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A GTD kind of day...
Jan. 18th, 2007 09:57 pmI ran into a site called d3 that offers a "kinkless" GTD system that caught my eye. The system is based on something called TiddlyWiki, an experimental "microcontent" WikiWikiWeb written in HTML and JavaScript, which runs in any browser without the need for a separate server. (I mentioned TiddlyWiki in my LJ back in May 2005.) The file is compact enough to run off of almost any flash memory device and is quite portable from machine to machine, in my experience.
As I've been trying to wrap my head around GTD and apply it to my work (and personal life), I've been experimenting with d3 at odd moments over the past couple of days, and I've got to say, I'm pretty impressed so far.
However, one thing I want to avoid is to create an organization system that - when all is said and done - is simply too cumbersome to use (and I have a very low threshold for what I consider "cumbersome"). Over the past few months, I've tried to write all my immediate to-dos in a pocket-sized Moleskine bought specifically for that one purpose. I've probably been more successful than not in writing things down, but not very successful in using the information to help me figure out what to do.
Despite my effort with the book, things still got done the old fashioned way: by my remembering to do them (or, um, not), which sort of negates the whole idea of writing them down, isn't very efficient, and is not in keeping with the spirit of GTD, which can be summarized as: You can stop worrying about forgetting stuff (thus providing you with peace of mind and enabling you to be more productive and creative) if you have a system you use - and more important, trust - not to let things slip between the cracks.
So what do I need GTD for? To answer that question, I looked at my to-dos over the past couple of months. There were some that kept moving "to the next page" because I never got around to doing them, as in: Did Nuance actually refund my money for that PDF program I wasn't satisfied with? Another: "Cancel your NetZero account," which I can say I did get around to (finally) as a result of using the book.
As far as my work was concerned, there were almost no items having to do with doing assignments (i.e., due dates, appointment times), because those items are generally right up there, in my face, unforgettable. However, there were with ancillary issues having to do with work, such as invoicing assignments or moving files to their appropriate folders.
To be sure, there were items in my book that fully qualified as "projects" in the GTD way of looking at things, i.e., goals that required the fulfillment of some number of subgoals, generally in some order, such as "File Q4 Colorado Sales Tax Return," which if I gave it some thought - and today I did - were of about the same complexity as that of the hackneyed GTD example of getting one's car fixed (i.e., step 1: research auto repair shops; step 2: get estimates; step 3: make appointment to bring in car).
After playing with d3 enough, I came to the conclusion that, despite the fact there are generally just two steps to be performed - translate the source file and invoice the job - most translation jobs should probably be projects. (BTW, those two steps are what's left of my initial list, which looked something like:
move work and reference files to project folder
acknowledge receipt of notification to proceed
translate work files
review translated files
send translated files
invoice work
As I said, I don't want to make a career of recordkeeping, and I have no illusions about ever seeking ISO9000 certification.
That said, one might reasonably ask: if you know enough to automatically move work and reference files to a project folder, and so on, you ought to darned well know enough to actually translate the blamed thing and invoice it, no? It would seem you could summarize the whole assignment as an ordinary action item, yes?
Those are fair questions.
Indeed, it's not very likely I'll ever forget to translate an assignment, though to be fair, I came close once, for an assignment where I was given a long lead time, kept letting it slip until I forgot about it, and only started to work on it when I realized - by accident and almost too late - that it was due in two or three days. And as far as forgetting to invoice work in a timely manner, well, that has actually happened far too often (something short of a half dozen times, ranging from a few days late to almost a month, and once, simply forgetting completely until elbowed by the client... presumably, my new Invoice Manager program will remove much of the work associated with generating correct invoices, but still...).
The way projects work in GTD causes the "next action" for a project to remain at the top of any summary of action items. So by setting simple translation jobs up as projects with the two actions listed above, "translate work files" will remain a "next action" until the translation is completed, at which point - and this is the point - "invoice work" becomes the "next action."
However, another reason for "projectifying" translation jobs is that not all of them are necessarily so simple. There is possibility of having to do something out of the ordinary, as in the case of one job that's been hanging out on my hard disk for almost 10 days, which is on hold pending an end client decision. There's another job where I haven't been given the source file yet, but I have been given source and target reference files that I must find time to "align" before the source file becomes available. And it's not unusual to be faced with a job where the work must be spread out over several days. For all such projects, I can create custom steps, which I think will make things easier.
By contrast, getting a week's worth of interpretation assignments - even some number to support the same activity, as happened this week - doesn't seem to warrant creating a project by itself, as each individual assignment simply requires me to show up (and log the time, naturally), so I think I'll just treat them as individual "actions." As time goes on, I may find my mileage may vary, and can adjust my approach. We'll see.
There is something of a learning curve to using d3, though a lot of the complex stuff is automated, such as the reminder feature, which I think rocks. For example, here's what my reminders look like for the next week:
Cheers...
