blog.pmarca.com: The Pmarca Guide to Personal Productivity

Matthew Murphy's personal annotations on this page

Telecommatt bookmarked on 2007-06-12 gtd productivity

As a result, you can always work on whatever is most important or most interesting, at any time.
Keep three and only three lists: a Todo List, a Watch List, and a Later List.
Each night before you go to bed, prepare a 3x5 index card with a short list of 3 to 5 things that you will do the next day.
Structured Procrastination.
Do email exactly twice a day -- say, once first thing in the morning, and once at the end of the workday.
Don't answer the phone.
Hide in an IPod.
Second, it gives you a chance to calmly, peacefully collect your thoughts and prepare mentally and emotionally for the day ahead.
Only agree to new commitments when both your head and your heart say yes.
Do something you love.

This link has been bookmarked by 102 people . It was first bookmarked on 06 Jun 2007, by gcanfield.

21 Jan 09

doxyer Liu
Productivity

Productivity MarcAndreessen
- Let's start with a bang: don't keep a schedule
- As a result, you can always work on whatever is most important or most interesting, at any time.
- 11 more annotations...
- - This idea comes from a wonderful book called A Perfect Mess, which explains how not keeping a schedule has been key to Arnold Schwarzenegger's success as a movie star, politician, and businessman over the last 20 years.
  - This also gives you the best odds of maximizing flow, which is a whole 'nother topic but highly related.
  - Keep three and only three lists: a Todo List, a Watch List, and a Later List.
  - Each night before you go to bed, prepare a 3x5 index card with a short list of 3 to 5 things that you will do the next day.
    
    And then, the next day, do those things.
  - Structured Procrastination.
    
    This is a great one
  - Read his original description, by all means.
  - Generally in the course of a day, there is something you have to do that you are not doing because you are procrastinating.
    
    While you're procrastinating, just do lots of other stuff instead.
  - The other key two-word tactic: Strategic Incompetence.
    
    The best way to to make sure that you are never asked to do something again is to royally screw it up the first time you are asked to do it.
  - Only agree to new commitments when both your head and your heart say yes.
  - While I find GTD to be highly inspiring, in practice I think it's awfully complex.
  - For me, an organization system that requires significant time to deal with in and of itself is not optimal.
06 Jun 08

Sam Kitonyi
- Each night before you go to bed, prepare a 3x5 index card with a short list of 3 to 5 things that you will do the next day.
  
  And then, the next day, do those things.
  
  I sit down at my desk before I go to sleep, pull up my Todo List (which I keep in Microsoft Word's outline mode, due to long habit), and pick out the 3 to 5 things I am going to get done tomorrow. I write those things on a fresh 3x5 card, lay the card out with my card keys, and go to bed. Then, the next day, I try like hell to get just those things done. If I do, it was a successful day.
- Only doing email twice a day will make you far more productive for the rest of the day.
  
  The problem with email is that getting an email triggers that same endorphin hit I mentioned above -- the one that a mouse gets when he bonks on the button in the cage and gets a food pellet.
  
  Responding to an email triggers that same hit.
  
  The pleasure chemical hits your neocortex and you go "ahhh" inside and feel like you've done something.
  
  So you sit and work with your mail client open and you interrupt your work every time an email comes in and you answer it and you send another email and you feel great in the moment.
  
  But what you're really doing is fracturing your time, interrupting your flow, and killing your ability to focus on anything long enough to get real high-quality work done.
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- Keep three and only three lists: a Todo List, a Watch List, and a Later List.
- Each night before you go to bed, prepare a 3x5 index card with a short list of 3 to 5 things that you will do the next day.
- 1 more annotations...
- - Then, throughout the rest of the day, use the back of the 3x5 card as your Anti-Todo List.
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- Keep three and only three lists: a Todo List, a Watch List, and a Later List.
  
  The more into lists you are, the more important this is.
  
  Into the Todo List goes all the stuff you "must" do -- commitments, obligations, things that have to be done. A single list, possibly subcategorized by timeframe (today, this week, next week, next month).
  
  Into the Watch List goes all the stuff going on in your life that you have to follow up on, wait for someone else to get back to you on, remind yourself of in the future, or otherwise remember.
  
  Into the Later List goes everything else -- everything you might want to do or will do when you have time or wish you could do.
  
  If it doesn't go on one of those three lists, it goes away.
- Each night before you go to bed, prepare a 3x5 index card with a short list of 3 to 5 things that you will do the next day.
  
