Also I suggest book Getting Things Done by David Allen.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done

If you don't have your own shit togethor productivity wise: Getting Things Done, David Allen.

This: http://managinghumans.com/ might be what you're after in terms of Engineering/Development management

A good friend of mine has been bugging me about how great this is for a couple years.

Are you doing this, or did you just think it was cool and wanted to share?

One of the ideas in GTD is that by getting organized and using a trusted reminder system, you free up some subconscious processing capacity.

I have found GTD to be helpful.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/69726/

http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Produc...

So that I can read more and do other things :)

Definitely worth a look.

In your spare time, read Getting Things Done. Even if you don't like the book, it's decent advice.

I ALREADY GAVE YOU MY MONEY, I DON'T NEED TO BE CONVINCED, I'M ALREADY SOLD, JUST TEACH ME THE GODDAMN THINGS.

- Thinking fast, and slow

- 7 habits of highly effective people

- Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

- Getting Things Done

- Choose Yourself

Emacs org-node with org-todo.

inbox.org: captured items that need to be processed

gtd.org: processed items being tracked

someday.org: processed items not actively being worked on or towards

If in doubt, just google "GTD" to find out more. There are tons of third-party applications to help you implement the system

Doing GTD helps, since that's primarily what Atombox is designed for, but I think having a "augmented memory" service helps any information/knowledge worker.

--

edited to clarify: an "atom" is our lingo, not something in the "Getting Things Done" book.

http://gtdfh.branchable.com/

[0] Getting things done - David Allen https://gettingthingsdone.com/

1. Getting Things Done (David Allen) as a system to organize and reorganize my life,
2. How to win friends and influence people (Dale Carnegie), as a way of treating other people

I also think the ideas in Extreme Ownership are useful to stay motivated.

a. Purchase "The 7 habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey?

b. Purchase "Getting Things Done" by David Allen?

However, I have never been able to find a good implementation of the system. I know that David Allen (GTD) and Charles Simonyi (Intentional Software) were working on something at some point, but I haven't heard anything since.

I've been obsessed with productivity and mindfulness ever since.

Anyone serious about managing their time is familiar with each of these problems and develops their To-Do list with these complexities in mind.

The To-Do list is dead. Long live the To-Do list.

Look no further.

I use Things 3 for my check list.
I use Streaks for habits.
I use Bear for writing.
I use Pocket for read it later.

That's pretty much the 'Getting Things Done' book in a sentence! Though the advice is every week, not day in the book, and latterly changed to 'whenever works' with the advent of web systems to track tasks.

Shantaram, Gregory David Roberts

The Art of Happiness, HH Dalai Lama

Getting Things Done (I know I'm late to the party...)

Shop Class as Soulcraft, Matthew Crawford (I heard about that one here, thank-you HN)

On Writing, Stephen King

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done

It's better than any other personal development book.

It is about freeing the mind for productivity by getting rid of all distractions. The challenge is to identify the distractions and get them done immediately.

If you want more discoveries of that kind, this book is very useful.

anything by Edward Tufte

The Singularity Is Near, by Ray Kurzweil

Dip, by Seth Godin

Also think the no-laptop rule during meetings is important for a company like Google that has so many defections. I've experienced for myself how much of a distraction open laptops can be. Need everybody to think creatively.

1.Getting things Done

2.The Now Habit

If it's just getting mired up in what to do, the first will help

If you have agreed to do silly things, the second one will.

What I'm saying is: I already bough a copy of the book, you don't have to convince me anymore. I already gave you my money. Just explain me the stuff.

(I also kept the 2-minute rule: if you can do it in 2 minutes, do it right away.)

Sure, the goal might be "Lose 50 lbs", but the "Next action" is "Do 20 min of exercise today". Often turning your "to-do" list into things you can actually DO is all it takes.

Someday/Maybe

Schedule a guitar lesson

Order the book Getting Things Done by David Allen

---

Man, this guy really gets me.

The important things to remember when reading books like Getting Things Done and 4 Hour Work Week is that they are not written specifically for you. If you read them, take the advice that fit /your/ life from them - then they're pretty good books.

I read this article as basically: If you feel unproductive at times then don't panic. Which seems like good advice.

Reading it and getting mad because it wasn't exactly what you hoped is not very zen. :)

Writing thoughts down changes everything.

Specifics:

Unless you credibly represented yourself as someone who could produce from “day 1” (figuratively), then you should probably still be in the training/development mode with a senior person giving you a significant amount of support and scaffolding. This sounds especially true since you say you had no experience with the stack. If they were giving you support, then the issue was most likely with your senior person rather than you.

The only possible way that you failed was simply by not doing work by spending entire days procrastinating (note that most folks only have about 4 or 5 strong productive hours of thought work a day). If that’s the case, I recommend you read the book Getting Things Done.

As others have mentioned, don’t even list in on your resume. Resumes have “relevant” experience, and it sounds like that company was irrelevant in terms of your development.

I have a JIRA for everything I do with customized workflows, and among many other projects I built this:

http://hnalert.tk

to mail me when subjects interesting to me come up on HN.

I recommend reading 'Getting Things Done' and working at your own pace. Focus on the things you're motivated to do, not what you think you should be doing - that's what a paid job is for!

I've been using GTD for the past four years and I can honestly say it has really improved my handling of time and tasks.

Additionally, it has really really reduced my stress levels because I know I haven't forgotten anything and I never miss anything important.

Extreme Ownership - I also really enjoyed this book. I listened to the audio and it was read by the authors. Both Navy Seals, the stories they used about their time in war was very eye opening. The concepts are all about leadership, and if you a manager or part of a team, you will get some benefit.

Getting Things Done - 2001 edition, very practical approach to organizing everything on your plate. I will probably re-read this again.

Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens - a great book that has great tips on learning for kids and adults.

A Philosophy of Software Design - still reading it, I really am enjoying it so far. I like the big picture approach it takes to discussing software design and complexity.

Mindset - I just started this book. So far it is just explaining the general concept in different ways. I am hoping the latter part will get into some practical tips and methods.

Helps me live in the present and not stress about the future.

Never Split the Difference - some very practical negotiation strategies.

Mini Habits by Stephen Guise - short book but awesome method. I am still doing the one pushup habit since last March.

How to Shoot Video That Doesn't Suck by Steve Stockman - I wanted to improve my video production for my programming course for kids. I am still learning but this book has been a huge help.

The Pyramid Principle: Logic in Writing and Thinking by Barbara Minto - huge help with improving my written communication at my job.

The Coaching Habit by Michael Stanier - short book but huge help when your transitioning to managing people.

Made to Stick by Dan Heath - was a huge help in planning how I would teach elementary students last month about programming.

The 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch - aside from application of Pareto principle, I took away the idea that books provide the best bang for your buck for knowledge density.

The 4 Hour Work Week - great inspiration to start your own thing.

The $100 Startup - like the 4HWW but with more details.

Clean Coder by Bob Martin - good ideas on being a professional programmer

A Philosophy of Software Design by John Ousterhout - big picture ideas on design

Test Driven Development by Kent Beck - good basis for thinking about design and testing

Legacy Code by Michael Feathers - understanding the issues of legacy code helps us to design better software

I took it from David Allen's 'Getting Things Done'. I'd recommend it for anyone looking to start or adopt a similar system.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done

Anyhow, I don't have much for tips. I was like the OP, too confident from my own good and was almost crushed by a college engineering program.

I think my main problem is I often accomplish things by with intense fits of work. It's easy to underestimate the effectiveness of the slow-and-steady approach. I'm still working on improving with that.

Regarding college, my advice is go to class, do the reading, do the assignments. If you can find a group to study and do homework with, that helps. I'd also recommend reading "Getting Things Done". The power of identifying the next task for a project is truly amazing and the "get it out of your head" ready does reduce stress.

http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Produc...

Years ago I put into practice David Allen's Getting Things Done methodology. While I've significantly customized my own process since then, I still use techniques like immediate capture. When a todo / idea / concern comes up, I quickly capture it in a holding area and get back to what I was doing. Then I intentionally revisit that list at regular intervals to pick off items with my full attention.

1. Getting Things Done: The flow chart he provides is the key feature of the book. Most of the other advice is mediocre, in my opinion. https://lifedev.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/gtd-workflow....

