Can You Really Write a Nonfiction Ebook in 21 Days?

Can You Really Write a Nonfiction Ebook in 21 Days?

Can you really write an ebook in 21 days?This is Week 47-52 of a Year of Living Productively

These last six weeks I tested whether I could write a nonfiction ebook in 21 days. I wanted to summarize my findings in a Year of Living Productively in ebook form and used the ebook by Steve Scott to do so as described in my last post. While I was working, I shared some amazing guest posts with you that I felt added to my investigations. They are listed at the end of this post.

How Writing an Ebook This Way Saved My Sanity

  • Gave me the opportunity to assess the past year. I have learned so much doing these experiments and writing about them. If I hadn’t worked on an ebook, I don’t know that I would have gleaned as much as I did from the process.
  • Enabled me to quickly outline a book. Steve Scott’s approach to outlining a nonfiction ebook is a good one. I really enjoyed using note cards to do it — something I haven’t used in writing for years. My outline was finished right on time.
  • Enabled me to quickly write a first draft. Steve’s admonition to write quickly got me into a Nanowrimo frame of mind and I was able to produce the first draft in a little more than 8 hours.

How Writing an Ebook This Way Made Me Crazy

  • Required too much time. Steve Scott recommends writing for two hours a day to finish the book in 21 days. I thought I would have more than enough time to start the book before I left for vacation the second week of January. Not so much. Then I thought I would have plenty of time to write on vacation. I did have some time, but not nearly the amount I anticipated. I planned to write the book in a two-hour time block each evening when I returned. When that didn’t work, I gave up, rather than using the little-and-often approach that had worked so well for me. I also struggled to find the time for editing the book because…
  • I was confused about my purpose. Steve suggests writing to answer people’s questions, but that felt like I was writing this book to tell people how to be productive. That’s the opposite of my purpose in writing this series! Once I figured that out, I was able to finish the first draft. But I was still confused. I wondered if the book would really be valuable to readers. I wondered if it was worth putting on Amazon, instead of just making it a blog freebie. I wondered if it was worth the sacrifice of time. And I wondered if I could really do the book justice in just 21 days. Now I wonder if I had written a weekly update during the process if I would have gotten more clarity.
  • I had competing priorities. I foolishly over-committed these past weeks and tried to write the ebook while going on vacation, starting a new weekly series on organization for homeschoolers, and more stuff that would just bore you (you may be thinking “too late!”). I had to reread a post I wrote on the high cost of over-commitment and how to avoid it. I realized that I succeeded writing 50,000 words in a month for Nanowrimo when it was my only extra commitment. Throw in a lot of unexpected and emotional events this month and I’m amazed I finished the first draft. That’s as far as I got.

Can I really write a nonfiction ebook in 21 days?

I don’t know. If I had invested the full 42 hours, I could answer that question, but I didn’t. I really wanted to, but if I had been miserable pushing myself to get the book done, I don’t think it would have been as helpful as honestly telling you that I couldn’t do it. At least not this last month.

The Productivity Approach I’ll Be Using Going Forward

I am going to finish the ebook using Little and Often. I want to finish the book because I think I will get a deeper understanding of how I work best as I refine it. I also want to bring closure to this series for faithful readers. I will still work through the steps that Steve Scott clearly explains, but I am not going to block time and promise it on a deadline. I have succeeded using writing deadlines in the past, but I am experiencing some obligation-based procrastination now. I think it will be interesting to see how long it takes to finish the book using little and often. Of course, I will post to let you know when the book is available!

Following the publication of the book, I will be posting about productivity hacks, books, apps, or ideas that catch my fancy as I’m inspired. Originally, I thought I would do that weekly. But one of the important things I learned from trying to finish this ebook is not to obligate myself to too much. I love the friends I’ve made through this series, but I love my family more. That’s as it should be.

If you’d like to join me going forward, here’s what you do. Write your ebook using a Little-and-Often approach. Keep reading, trying new things, and sharing what you learn about yourself with others. I would love to hear about what’s working for you!

