Free Flow Life

I am no stranger to technology. I have worked around it all my life. From satellites, digital signal processors and supercomputers to service oriented architectures, standard operating environments and unified communications. Have always been a gadget kind of guy. I’ve had numerous PDAs, mobile phones and am now on my second BlackBerry. Not a very early adopter but certainly no laggard when it comes to bright shiny toys. Professionally and personally today I use a lot of technology in my life. So the following statement may seem a little strange coming from me:

“There is an unhealthy obsession with technology for personal productivity in the world today”

I have a simple system that I use for getting things done which is heavily based on GTD. I use Outlook on my work network which I can access from anywhere, including on my BlackBerry, and I print hard copies of my forward calendar and my Next Action lists about once every 5 days for carrying in my compendium. That’s it. Nothing else. I do use pen and paper as well as MindManager for brainstorming but that’s across the board.

“Everything should be made as simple as possible but not simpler” - Albert Einstein

However, as I navigate the web each day reading various blogs and participating in a number of fora I am genuinely astounded at how obsessed some people are with this tool or that tool for managing their projects or their to-do lists or their ideas or their who knows what! It’s out of control. I am sure that most of the software that people rave on about is actually okay, but is it actually necessary? The complex systems that some people have and describe boggle my mind - I am sure they must have to spend half their day simply keeping their “productivity” system going. Others I see are constantly chopping and changing from one system to another. Where’s the sense in all that?

I don’t make wholesale changes to my system. It works. I spend my time on things that are more important to me. However…. lately I have really been feeling the pull of analogue - good old pen and paper for getting things done. There’s some hard to describe kinaesthetic thrill for me that comes from writing now. I use a Moleskin as my journal and I love writing in it. The feel of the paper and the flow of my Montblanc pen (a long service gift from my employer) really help to get my creative juices flowing. I realise now that part of the reason I print out my calendar and Next Action lists is because I like having them with me, even if I’m nowhere near the Internet, and I like the feeling of striking through a completed action. Far more satisfying than clicking a check box!

I am seriously contemplating a trial where I move my Next Action lists completely to paper. I’d keep my calendar and contacts electronically still. Trouble is, I’m after a purpose built paper product that I suspect doesn’t exist. Yeah, sure, I could grab any old lined exercise book and create my lists. But I’d want it to be attractive to me - like the lure of a Moleskin.

Anyone else shunning technology and turning to analogue productivity solutions? What have you done?

Photos: Guillermo Esteves and notashamed

I think it’s okay if you duff your shot when the view distracting you is this good. This was taken in Port Vila, Vanuatu on our last trip there. I love the varied colours of the South Pacific water and the lush tropical vegetation. I lost my ball off to the right somewhere…and I didn’t care .

One of the many benefits I have enjoyed from honing my personal productivity skills over the past year has been the opportunity it has given me to see what, if anything, I had learned that could be applied to the family as a whole. The stand out was how our family communicated and managed itself as a unit. Frankly it was haphazard - and stress inducing as a consequence. We needed some quality time together each day and we needed an easy system to manage our commitments. Does that sound familiar?

Thanks to Mike Williams over at The Art of GTD, Zone by Zone I realised that we were missing a golden opportunity to sit down as a family early in the morning and simply chat. When we were fresh, not tired at the end of the day. He described to David Allen in a GTD Connect conversation how he spent time with his children as part of a standard morning routine. It dawned on me that we had no routine and our mornings were largely not pleasant, often stressful and all about individuals getting dressed rapidly, eating on the fly and running out the door on time to school or work. A big rush and not a positive way to start the day.

My wife graciously agreed to give an idea I’d had a try. She would get up earlier (and without a cup of tea in bed!) with me so that we could get the kids up, ensure they did their jobs, get their lunches and were all sorted for the day before we sat down as a family to breakfast. It has been an amazing change. We talk together about our respective days ahead or about some other topic of mutual interest. It’s how we stay in sync, at least once a day. We do tend to eat dinner together most nights but it’s more functional, everyone’s tired and keen to get on with their early evening activities. So breakfast together has been key. I really value this time each morning now, jealously guarding it from breakfast meetings at work (which I almost always decline now). And we all leave the house in a much better mood.

We also didn’t have a single place in the house that you could see a calendar of events and commitments for any or all of us, they were all over the place. Pieces of paper on the fridge, on the kitchen bench, in the study and in a school bag - you get the idea. Of course, some were just in our heads too. Now we have an A3 size month view calendar that I found on the Internet (it’s very plain - you could make one yourself) pinned to a board in the family room. Everything goes on there. Now we can see it all in one place and can proactively plan the week ahead, discussing over one of our meals what this might mean for school pick ups, sports games on the weekend etc. No surprises now and a lot less stress. I also find that having this family calendar has helped me enormously with my own GTD system as I can ensure I’m on top of all my commitments at work AND at home.

These two simple changes have opened the communication channels within our family enormously. There’s more awareness now of what everyone has going on and a better understanding of what each of us needs to do to make things work as easily as possible. There are days that are less than perfect but on the whole it’s been a huge success.

What family routines do you have and how do they help?

Photo: Alasam

Over two and a half years ago now my wife and I decided to move our family from the city to country. It wasn’t a complete ‘tree change’ though. I still work in the city and our kids go to the same school. Many people told us we’d hate the extra travelling, the lack of shops close by, the tank water, the wood heater. The especially cynical said “we’ll give you six months”.

Of all the questions I still get asked the most frequent would have to be “don’t you get sick of the drive”? The short answer is no. And I have to say I’m still somewhat surprised that I feel that way. Initially I thought it would be slightly tedious driving further to and from work each day but believed the benefits would outweigh the costs. In my case a 25 minute drive has become a 50-60 minute one and the bit I dread most is the first or last few kilometres around my work where the traffic is atrocious (and would be wherever I lived). However, when I look at it now the benefits of my longer commute are:

1. I get to listen to numerous podcasts in worthwhile chunks of time. This is very valuable to me and often pumps me up for the day ahead.
2. I can relax and unwind on the way home after a busy day. Previously, I’d get home from work still thinking about the day and was not really ‘present’ for 30 minutes or so. This wasn’t fair on my wife and children as they excitedly tried to engage me about their own days.
3. I use the opportunity to connect with family and close friends. More than two-thirds of my commute is on the highway with the cruise control on so talking on the phone hands free is not a problem.
4. I often get great ideas or inspirations while driving. I have a program on my BlackBerry called VR+ which allows me to record a voice memo and then email it to myself or anyone else. It’s a poor man’s version of Jott for those of us not living in the US. It’s easy to use and the company support is terrific.
5. When in the city and stopped at traffic lights I’ll often check my email on the BlackBerry, ruthlessly deleting the junk, quickly skimming and deleting informational ones while filing ones I must action in my @action folder. This simple triage on the move really saves me time in the office and improves my situational awareness as far as what might be coming at me.

So, far from being a trade-off for a different lifestyle, the longer commute is actually something I don’t mind at all. Living on acreage outside the city has taught me, and the rest of the family, that you need to be a little more organised - no question. There’s no ducking down to the corner shop because we’re out of cereal!

That’s a small price to pay for a star-filled sky at night.

Photo: Long Zheng