2. org-mode: It is incredibly powerful, honestly, the most powerful productivity / todo app. However, I found that this power slowed down my process, and I find that kills my productivity. If you love powerful, complex tools, org-mode is for you.

3. Todoist: it is an adequate list app; if thats all you need, it works well. Also, it has an open api, but I never used it.

4. Todo.txt / Markor: this is my current setup. Markor is a really nice android app; https://github.com/gsantner/markor . I generally like the philosophy behind todo.txt. It forces you to simplify your todos. My main problem is that notifications aren't a part of the programs at all.

I hope this is useful to someone.

I have found its best to not fight your own personality. Getting Things Done (GTD) is very popular but if it doesn't suit you, then there is other things to try.

Personally, I am following the Personal Kanban approach. Jim Benson has more details at http://www.personalkanban.com/. I use mind mapping to layout everything for myself in my life (things I need to do, my goals, books I want to read, etc.) I looked at the many different online products for mind mapping but settled on buying Novamind 5. Mindjet's Mind Manager is supposed to be really the best but I didn't want to pay the premium. Xmind is also good and free. The main thing with Novamind and other commercial offerings is the import capability (you can import Mind Manager maps easily). Sites like biggerplate are incredible for the amount of free mind maps others have put together.

I use Trello has a kanban board (backlog, this week, today, now, done) and organize my week with this. I don't use due dates period. I bought into Omnifocus on both the Mac and iPhone but just couldn't stick with it.

I am finding that with this approach, I am able to stay on track more.

This document from Paul Klipp http://paulklipp.com/images/PersonalProductivity.pdf describes this approach nicely. I am using his approach as a guide but with my own tweaks.

These tools are not magic bullets. You still need the discipline to stick with it to see the payoffs, but they definitely can help.

I guess my favorite part is that it ends in "knows basic computer science". Yeah, that's good to know. Also, the rest of computer science can come in handy. But definitely, read Getting Things Done and Refactoring first; that'll definitely be more helpful than LALR parsing for getting forms hooked up to databases.

It makes sense our flight-or-fight instinct could put us in the zone, much like your comment describes.

I've been trying to harness that power (but in more non-life-threatening situations, like at work).

* The Righteous Mind - Jonathan Haidt

* 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen Covey

* The Emperor of all Maladies - Siddhartha Mukherjee

* The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho

* Getting Things Done - David Allen

* The Worthing Saga - Orson Scott Card

* The 4-Hour Work Week - Timothy Ferriss

* The 5 Love Languages - Gary Chapman

* The Total Money Makeover - Dave Ramsey

Put them in an inbox immediately after writing on the notecard.

At a predetermined time, manage the inbox.

Some of my notecards get stored into folders created for current projects. These folders can be digitized at a later date for archiving and searching. Though, most notecards don't make it that far.

Some notecards represent tasks. Those get recycled as soon as they are completed.

Many notecards head straight to the recycling bin. You'd be surprised how often something seems like a good idea before you write it down.

Most of my process follows the "Getting Things Done"(GTD) framework by David Allen. I highly recommend it.

I see that some people here don't think there's much value in this article. I've grown to believe that different personal/productivity advice like this appeal to and are effective for different people, based on their personalities. For instance I read Getting Things Done, and I just can't keep that up. David Allen must be a machine, I guess. Not me.

GTD became well-known because it works. You just have to take the book seriously enough to both finish and internalize it. Difficult, perhaps, for many in the information-age [quick-fix-age]. GTD is a lifestyle versus a system. That's the only way it works.

Software: org-mode is what I use and it's amazing. You can create massive collapsable lists with TODOs, outlines, context with code-blocks that can be set to any language, direct links to files/emails/websites/almost-anything. It's versatility and scope is so enormous that it can be adapted to suite any conceivable need. Like scheduling? Go to a TODO item and CTRL-s (C-s for you fellow emacs users) and a calendar pops up. Select a date, hit enter and it's agenda'd. The agenda can be set up to send you reminders via iCal, Growl/libnotify/Snarl, appointment-mode, Remind, Google Calendar... practically anything!

The problem with these brilliant systems is the initial time commitment where there are no pats on the back (no insta-grata) and no payout of any kind. They're both intricate systems that work like a circuit - if the circuit isn't complete, it is broken.

Excellent org-mode guide: http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html

As cheesy as it sounds, the best book I've found on this topic is Getting Things Done.

I struggle with a lot of the issues in this article, and resisted that kind of thinking for years, but learning how to break up the insane overload of ideas and things in my head and bring them into manageable chunks, living in an outside system, has really really helped.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done

Most people jump in and start "planning" rather than stopping to think about what their goals are and then planning accordingly. I'm guilty of this at times too, especially when it comes to site design, so it was nice to read this article as a refresher on how to do it right.

But in practice, for whatever reason, the only to-do lists that I complete are the ones I quickly write down on a random piece of paper sitting on my desk.

Even though digital notes have many more advantages and I would like to use them, they just never work for me.
I forget to periodically check them and if they send me notifications I simply ignore them.

After trying several solutions, I ended up building a SaaS to manage everything. I found most things out there are fairly boring, and are not at all as powerful as what I wanted. It's basically a brain for my brain; so i can remain a scatterbrain and it can tell me when its time to water the plants, or if food in my fridge is about to expire. But it also handles all my notes, important files, time-series data, and historic dates.

But really, you have to figure out whats important to you and what system best aligns with that; and in the end you'll likely need to make a few tradeoffs to get something working.

But I think there are definitely some principles you can apply to any system you use; I can't recommend Getting Things Done by David Allen enough. His methodology is great, but even if you don't like it or can't use it for whatever reason, there are oodles of great tips; and it'll make you into a natural project manager / information guru.

But software is just a tool. What it sounds like you really need is a system for keeping all these balls in the air. Without a system, no software is going to solve the problem of failing to remember you need to follow up on things.

This type of work is something I find Getting Things Done very effective for. You don't have to rigidly implement everything the book prescribes, but it does offer a philosophy and a toolkit of processes that you can mix and match to keep your work organized.

Once you have a process, you can implement it in OneNote or index cards, or whatever the heck else feels ergonomic to you.

This is the theme of my project. Especially the past 2 years. Except I do put it on paper, but actually building the thing always takes a second hand because I keep waiting for the "perfect" solution. I've finally gave up on that idea, because

1) i don't have the resources to build the perfect idea
2) it takes too long to wait for something to happen in your head

I've recently adopt a motto "hackFast". This means to know what you want to get done and just do it. And not just lazily open up your IDE and selective fix or create things. I mean, to open the IDE and just dominate the code.

There's a balance that I haven't achieved yet. There are times when you do need to think of the perfect solution, but until then get the prototype done. You're mind will wrap around the logic and it will eventually fix itself.

#11 and #17 goes hand and hand. It all go down to doing it.

..I've also been recently reading "Getting Things Done".

I'm afraid my advice is not very original, but beyond a few common principles, getting organized is a very individual kind of thing.

1. i'm using task/todo list for such things.

2. In David Allen's book "Getting Things Done" there is whole chapter or more which is i think about the problem you metioned (he names this "open loops" - problems you must solve but don't want to have it constantly in your mind but manage them in some way using external memory to not clutter mind and not forget them).

Probably you heard about this book because it's popular but i think it's worth mentioning, it's the case when popularity comes with reason before not after ;)

Band-aids:

  - Caffeine (tea is best since it's like an XR version of coffee)

  - Testing for any vitamin/mineral deficiencies that may be causing tiredness that's displaying as an inability to focus, like low iron or b-vitamins (just examples, go see your doctor)

  - Read "Getting Things Done" and re-read it until you internalize it

  - Use an app like OmniFocus to organize to-dos and give yourself a sense of achievement/little adrenaline rush when you complete something (especially small things, like make bed, read 25 pages of book, one homework assignment, etc)

  - Change your study habits: turn off your phone and put it in the drawer, disconnect from the Internet if possible, relocate to a different location where there are fewer distractions (coffee shop, library, etc), give yourself small blocks of time to study (after all, work expands to fit the time allocated)

  - Gain enough life experience, self-awareness, and fear of failing out of school that you eventually figure out what works for you.