**UPDATE**

I made the very difficult choice NOT to write a productivity ebook, not because I couldn’t, but because I was putting off what I REALLY wanted to do until I wrote the ebook. Instead, I am close to publishing my dream book–a language arts curriculum for elementary students. As an alternative, I’ve created a landing page and updates for all the productivity posts I’ve written. My desire is that this series benefits you the way it has me.

I have written and spoken about what I’ve learned in this series here:

6 Important Habits for Getting More Done

Interview with Francis Wade

Productivity Posts That Followed the Series

Motivation to Do What’s Most Important Today

A Better Daily / Weekly / Monthly To-Do List

Automatic Scheduling for Busy People

Get More Done with a 1-Thing To-Do List

5 Days of Productivity Favorites

 

The posts in A Year of Living Productively:

A Year of Living Productively

Week 1: Paper To-Do List

Week 2: Covey’s Quadrants

Week 3: Routines

Week 4: Paper Planner

Week 5: SMEMA

Week 6: Guilt Hour

Week 7: Envision Ideal Day

Week 8: Do it Tomorrow

Week 9: Pomodoro

Week 10: Time Warrior

Week 11: Scheduling

Week 12: The Repeat Test

Week 13: Personal Kanban

Week 14: Eat That Frog

Week 15: Vacation

Week 16: David Seah’s7:15AM Ritual

Week 17: Another Simple and Effective Method

Week 18: Daily/Weekly/Monthly To-Do List

Week 19: Ultimate Time Management System

Week 20: Getting Things Done

Week 21: Time Blocking

Week 22: Morning Ritual

Week 23: Beat the Week

Week 24: Productivity Ritual

Week 25: Make it Happen in 10 Minutes

Week 26: Focus & Relief List

Week 27: Accountability Chart

Week 28: Limiting Choices

Week 29: Zen to Done

Week 30: Heatmapping

Week 31: Gamification

Week 32: The 12 Week Year

Week 33: David Seah’s Ten for Ten

Week 34: David Seah’s Emergent Task Planner

Week 35: Steve Kamb’s Do It Now

Week 36: Rising Early

Week 37: Computer Shortcuts

Week 38: Interrupter’s Log

Week 39: Project Management

Week 40: Little and Often

Week 41: Problem Solving Approach

Week 42: Inbox Zero

Week 43: Resistance List

Week 44: Time Tracking

Week 45: No To-Do List

Week 46: Delegating

Why College Students & CEOs Manage Time the Same Way

How to Set Goals That Work

How to Get Things Done Regardless of Your App or System

The Real Cure for Time Management Anxiety

Roles & Goals: Lessons in Productivity from the 7 Habits

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Roles & Goals: Lessons in Productivity from the 7 Habits

Roles & Goals: Lessons in Productivity from the 7 Habits

Lessons in ProductivityThis is a guest post by Tim Sprosen from the UK who is a medical researcher at the University of Oxford, a husband and father and writes about his productivity journey at www.timsprosen.com. In this post, Tim returns to the wisdom of Covey’s 7-habits to remind us all that being productive is not just about getting things done.

Stephen Covey’s 7-Habits of Highly Effective People was first published 25 years ago and I can still recall the day when I picked it up from a newsstand at Chicago’s O’Hare airport before catching a flight back home to London. This book had a profound impact on my approach to time management. As well as providing a practical framework for personal organization, where Covey clearly identified the next seven days as being the ideal period of time to plan and organize – the genesis of the weekly review – the book also recommended taking a very top-down approach to organization.

What that means is working out first and writing down what is important to you before dealing with the day-to-day tasks and other demands on your time. Unfortunately, as I recently pointed out, so much discussion of productivity today and, in particular, the false hopes of technology – what I call the app-trap – is entirely focused on task management. It is like we are relentlessly trying to run a little bit faster without first stopping to work out where we are heading (and also who we are heading there with – keep reading…).

