productivity

Reflections on GTD

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Preparing for the Live session I hosted recently about GTD, it was fascinating for me to remember the first time I got in touch with Getting Things Done methodology, when I downloaded the audiobook online and listened to it on the mp3 USB player in my car.

It made so much sense to me that our brains are not meant for storage or to be offices. Our brains are meant for solving problems and for coming up with new ideas. In this interview, David Allen said that GTD does not help you create more time. It simply allows for more space in your brain to come up with creative solutions. We can’t do that when all the to-do lists are rattling in our head.

GTD also helps us be more present, because whenever we remember something we need to do, we simply write it down instantly, or feel assured that we already had captured it in the appropriate tool. It allows us to focus for longer periods of time, knowing that we are working on the right projects. It’s about building an external brain that we can trust to carry us forward towards our goals.

David Allen says, “You are not doing GTD if you are not doing your weekly reviews“. Which, I am happy to report, I have been religiously committed to since 2018.

There is still a room for a lot of improvement in the way I work and stay engaged with my notes and to-do lists. Doing this Live, however, got me more excited to work on my systems and making them work for me.

Reflections on GTD

Power Hour for Nagging Tasks

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When I read Better than Before book by Gretchen Rubin, I learned so many helpful tips and tricks, one of them is Power Hour for nagging tasks and this is how she defines them:

With this hour, I’d tackle only tasks where I had no deadline, no accountability, no pressure—because these were the tasks that weren’t getting addressed. That’s another Secret of Adulthood: Something that can be done at any time is often done at no time.
-Gretchen Rubin

According to Getting Things Done book, if a task takes less than 2 minutes do it now. If it takes more, write it down to free up mental space and have the list accessible to you to use whenever you have some time free time or for your weekly power hour. Gretchen downsized this rule in her one-minute rule in her book The Happiness Project.

Sometimes I have no idea how long a nagging task would take, so I use a stopwatch to time it and find out and most probably laugh at myself afterwards for all the times I felt burdened by it.

A recent example is when I wanted to add a subscription option to my blog but didn’t know how, so I set the stopwatch. It only took me 10 minutes to make it happen and I felt lighter after.

Another tip is that you can set a timer and decide beforehand that if the time is up and the task is not complete yet it is perfectly ok to stop the task too, or, if you get some momentum going, keep at it until it is complete.

Celebrate the progress either way.

Power Hour for Nagging Tasks

Apps I love: Readwise

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An application I’m adoring these days is readwise. After using it for a month I’ll recommend it to anyone who uses Kindle for reading.

Readwise brings back all those books I read years ago on my Kindle through a digest of my own highlights sent by a daily email and their super app. It can also save twitter threads for you, how cool is that?

What I like about Readwise is that I don’t only remember what I read, I remember who I was when I read those books and feel proud of all the long hours I put into reading. It gives so much joy to use it and I can save and share favorite highlights in social media-friendly formats.

Click my link to get a free one-month trial and see for yourself.

HT to @AliAbdaal for pointing me towards Readwise.

Apps I love: Readwise

For The Love Of Timers

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My podcast short format artwork, featuring Time Timer

I use timers all day long, they are one of my favorite tools to keep me conscious of time passing and to motivate me to do daily tasks.

My first timer was a digital kitchen timer that I used to track my morning routine and and to get myself started on house chores like washing dishes.

Then I got this big, gorgeous timer for my kids called Time Timer that I am featuring in my photo above to help them visualize what I mean when I say they need to do just 5 minutes of clean-up for example and to manage their screen-time, so when the timer goes off the TV gets turned off.

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For The Love Of Timers

Leave Bread Crumbs

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I learned this concept from the book Start Finishing. The author noticed how it takes us so long to jump back in a project when we leave it for a while, for example for the weekend or when we need to pause it for some reason. Instead, he recommends writing the exact steps you need to follow next time you start working on this project:

Here are some ways to leave yourself bread crumbs:

  • At the end of a work session — which may be the end of one focus block or the end of the last of back-to-back focus blocks — leave a quick note to yourself about where to pick up.
  • If you were truly in flow and lost track of time, your fallback time to leave yourself bread crumbs is at the end of the day. While it’s not as optimal as at the end of the working session, it’s better than starting cold the next morning or at your first focus block of the day.
  • Consider using author Ernest Hemingway’s trick of stopping before you’re empty and leaving something easy to start with. You want it to be easy enough that it doesn’t take a lot of brainpower but difficult enough that you have to engage with it.