Most of the time, it’s more be beneficial to file notes according to the situation in which they’ll be useful rather than where they came from: If you’re going to have a tree structure, the original sources should be out at the leaves as external references rather than the root. This manifests in many forms from lots of different people giving advice:

In Getting Things Done, Allen spends a lot of time on the importance of organizing your todo lists by where you’ll be able to do the actions.

Luhmann used his original Zettelkasten to store passages that he could pull to make drafts of papers, and cross-referenced them to other passages that could be included together.

In How to Write a Thesis, Eco recommends writing a preliminary outline of your thesis and then tagging notes with the section number they’re relevant to.

In his MasterClass series, Chris Hadfield emphasizes the benefit of collecting summary notes organized by the interface you’ll see when actually performing an activity.

So if shallow work is your weak spot where you'd like some improvements, then all the classics like David Allen's Getting Things Done or perhaps Covey's 7 Habits of highly effective people would be relevant.

This book taught me so much about how to manage my life, and taught me how to review my own systems.

* SICP, On Lisp, and Let over Lambda

It's hard to pick one exactly, because really it's about opening your mind to radically different programming paradigms than what's popular.

Learning lisp well enough gives you confidence to attempt to create new programming languages, through code generation, or even mentally thinking about an API as a language rather than just a series of functions.

Amazing works of fiction that I come back to again and again include Anna Karenina and The Three Musketeers

[sometimes, try to solve problems people don't even know exist yet.]

This is an amazing and interesting advice, thanks for pointing it out!

[No, not really. I've been working at night on projects for about 9 months and I'm just ...ready.]

This is where I'm heading, it's been 6 crazy months working at night, with the software engineer job I currently have on the day. But the time is coming soon, I feel more and more ready everyday, I have faith in me and my peers are pushing me to it as well, timing seems excellent I really can't wait! Focusing on my day job is becoming really, really hard hehe.

Thanks a lot, this is very helpful and I'll sure email you soon! Thanks again!

How to organize things is as important as balancing why the things are important.

The core book to start with is Getting Things Done by David Allen. It gets momentum going and allowed me to look up and around.

These books that have helpful to connect the productivity to trusting we're doing the right things in terms of meaning and purpose.

Set the stage:

Book 1: Mindset by Carol Dweck (are you really open to possibilities and not a fixed mindset?)

Book 2: The Power of Habit (how do you build small new skills, since are only a sum of our habits, and those habits can change)

Getting prioritized:

Book 3: Focal Point by Bryan Tracy (find and set the priorities in all areas of life)

Getting and staying organized and focused:

Book 4: Getting Things Done by David Allen (the how to get it done and stay organized and keep it all out of your head, biggest productivity book of the last 20 years)

Book 5: Deep Work by Cal Newport (regain the power of focus to get twice as kuch done.. With the same effort and no distractions)

Book 6: So good they can't ignore you by Cal Newport (now that you're going, how do you really make an impact in what you're putting your time into)

Book 7: The Miracle Morning. I'm a night owl. This book convinced me that the late night is the same thing as the super early morning, except I'm rates and have way more energy.

The order may vary for others, in hindsight I'd read them in this order, but starting with Getting Things done and working through the rest as you like is realistic too.

Happy to learn about any books you'd like to share.

"The middle of every successful project looks like a disaster"

Whenever I have setbacks, delays, whatever, this sentence can help me put things into perspective and keep at work rather than panicking. (Although of course, sometimes, things look like a disaster because that's what they are...)

Agree. Despite being ubiquitous and universally recommended, I think this book is still somehow underrated.

Listen to chill music without particularly complex lyrics.

Turn off notifications for EVERYTHING. You’ll be shocked how little you miss them or need them. Even slack with coworkers you can take relatively asynchronously.

Break tasks down into as small of a chunk as possible and tackle each one individually (Getting Things Done is a short good read on this)

Read a good detective book like Homicide: Life on the Streets to understand how people can successfully approach open ended, “no help” scenarios.

When you get overwhelmed about number of tasks or some such, defer to your boss to prioritize what you will work on, and use that as an excuse to focus 100% on one thing at a time.

Take care of yourself. Get plenty of sleep (8+ hours), eat healthy protein meals including breakfast, and do some kind of physical activity.

- The Tao Te Ching, especially Ron Hogan's translation (freely downloadable here: http://beatrice.com/wordpress/tao-te-ching)

- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Jean-Dominique Bauby

- Getting Things Done, David Allen

- Gimp, Marc Zupan

- Thinking in Systems, Donella Meadows

- Leadership Step by Step, Joshua Spodek (full disclosure: me, https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Step-Become-Person-Others/...)

The suggestion I consider more valuable is to focus more on active behavior than relatively passive reading. Of course, still read. But it's easy to read more and more, telling yourself you're getting more perspective. You are, but nothing changes your perspective like actually moving.

Even if you don't know what will work best -- meditation, fitness, art, music, travel, cooking, gardening, starting a business, etc -- starting with something, even if you soon abandon it, will lead you to things you love and that develop you faster than reading alone. Plus activity will make what you read more meaningful.

I include my book because it's specifically a book of exercises that lead to developing social and emotional skills designed to build on each other.

One thing I could add though (not really related to creativity as such): when he talks about the time at the start of the creative time-space, where your mind gets flooded with the list of things that you should have done and forgotten about - I think this is actually one of the benefits of this exercise. I find it very helpful to write down all these things as a list, because trying to remember them is subconsciously a source of stress. Not to do anything about them then, but just writing them down to get them out of your head.

This is one of the real gems of understanding that I got from reading David Allen's "Getting Things Done". Having these things written down on a list frees your mind from having to try and remember them and also makes it much easier to go through the list and sort it in terms of importance or even get rid of some items altogether! For me it has definitely improved my productivity and also helped reduce the stress of forgetting to do things that are important because I got distracted doing something else.

I read about Getting Things Done, and I worked to track everything in one place, but I find that task tracking in two places work best for me:

1. Something like Evernote or Simplenote, for capturing notes on any device that's handy: phone, tablet, computer, etc. Being able to search really easily is crucial, to avoid duplicate topics.

2. Something like Trello for easier prioritizing and categorization. Moving around the index card analogies is much easier than moving text.

Using email as an issue tracker is an anti-pattern. It means your work to prioritize can get casually jumbled, and for me, that flow can get interrupted more easily. Ditto for Slack.

I like paper notebooks - I used one at work so I wouldn't drop any of the tasks I was juggling - but they're less portable than my phone. Before that, I had a Hipster PDA (index cards and a paper clip - http://www.43folders.com/2004/09/03/introducing-the-hipster-... ) but I had lots of notes, and searching was awkward, meaning "just write it (again) before I forget it, sort it out later," meant there was curation involved, and that using 1. above was lower-friction and just overall better.

1/

  - Intense workouts early in the day
  - A lot of water
  - Sunlight

  - Airplane mode
  - Batching email, IM, SMS, ..
  - Automate payments
  - It's ok to be late with administration sometimes

  - The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss [1]
  - Getting Things Done by David Allen [2]
  - Rework by Jason Fried [3]

edit: added Rework

Reading and practicing Test Driven Development by Kent Beck.

I think of Spaced Repetition more generally. A paper based Zettelkasten system can be enhanced with a paper based review scheduling system; say 43 folders as described by David Allen in Getting Things Done with a simple SuperMemo algorithm for interval spacing.

When we gain good recall of Zettelkasten structure/content I suspect that we inadvertently mimic Spaced Repetition. I can be convinced otherwise.

Here's the trick I think:

I and many others use tabs to offload the brain. For those who have read "Getting Things Done" I think this is similar.

We don't think about them, just look them up if and when we need them.

Kind of the same way as a journal or notebook: it doesn't stress me that I have hundreds of pages I might never get back to; it eases my mind that if I need to get back it is still there.

I use Tree Style Tabs and a couple of extensions on top of that so sometimes I'll copy a subtree as a nested markdown list and store it in Joplin, then close it.

But no: 600 tabs like I've had more than once was totally feasible years ago and should be no match for a moderns system.

That said as long as people don't try to force me to change the way I work they are free to do it their way.

Todo lists and task management software won't ever solve the problem. The problem has to do with the way the system works, how the society is modeled. The application paradigm (where we have disconnected apps that do few things well) is the root cause.

It should be obvious that the solution is to change the UX of software as a whole. Get rid of the silly WIMP paradigm, and move to a more task-oriented one. Make the OS your task management system, and let apps (now semantic agents) help you achieve them.