But, what I think was really ground breaking about the book, particularly at a time when so much of the “success” literature was only concerned with money and material things, was the focus on building character and being more concerned with people rather than things. In practical terms, this meant drawing up a mission statement that included identifying the key roles in your life and then on a weekly basis reviewing each of these roles and setting the key things you want to achieve in that role for the coming week. While I am no fan of the concept of work-life balance, organizing your week around your key roles really helps to bring actual balance to life.

Let me give an example. Let’s say the coming week I am traveling with work and will be away from home. Looking at my role as a husband and a father, I might set goals in those roles to book a table to have dinner with my wife when I return home and in the role of father I might make a note to pick up a gift for each of my children while I am away. Then when I look at my role of son this reminds me to make a note to call my mum before I go away. This simple list of my key roles, which I look at each week, really serves me well and like any productivity tip, it means I don’t need to worry about trying to keep these reminders in my head.

So, for the week ahead, try looking at the things you want to get done not just in terms of your tasks and goals, but also through your key roles. Why I invest time in my personal productivity is very simple; it is to spend more of my time and energy on those people and things that matter most to me.

[Melanie here. I couldn’t agree with Tim more and his post was very timely for me. Was it for you?]

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The Real Cure for Time Management Anxiety

The Real Cure for Time Management Anxiety

The real cure for time management anxiety -- something to pin and read any time I'm overwhelmed

Loren Pinilis guest posts today. His blog keeps me focused on the one thing that really matters. I highly recommend pinning or saving his post for days when you’re overwhelmed by it all. I know I will be.

In the hustle of our modern world, no one has enough time. No one manages their time as well as they’d like. We read books, articles, and blog posts looking for that next tip or trick or system that will help us to be a little more productive.

But why do we have this anxiety? What are we really seeking?

If you dig deeply enough, I’m convinced we’re not anxious about how much we get done. We’re really concerned with how we feel.

We want to manage our time in such a way to avoid feelings of doubt, insecurity, and stress – while increasing our feelings of competence, worth, and success.

That’s what I want to focus on. Not the systems, but the mindset; not the tricks, but the perspective. Because if we’re honest, those answers are what we are truly chasing – those answers relieve our anxiety.

And for Christians, those answers are found by renewing our biblical worldview and connecting our faith to how we manage and think about our time.

Curing Busyness

Why are we so busy? Why do we load up our schedules with more, more, more?

The reason is because we’re seeking approval. We’re seeking to validate ourselves. We’re seeking to prove our worth.

We want to look in the mirror and feel great about who we are, and we want to receive praise and affection from others because of it.

But this is a harsh treadmill to jump on. We’re never quite where we want to be and are always fighting off impending feelings of failure.

Instead, as Christians, we have the solution – we just need to remember the truth. We already have God’s approval. We are beautifully created in his image. He loved us enough to die for us, and now when God looks at us He sees the righteousness of Christ.

Christ’s victory on the cross was so complete that no amount of work or busyness from us is going to make God love us any more or less. This allows us to breathe a sigh of relief – and for once, to truly relax.

Curing a Lack of Motivation

But when we truly grasp what God has done for us, our proper reaction is not one of passivity. We are now infused with new motivation, new gratitude, and a new fire in our lives.

Our love now propels us forward – not because we think we can repay God, but because it is our pleasure to serve Him. Our days now have meaning as we love God and love others.

Because we are forgiven and accepted in Christ, we are free to take risks. We’re free to be ambitious for God, to plan great things, and to fearlessly launch ourselves forward knowing we could fall flat on our face. The fear of failure loses its power.

Curing Unrealistic Expectations

Finally, the Bible allows us to break free from the tyranny of our own expectations and standards. God’s model of success is one based on stewardship: being faithful with what you have been given.

God understands we are limited, finite, created beings. He’s not going to expect us to do 36 hours of work in a 24-hour day. He knows we must sleep (He created us that way). He knows our capabilities. He knows our strengths and weaknesses.

