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Good time management is an incredible stress-reducer.

I think I've been able to bring my various experiences to a time management system which works for me.

Examples:

• Five Things is currently what I do.
• Unplugging is really important.
• Computers > Operating environment
• Projects > Project management
• Task management

• Content management

See also:

• My content management terminology

• Self-time
• Sharpening the saw
• Long-term career planning

• A long time ago I kept a bit of a weblog: /tag/weblog.

  • Though I still have many more items to port.
  • Now the equivalent would be Five Things: /tag/five-things

Issues I have to deal with ∞

• A massive backlog of things I'm interested in.

Updating old content ∞

One day I'd like to borrow a technique I learned from Penn Jillette, where each day he re-reads an old journal entry.

His method is pen-and-paper, but it applies even better to the blog concept. I'll have old blog entries which will go out of date, have broken links and will generally need love. Right now those blog entries are from a previous blog so they really do need to be checked.

The one-a-day concept would normally be checking yesterday, checking last week, checking last month, last year etc. In my case, I'll check the last one, then keep walking forward until they're all checked. I didn't do one post per day, after all.

The equivalent I have is when porting old content I re-read it. I even have stuff from the 90s, so it's fascinating stuff.

A time management program idea ∞

Notes from 2009-07-12

• Deal with time zones.
• Have the host able to suggest multiple times, and the participants say yes/no and maybe give a preferential strength (e.g. put them all in order, or allot points or have yes/no/maybe or something)
• Have each participant able to suggest multiple good times.

• Preferential scheduling based on one or more participants.

Your day ∞

See Unplugging for the main thrust of things.

• Immediately address your bowels. Don't hold until you're "done just a little bit more".

Notes ∞

Attending to your notes is the main push, not the maintenance from tidying/etc. You want to chip away at the important things in your life.

• Re-read your notes every day. Consider its improvement and your own particular needs.
• Organize any jotting you did in the past. If you get distracted or overwhelmed when doing this, then at least be sure you put the urgent or non-unplug notes where they belong. Putting things where they belong is important.
• Carry around your in-between notes.

• If your notes amount to a whole page, do less.

  • Make sure you are writing keywords more than sentences.
  • Don't "explain" things, add just enough to trigger your memory.
• Do not entirely cross out anything. Instead, wait until the next rewrite to do so. This will reinforce accomplishment.