What we lack is breakthroughs in language. We need a better semantic model to describe and model expected outcomes.

About 5 years ago I read 'Getting Things Done' and (despite my misgivings) it literally changed my life.

Since then I've:

- set up a JIRA to track ALL the things I work on

- written a book https://www.amazon.com/Docker-Practice-Ian-Miell/dp/16172927... (and am currently writing a second edition)

- started a blog https://zwischenzugs.wordpress.com/

- changed jobs

- become a speaker https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ian+miell

- started an open source project that helps me automation my spare time tech work: http://ianmiell.github.io/shutit/

And now I feel I've got MORE time than I had before I read it, and better time with kids etc..

The takeaway from this is that if you get serious about managing your time the benefits can be awesome.

Although when your kids are very young (we had two demanding ones under 2) don't be too hard on yourself - it's really hard!

Logbook<Year>.txt gets a date stamp every day, and collects the notes I take/leave myself as I go along, including any interesting command lines I won't remember later. I throw in any interesting error messages and other things I know I won't remember in detail.

Periodically, I'll garbage collect CurrentTasks and move the good intentions and other things I won't likely do over to the Logbook.

This is a corruption of David Allen's 'Getting Things Done' system, but it's worked well for me for years. I can't count the number of times the Logbook has acted as a ready reference for solving some obscure, occasional challenge.

- Godel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter

- Language, Truth, and Logic by A. J. Ayer

- Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella Meadows

Books that serve as investment philosophy guides for those who've developed a habit of saving money but are looking for the "next step" in building more wealth. From the mind of one of the greatest investors of all time:

- The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham (get the annotated version with an epilogue written by Warren Buffett!)

- The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America

A book that discusses what matters most in your life from a resource-allocation, measurable results standpoint (family, etc.):

- How Will You Measure Your Life by Clayton Christensen

A book I read 10 years ago that forever changed the way I manage productivity and organization both at work and in my personal life:

- Getting Things Done by David Allen

Books that show that our universe is just as crazy, if not crazier, than science fiction:

- Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy

- Quantum Chance: Nonlocality, Teleportation and Other Quantum Marvels

- ..and so on with intersecting topics!

Not to mention, I love trying to have as deep an understanding as I can by reading highly technical textbooks on cosmology, gravitation, and quantum physics.

The process is straightforward (collect, process, organize, do, and review) but what I found most helpful was getting everything out of my head so I could stop worrying about forgetting anything.

The best things to start with that I know and have done:

1. Make a list of things that cost you energy. Mark the three most importan. Solve them or let them go.

2. Free your brain from your todo list. It has better things to do. Apply the book "Getting things done" to give your brain peace from the things you haven't done yet.

3. Use a countdown timer to work 50 minutes on one task. Make a 10 minutes rest and then do the same thing with a completely different task. What this does to you is NOT to urge you to get something done. What it does is giving you complete freedom not to care about anything else for 50 minutes. (I know a similar method with 25 minutes. I prefer 50. It is no accident that it is exacly half the time. Do 25 or 50 but nothing between.)

Feel free to combine this methods ad lib.

Gerd, brain hacker, hypnotist, NLP master

Some personal suggestions of mine include starting another company that you have passion to start and fund. It seems that you won't waste money, but it goes without saying to start as though you has no money at all. If you start anything whether it's a non-profit or company, start immediately with what you need. Ask if you can start with the least you have. Read REWORK by 37signals. (this book will provide invaluable experience) Read Getting Things Done by David Allen. Not only will it help to organize yourself, but refocus yourself on a 50,000 feet level and realize what you want to do with your life. The book can prompt internal self-actualization, but you have to be the one to figure it out. (though their workflow coaching can help setup your system for the first time, you can do it yourself too) Some of this advice, you probably know already, but this can be a refresher.

Ask yourself questions! Feel that you want to help other in your community? Do that. See an incredible opportunity on the horizon? Do that. Work with what you have a passion for.

I hope others on the internet and I have been able to provide sound ideas for what to do. Whatever the case, you already came this far. I wish you the best of luck in what you plan to pursue, and hopefully you'll be able to benefit our world and yourself. Make sure that you make the decision you know are the best for you. Personally, please use the money constructively...help someone with it if you don't know what else to do after making sure you have enough for the rest of your life.

The book is easy to start with as your read it because it ties together skills you already have with creating an air tight system that enables your brain to trust you trust you not to forget anything - lowering your mental and cognitive load so you can focus in the present by taking a unique approach..

It literally lets you collect every random thought that has no relevance to the moment, capture it in a "someday/maybe" pile and put it away for future review. The brain, one emptied is ready to focus.

The new edition is updated for digital life too, which is great, I try to read it every year or two as well to keep sharp, the current read has been a nice refresher.

Currently using the newest 2Do app between Android/MacOS/Windows /iOS. It's really decent inter platform tool. If you're all Mac a lot of people like omnifocus too. I found other apps (things, toodle, rtm) lack the ability to break apart projects into super detail when needed but otherwise are great.

There are a few other books that help build a car around this engine (Mindset, Focal Point, So good they can't ignore you, Deep Work), but a car without an engine isn't a car.

Pretty much the opposite!

David Allen is against scheduling anything other than hard deadlines. The ones which if you miss, you really miss! The examples in the article are the ones he tells you never to put in the calendar (groceries, date night, etc). Anything that you can delay means it does not belong in there.

He does have a tickler file, but that's merely for reminding you, and only at the day granularity.

As I do stuff, things move from the Current Tasks file to a Logbook file. Beyond 'accomplished todo's, that file gets stuffed with, for example, interesting quotes I run into, command lines I think I'll need again, and a record of what I've been up to. When I need to put together a status report, or figure out for myself where my time went, or recall how to do something intricate that I haven't done in six months, I turn to my Logbook.

With these two pieces, I feel like I've got a handle on what I want to do, and a record of what I've done. Now, if I just could find the time to follow through...

[0] http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done

  It is an outlet for stress and the never-ending wall 
  of burden. Development and startups are evolving so 
  fast, and it often feels like you are never adequate. 
  You always need to be learning and using X new language 
  or technology.

It was very tough to disconnect my mind from work. It was exhausting and very tough on my personal relationships! I feel you there.

Thing is, pot is only ever (at best) treating your symptoms. It's not fixing any of the root causes of those symptoms, the things that are making you feel like you need to be always on.

1. Exercise, a good diet, and sleep may seem boring as hell but those are really how you strengthen your mind and body to deal with stress.

2. Also don't forget to feed your soul. Meditation, prayer, whatever works for you. I'm an atheist and there are lots of ways to meditate that don't involve believing in the supernatural.

3. Adding some structure may help with the "always on" angst. Make Wednesday afternoons or Sunday mornings (or whatever) the time when you play with new languages, so you don't feel like you have to be doing it 24/7.

4. Have a good note-taking system (moleskine, note app, whatever) so that you can record thoughts and to-dos, rather than having 50 things bouncing around in your head that feel like they need to be acted upon immediately lest you forget them. "Getting Things Done" is big on this; it's worth at least skimming that book for ideas because even if you don't adopt the whole system there is some seriously good shit in there you can poach.

"Getting Things Done" by David Allen. I'm sure everyone here is familiar with bits and pieces of GTD methodology, but I encourage you to check out the full text. There are a lot of great ideas in there there that I didn't find reading online about GTD. I have been a serious GTD user for more than a year now, and I feel amazingly more in control of my life. Everything I've done in that time - from planning my wedding, to projects at work, to completely organizing my house - has gone smoother than I can remember projects going ever before.

- Never work without a contract or at least a clear statement of work. Ever. So much pain will ensue otherwise.

- Take up front payments whenever you can. Ideally, 50% or more. Liquidity takes a lot of weight off your shoulders. Don't let customers get in the way of liquidity. We learned this the hard way and almost went bankrupt - never again.

- Trust your gut feeling regarding your customers - if your gut says no, don't do it. Again, a lesson learned the hard way.

- Adopt GTD or a similar methodology. The vast amounts of information you are bombarded with (especially if juggling 5 projects at once) need organizing. If you haven't read Getting Things Done yet, just get a free Audible trial at Amazon and listen to the first chapters of the audiobook on your way to work.