Add to God’s supreme knowledge the reality of his supreme power: God controls everything. Every obstacle and obligation that comes our way is under the sovereign hand of God.

Knowing this, we can release ourselves to strive for the best that we can do – and leave the rest up to Him.

How do you think remembering these realities will change the way you live?

Loren Pinilis operates Life of a Steward, a site about time management from a Christian perspective. He is passionate about showing busy, stressed people that the solution to their anxiety isn’t time management but a deeper understanding of the gospel.

 

 

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How to Get Things Done Regardless of Your App or System

How to Get Things Done Regardless of Your App or System

Get things done by establishing good habits using these free resourcesDaniel Gold guest posts today. I’m a fan for several reasons. First, his wife homeschools and Daniel thinks moms are the busiest people on earth. Second, he is the author of a book on Springpad that I absolutely love, and finally, because he has a way writing about productivity that makes it all seem simple. Be sure to pick up a copy of the free resources he’s created!

Every January, we resolve to make this year the best year ever. We resolve to lose an extra five pounds, go to the gym more, and of course, be more productive by finding the perfect app and system to keep us on track. Not surprisingly, weight loss centers, gyms, and office supply stores love our new found commitments and resolutions. But, something happens to most of us come February (for some of us, much sooner) – we recoil and settle back to our old ways, declaring that we’re just fine and life is too busy for us to continue and you will start it back up when things get slower. But we don’t, and life never slows down.

You might think that these long-term personal goals have nothing to do with how we get things done with our daily tasks and with the appointments we keep in our busy lives, but they are so very much interconnected.

Think of our lives like climbing Mount Everest. Our everyday action items are like the base camp at the bottom of the mountain (i.e., “Call Bob”, “Buy milk”, “Email Susie”, “Write a new blog post”), and as we climb up the mountain, we get to our higher levels of commitments in our lives (i.e., Go to the gym; Where do I want to be personally and professionally at this time next year, and the next 3-5 years). I liken reaching the summit peak of the mountain to being able to answer the ultimate question: what is the purpose of my life? Why do I exist? The unfortunate reality is that, we find every reason not to put action items into our weekly calendar to work on these. So, how do we get off the base camp and get to the summit peak?

It starts with our intentions and ends with our desire to really do something about truly wanting to change. Therefore, this might surprise you, but it just doesn’t matter what app you use or what notebook you buy, and it most certainly doesn’t matter whether you GTD, ZTD, GSD, 1MTD, Eisenhower, Kanban, or believe in Emotion-based Contexts. What matters is how you think about your goals, projects, and tasks. For any one of us to change a behavior, we must want to change that behavior and truly believe that the reason we resolved to commit to a project or a goal is because there’s a purpose. This is something that no system and app can do for any of us.

I propose two things that we can all do to commit to getting things done better, both at the base camp and at the summit peak of the mountain: writing it all down and reviewing it often.

Writing it all down

Take a moment offline and write down every commitment you can think of until your brain hurts! Then write down everything you’d like to commit yourself to; whether they be big projects, chairing an event at your child’s school, planning a vacation, or (and, this is something I really encourage you to do) answering the big question about why you think you exist and what your purpose is here in life. Then, with your projects and goals, write down every action item you can possibly think of that would need to go right in order for you to accomplish these items. The key here is to ensure that, every week and every month, you are assigning yourself tasks that will help you get these things done. Tens of thousands have looked to me on how to do it in Evernote and Springpad, but truth be told, you could buy a fancy notebook, or even a .99 1-subject notebook you buy at the pharmacy. The point is to get it all down, and know that this is where you will go to capture, organize, review, and look to do when doing everything in your life.

To help with creating long lasting and sustainable habits in our lives, I created a free workbook called Creating Successful Habits TODAY!, which will help you commit to 3 to 5 new habits. Simply write these down, and each day that you do it, you simply put a check mark by that day. At the end of the week, you write down your reflections about what went right and where you had challenges. After doing this for four weeks, I can tell you that you will be well on your way to being successful with this new habit.