I try to write bread crumbs every time I quit working on an excel sheet, either for a break, or due to some kind of interruption, and definitely as part of my workday shutdown ritual.

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Leave Bread Crumbs

Anticipate

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Anticipate is one of my favorite words. If we think about it in terms of work and projects, it is really helpful.

Anticipation helps us plan better if we:

  • Anticipate changes.
  • Anticipate obstacles.
  • Anticipate questions.
  • Anticipate expenses.

Anticipate is another term for risk management in projects or how we might do a SWOT analysis. It is, in this case, a guiding direction.

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Anticipate

Keep Your Goals Visible

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Today I wrote my work goals for the year on a white cardboard paper to keep them on my desk visible to me all the time like |I did last year.

I spent the first 6 weeks of the year analyzing and reporting last year’s performance and preparing for a kick off meeting presenting all my findings. Now that this task is done I’m back to working on my objectives for the year. Seeing them written in front of me reminds me of my priorities and keeps me focused.

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Keep Your Goals Visible

Productivity Technique: Time Blocking

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Time blocking at work has been an indispensable productivity and focus technique for me in the past months. I learned it from Cal Newport and Charlie Gilkey.

At the start of each workday I write what I plan to do on a time schedule. I use my weekly passion planner to do that and I use erasable pens as I edit it when needed.

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Productivity Technique: Time Blocking

My New Digital Rules

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As I’m preparing to end my digital declutter challenge I would like to share my social media  mission statement and digital rules below:

My social media mission statement (draft #1):

I am on social media to teach what I learn from books I read and self-development experiments I apply in my personal life. I want to inspire people and women in particular to love themselves and take care of themselves first through goal setting and building and tracking positive daily habits in order to be able to take care of the people in their lives and meet their responsibilities with energy and love.

Here are my new digital engagement rules after I finish my digital declutter challenge on Feb 15th. I will do maintenance for these rules by reviewing and tweaking them every month to better manage my time and attention.

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My New Digital Rules

My Evening Ritual is how I prepare for easy mornings

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Commitment to my evening routine is still a bit new for me as I have always overestimated my energy level and planned stuff to be done in evenings but didn’t do. Good evening routines are the secret to easy mornings and I always encourage my podcast listeners and the early risers groups I lead to fix their bedtime and evening routine first before they commit to earlier morning wakeup time.

With my digital declutter month I managed to commit to my evening routine more and discovered how much my phone was getting in the way of enjoying it. My habit of blocking Whatsapp between 6pm and 9pm worked like magic in January and I plan to keep doing it daily as long as I don’t have outings with friends.

I will post here my ideal evening routine:

  1. Be home at 5:30pm.
  2. If I did not walk in the morning: walk outside with the kids or with an audiobook (for a minimum of 15 minutes).
  3. Have my early dinner/snack with my favorite comedy show (10 minutes).
  4. Play with kids or do homework or give the kids baths (60-90 minutes)
  5. Prepare fruits and vegetables lunchboxes for all the family for next day with an audiobook while kids have their dinner (15 minutes)
  6. Prepare my coffee machine for next day (5 minutes)
  7. Kids in PJs, story time and bedtime (30 minutes)
  8. Pick my outfit for next workday (10 minutes)
  9. End the day with removing my makeup and a good shower (10 minutes).
  10. Open and post on my social media which is going to be my new social media rule based on the insights I have had in my digital declutter month (30-60 minutes)
  11. Spend time with hubby.
  12. Write in my gratitude and daily stoic journals. (5 minutes)
  13. Read until I sleep by 11pm max.

My mornings are superb when I only need to press the ON button of my coffee machine, take my lunchbox from the fridge and put-on my laid-out outfit for the day. I encourage you to prepare for your mornings like this. How we start and end our days matter so much. Take care of the ordinary parts of your day to make room for the extraordinary to happen.

My Evening Ritual is how I prepare for easy mornings