- Try to develop actual love for your customers, or their end customers. Or else, you will feel empty inside, and the time spent in the office will feel wasted. If you cannot love them because they treat you badly - talk to them about it or leave them.

- Tell clients to the face if you think that their reasoning or assumptions are wrong. This feels harder than it should be, I think that's because of BS mantras like "customer is always right".

- Insist on your own side of things. You are your own business' only advocate, and you must take a stand for it. No one else will. Everybody tries to push their own agenda. So push yours.

- Don't be a code monkey, but be an actual consultant. Code monkey freelancers are bound tightly into their client's development process, and only churn out whatever code is required of them. They don't get to adopt the purpose the client creates for a project. Consultants help the client transform their purpose (business goal) into a vision, and ultimately into a product. Adopting the actual purpose for your work is so important for not burning out.

I'll save this list as a reminder for myself now.

I seem to respond well to defined, rigid systems. I handle all my task management via the systems outlined in Getting Things Done. I'd be curious what other books are out there for handling aspects of life with a systemic, opinionated approach (professional life, social life, dating, etc.)?

Allen's method is better than many others. Still I have to admit that personally this self-motivation stuff has never appealed much to me. I'm using the just do it - or procrastinate method.

Yes - I take the effort to unsubscribe from unwanted mail. These days much easier, as the unsubscribe link is usually to be found in the email itself. (In the olden days it was a bit trickier, getting yourself off lists.) Worst case I'll mark it as spam. The intent is to not have my mail archive crufted up with stuff I don't want - it reduces search efficacy later.

On mobile I usually don't do a lot of mail 'processing' -- phones frustrate me, and I defer most things to when I have a decent keyboard & screen in front of me. I do have trello and trello-add-card (widget) on my phone's home page, and the latter is a fast way to cut-n-paste new items into. There's also the option to forward email to your private trello board/inbox using the obfuscated email address they provide for each board. During your nightly task review you would then tidy up the card title & description.

How do you use a task-tracker correctly ... now that's a big question :) Biggest thing for me is that I trust that when something goes into my task tracker, I can get rid of it from email, my brain, post-it notes, etc. Sensible columns categories, thoughtful card names, learn the keyboard shortcuts (desktop web trello client in my case), colour coding, try to make cards describe actionable steps, 'next steps' should be do-able right now (cards with dependencies can't be 'in progress', f.e.).

Is there a requirement that you observe or interact with each of the transactional emails you're receiving? Is it something that could be handled by a script, log analyser, etc? Or when you say you want to archive them, do you mean the time-consuming process is identifying candidates for manual or automatic archival?

You have stuff to do today, stuff to do tomorrow, and stuff you might or might not do. Each day you roll the active lists forward.

Squint, and it’s just personal Kanban, with TODO and DOING, along with PARKING.

These core mechanics work.

Where everything goes sideways is when anyone tries to turn those core mechanics into a work breakdown structure fit into a project management iron triangle, per your middle management point.

Of course, middle management is just trying to lie to senior management that writing software isn’t invention because invention isn’t predictable — but senior management wants perfect predictability so they know they’re hitting their bonus, by pleasing C-level execs, whose packages depend on pleasing shareholders. Everyone’s building a Jenga tower of predictably hitting the numbers.

So if you don’t like JIRA, blame shareholders. :-)

On the other hand, if your mind is not preoccupied, finding the solution may take very little time. His practice in his book Getting Things Done helped me practice this, not just abstractly know it.

  * work due today
  * work due this week
  * work due this month or later

I highly recommend "Procrastination: Why You Do It, What To Do About It" by Jane B. Burka and Lenora M. Yuen and "Getting Things Done" by David Allen for a deeper examination of these issues and some solutions.

You might find that the book Getting Things Done has some helpful advice on effectively managing your time/efforts. Good luck!

tl;dr Embrace both high and low tech at the same time. Set yourself the goal of accomplishing at least one task of either type every day.

I read it when I had a team your size.

I would also recommend Getting Things Done; even if you don't subscribe to the entire method, there are bits that gel quite nicely with the Now Habit; the bit about just starting which this article also touches on falls nicely into place with GTD's "next action" workflow.

Awesome! You can start by reading 1 book a week, which is an aggressive but doable goal. To some it may not sound like much but if you have not been making a habit of reading regularly, it will take you a while to get back into it. In a year you will have read 52 books. I am of the belief that compound interest is most effective when you have staggering sums of money. It is second most effective when it comes to knowledge.

Amazon will sell you books for cheap, but there are many business classics that will probably be available at the local library. I bet your local library will at least have one of these seven books:

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

{anything} by Seth Godin

Positioning by Al Ries

Getting Things Done by David Allen

21 Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell

(Specifically, Getthing Things Done is a good system for thinking strategically about what you need done, and The Now Habit keeps you working on the plan rather than getting distracted.)

Actually, I guess it depends what you mean by self-help: I enjoyed "Getting Things Done" and "Crush It!"...do those count?

With that said I've read a million posts like this and the only thing that's ever made me feel like I had genuinely changed my perspective and understood what was happening more clearly was reading the Getting Things Done book.

The key insight for me is that so much of procrastination results from a lack of clarity about what exactly should be done next, and keeping a mental load of trying to keep track of everything. Separating the three basic concepts of planning, making decisions, and actually doing the work, into discrete sessions, has been a life changer.

I still fuck off constantly and hate myself for procrastination from time to time, obviously, but using the core GTD framework and returning to it when I stray has really helped.

Getting Things Done - David Allen. If you have adult ADHD like me, and you haven't read this, it's the first system that's really worked for productivity for me.

Man's Search for Meaning - Victor Frankl.

Living Buddha, Living Christ - Thich Nhat Hanh.

Cosmos - Carl Sagan.

The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. LeGuin.

The One who Walks Away from Omelas - U.K. LeGuin.

Wild Seed - Octavia Butler.

The Heike Monogatari - (tr. Helen Craig McCullough) “The sound of the Gion Shoja temple bells echoes the impermanence of all things; the color of the sala flowers reveals the truth that to flourish is to fall. The proud do not endure, like a passing dream on a night in spring; the mighty fall at last, to be no more than dust before the wind.” If you need a comparison. this is the Japanese historical equivalent of Game of Thrones combined with a bit of MacBeth. The rise and fall of two shogunate families, and an analysis of the tragic flaws of character that brought their fall about.

Les Miserables - Victor Hugo.

Small Gods - Terry Pratchett.

Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad.

The Guide - R. K. Narayan.

Evidence - Mary Oliver.

All of Us - The Collected Poetry of Raymond Carver.

Silence - Shusaku Endo.

The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Murakami Haruki. This and the next four are odd choices, perhaps, since it's a surrealist book, but IMO books that force your imagination to work hard do as much for creativity and fresh ideas as any of the more popular methods.

The Well-Built City (The Physiognomy / Memoranda / The Beyond) Jeffery Ford - Surrealist novellas best described as about the protagonist living and achieving agency within the constructs, dreams, and nightmares of a "Great Man's" mind.

Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson.

Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon.

Dhalgren - Samuel L. "Chip" Delany.

Lever ( https://www.lever.co ) makes recruiting and hiring (some parts of HR) really easy.

LinkedIn ( https://www.linkedin.com ) also has a large selection of qualified talent:
https://smallbusiness.linkedin.com/hiring

... How much can you tell about a candidate from what they decide to write on themselves on the internet?

Getting Things Done - not the method but the insight that you can’t manage time, only your actions. And that it’s OK not do to anything without having to make excuses to yourself.

The 2nd and 3rd Ender novels - Ramen and Varelse are concepts that apply to vega/veganism from a completely different angle. It’s not an intended metaphor I think, but it applies to my life on a personal leve; (I’m not vegan, my wife is).

Also on my list are the already-mentioned "Getting To Yes" and "Nonviolent Communication". I also really enjoyed "Good for You, Great for Me" by Lawrence Susskind, which is a slightly more real-world take on the ideals put forth in "Getting to Yes".

I also studied Physics in College and my course on Classical Mechanics was really the impetus to continue down that path for a while. Textbook was "Classical Dynamics of Particles and Systems" by Thornton and Marion.