Review often

I’m a big believer in performing daily, weekly, and monthly sweeps of my action items and project lists. If you don’t know what you’re supposed to do when you wake up in the morning or walk into the office, you’ve already lost the battle. Create a list the night before, or at least before you check your e-mail first thing in the morning with the most important tasks you need to do for that day. I created another free download, something I like to call a “Morning Map” that lists out 3 to 5 things that you must absolutely get done that day, in order for your day to be successful. Having it right in front of you like this in big bold fonts and bright red colors reminds you to not only fill it out, but stares right at you to ensure you stay on track.

At the end of every week, look back at your commitments, at open loops which you will need to close during the week ahead. Did you accomplish everything you set out to do? If so, that is awesome. If not, perhaps take a moment to reflect on what could go better next week. Then, write down everything you want to get done in the week ahead. But, be certain to include tasks that will move you forward to your 1, 3-5, and life goals. Again, writing them down is one thing; but, you must find ways throughout the month to take action on them or it was for naught. Finally, at the end of every month, perform the same kind of sweep you did at the end of each week. This time, look at it with a different prism; look inwardly at who you were this past month, what you accomplished, and what you could do better at in order to achieve your bigger goals in life. Be certain to plan for your month ahead with the same vigor as you were doing for each week.

Resolve to Create a Better Version of You Every Day

The whole idea here is to keep yourself accountable to yourself! Like our New Year’s resolutions, they will never get done unless we make it our true intention to do so. I can assure you that with the right mindset, focus, and desire to look at our action list, project list, and life goals in this way, we can make a positive difference not only in the here and now, but in your future as well! Positivity begets more positivity, and you will become an even bigger source of inspiration to your family, friends, and colleagues!

Daniel Gold is a productivity consultant, keynote speaker, author, and co-host of the GTD Virtual Study Group podcast. Daniel authored Evernote: The Unofficial Guide to Capturing Everything and Getting Things Done, Simplify Your Life with Springpad, and Make it Happen! You can read Daniel’s posts on the official DEG Consulting website, Lifehack, and Attorney at Work. You can follow Daniel on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.
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How to Set Goals That Work (with free worksheet)

How to Set Goals That Work (with free worksheet)

goal setting, New Year's resolutions, smart goals worksheet

My friend, Tom Dixon, guest posts today. I think you will come away with new understanding, motivation, and tools for achieving your goals as I did. Please visit his excellent blog, Monday is Good.

I’ve been trying to lose weight for years. Around the first of each new year, I’d set lofty goals around how many pounds I’d drop. I’d track everything I ate and how much I exercised.

However, instead of getting thinner, I’ve ended every year for the last 20 heavier than I started. Those big goals in January were forgotten by March.

That is, up until last year.

I still have more to go, but I ended 2013 a little more than 35 pounds lighter. That’s just the part the scale says. What feels even better is:

  • I’m completely off my asthma medication, and am taking half the dosage of another prescription
  • I actually own articles of clothing that say “medium”
  • I went from a 42″ jean size to a 36″ – I haven’t been in a 36 since high school!
  • I can jog for 30 minutes (up from 30 seconds) and plan to do a 5k in the Spring
  • I have seventy-five times the energy I’ve ever had

So, what was different?

I got some help.

That’s it. I recognized that I didn’t have the necessary skills or knowledge to accomplish my goal. Fortunately for me, I found someone who did. That was the big difference. In the past I’ve always gone at it alone, but this time I started working with a personal trainer.

I’m not sharing this because you care about my weight loss. I’m quite sure you don’t. I’m not trying to get everyone to hire a personal trainer. However, I am asking you to identify that one goal you keep chasing.

What do you keep trying to do, but can’t quite get done?

