A firm fan of David Allen’s Getting Things Done, I’ve been applying his productivity method to my personal and professional projects for the last five years or so. Here’s how I’ve hacked it to fit my own life.
I’m a unashamed procrastinator. When I was a student, I’d do anything other than write an essay. I’d work out in my head the absolute minimum amount of time I’d need for each piece of work and I’d never kick it off before that clock started ticking. It didn’t do my results much harm and it set me up nicely for the frenetic, deadline-driven pace of my future working life. It was stressful, though.
The problem is I’m easily distracted. Diagnosed with attention defecit problems as I child, it’s something I’ve never really grown out of. If my life isn’t planned out meticulously, I’ll just run headlong into the next big thing; regardless of whether it’s the most important. I live in “the now”, which is all well and good if you’re as Zen as Steven Seagal, but when you’re trying to manage twenty-plus personal and professional projects it’s hard work.
I’ve tried all sorts of productivity methods, most of which I’ve quickly left behind; but David Allen’s Getting Things Done was an epiphany. The perfect system for my ADHD mindset, it’s allowed me to structure my to do list and have a mind like water to be filled up with important stuff; like music, movies and whether Newcastle United are going to survive in The Premier League.
I’m a creative, though, so there’s no way I’d follow a system straight out of a book; where’s the fun in that? Part of the genius of GTD is that it can be easily hacked to suit your personality and still give the same great results. Don’t believe me? Here’s how I’ve adapted it to suit my style. Trust me, it works.
Plan the day
Didn’t someone once say that those who fail to plan are planning to fail? If they didn’t, they should have. Without a framework to structure my day around I’ll soon get dragged into pointless busy-work, social media and wasting hours on the latest big buzz iOS game that’s found its way onto my phone. Taking a cue from the idea of time blocking, I slice my day into fifteen minute chunks and schedule slots for my Most Important Tasks, Next Actions, research, social media and general downtime.
Time blocking isn’t for everyone, but having a rigid structure to my day (and setting reminders to go off when each new block kicks in) stops me getting bogged down with less important tasks that won’t push my projects forward. I’m a morning person and tend to do my best work in the early hours, so by blocking out some of that time for writing I know I’ll create something worthwhile on a daily basis.
Have some MITs (and do these first)
The best GTD hack I’ve ever come across is Leo Babauta’s Zen To Done. By marrying a bold approach to achieving goals with David Allen’s widget-driven productivity system, Babauta’s approach is thing of beauty; I urge you to read it (if you haven’t done already). The key concept that I’ve taken away is the idea of choosing your three daily MITs (Most Important Tasks) and making sure you get these done first. If you’ve moved three projects forward then it’s been a successful day, whatever happens.
I schedule thirty to forty-five minutes in the morning that I dedicate to my MITs (which I choose the night before). There’s no system I use to identify what’s important other than how I’m feeling, but I try to make sure my MITs are creative ones linked to the creative projects I’m working on. For example, today’s have been to finish writing this blog, review my latest non-fiction book proposal and brainstorm some plots for a short story.
Schedule time for email and social media
I’m a Media & Cultural Studies graduate so it’ll come as no surprise that I absolutely love social media. I’ve had a Twitter account since 2008 and have sent upwards of 10,000 tweets to my nearly 2,000 followers. It’s helped me win writing gigs, connect with people I want to interview and given me tons of inspiration for articles, blog posts and features. On the downside, it’s also been a huge drain on my productivity with all the wasted hours spent trying to stay afloat amid the tsunami of information.
In true rock ‘n’ roll style, I used to be a smoker; I’d think nothing of puffing my way through ten or twenty Marlboro Lights a day. It was the perfect cure for boredom. When I quit, my phone (and later the social media apps I loaded it with) filled that void; and it’s just as addictive. By scheduling time in my calendar for social networking and answering emails, I’ve managed to curb their drain on my time and dedicate more to my important tasks.
Keep tasks to fifteen minutes
David Allen describes tasks as single actions; anything else is a project. When I’m adding actions to my to do list, the first thing I ask myself is how long will it take? If I think it’ll take fifteen minutes or less then it’ll go on there; any longer and I’ll try and break it down again. By limiting next actions to things that will take quarter of an hour at most, I can easily fit them into my daily plan.
