Posted by Louise on May 7, 2010 in
Being organised … with procrastination. I’ve got tonnes of studying to do for my OU course but every time I sit down to do some I get distracted and consequently get nothing done. I remember at primary school my report card used to have the “easily distracted” box ticked. It used to really annoy Mum but perhaps the teachers saw something in me that it would take another 30 years for me to notice my self. In my quest not to get distracted I found this handy little tip. The procrastination hack is shortened to (10+2)*5. It is ideal for:
- Procrastinators
- The easily distracted
- Compulsive web-surfers
- People with a long list of very short tasks (also know as mosquitoes)
- People having trouble chipping away at very large tasks
In other words, me. Like the page says, you do one job or task solidly for 10 minutes then have a break for 2 minutes. Then you repeat the process again, and again for a whole hour, hence the *5. Of course you can’t just start, well, I couldn’t. I didn’t have a stop watch. Like any good procrastinator I couldn’t stop procrastinating until I had all the tools. A few searches later and I found iTick, an app for my HD2. Cool little programme that acts as a timer and chronograph. Don’t ask me what the difference is.
I think I found the link to the procrastination hack on Flipping Heck which is another really good website. I was looking for tips on using Outlook categories as contexts. The site is full of useful hints and tips for using GTD and a tonne of other stuff like managing meetings and organising agendas. Shame it’s not been updated for just over a year.
Anyway, I’m already to get started. Or at least I will be tomorrow.
Tags: organisation
Well, my holidays are almost over :-( I haven’t really done much this holiday except sleep, eat, play World of Warcraft (level 62) and sleep. I did a bit of sleeping too. Today is the first day I actually feel recovered from last semester at work. I need another couple of weeks off now to enjoy my self.
As it is the very beginning of a new year I thought I’d better make some realistic resolutions and review last years. I haven’t looked at last year’s since last year so I have no idea if I have made progress on them or not. This year I would like to:
- Use Getting Things Done more effectively. I need to find a way round the OneNote 2003-2007 problem. I have heard that Microsoft were going to have an online version of OneNote bye the end of the year (2008? 2009? 2010?) but so far nothing there. This would be the answer to all my problems.
- Not prepare lectures or do marking or any other work stuff in my holiday time or after midnight. I know I will have to check emails and work in the evening sometimes but I want to keep this to a minimum.
- Keep all my inboxes empty. I can’t cope with having to deal with 300+ emails at home and at work again. It is not good for me mentally.
- Empty all the boxes in the dining room. These are the remaining boxes from my “old” office room. There are still a significant number to get through. I must make the effort to do this. I was going to do this over the holidays but I have been too busy sleeping and recovering.
- Write some more of my book. I’m not saying how much I am aiming to write but it would be good to write something.
I think that is enough to be getting on with. I don’t have a GTD wish list or whatever it is called because I feel that is probably the last stage of me getting my life and desk in order. Once I am at the stage of having a wish list then I will know that my life is almost organised.
Last year’s resolutions: Just discovered I haven’t made any since 2007. I have successfully failed to meet any of those.
Tags: OneNote, organisation, resolutions