  And then, the next day, do those things.
- 15 more annotations...
- - Then, throughout the rest of the day, use the back of the 3x5 card as your Anti-Todo List.
  - Each time you do something, you get to write it down
  - And then at the end of the day, before you prepare tomorrow's 3x5 card, take a look at today's card and its Anti-Todo list and marvel at all the things you actually got done that day.
  - Structured Procrastination.
  - The gist of Structured Procrastination is that you should never fight the tendency to procrastinate -- instead, you should use it to your advantage in order to get other things done.
  - While you're procrastinating, just do lots of other stuff instead.
  - Do email exactly twice a day -- say, once first thing in the morning, and once at the end of the workday.
  - When you do process email, do it like this:
    
    First, always finish each of your two daily email sessions with a completely empty inbox.
  - Second, when doing email, either answer or file every single message until you get to that empty inbox state of grace.
  - Third, emails relating to topics that are current working projects or pressing issues go into temporary subfolders of a folder called Action.
  - Fourth, aside from those temporary Action subfolders, only keep three standing email folders: Pending, Review, and Vault.
  - Don't answer the phone.
    
    Let it go to voicemail, and then every few hours, screen your voicemails and batch the return calls.
  - no matter what time you get up, start the day with a real, sit-down breakfast.
  - Only agree to new commitments when both your head and your heart say yes.
  - Do something you love.
03 Aug 07

Maggie Tsai
productivity
Wade Ren
productivity
- Keep three and only three lists: a Todo List, a Watch List, and a Later List.
  
  The more into lists you are, the more important this is.
  
  Into the Todo List goes all the stuff you "must" do -- commitments, obligations, things that have to be done. A single list, possibly subcategorized by timeframe (today, this week, next week, next month).
  
  Into the Watch List goes all the stuff going on in your life that you have to follow up on, wait for someone else to get back to you on, remind yourself of in the future, or otherwise remember.
  
  Into the Later List goes everything else -- everything you might want to do or will do when you have time or wish you could do.
  
  If it doesn't go on one of those three lists, it goes away.
- Each night before you go to bed, prepare a 3x5 index card with a short list of 3 to 5 things that you will do the next day.
  
  And then, the next day, do those things.
  
  I sit down at my desk before I go to sleep, pull up my Todo List (which I keep in Microsoft Word's outline mode, due to long habit), and pick out the 3 to 5 things I am going to get done tomorrow. I write those things on a fresh 3x5 card, lay the card out with my card keys, and go to bed. Then, the next day, I try like hell to get just those things done. If I do, it was a successful day.
  
  People who have tried lots of productivity porn techniques will tell you that this is one of the most successful techniques they have ever tried.
  
  Once you get into the habit, you start to realize how many days you used to have when you wouldn't get 3 to 5 important/significant/meaningful things done during a day.
- 4 more annotations...
- - Then, throughout the rest of the day, use the back of the 3x5 card as your Anti-Todo List.
    
    This isn't a real list. And the name is tongue firmly in cheek.
    
    What you do is this: every time you do something -- anything -- useful during the day, write it down in your Anti-Todo List on the card.
    
    Each time you do something, you get to write it down and you get that little rush of endorphins that the mouse gets every time he presses the button in his cage and gets a food pellet.
    
    And then at the end of the day, before you prepare tomorrow's 3x5 card, take a look at today's card and its Anti-Todo list and marvel at all the things you actually got done that day.
  - Structured Procrastination.
  - The gist of Structured Procrastination is that you should never fight the tendency to procrastinate -- instead, you should use it to your advantage in order to get other things done.
    
    Generally in the course of a day, there is something you have to do that you are not doing because you are procrastinating.
  - start the day with a real, sit-down breakfast.
    
    This serves two purposes.
    
    First, it fuels you up. Study after study have shown that breakfast is, yes, the most important meal of the day. It's critical to properly fuel the body for the day's activities and it's also critical to staying lean or losing weight. (People who don't have breakfast tend to eat more, and worse, at lunch.)
    
    Second, it gives you a chance to calmly, peacefully collect your thoughts and prepare mentally and emotionally for the day ahead.
27 Jul 07

sanchomdv
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andreessen productivity
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the_librarian
article del.icio.us imported productivity zeitmanagement
25 Jun 07

dope priest
lifehacks howto reference @later
- Keep three and only three lists: a Todo List, a Watch List, and a Later List.
  
  The more into lists you are, the more important this is.
  
  Into the Todo List goes all the stuff you "must" do -- commitments, obligations, things that have to be done. A single list, possibly subcategorized by timeframe (today, this week, next week, next month).
  
  Into the Watch List goes all the stuff going on in your life that you have to follow up on, wait for someone else to get back to you on, remind yourself of in the future, or otherwise remember.
  
  Into the Later List goes everything else -- everything you might want to do or will do when you have time or wish you could do.
  
