Misc
Weekend Planning Template
Aug 21st
I told my wife I wouldn’t drink tonight. Besides, I got a big day tomorrow. …actually a pretty nice little Saturday. We’re gonna go to Home Depot. Yeah, buy some wallpaper; maybe get some flooring, stuff like that. Maybe Bed Bath & Beyond, I don’t know. I don’t know if we’ll have enough time.
– Will Ferrell as “Frank the Tank” (Old School)
I’ve been away from blogging for a while, and it’s been a long time since I posted any new content. I figured I would ease back into things with another simple template…
This one is aimed at simplifying your weekend planning process. I know we all have our various systems for managing our tasks and to-do lists, but for those of you have who have spouses or significant others, you may find that your task management systems are not really compatible. (Read, “My wife isn’t into GTD, productivity apps, or nerdy web sites”.) In addition to that, you may both have some pretty ambitious (and potentially conflicting) plans going into the weekend. Since we have young kids, we can’t just each run off in our own directions and do as we please. I have found that sitting down with my wife at the kitchen table on Friday night after the kids are in bed and sketching out a plan for the weekend can alleviate a lot of stress and avoid some major conflicts. This gives us a chance to let each other know what our expectations are for the weekend, what we would like to accomplish, and where we need help/time.
The best medium for this for us seems to be good ole pen and paper. To speed things along, I’ve created the template shown here. I keep a small stack of these printed (double-sided) in the kitchen. The front side of the template contains a simple task list arranged into columns. Each task row has a space to indicate status (see key at the top of the page), a space to indicate priority (A/B/C), and a space for the task itself. To fill in this page, I would recommend Read the rest of this entry »
Simple Coin Toss
Feb 13th
Here’s a cute trick. This is a bit old, but since I have actually used it a few times in recent months, I thought it was worth sharing. (Click the image below to view full size.)
I can’t remember if I first found this on Lifehacker or on the Minimal blog, but both seem to be re-posts. Based on the image tag I think it came from this blog on Tumblr (now inactive). If I’m mistaken, please post a link in the comments.
You can’t think about it too hard, or it won’t help. Enjoy!
“When faced with two choices, simply toss a coin. It works not because it settles the question for you, but because in that brief moment when the coin is in the air, you suddenly know what you are hoping for.”
The Triple Hat Trick
Feb 7th
Here is something I am trying for 2010… I hesitate to call it a new year’s resolution, so let’s just call it an “experiment”. Sometimes it is tough to get focus with my big fancy fiddly collection of GTD lists. There are just too many items on the lists, and even when I filter on just the “next actions” the list is still pretty long. To gain focus, I plan to identify no more than three critical tasks that I want to accomplish in a given week. Sort of a hat trick if you will. The screenshot below shows the template I am using each week. The template is available on the Downloads page.
I expanded the concept just a bit to cover two other areas where I wanted to improve. The first was *redirection*. I found that the majority of the meetings and conversations I had were not ones that I scheduled nor were they topics that I selected. As a result, a good percentage of the work I did during a given week ended up being external requests and/or tasks that I didn’t even know existed prior to the start of the week. To help shift momentum, I added another hat trick for “Agendas” to the top of the page. This list is for meetings or discussions that I want to drive during the course of the week. Difficult conversations and project roadblocks are definitely candidates for this Agendas list.
The other area I wanted to improve was Read the rest of this entry »
Happy New Year! …Web Site Overhaul
Jan 16th
Happy New Year! I recently update the Manage-This.com website. There were some issues with the older version of WordPress I was using, as well as some limitations. The updated site fixes these issues and (hopefully) makes it easier to follow the various discussions. For example, there are now a few different ways you can track content, as mentioned on the subscription page:
- You can still subscribe to the main articles via RSS, and now there is also a link to the RSS feed for the comments.
- You have the option to subscribe to all comments for the site, or just the comments for individual posts.
- For those that prefer not to use RSS, you can also subscribe to both the main blog articles and the comment streams via email.
Another big improvement is that comments can now be threaded. If your reply pertains to a specific previous comment, click the “REPLY” or “QUOTE” button and reply directly underneath that comment. Your response will appear indented within that thread. If you want to start a new comment thread, just scroll down to the comment box at the bottom of the page.
More articles to follow soon!
-Carl
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