I posted a minor update to the DROE Tool, now at version 0.2 (Beta). There are three changes in this release:
- The download now includes a detailed README file with installation/upgrade instructions, screen shots, and troubleshooting tips.
- The check to make sure that the OneNote DROE page successfully opened is now case insensitive, so it’s a bit more forgiving.
- Toggling the tray icon now also displays the version information for the tool.
You can download the latest version on the Downloads page. Thanks especially to Tripp Castell for helping to troubleshoot the previous version.
-Carl
For those of you that don’t enjoy RPN calculators, you can skip this post… Yes, RPN does stand for Reverse Polish Notation. It doesn’t mean it’s a backwards way of doing things. Actually, it’s a much smarter more compact way of doing things. It was originally just “Polish Notation”, invented by Polish mathematician Jan Łukasiewicz in the early 1900s as a way to represent logic statements without the need for parentheses. Reverse Polish Notation simply means that the operator was moved from the beginning to the end of the statements, so + 1 2 became 1 2 + and the “=” key became an unnecessary vestige. One less button to press!
Although HP didn’t introduce the first ever RPN calculator, they definitely popularized it with their line of calculators. For a fun diversion, you can check out some of the history on the Museum of HP Calculators website.
So where am I going with all of this? Well, I grew very accustomed to the speed and convenience of my HP 42s, which I’ve had for more than 15 years now. I cringed whenever I had to do a calculation on a standard calculator, especially the one that comes loaded by default in Windows. I needed to have an RPN calculator at my finger tips, and thanks to Thomas Okken and the Free42 project, now I do. The image below is an actual screenshot from the Free42 program.
If you happen to be an aficionado of a different HP, there is >> READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY >>
Here is a quick sticky note hack that I like to call the “sticky note surprise”. Basically, you take a bunch of sticky notes, or Post-it® notes if you prefer, and affix them inside your planner. They are handy whenever you need them, wherever you are. If you miss someone at their desk and need to leave them a note, you can avoid that awkward moment when they return unexpectedly to find you rummaging through their stuff looking for paper. It’s also handy when you need to give out a phone number or scribble down an address for someone.
As you can see in the picture below, tucked inside the cover page are stacks of sticky notes of various sizes. Each stack contains about 5-7 notes. The front page works nicely for this since it is a heavier thicker paper than the tabs. Also, if you arrange enough stacks to fill most of the page, the page will lay fairly flat when you close the book.
By the way, the book I use is actually a 5½” x 8½” Blue Sky® Telephone/Address Book from Office Depot. It happens to be the same size as the Franklin-Covey “Classic” binder I used to have. The reason I like it is that >> READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY >>
I just wanted to give a quick shout out to one of my favorite podcasts: Manager Tools. I’ve been listening to this podcast for over a year now and found lots of useful nuggets. Mark Horstman and Mike Auzenne present the material in a straight-forward and compelling manner, and cut right to the parts you can actually apply today. Here’s how they describe it:
“Manager Tools is a weekly podcast focused on helping you become a more effective manager and leader. Each week we’ll be talking about new tools and easy techniques you can use to help achieve your management and career objectives. If you’re tired of a lot of management theory and would rather learn specific actions you can take TODAY to improve your management performance, we think you’ll enjoy the manager tools podcast.”
For anyone who is a first-line or one-over-one manager, or is hoping to be a manager, I’d recommend subscribing to this podcast.
During one particular period when I was actively tweaking my “GTD” system, trying out all sorts of software tools, and scouring numerous productivity blogs, I came to a startling realization. I was guilty of something. Something unproductive. Something that went against the very nature of what I was trying to accomplish. But what? I needed a name for it. The name I came up with was “procrastivity”. Yes, that was it. I was guilty of procrastivity. Uhg. I was procrastinating by organizing and re-organizing task lists and task management tools, all under the guise of productivity.
So why was I doing this? Well, first of all it was fun. It’s interesting to see what new tool or technology is out there. It’s fun to try them out, make mods and customizations, and try to bend the tools to my will. The second reason is that there were some daunting tasks on my to-do list. I could easily rationalize that by working on this tool I was indirectly working on those tasks. Not true, and pretty pathetic.
So how do I break this cycle? Well, procrastivity is like any other addiction. The first step on the road to recovery is admitting that you have a problem. You also have to realize that if you’re not careful, you can fall back into the bad behavior at any time. From there, the next big step is to regain focus by making sure that those things on your to-do list are actually doable. The question that comes to mind, based on a quote by GEN Creighton Abrams, is “How do you eat an elephant?” The answer, of course, is “one bite at a time.” In other words, your to-do list should not contain the task “eat the elephant”. You would start off with a task like “take a bite of elephant’s leg (without getting stepped on)”. In GTD parlance, David Allen would have you create a project titled “Eat elephant”, and place only the next action (take a bite) on your to-do list. When I first read his book, I didn’t give much credence to the project list. I thought, “Why would I want to manage yet another list?” It would be much simpler to have only one list to worry about, right? Not so much. It turns out that the “one list” gets too crowded with fuzzy ill-defined tasks (a.k.a. projects). Every time I would glance at it, I had to work out in my head what to do next. This probably happened 50+ times during the course of a normal workday. Lots of wasted energy.
There are two ways I handle my projects now: (1) project pages in Microsoft OneNote, and (2) PigPog tasks for those multi-step tasks that aren’t quite big enough to warrant a dedicated project page. Since there are pros and cons to each, I use both depending on the “project”. I will write about each of these in more detail in a future post. The only list that gets printed and travels with me is my to-do list. The projects stay tucked away until my weekly review and do not distract me during a normal workday. In addition to the basic principles of project vs. next actions, there are some very nice tips on the ZenHabits web site and on LifeHacker.
Another tip is to slow the pace of your tweaking. Allow yourself to only make changes to your “system” once per quarter. To help resist the urge, create a project for your system. Every time you think of a tweak you want to make, just jot it down as a next action in that project. Knowing that the tweak is captured will help you resist the urge to jump in and immediately start tweaking. For those engineers and technical folks, think of this like a field test or pilot run, or even a beta test. You need to stop making changes long enough to test the system, right? Once per quarter, you pick the best tweaks/ideas off the list and roll them into your system. Purge any ideas that no longer apply. Then, test the updated system for the next quarter by actually using it!
One last tip to avoid procrastivity: Energize your conscience. Let it remind you if your current actions are unproductive or if you are guilty of procrastivity. One way to do that is with the self-check timer, which I previously discussed here.
That’s it. Good luck out there!
