If you’re new to the world of time and task management then you’re probably overwhelmed by the choices available to you. To help you out Sue Shellenbarger of the Wall Street Journal has written this article in Barron’s. She tries out and reviews three of the most popular systems around today: Getting Things Done (GTD), The Pomodoro Technique and FranklinCovey’s Focus.

The result is a very useful introduction of the three systems (I especially liked her description of the GTD workflow diagram!). Shellenbarger concludes:

In the end, I expect I will embrace elements of each of these systems—the approach experts recommend for most people. The essence of good time management is sticking to rituals that make you more productive, and rituals are largely a matter of personal preference.

This New year has been notable for a very high profile media event: the casting of Matt Smith as the new Doctor Who. That’s prompted me to write this post pointing out a previous entry of mine:

Personal Regeneration.

I don’t believe in New Year resolutions, however I do believe in change and improvement. The New Year – like a birthday or other anniversary – can be an excellent symbolic moment to begin a planned process of change and move closer to the ideal you.

The chances are that you aren’t a Timelord, however that doesn’t mean you can’t change significantly whilst still remaining the same inner person. The advantage you have over The Doctor is that you can do it at will.

Perhaps now would be a good time to start designing a New You?

Well, the New Year is almost upon us. I hope you all have a happy hogmanay and a great 2009!

As usual many people will be making their New Year Resolutions, often involving fitness, smoking or relationships.

Not me. I made my last New Year Resolution long ago. What was it? “Don’t make any more New Year Resolutions”. It’s probably the only resolution I’ve ever kept – which is the point of this post.
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This is probably going to be my last post for a few days as a I prepare for the seasonal influx of friends, family and jolly men in red coats. So I just want to leave you with best wishes for the holiday.

Whether you celebrate Christmas, mark the solstice or – like me – simply use the period as an opportunity to have fun with friends and family, I hope you enjoy whatever you choose to do.

Photo Credit: RcktManIL (Creative Commons)

How’s your day been? Have you had “one of those days”? If you haven’t today you will have done so at some point.

You know the sort of days I mean. Nothing seems to go right, the universe keeps throwing problems at you and you end the day with more worries than you started with. We all have days like that from time to time.

It’s so frustrating. You crawl into bed feeling tired and annoyed at having achieved nothing – and wake the next day demotivated before you even begin. So you have another bad day.

It’s a downward spiral that we can easily get into. So try to stop it before it starts. You can’t always stop the bad days happening – the universe is like that – but you can contol the way you respond to them.
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Henrik Edberg has a great post over at The Positivity Blog. It’s called 11 Questions That Could Help You to Vastly Improve the Quality of Your Life in 2009 and is well worth a read.

One of the questions that made me stop and think more than the others was number ten: “Am I detached from the results? “. Now one of the things I’m constantly talking about is the importance of remembering why you’re doing things, using the reasons to provide guidance and motivation. At first sight this would seem to be at odds with staying detached from results.

Yet I completely agree with Henrik when he says:

But when you play/blog/work etc. stay unattached to the outcome. Just focus on what’s in front of you. Things will become easier. You’ll create less inner anxiety and pressure for yourself. And you will perform better because you are focusing on what’s right in front of you and not weighing yourself down with a lot of imagined or real expectations from other people and self-created negativity.

How to reconcile the two approaches?
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I’m a great fan of pinball and spent much of my life as a student happily flipping the silver ball.

When you’re playing pinball you don’t just bash the flippers and hope for the best. There are certain shots to aim for and certain goals to achieve. Ideally you bring the ball to rest on a flipper then take your time and make a carefully aimed shot.

Unfortunately a pinball table rarely lets you have an ideal shot. Instead there are times when you’re main concern is saving the ball. There’s no time to plan carefully and make sure your shot’s perfectly on target. That’s especially true in multi-ball mode where the table throws everything at you.

Life’s like that too.
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It’s been a while since I posted here, almost six months. That’s been due to a series of health problems and scares with myself and my family. Fortunately the major scares resolved ok and all are well. Hopefully things will remain that way.

One effect of this sort of thing is to act as a Memento Mori – a reminder that life is short and precious. We can’t afford to waste it, can’t afford to bumble along expecting something good to happen just around the next bend. We need to make good things happen here and now.

As it says in the tagline of this blog: Life – Put more in, get more out. I believe that now more than ever.

So expect a positive flurry posts from now on as I do my best to live up to this philosophy and seize the day. I hope you’ll think about joining in with comments.

Photo Credit: Randy OHC (Creative Commons)

There’s an excellent sketch show on CBBC called Stupid. One of the recurring characters is the “Want it? Can’t have it!” girl. Her gimmick is offering something that someone really wants then, at the last moment, pulling it back.

I don’t know about you but sometimes I feel the universe is like that: it holds out the promise of something you really want, let’s you get so close and then, at the last moment, snatches it away.

Obviously that’s an unhelpfully negative viewpoint. How can we reframe it into a positive?
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The phrase “think the unthinkable” has gained a rather bad reputation – and not just because it’s an oxymoron! It’s often used by politicians as an excuse for doing something very unpopular. Used properly though, thinking the unthinkable is an approach that can have great value.

We all have limits, things that we consider unacceptable or impossible. Sometimes we’re aware of these – for example I know that I consider stealing wrong and that I believe I can’t sing. However there are many other limits we’re probably not aware of (by definition I can’t give any examples of these!). These can either be self-imposed limitations or accepted beliefs that we just don’t question. They’re not just limits they’re blind spots.
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