
Guide to Personal Productivity Methods - Tomte
https://blog.todoist.com/2015/11/30/ultimate-guide-personal-productivity-methods/
======
stringtheorist
I have read this and several other articles about productivity, focus etc. to
find ways out of my own procrastination. I have tried several things to some
success and most often failures. I don't know if I will ever win battle
against procrastination. I would like to know stories of people who never had
this problem. Who can get work done whenever they like. How great would their
life be?

PS. Never commented on HN before, so ignore my comment if it breaks
rules/guidelines of the site.

~~~
galfarragem
GTD.

I can't understand why GTD is not anymore trendy (at least in HN) once it is
the most efficient system I ever used. Since I implemented it, my life
changed. If you ever get curious about GTD, besides reading the original book
(Get Things Done by David Allen) you can have a look at my implementation (on
my github), it might be a good starting point.

~~~
mercer
I've spent years applying GTD, but at some point I realized that 1) I failed
at implementing it more often than not, and 2) it seems optimized for
management-type situations, and doesn't work as well for, say, artists or even
programmers.

If it works for you, of course that's great! And I think there are tons of
individual elements in GTD that are valuable even if the whole system is not
applied. But for me it didn't work as a whole, and it's significantly less
useful if not applied completely (but also significantly more powerful when it
is).

What seems to work best for me is a combination of two approaches:

1\. choosing up to three tasks to focus on per day, usually one major task,
and two lesser tasks. 2\. using a simpler list of (usually) smaller or less
important tasks for all the stuff that I can't dedicate a day or half-day to.
I used Mark Forster's AutoFocus system for this for a while, and now I settled
on the 'Final Version' that this evolved into:
[http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2015/5/21/the-
final-...](http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2015/5/21/the-final-
version-perfected-fvp.html)

I think a crucial part for me is that I need a certain fluidity in my
approach. The more complex, 'factory-checklist-like' the system is, the
better. The lack of complexity keeps me from constantly fiddling with the
system, and the lack of a 'factory-like' approach keeps me from feeling like
I'm a robot working through a checklist.

------
skmurphy
This is a really good list, I had not appreciated the subtle distinction been
timeboxing and pomodoro before. Here are three more to consider

1\. Meditation - helps focus and mindfulness

2\. Review done list at end of day and make tomorrow's todo list then.

3\. Recognize and manage to constraints: 40 hours of prime work in a week, 8
hours of sleep, healthy diet and regular exercise.

------
jelmerdejong
Personally I always use articles like this to yet again change my personal to-
do-list strategy, select a new fancy app/tool, pay for a year long
subscription, start entering all that is on my mind, open it the next day,
look at it, and close it.

I know the strategy, I have plenty of apps with an active subscription, but
really making it a daily habit is the struggle.

Any thoughts on that?

~~~
codyb
It's really easy (and sometimes fun) to get mired in the "planning" phase of
thing. You need to keep that drive when the things get more abstract and
you'll eventually find the same drive again.

For instance, choosing a method, that's easy. Doing a bunch of brainstorming
and coming up with projects to apply that method too, that's easy (for me).
It's that next step, where you're actually designing the infrastructure of the
system that's difficult. Suddenly you're getting distracted by things like
Operating Systems, web hosting, bandwidth requirements, APIs, etc. And it
becomes this huge, abstract project.

It's then that you need to stay focused. Even if you only commit to 20 minutes
a day, you'll be surprised how far you get. I find that really it doesn't take
that long for me to take an abstract problem and reduce it down to a component
I can get up and running now. This reduces the amount of mental overhead I'm
juggling drastically and allows me to continue.

It's the same thing at work for me, have you ever had that experience where
you finish a feature, and it's time to jump into the next one? And it's almost
like you _can 't_ do it. You need to breathe, because you've just been so
focused at such a low level on this one feature, and suddenly you have to open
your brain up to imagine the _entire_ f#$@ing system again! And you need to
connect end points, think about data structures, algorithms, libraries.

Another thing I recommend is trying to get some work done _before_ you go to
work. Your mind is pretty refreshed after a good nights rest and a decent
breakfast, but much less so after two commutes and a good 8 hours in the
office.

Finally, in my area there are a ton of meetups. A lot of these are just hacker
hours. You get a bit of social activity and they tend to keep my focused
(since who's going to bust out Hulu and toss on Seinfeld at the monthly ViM
meetup? There's someone talking about macros up there! MACROS!). I'd recommend
finding some of those. The interchange of ideas, and being able to bounce
ideas off other practiced programmers is another tangible benefit.

And a free beer and slice of pizza (well never is definitely the wrong word
here...) never hurt anyone.

------
SyneRyder
This is a good summary / refresher and worth a read, even if you're familiar
with most of the productivity methodologies out there. I didn't know the
Eisenhower Matrix had a specific name.

Not linked in the article (but worth a plug IMO) is the Mac app Vitamin-R [1].
I've started using it again lately and I'm finding it useful. It combines
several of the methodologies in the article: Pomodoro, Time Boxing and
Biological Prime Time. With the latter, after each pomodoro Vitamin-R asks
whether you were in flow or felt distracted - over time it generates a graph
of your peak productivity times & days of the week.

[1]
[http://www.publicspace.net/Vitamin-R/](http://www.publicspace.net/Vitamin-R/)

------
treelovinhippie
Why is every productivity/procrastination article so damn long? All I do is
open it, see the length, add to Pocket, never read. The irony is strong.