- going sleep early-ish (before 11 PM)

- at least 7 hours of sleep

- swimming before work

- cutting down on meat

- less worry (stoicism) - "Happy", Derren Brown

- writing down a master to-do list of literally everything (it litters your head, really) - "Getting Things Done", David Allen

- saying "no" to things you're not certain about

- staying out of internet (internet-less Pomodoros) - "Deep Work", Cal Newport

- listening to noise instead of music while working - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXtimhT-ff4

But honestly, first 3 bullets are the most important ones; if done, I'm super concentrated the whole day (strangely enough, these 3 are basic stuff, you probably already know that from your mama).

My big regret is that there probably was a way for me to accomplish the same thing without being a hermit. I spent a considerable amount of time procrastinating on IRC and forums when I could have been exercising (which would have yielded more energy) and having a better social life. I happen to have a great set of friends, they didn't let me be a complete hermit but I would do social things maybe 2 times a month, 3 if I was lucky.

From a technology standpoint, "The Pragmatic Programmer" changed the way I looked at programming. When I read it the first time, I was a Visual Basic programmer, with only a passing familiarity with the world outside the Microsoft ecosystem. After reading that I began to explore Perl, then Python, and installed Linux and learned it. For my career as a developer, then team lead, and then manager, that book changed me more than any other book I've read in the field.

"Getting Things Done" - the personalised version.

I read the summaries, then some snippets, then a "Zen"
version, and thought - actually, this could work for me.
I started some of the techniques and kept track of time
spent, and lo - time was saved.

I bought the book. Despite the very high "Ginger Factor"
in places it communicates well, albeit slowly.

Now I have a GTD system running, and am putting my life
into it. It gives me my goals, it lets me review and
prioritise my projects and activities, it has delivered
my life from worrying about whether I've done things, or
whether I've forgotten something.

It helps me set goals, and it helps me see how to achieve
them.

More importantly, it helps me keep things in perspective
and do what really matters.

YMMV, but it works for me.

Things I keep in Atombox: wine and beers I like, places I'd like to go, the size of my dress shirts, restaurants I want to try in cities different than my own, affirmations and reminders (quotes), the continual grocery list, ideas for gifts for other people, replacement part numbers, ...

  1) How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
  2) Musashi's The Book of Five Rings
  3) Gonzo Marketing by Christopher Locke
  4) Getting Things Done by David Allen
  5) What Management Is by Joan Magretta

A while back I read "Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity" [1], and though I'm not completely sold on his methodology, the author has a few ideas and techniques I really liked, that have helped me get motivated.

One of them is to figure out the next concrete, actionable task that needs to be done to make progress, and do that. Don't think about a million edge cases, or a big rewrite, but instead focus on the single edge case that's blocking you right now, or the first thing you need to do to start a rewrite, and then go do that smaller, specific thing.

It will feel good to have it done, and it'll motivate you to get to work on the next small step.

https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Produ...

Both are fantastic ideas. I recommend going to the source to learn about these, the book "Getting Things Done" and the many writings specific to that system. It is very influential, so much so, that many of the things influenced by it no longer realisz their ideas have come from Dave Allen. It just seems like a universal idea that everyone knows with no particular source, like the Cerulean of the sweater in "The Devil Wears Prada", it came from somewhere.

* The Now Habit - http://www.amazon.com/dp/1585425524

* Getting Things Done - http://www.amazon.com/dp/0142000280

* Simply Christian - http://www.amazon.com/dp/0061920622

* Surprised by Hope - http://www.amazon.com/dp/0061551821

* The Great Divorce - http://www.amazon.com/dp/0060652950

* Mere Christianity - http://www.amazon.com/dp/0060652926

* The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius - http://www.amazon.com/dp/048629823X

* Tao Te Ching - http://www.amazon.com/dp/0060812451

Books from the Bible that I like:

* Genesis

* Judges

* Ruth

* Tobit

* Job

* Psalms

* Ecclesiastes

* Sirach/Ecclesiasticus

* Everything written by John

Also, perhaps you are stressed and are unable to switch off because you approach work in a way that makes it impossible for your brain to switch off when you go home. Do you use your brain to remember stuff that you have to do? Do you use your brain to organize your workday? When there is a lot going on, do you use your brain to juggle everything so you are able to stay on top off it? If you go home, is it necessary for you to remember something, anything, until the next day?

If so, and from some of what you write it can seem so: STOP IT! STOP IT NOW! Write everything down. Everything. Projects, tasks, lists, what you have to to, what worries you, problems to solve, etc. Keep it somewhere you trust where you know that you will look often, be that specialized software or a simple notepad. This will allow you to completely "forget" work when you go home. It takes practice to get good at it, but from personal experience the difference is phenomenal. Drop the occasional lists and Post-Its and make a detailed and good system.

My main source of stress at work is when there is a lot to do and I use my working memory to stay on top of it. I hate that. I hate using precious brain power to remember stuff, and it makes me ineffective and tired quickly. Maybe Getting Things Done by David Allen will help. If helped me a lot, at least. My efforts with staying to a system can go up and down, but when I do it well work is nonexistent to me until the next workday begins, even when I have a lot on my plate.

I have colossal idea debt, as measured by the size of the CurrentTask file. Scrolling past the most urgent items, I've got everything in there from ~ 'change that code' to 'Read 'To Kill a Mockingbird'' to a list of writing prompts that have moldered there for years.

The nice thing, though, is that the file forms an external inventory of my plans, intents, and ideas. Putting them in there lets me focus on what needs to be done now, while removing the fear of forgetting later. I'll periodically purge, moving the things that no longer matter into the logbook.

[0]'Getting Things Done', David Allen

Blanket statements like that will get you in trouble.

While I can appreciate the point of the article, it has a rather narrow view on the types of books being read.

Sure - some books are more about expanding your mental models. But in other books, the value is in the details.

I'm really good at reading lots of books. I'd read one and then jump to the next one. A little over a year ago, I forced myself to put the brakes on. Any book where I felt the ideas are important, I decided to take notes. I write them on paper as I read, and later transcribe them to a blog so I can access them anywhere.

It really reduced my rate of reading. But I'm very happy with the results. Forcing me to go over it multiple times, and then occasionally revisiting my notes, has made a huge difference.

Yes, reading once will change your mental models. And reading again will change them even more (even if just a few months later). I think it is quite rare that you will retain all the big ideas (let alone the details) in one reading. As an example: How often have you come across someone who once read a book and is trying to change aspects of his life based on principles of the book - and you've had to point out how a number of their changes are in conflict with the book's contents? (Getting Things Done is a common one people get wrong).

A good book to go down a scientific path is "Why Zebras don't get ulcers" by Dr Robert Sapolsky. Dr Sapolsky is professor of biology, and professor of neurology and neurological sciences at Stanford.

His book helped me understand the physical effects on my health caused by my stressful company work environment. In short - our primate bodies have a fight or flight response to stress resulting in spikes in blood cortisol, muscle tension, gastrointestinal changes etc.

Once you understand how mind affects the body then it becomes possible to see how breathing and relaxation (mindfulness/meditation) can undo the effects of stress that we battle in our daily lives.

Of course there are other ways towards well-being. I found the tips in 'Getting Things Done' very useful in reducing anxiety. Switching to 'Eat food, mostly plants' advice is helping in mood and energy levels.

The Four Hour Work Week (Tim Ferriss)

Getting Things Done (David Allen)

Deception Point (Dan Brown)

1) Getting Things Done by David Allen gives you a system that works for keeping track of things and choosing what to work on when.

2) The Now Habit by Neil Fiore teaches you how to get rid of some stupid things we do and think that keeps us procrastinating.

3) Tribes by Seth Godin inspires you to go out and do great deeds, big and small.

I don't really use the location-context lists. What I found handy was the task workflow and getting to inbox-zero (no un-handled emails in the inbox).

When I first implemented it at work, I spent three days going through some 2k+ emails. I found about 6 or 7 emails in that lot that probably needed some action, or was sparking some idea that actually was quite valuable.

But the bulk of emails you can either delete (you'll never need it again) or store for retrieval. And the few that require an action, either do it immediately (if it's less than two minutes) or defer/delegate.

Another life-hack is to be ruthless and unsubscribe from as much as possible... almost none of it is necessary.

Instead, if you DO want to buy them a book, I recommend Tim Ferris - The Four Hour Work Week or Getting Things Done by David Allen.

Both those books are enjoyable for their content and suggestions, and also for a relatively scientific approach to showing why their methodologies work - which I think is why they both resonated so much with me.