As I've been trying to wrap my head around GTD and apply it to my work (and personal life), I've been experimenting with d3 at odd moments over the past couple of days, and I've got to say, I'm pretty impressed so far.
However, one thing I want to avoid is to create an organization system that - when all is said and done - is simply too cumbersome to use (and I have a very low threshold for what I consider "cumbersome"). Over the past few months, I've tried to write all my immediate to-dos in a pocket-sized Moleskine bought specifically for that one purpose. I've probably been more successful than not in writing things down, but not very successful in using the information to help me figure out what to do.
Despite my effort with the book, things still got done the old fashioned way: by my remembering to do them (or, um, not), which sort of negates the whole idea of writing them down, isn't very efficient, and is not in keeping with the spirit of GTD, which can be summarized as: You can stop worrying about forgetting stuff (thus providing you with peace of mind and enabling you to be more productive and creative) if you have a system you use - and more important, trust - not to let things slip between the cracks.
So what do I need GTD for? To answer that question, I looked at my to-dos over the past couple of months. There were some that kept moving "to the next page" because I never got around to doing them, as in: Did Nuance actually refund my money for that PDF program I wasn't satisfied with? Another: "Cancel your NetZero account," which I can say I did get around to (finally) as a result of using the book.
As far as my work was concerned, there were almost no items having to do with doing assignments (i.e., due dates, appointment times), because those items are generally right up there, in my face, unforgettable. However, there were with ancillary issues having to do with work, such as invoicing assignments or moving files to their appropriate folders.
To be sure, there were items in my book that fully qualified as "projects" in the GTD way of looking at things, i.e., goals that required the fulfillment of some number of subgoals, generally in some order, such as "File Q4 Colorado Sales Tax Return," which if I gave it some thought - and today I did - were of about the same complexity as that of the hackneyed GTD example of getting one's car fixed (i.e., step 1: research auto repair shops; step 2: get estimates; step 3: make appointment to bring in car).
After playing with d3 enough, I came to the conclusion that, despite the fact there are generally just two steps to be performed - translate the source file and invoice the job - most translation jobs should probably be projects. (BTW, those two steps are what's left of my initial list, which looked something like:
As I said, I don't want to make a career of recordkeeping, and I have no illusions about ever seeking ISO9000 certification.
That said, one might reasonably ask: if you know enough to automatically move work and reference files to a project folder, and so on, you ought to darned well know enough to actually translate the blamed thing and invoice it, no? It would seem you could summarize the whole assignment as an ordinary action item, yes?
Those are fair questions.
Indeed, it's not very likely I'll ever forget to translate an assignment, though to be fair, I came close once, for an assignment where I was given a long lead time, kept letting it slip until I forgot about it, and only started to work on it when I realized - by accident and almost too late - that it was due in two or three days. And as far as forgetting to invoice work in a timely manner, well, that has actually happened far too often (something short of a half dozen times, ranging from a few days late to almost a month, and once, simply forgetting completely until elbowed by the client... presumably, my new Invoice Manager program will remove much of the work associated with generating correct invoices, but still...).
The way projects work in GTD causes the "next action" for a project to remain at the top of any summary of action items. So by setting simple translation jobs up as projects with the two actions listed above, "translate work files" will remain a "next action" until the translation is completed, at which point - and this is the point - "invoice work" becomes the "next action."
However, another reason for "projectifying" translation jobs is that not all of them are necessarily so simple. There is possibility of having to do something out of the ordinary, as in the case of one job that's been hanging out on my hard disk for almost 10 days, which is on hold pending an end client decision. There's another job where I haven't been given the source file yet, but I have been given source and target reference files that I must find time to "align" before the source file becomes available. And it's not unusual to be faced with a job where the work must be spread out over several days. For all such projects, I can create custom steps, which I think will make things easier.
By contrast, getting a week's worth of interpretation assignments - even some number to support the same activity, as happened this week - doesn't seem to warrant creating a project by itself, as each individual assignment simply requires me to show up (and log the time, naturally), so I think I'll just treat them as individual "actions." As time goes on, I may find my mileage may vary, and can adjust my approach. We'll see.
There is something of a learning curve to using d3, though a lot of the complex stuff is automated, such as the reminder feature, which I think rocks. For example, here's what my reminders look like for the next week:
Tomorrow: Bldg. 30, MSR [ Interpretation, MSR, 01/19/2007 ]However, it's been a long day, starting with the telecon at 7 am, so I probably ought to get to bed soon. There's an 8,000 source-word translation that I need to finish before Sunday morning, and it would be nice to put a good dent in it tomorrow before I report for work at 8 pm.
2 days: Filing deadline [ File Colorado Sales Tax ]
2 days: Bldg. 30, MSR [ Interpretation, MSR, 01/20/2007 ]
3 days: Translation deadline, 9 am [ 070118-MWS-89939 ]
5 days: Natalie's birthday [ Ticklers ]
Cheers...
