Nontrivial Exercises

Inbox Zero Update - Work Email

After renewing my commitment to manage my email - and consequently my actions and activities - more effectively, I wanted to give an update.

As I shared last week, my personal email management is going quite well. I created an Inbox DMZ as Merlin suggested and moved all the items that were sitting unacted-upon in my inbox to there. Some of these were BACN, but old BACN goes bad after a while. So I haven’t thrown them away completely, but may soon.

At work, I’ve also done fairly well. However, over the last 3-4 days things have backed up a bit and I have some work I need to do today to get back to 0.

So, it’s catch-up time. I’ll check back later this week to see how far I’ve come.

Tags: gtd, inboxzero, productivity

Inbox Still At Zero

I’m still keeping both my work and personal inboxes at zero. Here’s proof!

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gtd, inboxzero

Inbox Zero and Making Sandwiches

I just watched Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero tech talk he gave to Google last week. I’m a big fan of David Allen’s GTD methodology - read the book, organized my projects, got the t-shirt - and so I’ve already bought into the philosophy of de-cluttering and acting on things as soon as possible.

Yet, what I know and what I do are often different. Over the past year and a half I’ve really let my discipline slide in the area of managing my email. Both my work and my personal inboxes have swelled to between 200 and 500 emails, most of which are read.

Merlin’s talk inspired me to deal with my problem. The most profound thing he said to me was his analogy of the process at a deli.

Customers come in, stand in line, then order their food. A worker takes their order, then gives it to the cook who makes the desired sandwich.

It’s not really important to the operation of the deli just how they take the orders, whether they’re stacked a certain way, organized alphabetically, taken on special paper or electronically. The orders are simply the means to get to the creation and delivery of the sandwich.

It is so easy for technophiles who are attracted to shiny computer objects to get hung up on the system and lose sight of the reason they have a system. I’ve tried a few different systems to manage my GTD - Microsoft OneNote, wikis, GTD Outlook Add-In, paper to name a few - and I consistently get distracted by fiddling with the system.

I forget that the reason I have the system is to make sandwiches.

What I re-learned from Merlin is the imperative of actually doing your work rather than organizing your work. Act on every email you can before you categorize it, put it in a project, annotate it, organize it or color it shades of green. Make the system as transparent as possible and actually do stuff.

I’ve implemented my Inbox DMZ in both my work and personal email systems as of 2 days ago, and currently have both inboxes at zero. I’ve gotten a lot more done in the last 2 days with regards to email than I have in quite a while.

Merlin has a nice series on 43Folders on the idea of Inbox Zero, and his Google Tech Talk is below.

Technorati Tags:
inboxzero, merlin mann, gtd, productivity

My Take on Google Calendar - Give Me 30Boxes

As you probably have seen, Google got into the web2.0–ish calendar game this week with the appropriately yet blandly named Google Calendar. I thought I would give it a look and throw my input into the discussion by specifically comparing it to 30Boxes as I performed a common calendar task – creating a set of events and then sharing them with a group. The bottom line for me – Google Calendar may win over a lot of people just because it’s Google, but 30Boxes (30B) is by far the better solution.

First, a disclaimer: I use Outlook almost exclusively for my calendar needs, since I utilize a Windows platform for work. I’m also using the Outlook 2007 beta, which has some truly significant improvements over Outlook 2003, one of which is support for icalendar (webcal://…) online calendars. So, I consider myself a power-user when it comes to calendars, but my scope is fairly limited to Outlook.

I thought I would put Google Calendar to the test today with the schedule of my son’s t-ball team that I coach. I entered each of the games, opponents, locations, and who was responsible for bringing the snack (the most important part of the game when you’re 6) into a new calendar quite easily.

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Beta Testers Wanted for MindManager Mac Edition

I have written about mind mapping in a few previous posts covering some of the basics. In some forthcoming posts I will mention different mind mapping applications and how to use mind maps as a clever and information-rich form of project management.

Arguably the most feature-rich and extensible mind mapping application available today is MindJet’s MindManager. One of the biggest complaints from Mac users, however, has been MindJet’s lack of a Mac edition of MindManager.

If you are a Mac user and are interested in mind mapping, take notice. MindJet is now developing a Mac edition of MindManager, and are looking for beta testers. You have to apply on their website, but this is a great opportunity to be involved in the development of this wonderful application on the Mac.

As I have personally considered whether I could switch from a PC to a Mac, one of the most significant barriers was the lack of a Mac version of MindManager. Now, this barrier will apparently come down soon! Another barrier for me is the Tablet PC platform itself, but the rumors are rampant about how we may see more from Apple on this in the not-too-distant future.