  If it doesn't go on one of those three lists, it goes away.
Pascal Veilleux
productivitePersonnelle
Christophe Lauer
Personal Productivity
24 Jun 07

MLT
tips
- While you're procrastinating, just do lots of other stuff instead.
  
  As John says, "The list of tasks one has in mind will be ordered by importance. Tasks that seem most urgent and important are on top. But there are also worthwhile tasks to perform lower down on the list. Doing these tasks becomes a way of not doing the things higher up on the list. With this sort of appropriate task structure, the procrastinator becomes a useful citizen. Indeed, the procrastinator can even acquire, as I have, a reputation for getting a lot done."
- Keep three and only three lists: a Todo List, a Watch List, and a Later List.
  
  The more into lists you are, the more important this is.
  
  Into the Todo List goes all the stuff you "must" do -- commitments, obligations, things that have to be done. A single list, possibly subcategorized by timeframe (today, this week, next week, next month).
  
  Into the Watch List goes all the stuff going on in your life that you have to follow up on, wait for someone else to get back to you on, remind yourself of in the future, or otherwise remember.
  
  Into the Later List goes everything else -- everything you might want to do or will do when you have time or wish you could do.
  
  If it doesn't go on one of those three lists, it goes away.
  
  Each night before you go to bed, prepare a 3x5 index card with a short list of 3 to 5 things that you will do the next day.
  
  And then, the next day, do those things.
  
  I sit down at my desk before I go to sleep, pull up my Todo List (which I keep in Microsoft Word's outline mode, due to long habit), and pick out the 3 to 5 things I am going to get done tomorrow. I write those things on a fresh 3x5 card, lay the card out with my card keys, and go to bed. Then, the next day, I try like hell to get just those things done. If I do, it was a successful day.
- 2 more annotations...
- - every time you do something -- anything -- useful during the day, write it down in your Anti-Todo List on the card.
  - Structured Procrastination
23 Jun 07

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productivity organization procrastination
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TinoRO
imported delicious life lifehacks organizacion procrastination reference tips todo
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Un Guide de Productivité Personnelle - Marc Andreessen

productivity gtd lifehacks organization tips toread work procrastination business email communication fun importdelicious
12 Jun 07

Matthew Murphy
gtd productivity
- As a result, you can always work on whatever is most important or most interesting, at any time.
- Keep three and only three lists: a Todo List, a Watch List, and a Later List.
- 8 more annotations...
- - Each night before you go to bed, prepare a 3x5 index card with a short list of 3 to 5 things that you will do the next day.
  - Structured Procrastination.
  - Do email exactly twice a day -- say, once first thing in the morning, and once at the end of the workday.
  - Don't answer the phone.
  - Hide in an IPod.
  - Second, it gives you a chance to calmly, peacefully collect your thoughts and prepare mentally and emotionally for the day ahead.
  - Only agree to new commitments when both your head and your heart say yes.
  - Do something you love.
bccreative
copied Bookmarks productivity gtd lifehacks organization self-improvement delicious
10 Jun 07

Alex Ko
gtd performance self-improvement
Owen Mathews
article resource howto
PG Holmlov
Human Work
- Let's start with a bang: don't keep a schedule.
  
  He's crazy, you say!
  
  I'm totally serious. If you pull it off -- and in many structured jobs, you simply can't -- this simple tip alone can make a huge difference in productivity.
  
  By not keeping a schedule, I mean: refuse to commit to meetings, appointments, or activities at any set time in any future day.
  
  As a result, you can always work on whatever is most important or most interesting, at any time.
  
  Want to spend all day writing a research report? Do it!
  
  Want to spend all day coding? Do it!
  
  Want to spend all day at the cafe down the street reading a book on personal productivity? Do it!
  
  When someone emails or calls to say, "Let's meet on Tuesday at 3", the appropriate response is: "I'm not keeping a schedule for 2007, so I can't commit to that, but give me a call on Tuesday at 2:45 and if I'm available, I'll meet with you."
  
  Or, if it's important, say, "You know what, let's meet right now."
  
  Clearly this only works if you can get away with it. If you have a structured job, a structured job environment, or you're a CEO, it will be hard to pull off.
  
  But if you can do it, it's really liberating, and will lead to far higher productivity than almost any other tactic you can try.
- Let's start with a bang: don't keep a schedule.
  
  He's crazy, you say!
  
  I'm totally serious. If you pull it off -- and in many structured jobs, you simply can't -- this simple tip alone can make a huge difference in productivity.
  
  By not keeping a schedule, I mean: refuse to commit to meetings, appointments, or activities at any set time in any future day.
  
  As a result, you can always work on whatever is most important or most interesting, at any time.
  