A good example is this post. Writing it is a project that I’ve broken down into easily actionable widgets like “brainstorm outline”, “draft intro”, “draft first two sections”; it means I don’t find myself overwhelmed with tasks that are going to take a huge amount of effort. By keeping them short and manageable I’m more likely to get things done.
Put everything in my calendar
Google Calendar is by far my favourite project management tool. Everything that has a deadline or needs to be actioned on a specific day goes on there. I check it religiously every morning so I’m always on top of what I need to get done. Anything that’s time-specific, however trivial, is on my calendar so I know I’m not missing anything.
I also include the time blocks I’ve scheduled for MITs, social media, reading the news and other repetitive tasks so I can easily visualise each day. By setting SMS reminders to message me when each time block starts, I’m no longer in danger of running over and wasting the day.
Have as few inboxes as possible
When I first started to apply David Allen’s methodology to my increasingly hectic personal and professional life, I was paralysed by the sheer volume of things that landed in my inboxes. It felt like most of my time was spent processing rather than doing; I was adding tasks to longer and longer lists that I never found the time to work through.
Nowadays, I keep my processing time short by having as few inboxes as I can get away with. I’ve got four in total; Drafts on my iPhone and iPad which serves as my digital notebook, my Gmail inbox, an in-tray next to my computer for letters, bills and other physical things that need actioning, and a Moleskine notebook for scribbling down tasks and ideas as they pop into my head.
Do a mini-review every day and a full review at the end of the week
To keep on top of my inboxes, I empty them daily. I’ve got half an hour sheduled in my calendar that I spend getting each inbox down to zero. I also review my day, ticking off MITs and other actions I’ve managed to complete. I then go through my project lists and identify why needs to happen next to move each one forward. On a good day it takes half an hour, at most.
Taking my cue from Tim Ferriss’s Four Hour Workweek, I have the next three actions for each project planned out in advance and try to complete at least one a day. I don’t rigorously monitor my goals, but I do have a mission statement that describes the kind of creative life I want to live and I make sure my projects align with that. By reviewing them daily, I know immediately if I’m going off course.
Write stuff down
One of the most important GTD lessons I’ve learned is to write everything down. I used to be unbelievably scatterbrained; so much so I was regularly berated by my own mother for my inability to remember anything. Nowadays, it’s all in a to do list. I’m confident enough in my system that I no longer need to worry about keeping everything important in my head.
Writing down (or typing, really) all the thoughts, ideas and actions I have as they pop into my head has allowed me to free my mind to focus on what’s important right now. Whether that’s working through my to do list, talking to my parents or chilling out in front of a movie with my girlfriend, I’ve learned to concentrate entirely on the moment without thinking about what I ought to be doing later.
Check in with myself every hour so I don’t go off track
Mindfulness is one of the biggest buzzwords in business right now. From world leaders and CEOs down to ordinary office workers, everyone is being encouraged to be mindful of what’s going on around them. Human beings have a habit of focusing on the past and the future and forgetting the present; by checking in with myself for a couple of minutes each hour, I can keep myself firmly on track.
By checking in, I mean reviewing the last hour; making sure what I’ve done was worthwhile, helped push my projects forward and wasn’t the kind of busywork that serves no long-term purpose. To make sure I’m still in “the now”, I’ll make time to consciously examine what I’m doing and why it’s worthwhile.
Review the day and highlight my successes and challenges
There’s no point spending all this time developing a daily productivity ritual if you don’t take the time to make sure it works. At the end of each day, I’ll review what I got done, what my successes and challenges were and what I need to do better tomorrow. By revisiting the day, I often find I’ve achieved more than I first thought, which puts me in a great frame of mind for tomorrow.
By getting my daily review done before I settle down to spend some quality leisure time with my girlfriend I can put the day to bed, happy in the knowledge I don’t have to think about anything until the morning. It means I’m always fully focused on enjoying the time I have in the evening, with my iPhone close to hand to quickly jot down anything that finds its way into my head.
What do you think? What hacks have you developed to help you get things done?
Why Bands Need To Think Twice Before Selling Out
Selling out has long been a dirty phrase in rock ‘n’ roll. But is it still relevant? As the commodification of music continues to gather pace in the digital age, do bands still need to be wary of selling their soul for some of the advertising industry’s gold?