~~~
prawn
Especially so when the answer should be a list, and simple lists are something
almost everyone can use effectively to get things done.

If you're getting paid by the word and feel that a long article is more
impressive, you won't write a short list!

Shame they're such a chore to read.

------
arocks
My biggest problem with these list making solutions are what I call the
collateral tasks. For example, my list says "Buy a Christmas gift for Jen".

When I start shopping online, I realize that I don't know much about Jen, so I
need to call a friend. Lots of discussion later, I finalize on something to
buy then I need to think of a personal note to write.

At the checkout, my banking application tells me that my internet password
needs to be changed. The whole process gets aborted!

Probably, I exaggerated a little but my point being that each task involves a
million micro steps which may or may not be anticipated. No wonder there is a
lot of procrastination!

~~~
ak39
Spot on. We see this a lot in coding activities. Many tasks are usually more
complicated than for example "import this file into database, use the imported
data to produce the histogram" ... there's bound to be plenty of "collateral"
shyte en route. Non-programmers don't usually understand this.

So how to overcome this?

There's no other way than to cognitively "bring to front" the end goal every
time you hit a task hurdle that threatens your concentration or that lets you
succumb to distraction. But it takes practice to learn that you are in the
process of beginning the "shirk move" ... watch out for this. Can you blame
yourself when all you've done your whole life subconsciously toggle to other
tasks when the going gets tough. Blame evolution for this.

So two things:

1\. Know upfront the discrete sub-task/destination you are hoping to achieve
for a given finite stretch of time, achieve it and call it the day; and

2\. Kak on yourself solid! for being distracted during a tough spell ... speak
it out to yourself by enunciating that you are being distracted, mofo. If
someone else is doing the disturbing, find a quiet place next time. (Working
with kids in the house can be painful).

That's why I am here!

------
bencollier49
This seems to be perpetuate the notion of learning styles (in the guise of
"working style"), which has been debunked.

~~~
epaga
Really? Where/when was this debunked and in what way? Because anecdotally and
subjectively, more visually-based approaches work better for me...

~~~
facepalm
Google might help

~~~
epaga
All I can see that was debunked is "Learning styles" specifically in an
educational environment, i.e. the goal being acquiring knowledge & skills.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles)

That surely is something totally different when it comes to productivity,
isn't it? I am far more motivated to do things "my way", in my own preferred
style of working than any other way.

------
thallukrish
The best productivity method is to just go do what you have to do and spend
all the time doing it. Every thing else in the name of a productivity method
is an excuse for your mind to stay off from what you really have to do.

------
epaga
I like the distinction of more "visual" or more "tactile" minded people. I'm
more a visual guy and the long lists in most todo solutions always felt
overwhelming. So I went and wrote my own iPad app to help me keep a simple &
fast personal Kanban, as well as for visual thinking & organizing. Turns out
other people like it as well...

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mindscope-mind-mapping-
outli...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mindscope-mind-mapping-
outliner/id901513028?mt=8)

~~~
walterbell
This looks like a good balance of usability and functionality. The minimalist
tutorial videos were helpful.

I have used inShort, iThoughts and MagicalPad for mindmap-like issue tracking
on iOS. Glad to see that arbitrary cross-branch links are possible, to
supplement the tree hierarchy.

Do you plan to support iOS9 multi-tasking, web hyperlinks and iOS deep-linking
into other apps and their extensions?

~~~
epaga
Thanks! Definitely plan on all of those at some point, but development has
been slow since this is a weekends and evenings project and I'm currently
swamped with the final stages of a house building project gone sideways...
can't wait to get back to tinkering with it, especially since I've gotten tons
of people telling me how useful it's become for them.

~~~
walterbell
Looking forward to enhancements as your time permits. Four requests for your
list:

\- An App Setting to disable animation (it can be disorienting)

\- After navigating a cross-link, provide either a back button, or multiple
breadcrumb trails in the navbar, when there are multiple "parents" or inbound
paths. On Android, NoteLynX Pro supports cross-references / multiple parents,
[http://astrodean.blogspot.com](http://astrodean.blogspot.com). This is a
valuable feature that few apps attempt, so thanks for including internal
cross-ref links. With the new "Back to App" feature in iOS9, cross-app
hyperlink support would enable use of Mindscope as a contextual launcher.

\- Keyboard support, e.g. Delete to go back (cross-link) or up one level in
the navigation hierarchy, hotkeys (e.g. Cmd-H for home, Cmd-W to "close" a
sub-task and go up one level in the navigation hierarchy), Cmd-N to create a
new entry centered in available whitespace. Mobile Safari supports similar key
combos. Especially useful on iPad Pro.

\- For sync, please consider open-standard CalDav

------
dimgl
This is great. I have a huge problem with starting projects and just dropping
them. I haven't been able to figure out why I simply stop working on them and
jump to the next thing but maybe this will help me get back on track.

------
Danilka
Way to go todois ;-)

