Category Archives: productivity

I finally broke down and ordered some of those nifty Action Pad Minis and Cards from Behance. They have come today and boy are they nice. I may have a more formal review in the future but here are some initial impressions:

• Very good paper, nicely designed, and they take pen ink very well. The presentation and packaging denotes quality and was clearly designed by and for creative types. You can almost feel the “hipness” dripping off of them. Each package contains a pamphlet outlining their “Action Method” system. It is very GTD in nature with a creative focus.

• One of the reasons I decided to get the Action Cards is because my lo-fi system was in need of a little refresh. As stated previously, I have been using my Levenger Shirt Pocket Briefcase as my principle capture device. While the index cards I have in it are great for that, I desired something a little more structured for fleshing out and tracking projects in that same portable size. The Action Cards are great for this. They are 3×5 inches, same as a standard index card. They have an area at the top for project title and date and sections with checkboxes underneath for action steps. This is just what I was looking for.

• I got the larger Action Pad Minis for work. Very similar in configuration and paper quality, these are larger and actually designed to fit in a Large Moleskine notebook, which I often take with me to meetings. The main difference from the Action Cards other than the size is that these have an area for “Backburner” items at the bottom – basically, a someday/maybe area.

One might wonder “why use these when you could just as easily use a regular old piece of paper?” I think that the Behance folks do a good job of answering that question:

“When you have a project that is tracked with a beautiful chart or elegant sketchbook, you are more likely to focus on it. Just like billboards on the highway or commercials on television, the methods you use to organize action steps can make you more (or less) engaged by a project.”

This is very true for me. Using nice, well designed, products makes me more engaged in what I am using them for.

You know those New Year’s resolutions you came up with? The ones you wrote down in that apparently important place? The ones you felt so smug sharing with your significant others telling yourself that you were doing that so that they could help keep you accountable? The ones with such nebulous goals as “Lose weight”, “Travel More” and “Be a better friend”? The ones you will most likely never think about after the first week of January?

Well, I hate to break it to you but they are as worthless as a glass of tap water in a fresh water mountain spring.

Oh I know you had good intentions when you wrote them. You really do mean to try to kind of, well, you know, DO them. Well, you can’t. Not as they are right now. They mean nothing because they are not tangible, actionable, regularly reviewed and evaluated parts of a process. Let’s make them mean something. Let’s take the first one as an example…

Lose Weight

• First off, how much weight do you want to lose in a year or so? How about 10 pounds? That is a very realistic and achievable goal right? Take that goal and make it a part of the 30,000 ft. section of your vertical map. This level is ideally suited for 12 to 18 Month goals and objectives.

• Now, let’s break that down a bit. How are we going to get there? Probably by eating healthy and regular daily exercise. OK, put that down at the 20,000 ft level which is for personal lifestyle checklist stuff and is reviewed monthly. But first, let’s rephrase it to have meaning and purpose:

Lose 10 pounds through healthy eating and regular exercise.

• Now we need a project. A 10,000 ft., action driven plan to get you down about a pound a month. OK, start listing out the steps you need to do to make this a reality. Maybe you can start by “Call health club for membership pricing”. Next you can “Buy membership to health club”. Then you can “Make appointment with personal trainer”. Maybe even “Research diet plans”… You get the idea. Decide all of the things it will take for you to get your flabby arse down to the club and part of a regular workout. Review this weekly.

Now that you have a plan, put the rubber to the runway. Take the first item on that list (or the next one that you can take immediate tangible action on) and put it on your Next Action list.

The bottom line of all of this is that resolutions belong either:

a) As part of a real, actionable, tangible system that is reviewed regularly and maps vertically into your overall life goals.

or

b) Parked on your someday/maybe list, which is also reviewed regularly and the items therein are evaluated for inclusion into a real, actionable, tangible system that is reviewed regularly and maps vertically into your overall life goals.

Then and only then will your resolutions hold any weight worth sharing with the world. Then you know it is going to be… alright.

My father, Kenneth, was in town recently. He lives in Washington DC currently but comes here regularly, mainly to help my grandmother Grace with ious household and administrative tasks. That being said, he always makes a great effort to also spend quality time with me, my wife and my sons as much as possible. I love my Dad. I consider him one of the closest people I have in my life. Due to the distance, I don’t get as much time with him as I would like but the time we share is always filled with love and means the world to us both. This particular trip was shorter than his usual ones. He had very many tasks to pack into that short amount of time. I knew ahead of time that I probably would only get to see him for an hour or two. The reasons for which I fully understood.

He stopped by our place the night before he was set to leave for home. We hung out for a little while, had some wine and “shot the breeze” as we normally do. Then, as he was wrapping up to leave he thought of another thing he needed to take care of before he got on the plane. He pulled out a sheet of legal style paper filled with other actions he had previously written and it immediately caught my attention.

He has a great system of to-do list making! Simple but highly effective. I peppered him with questions about it.

He described that he basically lists an action verb in the margin (left of the line) and the task in the main section (right of the line). He pointed out that beginning each task on a to-do list with a physical action verb is crucial for completion (i.e. Buy Milk, Call Bob, etc.). In addition, separating these verbs using the red margin line on a legal pad allows for easy scanning for related tasks and easy grouping into contexts. In other words, if he is at his computer he will pull out his list and be able to easily pick out all the ones that begin with “E-mail”.

For someone who is not a member of the GTD cult I have to admire how much he has the stuff nailed.The fact that he can do this using almost any old pad of paper is thrifty, ubiquitous and further proof that it is not about GTD per se or the “right” tools, it is about finding a system that you trust. It is also another sign that this apple, despite the physical distance, has never strayed far from the org-fu of the tree.

Thanks, Dad.