Technorati Tags: mindjet, mindmanager, mac, beta

Mind Mapping - Information in Context Examples

In my last post about mind mapping, I wrote about another way mind maps can express information in a succinct, efficient manner. I also described how you can use mind mapping to effectively capture information in context, which can be easier to use in some cases than simple written text.

This time I want to show an example of using mind mapping to take take notes in a meeting, and compare the notes in mind maps to the same notes in a Word file and a PowerPoint presentation.

I created some notes from an imaginary meeting with four attendees, and three prepared agenda points. There are a few bullet-point notes and then some action items. The notes are taken from the perspective of the person chairing the meeting.

First, the notes in the form of simple text, as an MS Word file. (click on the image to see the PDF of the full Word file).

Now, here are the exact same notes, but in the form of a PowerPoint presentation (again, click on the image to see the PDF version of the PowerPoint file).

Now, here are the exact same notes in the form of a mind map. I’ve also created a PDF version of the map and the actual MindManager map file below.

• The map in PDF form
• The MindManager map file

I think that the map form has several advantages over the Word and PowerPoint formats – it’s easier to quickly see the different types of information it contains (attendees, notes, actions); consequently it is easier to quickly find a specific part of the information you are looking for; it is also easier to highlight the specific actions and their deadlines for later reference; finally, the notes in map form all fit easily on one page, while the Word file is 2 pages, and the PPT file contains several charts.

In my next post, I will talk about some different mind mapping applications.

Hopefully this simple example helps display some of the qualities of mind maps and how you could use them to capture information in context. Have these examples been useful or interesting to you? Have any other thoughts on what I’ve discussed so far? Please let me know, I’d love to hear from you.

Mind Mapping - Information in Context Part 2

I wrote about how using a map can capture both the information and its context in a very succinct, dense yet clearly readable format. I referred to this as Information in Context. Today I want to continue this thought but demonstrate not how maps can simply capture the context of information, but how they can actually convey it back to the reader / viewer in an efficient and effective manner.

What if, in stead of taking down notes of a meeting, conversation, or list for your use later, you in stead wanted to convey a complex idea or concept using both words and visual cues? I’ve shown how maps can efficiently record and display some types of information that is related – e.g. actions, items in lists – but you can use the visual and spatial features of maps to convey something more conceptual in a much more effective way than by words alone.

For example, some friends and I have been reading and discussing a book about faith (When Faith is All You Have). The book reviews the people listed in Hebrews chapter 11 in the Bible, and how each of them displayed faith in their lives. One of the first elements of our initial discussion was to understand just what faith is. Is faith the same thing as belief? Is faith the same thing as action? Is there such thing as blind faith? Does everyone have faith in something? We had a terrific discussion about these points and used both our own reasoning and some cues from the Bible to help come to a working definition.

After the meeting, as I thought about our discussion further, I thought that a way to express the ideas we were wrestling with might be better with a picture rather than just a collection of words. I wanted to capture the idea that faith is what bridges the gap between belief and action, whether the action is actually a physical action or whether it is more of a decision. Faith obviously has implications in the context of religion and one’s belief about God, but I wanted to express the idea in a more basic, somewhat generic manner.

I came up with the following representation in the form of a small, yet I believe powerful, map:

To me, this simple map communicates exactly what I wanted to say about faith: that it doesn’t exist apart from action or from belief, but is the mechanism that turns belief into action. You can believe something, but unless you act on it you don’t really have faith in that thing. Similarly, you can take any sort of random action, but unless it is based on a belief or knowledge, then it is not an expression of faith.

A map can not only help you make note of information or ideas in a quick yet contextually-meaningful way for your use later, it can also help you convey complex ideas and relationships in a very succinct way.

In my next post on this subject, I will discuss maps as a means to capture “information in context” for a meeting, and compare the use of maps to two other popular forms of meeting communications: a text file (MS Word) and bulleted charts (PowerPoint). Please come back and check it out!

Mind Mapping - Information In Context

Previously, I introduced the concept of mind mapping as a more efficient means of communicating certain types of information compared to traditional written prose. Maps contain information arranged visually to help quickly convey a message or data that is categorized, grouped or otherwise related.

Today I want to talk about what I’ve found to be the most succinct way to characterize the value of maps: Information in Context. Usually, when we want to capture or communicate information, we implicitly capture the context of the information along with the actual data.

For example, when you attend your boss’s weekly staff meeting, if you take notes, you would (hopefully) write a heading at the top of the paper indicating “Staff Meeting, 1/16/06” or something similar. Then, when you came across that piece of paper later, you would know to categorize the information you wrote down as having come from that meeting.

At a much lower level, most other information has specific contexts, or relationships, to other information. When you make a grocery list, the obvious context is the grocery store. Without understanding the list of items represents things you specifically need to buy, and by when you need to buy them, the list is of little value.