I agree with the wishlist comment as well. For me personally, I have told my friends to stop giving me gifts and do likewise. I imagine I am losing some manner of social lubrication due to this decision, and compensate by sending personal emails and spending more time keeping in touch via facebook etc.

I also like to send postcards when I travel, for similar purposes.

I'm not saying that gift giving is selfish - but I am saying if you opt NOT to give gifts, as I do, then you need to be aware of the social ramifications and adjust accordingly. I do not have a perfect solution to this problem yet however.

1> Take frequent breaks during the day. (5-10 Min for every 45 min of work).

2> Getting more organized (read Getting Things Done by David Allen) will help you get more work done in less time and also free up some time to spend on yourself.

3> Find meaning in the work you do.

4> Meditate for at least 10 min every day and try to bring mindfulness into your daily life.

5> Spend at least 1 hour each week to reflect/review and clarify your goals in life and see whether you are going in the right direction?

6> Make a plan to spend at least 1 hour each day in activities that help you grow.(eg. Exercise, Reading, writing a blog, learning new things, new hobbies, etc)

7> Practice gratitude before going to sleep. It will have a positive effect on your sleep and general well-being. It will also improve your productivity during day.

Last week I had one of those dreaming-about-writing-code sort of nights, where I half woke up and was thinking about the stuff I'd been dreaming about and couldn't go back to sleep. I tossed and turned until I grabbed my phone, opened my notes app, jotted down some of the idea, then closed it. That alone let my mind say "ok, now I won't forget it" and I was finally able to go back to sleep.

Some people go full-on Zettelkasten, which is awesome and I'm happy for them. Turns out I really don't need all the organization. I just need somewhere to offload my thoughts where I know I can find them later, and just the process of writing them down usually gets me 99% of the benefit of having such a system.

We do our job to get money, but we won't do any job for that sole purpose.

Kids learn chemistry because they are forced to, but they'll find fun bits here and there, they'll ask teachers questions to better understand what they're taught. They won't give a crap about half of the curriculum, but the half they'll remember and will be formative is not guaranteed to be solely from the self-motivated part either.

Going further what motivates us to explore also depends on the environment, what is rewarded and what is not, etc.

I feel splitting things in two theoretical extremes is close to labelling actions good or bad, it's useful if we don't care about nuance, but has little use once we dive below the surface.

> I recommend reading Drive first if you think you disagree.

I remember getting that recommendation for "Getting Things Done" ... is Drive much better as a reading experience ? Is it readable for people who're not into self help books in general ?

Many times I've put down a book and immediately started implementing stuff in my business that made a big difference. Books that stick out in this regard are Purple Cow, The Ultimate Sales Machine, Getting Things Done, Work the System, Four Hour Work Week, many of Dan Kennedy's books, Getting Real, and so on.

Did it make me procrastinate less? I'll tell you the day after tomorrow =\ (not really).

What did get me out of the procrastination habit though, was the Getting Things Done book, I'm not ashamed to say. I'm not an adherent of everything in that book, but I followed the basic system it outlines until it became second nature.

The system allowed me to clear my plate enough for me to realize that the cause of my procrastination was a sort of paralyzing fear of all the 'stuff' I needed and wanted to do. The amorphous blob of stuff was completely overwhelming. It can be a very scary thing. And that fear gets converted into inaction. But when you have a reliable framework like GTD to break the stuff down into concrete action steps, that fear is evaporates, and you can actually DO.

I'm an armchair psychologist over here, but this was the case for me. YMMV.

Also, to echo the point of the post above, my girlfriend at the time (now wife) also was totally not supportive of the GTD thing...but later became very impressed with the transformation. Just because people aren't supportive of you changing, doesn't mean they don't love you, and that they won't come around. I catch myself behaving this way towards other people all the time.

Never Split the Difference, its about how to negotiate in life

The Pyramid Principle for learning how to structure your ideas and write logically.

Getting Things Done, the 2001 version on how to apply a simple workflow to managing all the tasks you have both personal and professional.

> Do you actually want to work in a large dev team?

  -- Yes

    >> Why ?

      --- Want to gain knowledge about 'working in a large dev team'

         >>> Why?

            ---- Because... it might be useful?

                >>>> You're stupid.

            ---- Don't know.

                >>>> You're stupid.

            ---- Some actually valid reason.

                >>>> Wonderful! Please state it next time.

      --- Want to learn about [insert hard thing here].

         >>> What's stopping you?

            ---- Nothing.

                >>>> Damn strait!

            ---- Not motivated enough to learn it by myself.

                >>>> Join a start-up dealing with [insert hard thing here].

                    ----- But... but... it's against my entrepreneurial spirit. (Which, by the way, please don't lump together with the hacker spirit, you insensitive clod!)

                         >>>>> Wipe off your wah-wah tears?

      --- Want to be around people.

         >>> Hint: The open source community doesn't hit up bars after work.

      --- Need large team experience to tackle cool problem X.

         >>> Are other people tackling cool problem X?

            ---- Yes.

                >>>> Join them.

            ---- No.

                >>>> You don't need large team experience. Take your passion and just get to work.

      --- Don't know.

         >>> Read 'Getting things Done'. Also: You're stupid.

  -- No

    >> Then why did you post this?

      --- Because you're silly.

I started with David Allen's Getting Things Done (Another commentator also made a reference to this).

GTD involves the use of multiple lists - these could be "projects" you are working on, those that you don't have time for right now, action items from those projects (kinda like to-dos but with a definite objective in mind), lists for agendas (like a list of items you would like to talk about at your 5 min. standup) etc, lists of just about anything - movies to watch, artists to follow, books to read etc.

Naturally, like others, I started having too many lists, and was constantly moving items from one to another. So, not I am trying to manage all my activities using Org-Mode, GMail and Google Calendar (I do have some paper based files for certain things, mostly sketches or notes from stuff I am currently reading).

Org-mode is fantastic for organizing yourself. You can use it as a todo manager, a work-log, and if you are vested heavily into emacs, it can even link up with your calendar and email. There are several blog posts out there for Org-mode and GTD and its certainly a good start IMO.

One more thing - MobileOrg just got released for the iPhone (its an application that lets you view, edit and manage your Org files), so I have access to my lists no matter where I am.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

2. Clear, approachable goals. "Ship the website" isn't something you can just do, "write unit tests for deletion of users" is. One of my favorite features of Trello is a checklist on a card, it allows you to break down actions into very defined actionable items.

3. Have a list of things you're going to take an action on today.

[0] = https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Produ...

In a way writing ideas down serves the same purpose as rubber duck debugging, in that you can figure out if you have a "real" idea or if it's just some sort of dream-like emotions that make you think it's one.

Techniques described in Allen's book (Getting Things Done) and stuff like the Pomodoro technique works wonders for me on this sort of issue.

That process might not be very great or best in class, but well executed bad ideas always lead to better result than badly executed good areas. Here is my hack for remaining productive. Which I have tinkered after reading David Allen's 'Getting things done'.

I have a table which has the following common fields. Task, Deadline, Started, Finished, Log, Priority and Next Step. A little modified from David's actual GTD. This table helps me do many things, first plan my tasks, next set a deadline to achieve it. Started and finished fields help me measure how much time I have taken to get it done. Log gives me an idea of complexity. Priority decides what needs to come next after what. Next step keeps me on tip of heels always generating new work for me.

I review this every night before going to sleep. And at least once a day if I'm hitting the daily deadlines. Now comes the most important of all, its called 'DISCIPLINE'. If one is not disciplined none of this ceremony works. Infact I would say better get disciplined before you get into all these techniques. Discipline is a personality trait, It has to be developed with patience, perseverance and practice. You don't get disciplined by tinkering /etc/hosts you get disciplined by making it happen even without tinkering /etc/hosts.

Another important part is review. You must review your progress every now and then. My review happens every Sunday afternoon, the review happens by measuring what I have done. What will I do and is all that really sufficient to meet my daily, weekly, monthly, six monthly, yearly and then life goals.

I make it a point to apply this not just to work, but even to my hobbies. My music practice and other stuff. Most of the users here have suggested very fine ways of measuring productivity I guess I will employ some of those techniques during my review process.