In the late sixties, London Mod legends The Who released The Who Sell Out, a tongue-in-cheek joke about the commodification of music and the ease with which artists would sell their songs for a bite of the advertisers’ cherry. More than forty years on, selling out has become the norm as bands slide seamlessly from peddling renegade cool to flogging everything from phones to fizzy drinks. Even The Who‘s chief songwriter, Pete Townshend has done it, selling some of his most famous teen anthems for commercials and TV themes; not so much “hope I die before I get old” as “hope I live long enough to cash that cheque from CSI”.
But what does selling out mean for today’s musicians? When everyone’s at it, is it even something that warrants debate? Has popular music become so ingrained in the mainstream that the concept of the rock musician as outsider is obsolete? How would Joe Strummer cope in the digital age when everybody’s trying to sell something? Since 1987, when Nike used The Beatles‘ “Revolution” to inject their trainers with a bit of anti-establishment swagger, brands have courted musicians to help make their products seem more hip. In most cases, though, it’s worked the other way. Rather than injecting cool into commodity, the Faustian pact between big business and rock ‘n’ roll has damaged the reputation of more than a few acts.
As the industry scrabbles for ways to stay profitable in the wake of the digital revolution, bands are jumping into bed with brand sponsors more readily than ever. Former Beatle Paul McCartney, lost every shred of cool he had left when he teamed up with global coffee giants Starbucks to release an album. When the icons of the sixties counterculture are having a new kind of love in with “the man” what hope is there for everyone else? When the car manufacturers call, how are you going to turn them down? Here’s why you should think twice before selling your soul to a company.
They Say You Want A Revolution: Advertising Won’t Ever Make You Cool
The music business is an industry built on myth. From Elvis Presley‘s revolutionary gyrations, to Nirvana‘s slacker prophecies and beyond, whole careers have been turned into quasi-religious legends by an industry eager to inject music with an importance far beyond what can be expected from few songs on a disc. Iconic stars like John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain have attained prophet-like status; religious figures for a secular world.
It’s this myth that big business wants to buy into. By aligning their products with popular culture trailblazers, they’re desperately hoping some of the magic will rub off. Apart from the likes of Steve Jobs and Henry Ford, there aren’t many business innovators who can attain rockstar status on their own, after all.
The problem for artists is that selling their soul to an advertising campaign will never make them cool. Before the counter-cultural revolution, the concept of selling out didn’t exist. But once musicians began to inject their songs with politics, they became spokesmen and women for a generation desperate to disassociate themselves with the mainstream; advertising was out the question.
It’s that notion that still permeates pop culture. As the new Internet-savvy generation begins to take over, the concept of the sell out may die; but right now bands need to be careful. The typical 16-to-34-year-old has been exposed to advertising since birth. They can see through it in seconds; send out the wrong message and you’ll alienate them in an instant.
Live Forever: Some Things Are More Important Than Making Money
When your music career’s dead and buried, how do you want to be remembered? For the song you sold to a Samsung ad or for the cutting-edge albums you released? For many artists who jump aboard the advertising gravy train, it becomes the central theme of their careers. Peter, Bjorn & John gave us some thrilling post-millennial folk-pop; but what are they known for? The song on the Homebase ad.
Yes, you might earn a decent wedge from licensing your music for adverts; but is it worth sacrificing your band’s history? Music is a commodity, but for diehard fans it’s imbued with significance. Sell a song that’s been embraced by your audience as a huge part of their lives and you’re selling their dreams. Much like the millennial cash cow of the reunion, jumping into bed with advertisers is akin to prostituting your rock ‘n’ roll soul.
Musicians can’t underestimate the importance their music can have in other people’s lives. From weddings to funerals, first kisses to first night’s out; our favourite songs are the soundtrack to our personal stories. With the arrival of the digital age, they’ve become even more personal, as we grab tracks from across the whole recorded history of popular music. Are you willing to risk your band’s place in those stories for the sake of a few extra dollars or pounds?
Most young musicians dream of the kind of rock ‘n’ roll success that turned bands like Led Zeppelin into megastars. It’s stories of private jets, groupies and wanton excess that make rock ‘n’ roll careers seem so thrilling; not the ins and outs of the advertising deals. Music, after all, is about far more than numbers on a balance sheet.
What do you think? Is selling out something every band needs to think carefully about?