  • Get out of debt or control your spending
  • Change careers or get a promotion
  • Lose weight
  • Improve relationships with your spouse or children
  • Manage your time better

I coach people to identify the “why” behind their goals. It’s only when you understand the reason behind what you want to achieve that you stand a chance of succeeding. Assuming that piece is in place, the quickest way to accomplish any of these common goals is to find someone succeeding in that area.

For me, that was a 23-year-old punk at the Y. For you, it may be a career coach or marriage counselor. You’re looking for someone who can:

  • Tell you what to do, and when. I didn’t have the time or inclination to learn about strength training. In fact, there was no place I felt any less comfortable than at the gym. When you get help, you skip the learning curve and go right into solution mode.
  • Help you set goals. This is critical to make sure you are both on the same page. I’m working on being able to bench press 135lbs, do a pull-up (yes, just one), and run a 5k in less than 30 minutes. The work I do with my trainer is to support these specific goals.
  • Keep you accountable. I probably would have quit about 12 times already if I didn’t know I had to show up at 8PM on Tuesday night to workout. If I slack off on my diet or don’t do my homework, then I’m going to struggle.
  • Take your money. Seriously – you want the kind of help you pay for. When you pay for something it becomes a priority. Free advice is okay, but generally won’t move you forward. Both sides need some skin in the game.

I’m hoping you have already set some solid goals for 2014. If not, check out my goal setting guide (which includes a worksheet) to get you going.

Who are you going to ask for help in 2014? Do it.

Tom Dixon, CPIM, is a demand planning expert and experienced career coach. He is passionate about building processes and teams to accomplish great things. Tom founded Monday Is Good to leverage his “in the trenches” experience with career transition to help others look forward to Monday. He believes that work should be fulfilling, energizing, and a source of joy in your life.
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Why College Students & CEOs Manage Their Time the Same Way

Why College Students & CEOs Manage Their Time the Same Way

time management, busy people

Francis Wade is guest posting today. I was a fan of his time-management novel and he became a fan of A Year of Living Productively. If you’re a busy person, I think you’ll be rewarded by reading.

Top college students and CEO’s share a few things in common. They both lead time-starved lives which are filled with short-term deliverables. Furthermore, in both professions, the penalties for failure are high. A meeting with a shareholder that is forgotten can cost a CEO his/her job, while a college student can flunk out of school by handing in a term paper only five minutes late.

They are not alone, of course, in being time-starved. While he was President, George W. Bush managed his time in sharp 15 minute increments.  Like many people who are time-starved, his most frequently asked question each day was “What’s Next?”

Some other symptoms these very hard-working people share are:

– a tendency to give up personal time to do work

– a need to be available 24×7 to respond to emergencies

– the real likelihood of skipping meals, sometimes without realizing it

– having the experience of moving from one thing to another without having time to breathe

– finding they have not time to “do nothing”

– a restless feeling when, after graduation or retirement, the number of time demands is radically reduced

– a willingness to work at extreme hours, either late at night or early in the morning

– a difficulty in maintaining a balanced life

Obviously, this kind of life isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Nor should it be. Those who choose to live this way are part of an exclusive club whose members place results at the forefront, while everything else follows behind. The demands they place on themselves are tremendous.

What are the techniques they use to cope with the pressures they face each day? My research shows that their primary tool is their personal calendar as shown by the following video which shows a student building her weekly schedule in real time. 

Notice how packed her schedule is with activity, and the care she takes to include items like eating and bathing that she’s likely to forget. She obviously takes her college success seriously and isn’t willing to leave her schedule to chance.

Here on the Psychowith6 blog, Melanie did a monumental job in 2013 of trying out new time management techniques and sharing the results. In week 11 she wrote a post about her experience using a daily calendar entitled “Could Scheduling Tasks Help You Get More Done?

Her positive findings echo those discovered in academic research performed by separate researchers such as Dezhi Wu, Christine Bartholomew and E.J. Masicampo/Roy Baumeister. Their separate studies have shown that maintaining a schedule of activity results in greater productivity; notably, the first two researchers did their work with college students.

