After multiple recommendations, I started reading David Allen’s Getting Things Done: How to Achieve Stress-free Productivity. So far, most of what he sets out is familiar to me. I already deal with emails using an algorithm almost identical to the one he suggests. Likewise, my calendar and to-do list usage is closely akin to what he describes. What I am most hoping to get from the book is the ’stress-free’ part. I have spent enormously more time worrying about the thesis than actually working on it (because I worry about it every minute of every day).
Hopefully, the nuts and bolts of his approach will help in the completion of the thesis, during the course of the next five weeks. I still have about half the book to go, so I am hoping it proves worth the time and money spent reading it.
[Update: 18 Mar 2007] As part of the ‘collection’ phase of GTD organization, I have started making project lists and reading lists on the wiki.
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Regina Spektor is growing on me.
To begin with, I didn’t think much of Neko Case. My mind has changed.
This may prove a similar progression.
Her bio is certainly very interesting.
El linko stolenado
Not my problem if YouTube is full of stolen intellectual property.
Google’s problem.
There’s a decent chance her label either put that on YouTube or tolerates its presence there as a form of free publicity. It’s not as though someone who really likes the song is going to watch it over and over there, rather than buy the track of album.
I have removed all items from the To Do list in Entourage and moved them to other places. The process of consolidation continues.
Likewise, I removed To Do items from my hardback notebook and shifted them to the Moleskine organizer.
Tonight, I deleted more than 1500 messages marked ‘SchoolSpam’ in Entourage. That is to say, messages that seemed to have no bearing on me when I glanced at them.
With all their PDF attachments and the like, it cleared 800 megs of disk space. Also, it made Entourage run noticeably faster. And, just in case I ever need them for some reason, they are still in GMail.
In keeping with the guru’s teachings, I got a bunch of office supplies today:
Three trays (inbox, pending, to read)
Scotch tape (normal and double sided)
Paper clips
Binder clips
3×5″ cards
Now to get this thesis written…
While I am trying out the Allen GTD system, I may as well give the free Thinking Rock software a try.
Available for virtually all platforms.
I am giving this GTD thing a real run for its money.
I already had a Moleskine 18-month calendar.
Now, I am trying out the Hipster PDA. I just need to wait for my Fisher Space Pen to arrive…
Regina Spektor is being discussed on MeFi.