The least they could do is pretend that its something new. But I do go back, what can I say - I owe a lot to these people. And when I do, and find to my dismay that they're still working on their second productivity tip, it makes me want to slowly burn my planners in retribution. Ok, not really. Maybe just rip it into small pieces and throw them into the wind. But then, when I take the time to reread Productivity Tip #1 (hey look, I'm wasting my time at your web site about time management! So there!) and find that it really is a random paragraph taken from 7 Habits (... or was it First Things First?) then I actually do burn my planner - ok, well the pieces that the wind didn't take away.

Its not that its a bad tip - its a great tip in fact, but I already knew it. So maybe next time I'll drop in at The David Allen Company web site and see if they've got any new coaches articles or perspectives to read. At least their's change every once in a while.

The Time Trap

The Time Trap is a book of common sense. And by that I don't mean common sense that people have forgotten about and therefore need to be reminded of. The common sense in The Time Trap is common sense that most people have either ignored or not yet discovered.

In the former case, there are many people who ignore the common sense in The Time Trap because of more fundamental challenges. They're like the telemarketers who have forgotten that calling people during dinner time to try to sell them something they don't want is rude. It's not that they never knew it, but that other things are more important (read: money) and they know that a certain amount of rudeness can get them some money. So some people ignore common time management techniques because they know that doing so can accomplish other objectives that they have, whether or not they acknowledge them. One example is the person whose work just isn't as important to them as tonights baseball game. No amount of time management technique will help this person be more focused and accomplish more at work. They just won't. Because the game is more important they'll give more thought and effort to the game, whether by reading the latest Sports Illustrated, browsing the teams web sites, or chatting with coworkers about it. In fact, this person does not want to be more effective at managing their time to do more work - they're already quite effective at getting less done at work, while appearing to do enough, so they can spend more time on the game. The problem of time management in this case is not the techniques but the motivations, the fundamental desires and attitudes of the individual.

The common sense in The Time Trap also lies undiscovered by many. They just haven't thought about the issue enough to have realized some very self-evident truths. Once again this is a problem of paradigms: someone who is not aware that they can live a better life by leading and managing their daily and weekly actions will not have considered how to do so. Most people who do want to have more time, either to do better at the current priorities in their lives or to have time for neglected priorities, can generally come up with the common sense in The Time Trap with a little thought.

Now, that being said, the book can make one more aware of the possibilities of time and life management. Mackenzie consistently talks about gaining an extra two hours a day through effective time management. The techniques are generally geared toward helping knowledge workers do their work with less interruptions and busywork. Each of the twenty "biggest" time wasters are listed with an analysis of causes and a discussion of techniques for saving time. Many of the concepts can be very helpful, such as keeping a time log, triaging mail, phone calls, and visitors, proper delegation, and holding effective meetings.

However, I felt frustrated with the lack of cohesiveness throughout the book. In some ways, because there are so many different techniques and no real way of tying them together, The Time Trap merely introduces a bunch of new things "to do" that add to the stress and hassle of everyday life. Although Mackenzie does a good job of looking at specific problems and possible solutions, he does not find a comprehensive solution to effective time management. This book may leave many people wanting more, either immediately or over time. They may get a sense of some underlying principles of time and life management, but because they aren't made explicit (I doubt Mackenzie could make them explicit) they remain just out of reach. An example of this is the way that Mackenzie recommends we use our extra two hours everyday. Half of the time he encourages us to use it to enrich our personal lives by doing things like spending time with family. The other half of the time he emphasizes using it to be more productive at work, thus adding more value to your employer. While I believe that effective life leadership makes it possible to do both, Mackenzie's suggestions are nowhere near adequate for the task. He sets the reader up for failure by seeming to imply that they can do it all. In fact, this book could very likely lead a person to fall right back into time trap #4 - attempting too much.

Also, returning to my initial thoughts that many time management problems are related to our attitudes, paradigms and desires, we see that The Time Trap does not address this at all. Put in the context of a new paradigm, many of these techniques could be quite helpful. But without a change in attitudes and desires, trying to change our behavior alone will be both difficult and slow. While I suspect that anyone who reads The Time Trap will get out two or three techniques that can help them now, most people will not find a truly comprehensive plan for better managing their time.