Furthermore, there is anecdotal evidence gathered by Mark Horstman at manager-tools.com that the vast majority of executives he’s worked with use detailed calendars such as the one developed in the video. He has completed a number of podcasts on time management which can be found here, repeating this finding in a number of episodes. 

All the evidence, however, doesn’t mean that you should use this technique. There are other alternatives.

Another very popular approach is to place most tasks on a list, while only using the calendar for appointments. (The only other alternative – to use memory – is widely held to be ineffective.) Incidentally, Melanie has also experimented with using a To-Do list and found that it was difficult to be effective without one.

The key here is to understand that there are benefits to each approach and that there’s no such thing as one-size-fits-all. You are the only one who can decide how best to proceed. Here are some guidelines.

1) Never rely on memory

Both list and schedule-based approaches are built on the philosophy that trying to use your memory to manage the demands on your time is a poor practice. While it may work for a teenager, it fails miserably when the teen becomes an adult with a wide range of responsibilities. When the adult enters middle-age and his/her ability to recall short-term memories diminishes, the problem only gets worse, making the use of memory the least effective technique (although perhaps the most common.)

2) Start by making lists

If you are making the transition from using memory, it’s best to start by learning to use a single list. It’s a relatively easy new habit to learn, although it might become hard to manage as you get busier. This happens because lists require constant checking throughout the day, and when they grow past a certain length, this routine becomes tedious.

The remedy is to find a way to avoid having to look at the entire list, and instead focus on a subset. There are a number of techniques that one can use, but the first approach that people try is to tag or categorize each task in some way, and then use the tag as a way to filter the list.

There are any number of tags that can be used, but some popular categories include physical location (e.g. home vs. office,) person (e.g. spouse, boss, coach) and equipment required (e.g. desktop computer, printer, scanner.) The choice of tags is up to each person – there is no perfect system. In general, however, people choose tags that represent their scarcest resources.

3) Upgrade to a single calendar

If, like a CEO or college student, you are time-starved, then you might consider a major upgrade: using your calendar instead of lists.

A calendar of tasks differs from a list of tasks in two important ways. When we use a calendar we are adding three pieces of information, in a single step. By placing a task on a calendar we are giving it a start time/date and an expected duration. We also show, in graphic form, the relationship of that task to all the others around it. A calendar is a rich source of information.

For CEO’s, college students and other time-starved professionals, this information is critical to have in front of them as they attempt to make the most of their scarcest resource – time. Their calendars are usually electronic and mobile, synchronized between several platforms including the cloud.

For them, their calendar is their central point of control and they only use lists in conjunction with their calendar in the cases where it’s a practical add-on: such as a grocery list, or agenda.

To repeat the point – this particular approach isn’t for everyone. It’s not easy to learn and it requires constant practice and a high degree of discipline. New, fancy technology can make the learning curve a bit easier, but the underlying practices to be mastered remain the same.

This challenge reinforces the point – one size simply doesn’t fit all. Each of us must choose the approach that fits our particular needs and consists of habits that we can learn successfully. The decision to use one approach or another is up to you, and hopefully you can use these insights to make a choice that allows you to live a life that’s as productive as it can be.

Like this post? Be sure to read Francis’s follow-up guest post.

Francis Wade is the author of Bill’s Im-Perfect Time Management Adventure, (http://perfect.mytimedesign.com) and a consultant who started Framework Consulting Inc., after leaving AT&T Bell Labs in 1993. Today, he lives in Jamaica, inspired by the differences he’s discovered between productivity in the Caribbean and North America. It’s led him to continue the learning he started as a student at Cornell University, where he completed Bachelors and Masters degrees in the discipline of Operations Research and Industrial Engineering. He’s been a proponent of Time Management 2.0, a robust set of ideas that are challenging the conventional wisdom in the area of time-based productivity. When he is not working, Francis is an enthusiastic triathlete.

 

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