I don’t do a lot of productivity or lifehack stuff on here because the internet is teeming with the stuff and most of it isn’t helpful. Your wallet can’t make you productive and the best set of stationary and pens isn’t going to get you to write. Most of it seems to be centered around making you feel better for not delivering to yourself and to others and the rest is to sell product… That is a different rant though. I have found a few things useful in my own life and professions (pomodoro technique, with a little GTD).
I had been feeling overwhelmed recently, and as David Allen talks about in GTD, whether you are aware of it or not you are capturing ideas and referencing them. If not on paper then in your subconscious where they can sit there and make you anxious… Read this post by Merlin Mann for a better idea of what I’m talking about. I knew I had a lot of ideas on my mind and that I had committed myself to a lot of projects. Projects that were just sitting there taking up mental real-estate. So, I sat down and took 20 minutes to write it all out. The page above was the end result.
No wonder I was anxious and stressing myself out?! Look at all the things I had committed to myself to do?! Some of them are trivial, some won’t make sense to anyone but me, and some of them are major tasks that would require a substantial commitment of time and effort. Writing it all down did get it out of my head and I immediately felt better. But, now I have to sit down and ask myself which of these am I actually going to do, which I’m never going to do and can go away, and which should go in my “maybe someday” file.
Sorry hubs.