by Matt Perman
For some reason, my electronic calendar (iCal) has a way for you to download all of the holidays into it, but not a way to include the first day of winter, first day of spring, etc.
If you have the same problem (and this matters to you), here’s a page with all the solstices and equinoxes listed through 2010.
by Matt Perman
That title may be a bit of an overstatement. But there is a fundamental truth here: The main challenge is not to figure out how to get through a task list of 1,000 things. The main challenge is that there are constantly hundreds of things that are trying to pull us away from what we should be doing, from what is most important.
Most of those are good things. But if you attend to all of them, you will not be able to focus your efforts on what is truly most important for you to be doing at the present time — the present day, current week, current month, current year.
Having everything captured in a well-organized system that you review regularly allows you to see, within those things, what is most important. And, therefore, which things need to be chopped off so that you can truly, effectively, get those most important things done.
by Matt Perman
It is so tempting to complain. There were a whole mix of things today that made my wife and I just want to throw up our arms in frustration.
But our motto (borrowed from our former pastor in Iowa) is “you can’t make it tough enough for us to complain.” Actually, she is better at that than I am — much better. I am still learning and making progress.
Everybody encounters things like this all the time. The best solution is to have the attitude “I will not complain, no matter how frustrating things get.”
And then there is a second component, which is just as important: Be a person who always strives to be part of the solution to other people’s problems.
When someone comes to you for assistance, and you don’t know the answer, it’s tempting to just pass them off. Try not to do that. Life is tough enough.
Fight the frustration of life by working on behalf of others, even when it doesn’t come easy (or it may not be “your” job). Try to figure out something you can do, even if it’s not obvious at first.
And in the times when you truly can’t take the time, or truly are incapable of doing anything, at least express that “I really wish I knew of a way to find the answer here, and I really hope you can get this figured out.”
by Matt Perman
After reviewing the ergonomics article I mentioned in the previous post, there were a few things I wanted to make sure and remember. I’m jotting them down here for the benefit of any readers as well.
(I used to not think much about ergonomics, but now I see that bad ergonomics can cause headaches and other problems. When you work at a desk most of the day, it makes sense to try to get this right.)
The height of the chair should reach just beneath your knee cap when standing. This allows your feet to rest firmly on the floor when you sit in the chair.
This has been a puzzle for me. I like them, but sometimes find that they keep me from scooting the chair under the desk. Since I don’t use a keyboard tray (next point), this is a problem. The document says it’s OK to get rid of the arm rests. That’s good: they’re not essential. Ideally, though, you could adjust them to a height that doesn’t hinder getting close enough to the desk to reach the keyboard at a comfortable length.
You can go either way here. I’ve had desks where I like them, and others where I don’t. At this desk I have the keyboard on the desktop, and given the desk height, that is the most natural position.
Your mouse needs to be at the same height as your keyboard, whatever you do.
The top of your monitor should just below your eye level. It should be slightly tilted back. Your line of site will then line up most naturally. This is important for preventing headaches.
There is a lot more on the subject of ergonomics. These are just the quick notes that are most important to me right now and keep proving hardest to remember. This is a subject I need to learn gradually, because for some reason it does not come naturally.
These notes are from the document “Ergonomics Guidelines,” published by the Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Commission of New Brunswick.
by Matt Perman
I’m going through my physical inbox right now. There aren’t too many things in it today, so this might serve as a quick example of some principles and approaches I recommend using.
This post will be a somewhat less structured. I’m just going to write down what I actually do in real-time. (Looking back now, this post feels a bit too first-person; but I hope that this inside-look might prove helpful in illustrating the principles and practices for processing an inbox.)
As is GTD standard practice, I go through the items one by one. But first I take them all out of the actual inbox and set them right next to me, just to my left. My inbox, by the way, is just a bit further back on my left side (I’ll touch on this when I blog on how to organize your desk: the left side of your desk is “in,” the middle and immediate right is “working,” and the far right is “out”).
First, there is an external hard drive. I brought this from home. So actually, let me back up. A lot of times in the evening, I have stuff I need to bring to work the next day (no news there). When I get to work, that stuff goes right in my inbox to get processed.
The external hard drive was one such example. Every three months, I do an off-site backup of my computer. I keep an ongoing backup (using Mac’s Time Machine program) on an external drive right next to my computer at home, and then every three months back up to a different hard drive that I take away from my house, just to be ultra-prepared not to lose any data in the event of a fire, etc.
So I have this external hard drive before me now. I have a spot for it here at work, and put it away right there.
Second, I have three new books. Two were Christmas gifts and one I ordered. I need to add those to my “To Read” list. This is a less-than-two-minute action, but I don’t want to literally do it right away. I find it most efficient to actually group my small actions into piles that I then execute right after processing my inbox. This saves time — there is less gear shifting. All three of these books can be entered at once, all filing can be done at once, and so forth. So I set them in a pile on my right side that I mentally designate as “to enter.”
Third, I have an ergonomics article to read. I’m going to read this right away, so I put it in a second pile right next to the books to enter, on my right side. This is my “to read” pile for right after I’m done with my inbox.
Fourth, I have a financial report. No action needed, just needs to be filed. I create a third pile for “to file” stuff, which will get added to if needed so I can do all my filing together.
Fifth, I have a newsletter. I review it to gather any relevant information, and then throw it away.
Sixth, I have what looks like a Christmas card. I open it. I’m getting into ultra-detail here, but to open it I open up my pen/pencil drawer to get out my letter opener. The card is from a friend, so I put it in my briefcase to take home and put with our other Christmas cards. (Just as stuff I bring to work goes into my inbox when I get here, throughout the day there is also some stuff that goes into my briefcase to take home, which I then put in my inbox at home, or else deal with right away.)
Seventh, I have some extra ink for my printer here that I brought from home. I have a drawer for extra supplies like this, and it goes in there.
Eighth, I have the manual for my printer. Actually, there are about 5 documents here. One is in another language, so I throw it away. Two more are ads, so I throw them away. I put the remaining two relevant parts of the manual into my “to file” pile.
Ninth, there are a few other books I brought today to refer to as I do one of my projects. I put those on my right side, in the back, so they are easy to access when I get to that project. Note: I would not keep those books there long-term, as this is how desks end up getting messy. They are there for today. If I have to put the project on hold for a week for some reason, those books will go back on the shelf or up in a bin that I have here for “project support material” that is too big to fit in a file.
Last, I have an adapter for my laptop that lets me plug into a projector with an older type of port. Need to think about this a bit. I already have one of these in my briefcase so that I’m always ready for this (learned the hard way). So I don’t think I need this. I think I’ll give it to our IT department, so I’ll put that in the last pile on my right side, “out.”
Now I have my inbox processed. There remain four piles of less-than-two-minute actions to my right now, and I don’t consider myself technically done until I handle those actions. The piles are: to enter, to read, to file, and out. I’m glad to have those small actions grouped. Now I’ll take care of those and move on to the next thing.
Total time? This level of items would probably have normally been about 5 minutes or less. Maybe a bit more. Took a little longer this time because of writing this post at the same time.