The Now Habit

I've been reading The Now Habit, by Neil Fiore, the last few days. A couple of thoughts stick out in my mind. The one insight that I got out of it was the idea of "guilt-free play, quality work". As I mentioned in my last post, I can sometimes take the planning/productivity thing too far. I've got a couple weeks off work at the moment so I'm working on balancing some fun play with all the little projects and todos I would normally spend my time on. This concept came at a good time, when I was already considering that I needed a personal hobby or something that I enjoyed doing to give me a little renewal on a regular basis. So I went out and bought Flight Simulator 2004, something I've always wanted to do, and I'm slowly learning how to fly. Someday I'd like to learn how to fly real airplanes, but at the moment a simulator is perfect. I'm also reading some fun books. Because I'm bouncing back and forth between work on stuff that needs to get done, and playing with flight simulator or reading I've found I get more done than if I tried to not play (and failed) and I don't feel bad about the play. My wife has also been good about giving me a little free time.

Other than that its mostly just a recap of a lot of things people already know about - visualization, self-talk, scheduling, focusing on the next step. He wraps a lot of these basic concepts in fancy language with some references to research and calls it good. Personally, I'm glad I read the book for the play/work concept, but I wouldn't recommend it to others. I think that without a good understanding of the Character Ethic described in 7 Habits most people would take Fiore's advice as an excuse to live easy, unproductive lives - essentially an excuse to procrastinate. If you can go into it with a clear understanding of your own purpose and mission, however, the concept of guilt-free play can help you through the rough spots that nobody enjoys.

Who am I?

My name is Rock. I have a wonderful wife and son, who are at the center of my life. I'm currently a software developer for Microsoft working on Outlook. I believe that we as humans don't live up to our true potential and my hope is to work at doing that in my own life and to help others do so in theirs. I consider myself a student of life and I'm trying to figure out what works best and share it with others. As a part of that I want to create the software tools to help people manage their lives and I'm very happy to be working on Outlook, since it is used by so many to organize what, when and how they do things. Some of what I write will relate directly to using Outlook as your personal organizer.

Having said that I also need to admit that in high school I was known as Planner Boy by my family and friends. I know I sometimes have a tendency to take some things too far, and so you can take my posts here with that grain of salt. But I do hope they help somebody, or at least give you all someone to laugh at.

Financial Workflow

David Allen's workflow was my first introduction to the concept of a workflow as a way to organize my actions. I encourage you to study it and try it out. The idea of a set process, an algorithm, for accomplishing certain things should have come naturally to me, a software developer. But it didn't, probably because it was too obvious, or because I subconsciously assigned that job to computers. Although my first introduction to principles of productivity was Stephen Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, I've learned a lot and become more productive recently by reading and applying Getting Things Done, by David Allen. Getting Things Done focuses on the workflow linked above. I will probably comment on that more in the future, especially as I encounter successes or failures trying to follow it, and trying to integrate the concepts into the larger frameworks of 7 Habits. However, right now I'd like to share a workflow that I've developed for managing my finances.

In my financial workflow there are three collecting baskets - Receipts, Bills, and Statements. As we process our everyday information, everything financial goes into one of those baskets (or, if it doesn't fit there, into the general reference filing David Allen describes). Once a week, my wife and I go through the following process, which is based around receipts, bills, and statements.

First we work our way through the receipts: we confirm that they have cleared online, leaving them in the basket if they haven't. If they have they then move to a folder/basket titled Receipts to Reconcile. We have a current month and previous month receipts to reconcile folder for each financial account. We'll get back to that.

Assuming everything has gone well checking the receipts we then move on to Bills. If the bill is due in the next 10 days we pay it, if not we leave it till next week. This encourages us to go through our financial workflow on a weekly basis. We pay most bills online through a bill pay service, but paying them the old-fashioned way works just as well – just don’t forget to send them. Bills that are also statements (credit cards) are then placed in the statements folder. Other bills are marked as paid and placed in the Receipts basket to be dealt with once our payment has cleared.

Finally we deal with statements. First we check to make sure that the statement matches our online records. This may sound tedious, but really it just involves confirming start and end balances. If those match up then we're good. If not then we can take the problem to our financial institution. We’ve got all our receipts for the statement in the receipts to reconcile folder for that account, so our records can be used to resolve the problem.

If the start and end balances do match up, then we go through the receipts to reconcile folder to make sure we keep important receipts. We file bills in their corresponding general reference file, large item receipts in their own folders with warranties and other information, and shred what's left. We then file the statement.

Finally we discuss anything on our budget agendas: big-ticket purchases we want to make, budget reallocations, and other financial things that have come up that we need to discuss.

Although we've just started doing this its already working fairly well, and the time it takes is getting to be manageable. It's obviously a work in progress and anyone with slightly more complicated finances than us will quickly find many holes. I'd love to hear about them. I want to continue to develop this workflow until it represents a solid method for the day to day financial dealings that most families face.