When you write down an action you need to take, it only fully makes sense when you understand who gave you the action, when they gave it to you, and why. Knowing part of the discussion that took place beforehand may also help give more meaning to the action and allow you to meet the complete intent of the action.

How do mind maps help communicate contexts?

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Mind Mapping - What Is It?

I have mentioned a couple of times that I have become very intrigued by the concept of mind mapping. What exactly is mind mapping? Well, it does not refer (in this context anyway) to any type of psychological exercise or Freudian assault on your psyche.

The term actually means representing information with pictures and connections, rather than simply by words. There is a history of thought and research on the subject (see wikipedia) and it is not necessarily a new concept. However, the utility and availability of mind mapping has significantly increased in the past few years, due to advances in software applications – both free and commercial – that allow easy access to this technique.

I have been using probably the most popular tool available for mind mapping – MindManager from MindJet – for several months now, and I want to write about how it has enhanced the way I capture, catalogue, use, and communicate information.

First, the use of the term “Mind Maps” is trade-marked by The Buzan Organisation, Ltd. in the UK and the USA, so I will simply use the term “maps” to apply to my subject at hand. Some of my readers will be well-versed in mapping and especially with MindManager, but some may not be. I learned about the concept myself from reading other blogs about the subject, so I want to add my input on the value that I derive from maps and how I use them.

So, to the point – what is a “mind map” or map?

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Professional Formatting Tips in PowerPoint

Presenters University is an excellent site that collects tips, tricks, templates, clip art and other useful content geared towards effective presentations. Microsoft PowerPoint, the ubiquitous presentation delivery tool, is featured, but they also have sections for Apple’s KeyNote and Corel Draw.

One of the new articles added in October is by Troy Chollar of TLC Creative Services. Troy provides 13 tips for professional formatting in PowerPoint, based on his experience and work at his company. Here are a couple of highlights:

• Turn off SNAP OBJECTS TO GRID and SNAP OBJECTS TO OTHER OBJECTS.
• Use the Slide Layout task pane
• Use the Align and Distribute tools in the Draw menu
• Troy offers 2 public tools – PowerPoint add-ins from the PPTxtreme tool set – that help align and format multiple objects between slides. [I was not familiar with these add-ins and they look like they will be very useful]
• Consistent layout of similar objects across multiple slides
• Add shadows, rounded corners and/or beveled edges to inserted photos in a presentation

This article is a great refresher for those that have been putting together PowerPoint presentations for a while, and a great place to go after learning the basics of PowerPoint for the not-so-experienced. I encourage you to check it out.

MindMapping Tools

Yet another powerful tool that I’ve just recently found is MindManager. Actually, it’s introduced me to the whole concept of mind maps, the non-linear method of organizing thoughts and information, more in a tree structure.

The first tool I found appears to be the most widely used – MindManager X5 Pro. Keep in mind that I hadn’t had any exposure to mind mapping before seeing this, but I was completely wow-ed by this tool. After spending the 3 weeks of the free trial period using it, I was even more impressed. Some of the neatest features of MindManager are the ability to integrate with Outlook, MS Project, MS Word or PowerPoint, and the ease of formatting the maps and exporting them as nice pictures to use in other places, e.g. presentations.

The main drawback to me of MindManager is the price – $349 is out of my budget at present. So, I looked around for alternatives.

Continue reading ‘MindMapping Tools’

Interesting Wiki Tool - TiddlyWiki

I read about an interesting Wiki tool on the EverNote user forum called TiddlyWiki. I’ve just learned about the Wiki tool concept a few weeks ago, and it’s fascinating.

I “downloaded” the TiddlyWiki tool and have started playing around with it. It’s actually just a single html file that has scripting included to create the wiki linking functionality. Here are a couple of things that I had to figure out to get it to work.

• Go to www.tiddlywiki.com to access the default wiki
• In your browser (I’m using Internet Explorer6 SP2), save the file to your local drive
• Because of some weird behavior of Windows XP SP2, you have to open the saved file in an editor and then re-save it under a different name in order to get Windows and Internet Explorer to treat the file in the “My Computer” zone and be able to save your updates. I simply opened the downloaded html file in Notepad, then saved it with a different name – keeping the “.html” extension. You can read about this on the TiddlyWiki site under the ServicePack2Problems section.
• To create your own sections (called “tiddlers”, unfortunately), you first have to edit an existing section. As far as I can tell, there is no way to create a new blank section. I edited the HelloThere section and added a new keyword called MattIndex.
• I then edited my MattIndex section and added new sections as I wanted to.
• I then customized the name of the wiki and the left side menu items by opening the SpecialTiddlers section. This section contains keywords that define these different elements.

I’m not sure exactly what I will do with this tool, but I at least want to explore the wiki concept a bit. If you have any thoughts about this tool or wiki’s in general, I’d love to hear them.