  Want to spend all day writing a research report? Do it!
  
  Want to spend all day coding? Do it!
  
  Want to spend all day at the cafe down the street reading a book on personal productivity? Do it!
  
  When someone emails or calls to say, "Let's meet on Tuesday at 3", the appropriate response is: "I'm not keeping a schedule for 2007, so I can't commit to that, but give me a call on Tuesday at 2:45 and if I'm available, I'll meet with you."
  
  Or, if it's important, say, "You know what, let's meet right now."
  
  Clearly this only works if you can get away with it. If you have a structured job, a structured job environment, or you're a CEO, it will be hard to pull off.
  
  But if you can do it, it's really liberating, and will lead to far higher productivity than almost any other tactic you can try.
indigo11
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Pro GTD GettingThingsDone Flow Productivity lifehacks organization tips Time
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Eric Bodwell
tagthese
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Rick L
@ToRead productivity lifehacks GTD
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hldnmyown unfortunately
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arndis
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06 Jun 07

Blair Adams
productivity gtd lifehacks tips procrastination organization
bpfoot
General
Andrew Upton
productivity gtd lifehacks procrastination organization
adiwidjaja
productivity gtd inspiration
pianoer
gtd personal productivity thinking
- Let's start with a bang: don't keep a schedule.
- This idea comes from a wonderful book called A Perfect Mess, which explains how not keeping a schedule has been key to Arnold Schwarzenegger's success as a movie star, politician, and businessman over the last 20 years.
- 18 more annotations...
- - Want to meet with Arnold? Sure, drop on by. He'll see you if he can. But you might want to call first. Sorry, he doesn't schedule appointments in advance.
  - Keep three and only three lists: a Todo List, a Watch List, and a Later List.
  - Each night before you go to bed, prepare a 3x5 index card with a short list of 3 to 5 things that you will do the next day.
  - Then, throughout the rest of the day, use the back of the 3x5 card as your Anti-Todo List.
  - Structured Procrastination.
  - The other key two-word tactic: Strategic Incompetence.
  - Do email exactly twice a day
  - When you do process email, do it like this:
    
    First, always finish each of your two daily email sessions with a completely empty inbox.
  - Second, when doing email, either answer or file every single message until you get to that empty inbox state of grace.
  - Third, emails relating to topics that are current working projects or pressing issues go into temporary subfolders of a folder called Action.
  - Don't answer the phone.
  - Hide in an IPod.
  - I'm not going to talk a lot about getting up early or going to bed late or anything else related to the course of a typical day, because everyone's different.
  - But the thing that matters almost more than anything in determining whether I'll have a happy, satisfying day is this: no matter what time you get up, start the day with a real, sit-down breakfast.
  - This serves two purposes.
    
    First, it fuels you up. Study after study have shown that breakfast is, yes, the most important meal of the day. It's critical to properly fuel the body for the day's activities and it's also critical to staying lean or losing weight. (People who don't have breakfast tend to eat more, and worse, at lunch.)
    
    Second, it gives you a chance to calmly, peacefully collect your thoughts and prepare mentally and emotionally for the day ahead.
    
    This works whether you do it with kids and/or a partner, or you're solo.
    
    Personally I think it's worth whatever effort is involved to go to bed early enough to wake up early enough to have a good solid 45 minutes or an hour for breakfast each morning, if you can pull it off.
  - Only agree to new commitments when both your head and your heart say yes.
  - Do something you love.
  - Fourth, aside from those temporary Action subfolders, only keep three standing email folders: Pending, Review, and Vault.
gcanfield
articles
- refuse to commit to meetings, appointments, or activities at any set time in any future day.
  
  As a result, you can always work on whatever is most important or most interesting, at any time.
- As a result, you can always work on whatever is most important or most interesting, at any time.
- 9 more annotations...
- - work on whatever is most important or most interesting, at any time.
  - work on whatever is most important or most interesting,
  - on whatever is most important or most interesting,
  - ays work on whatever is most important or most interesting, at any time.
  - use the back of the 3x5 card as your Anti-Todo List.
  - refuse to commit to meetings, appointments, or activities at any set time in any future day.
  - Keep three and only three lists: a Todo List, a Watch List, and a Later List.
  - Each night before you go to bed, prepare a 3x5 index card with a short list of 3 to 5 things that you will do the next day.
  - every time you do something -- anything -- useful during the day, write it down in your Anti-Todo List on the card.
05 Jun 07

Gord Broom
provocative list of tactics. hard to pull off in reality until self-employed.

gtd productivity lifehacks
Peter Shanks
my 2 faves: 'don't keep a schedule' and 'structured procastination' (although I call this 'creative avoidance') - the email tip's pretty good too

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