I'm thinking specifically of some books that I've read in the past couple of years that include:

  * Deep Work
  * Influence
  * Thinking Fast and Slow
  * Predictably Irrational
  * Getting Things Done
  * How to Win Friends and Influence People

For to-do's which can vary in time sensitivity this might be straight away for some that need to be done that day, that day for some that need to be later that week, or weekly for those you hope to get done just eventually.

For your links, ideas, and thoughts you could probably do it weekly.

The trick is to not let it build up so much that when you get around to looking through it, you're looking at three full days worth of organising work, much of which you can't do anyway because you've long forgotten the context within which your short hand notes made sense.

Specifically for to-do's, Getting Things Done is a very (the most?) popular organisational system with a book by the same name.

Here is a much shorter summary of it:

https://hamberg.no/gtd/

The 15,000 unread emails would drive me crazy. Perhaps declaring email bankruptcy is a way to get out of it?

When dealing with mail the principle I follow is to use the inbox purely as an inbox and not a substitute "to-do" list.

What that means is I process each message, one at a time, starting from the oldest. I don't skip ahead to "interesting" mails. If the mail can be handled in under two minutes, I just do it. If not, I create a related task (in EMacs org-mode (which is utterly fantastic but any old text file with categories can be used)) and handle that outside the mailing system.

The mail itself gets filed into a specific category archive folder for reference. My inbox is almost always empty which is a GREAT feeling for some reason.

EDIT: Thanks for the link to sup btw. I use mutt but the 'search' feature seems tempting.

Time Management for System Administrators, by Thomas A. Limoncelli (2005) https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/time-management-for/059...

Getting Things Done by David Allen https://gettingthingsdone.com/ https://www.worldcat.org/title/getting-things-done/oclc/9347...

Cal Newport, generally: https://www.calnewport.com/

About 9,700 results in Worldcat, by title: https://www.worldcat.org/search?qt=worldcat_org_all&q=ti%3A%...

I am not a fan of productivity porn. Ironically I think it's often just a way that people procrastinate from what really matters. But eventually I had to give in to the fact that however I used to cope wasn't working anymore. I recently picked up David Allen's Getting Things Done, and I'm applying it using OmniFocus. The thing I like about it is that it acknowledges the mental baggage that information workers carry around, and it provides a practical system to free your mind from remembering tons of tasks (something which we are not evolutionarily set up for). It's hard to overstate what this has done for my stress level and creativity. It's not about maintaining lists, it's about freeing up my RAM.

1. The Art of Learning - I'll never think about practice the same way.

2. Getting Things Done - Enough has been said about this elsewhere, but the whole concept of "what's the next action" has really worked for me.

3. E-Myth Revisited - This was my MBA in one book. It came at the right time for me and really changed the way I think about creating businesses as assets. I wasn't a fan the cheesy example of the pie shop, but the advice has been invaluable.

Others that I found interesting, and that changed the way I think were:

4-hour Work Week. Yes, there is a ton of hype around this book, but I'd be surprised if anyone read it with an open mind and didn't learn anything or come away motivated to experiment with their lifestyle.

Outliers. This one probably stands out to me since I read it so recently. Gladwell gets a lot of hype as well, but I think he deserves at least some of it.

The Culture Code drastically changed the way I think about marketing.

And, a few random notes on the others I've read:

I found Predictably Irrational, Brain Rules and The 48 Laws of Power to be mostly garbage.

The Wisdom of Crowds, Wikinomics and Made to Stick are decent essays in book form.

Stumbling on Happiness is not nearly as good as Haidt's The Happiness Hypothesis which would be in the first list I made above if it were on Siver's list.

Seth Godin's books are good for motivation and for changing the way you think about marketing, especially if you've been doing it for a long time (I haven't). They're quick and fun, I think they're worth reading.

Fooled By Randomness is worth reading if nothing else because Taleb is such an entertaining writer.

The whole idea revolves around a few things. First being goal, goal itself can be divided to lifetime, half life, 10 year, yearly, monthly all the way granular to daily goals. In order to achieve the goal you need planning, hence you make To-do lists or others forms of tracking mechanisms with deadlines. Once this is done, the working on the list seems to be a matter of two things discipline and tracking. Tracking implies some sort of measurement. And then finally reviewing and course correction.Doing this in the intervals of your goal periods. And there is always that 'next step' that David Allen describes in his book.

That is all there is to productivity, the crux is to get organized. If you do this simple stuff you can solve and manage most of the stuff that is out there to manage.

Also re-listened to Getting Things Done by David Allen. This could also be any number of times.

Sort-of related, currently re-watching Westworld. I burned through ten episodes in two sittings first time around and wanted to properly appreciate it this time at a more leisurely pace.

Jeff Atwood doesn't like TODO lists[1]. Jeff Atwood estimates that all projects will take 6 to 8 weeks[2]. Coincidence?

Be a pro. Learn the blocking and tackling of your craft. Read Getting Things Done[3].

Use a tool like Evernote for ubiquitous capture. Take notes at your stand-up meeting. Take notes at all meetings. Be the keener in the front row at conferences taking notes.

Put your TODOs in a tool like Things or OmniFocus.

Do a weekly review. Do a monthly review. Do a quarterly review. Do an annual review.

Set goals and KPIs for yourself every week, month, quarter, and year.

Get peers and mentors to give you continuous feedback. Ask them to rate you from 1 to 10 on different skill-sets and facets

Put everything time-based in your calendar. Going to the gym? Put that in the calendar. Going on a date? Put that in the calendar.

Get a paper file for stuff you can't digitize. Get a scanner. Scan stuff into Evernote or use your phone/tablet camera.

Use a pomodoro timer and count the number of sprints you can finish in a day. Use a tool like Harvest if you bill hourly. [4][5]

Trying to find a job? Trying to close consulting clients? Create a pipeline in Trello.

Use RescueTime and Timings.App to measure where your time goes. [6]

Be a pro. Don't listen to this shockingly bad advice.

  [1]: http://blog.codinghorror.com/todont/
  [2]: http://blog.codinghorror.com/on-our-project-were-always-90-done/
  [3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done
  [4]: http://bookofhook.blogspot.ca/2013/03/smart-guy-productivity-pitfalls.html
  [5]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique
  [6]: http://timingapp.com

• The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

• The Lean Startup

• Poke the Box

• The Elements of Computing Systems

• The Death of Common Sense

• Up the Organization

• The Personal MBA

• The Wisdom of No-Escape

• The Adapted Mind

• Brain Rules

• Getting Things Done

• On Writing

• Steal Like An Artist

• George Orwell: A Collection of Essays

And these are technically not books, but Glenn Greenwald's "Speech to the Massachusetts ACLU" and the Christopher Hitchens speech criticizing the proposed Canadian hate speech law.

- the idea that, if you can do something in 5 minutes or so, just do it rather than keep putting it on to do lists.

- breaking down complex projects into discrete small concrete tasks.

Both are good ideas which do help me.

One thing about procrastination that often seems to be overlooked though is procrastinating about things that really do need to get done sooner or later (If I don't do the expense report, no one else is going to do it for me.) versus procrastinating about doing some project or making some plans because there's a voice questioning whether you really need to or want to do this project at all.

Now, I suppose in the latter case, a hyper-organized person would create an action item to "get more information" or something along those lines. But sometimes letting ideas just sit and percolate in a future projects queue works OK too.

Some people I have spoken to say his method isn't for them but I've found it useful, even if I haven't implemented everything he suggests.

I'd also recommend "Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software" by Charles Petzold. It starts at simple circuits and builds up a picture of how computers work. It has really helped me get my mental models of what's going on inside a computer straightened out!

The system described in this post is too much like a digital Tickler file[2] for me - digital should be easier, not a less-convenient bodged approximation of what we'd do with paper.

1. https://www.followupthen.com

2. The system described by David Allen in "Getting Things Done" for being reminded of deferred actions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tickler_file

https://gettingthingsdone.com/

Edit: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/mac/2005/03/08/productivity.... ; it has a link to a Python implementation based on plain text files, which is something I once did too for myself, but regrettably I didn't follow up with it.

Book: http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Produc...

Read the book, then get a tool like "Things" (for OSX) or try web software like http://vitalist.com/ that works cross platform and supports some group collaboration too.

And about those software project management books -- the guy who evangelized software engineering for the past three decades just published an article saying he was wrong: http://bit.ly/pRrkd (links to PDF).