Tools for Thought

While I was in the middle of reordering, revising and adding sections to the Pattern Language for Productivity series for a downloadable version, one of my more saintly readers, D.L. Fuller, preempted me and sent in PDF and RTF versions, which I’m making available now.
I still see errors and omissions in the series, so I’m […]

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The title says it all. LifeDev has graciously posted my guest article here. It deals with explicitly looking for the presuppositions that frame how we view a problem or project. It also contains a few examples for you to run through as a lateral thinking training exercise.

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In a reply to my Pattern Language entry on General Reference Files, David Goodger recently commented:
I have never understood the rule to use hangerless file folders. I don’t see how using Pendaflex adds any overhead. The rule seems completely arbitrary, and Allen’s GTD book doesn’t back it up with any arguments or evidence.
Do you agree […]

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One of the biggest stumbling blocks to idea generation and problem solving is familiarity with our own thought process. A problem, once recognized, evokes a chain of associations drawn from memory, and the strong tendency is to apply a stock solution that worked in the past for a similar situation. The existing ideas or solutions […]

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For any task management system to be trustworthy, it has to be realistic. It needs to have as few placeholders as possible, but no fewer. It needs to hold as many projects and actions as we’re genuinely committed to, but no more.
The discipline of rapidly capturing new inputs and processing them into a list or […]

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Before we can manage our options, we need to have options. By default, the brain organizes learned experience into stable perceptual frameworks and common response patterns. It needs to do this. We wouldn’t want to consider every possible way of crossing the street; we just look both ways and walk if we see no coming […]

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This week I’ll be finishing up the Pattern Language for Productivity series, making some non-trivial edits to it, and turning it into a PDF for download. I’ll leave the series on the blog as-is — I wouldn’t want to edit it retroactively — so you’ll definitely want to take a look at the e-book version, […]

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Our priorities are based on our time frames. When we eat an ice cream, we’ve made short-term enjoyment a priority over long-term health and vitality. When we postpone dinner with family and stay late at the office to complete a project, we’re making another priority choice. These may or may not be the right priorities, […]

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Many activities can be batched, not just repetitive ones. We have context lists that group like activities by the location or resource required — an @Computer list for tasks requiring a computer, an @Home list for tasks that can only be done at home, and so on. We can batch the processing of paperwork and […]

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A complete review of projects and next actions held once per week is critical for keeping your tasks management system trustworthy, preventing “stuff” (unprocessed agreements, intentions, information) from piling up in mind to the point of distraction. Weekly reviews can be empowering, but they can be too empowering. From the repose of the weekly review, […]

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