My GTD / Omnifocus Weekly Review Checklist

There are many. This is mine.

I use Omnifocus to track my tasks so some terms may not apply to you. My weekly reminder to do my weekly review, links directly to this post and I keep it visible whilst I review all the items in my bucket.

Is it done?

I don't tick off everything as I do it and nor does anyone else. Have a quick check to see if you’ve completed the project since the last review, or if anyone else has.

Should it be be on hold?

Will you make any actions on this project before it’s next review date? If not, put it on hold. This enables you to better focus on tasks you actually can do - your available task perspectives won’t be filled with tasks you can’t do right now.

Do you still care / Is the outcome still needed?

It’s probably been a week since you last did a review, depending on the frequency of review you’ve set for this project - possibly much more. Have your priorities changed? Is this project important any more? No?

Kill it. There are enough genuinely important tasks for you to attend to without adding more. Lose the guilt. drop the task.

If you're reviewing single tasks - should it really be a project?

I have many stacks of single tasks, piles of repeating tasks, lists of articles to read etc. Often, tasks creep in that really should be projects. Remember, a project is anything that takes more than 1 clearly defined step to complete. Breaking tasks down into the smallest practical step is key to actually getting things done.

Is the project described as an outcome?

I find that longer, more descriptive project titles such as “Go on a geeky holiday with your friends in 2013” is a lot easier to use than “Holiday?”. Is your task written as an actual outcome?

“describe in a single sentence the intended successful outcome for the problem or situation” It can help to think of this as writing for someone else - the you of next week really is a different person from the you of today.

If the project is significant, have you leveraged positive affirmation techniques to help it succeed?

I’ve writing a much longer post about this, suffice for now to say that projects of note have two questions asked and answered in the notes field:

1. Why do I want to achieve the outcome for this project?
2. What does the project outcome look like?

Is there a clearly defined next action?

Your project will not move on until you have identified (at least) the next specific task which will move you closer to completion.

Is this project stuck?

Reviewed this project more than once without it moving forward? You’re stuck. You might need to change your next action, maybe the existing next action should be split into two, or the order of the project changed.

Are you reviewing this project frequently enough? Or too often?

Review as infrequently as you can (to reduce admin overheads) but as frequently as you need to (to ensure things don’t slip entirely or slip back into your head space). Omnifocus defaults to a week, which is a good start but probably isn’t suitable for half or more of your projects. For example, The holiday you’re planning to take in 12 months, from here it’s probably a 3 month review, closer it becomes monthly, within 4 weeks it should probably become weekly. Changing the review frequency of a project is entirely appropriate and should be done as your relationship with the project and the projects relationship with time changes. Appropriate review frequency is a real example of ‘Mind like water’.

What do you think? Any feedback? This is a ‘live’ document that my weekly review reminder links to directly so any improvements or refinements are added into the process constantly. I owe a debt to the writers of this post which is the article I used for reviews prior to writing this.

Mail Drop - beta testing the new email in feature for Omnifocus

Omni Group emailed me the other day asking if I wanted to participate in a beta test of their new Mail Drop feature. This lets you email tasks straight into your OF inbox where they will appear next time any of your devices sync. This feature is the final piece of achieving Inbox 0, even from mobile, all the time, every time.

I've put an extra step in my email processing when I am using either my phone or tablet:

1. Open mail app
2. Check first email (all unread emails are emails that need actioning, by it's definition, read emails have been actioned)
3. Is it crap? Delete it
4. Can I delegate it? Forward it to the relevant party
5. Can I action it in less than 2 minutes? Action it.
6. Do I need to action it but it will take more than 2 minutes? Forward on to my Omnifocus Upload Email, process as part of my inbox processing later.

I wrote back to them saying:

Hi - thanks for letting me use the mail drop feature, I've so far found it to be hugely useful.

Good Immediately useful to help me get to inbox 0 all the time. I check my email on my phone, deal with 2 minute tasks, delete any garbage emails and forward emails that need more than 2 minutes straight to OF. I do not, and never will use the mail drop function for anything other than sending tasks to my inbox for later processing. I can't see the point in being able to mail them straight to a given project or context, too mush to remember!

Bad I'm not sure if this is related and I haven't been able to replicate it, but some tasks I had definitely marked as complete and had 'cleaned up' re appeared as incomplete tasks in my inbox.

Improvements Maintain more formatting from the emails, or make the copy a lot prettier and easier to read when it turns up. When I come to process my inbox, I often need to be able to access the original email that I forwarded onto myself. Any way to build a custom search string that is injected into Mail from a hyperlink in the task created by Mail Drop, would be hugely, hugely useful.

Additional I can see myself emailing tasks straight to my wife using this feature, and her to me. Can you email attachments?

Really appreciate you reaching out to the audience - I'm a big OF fan, have pushed you on many a friend!

thanks

Miles

Distraction Reduction: Top Ten Tips on How to block out the world and get on with things

Focus, it escapes me frequently, but not as much as it used to. Here are my top ten tips for pushing the world to one side.

1. Get a decent pair of headphones. You don't need to spend much, most rubber tipped 'phones will keep the outside world out and your world in. I'd recommend Sony MDREX310LPB if you're going easy on the budget or Bose® QuietComfort® 15 if you're feeling flush.
2. Headphones won't filter all of your auditory interruptions so some music will get rid of the rest. Studies show that verbal background noise, such as radio, podcasts, or even music with lyrics has a cognitive overhead generated by your brain receiving, deciphering & then dismissing the input. Save yourself the hassle and instead build your own or subscribe to, Spotify Playlists of music with no or minimal lyrics. Here's a few to get you started: "Chill Digital" & "Hip Hop Instrumentals"
3. Turn off notifications on your Smartphone. Both IOS & Android allow granular control over notifications generated by your phone - do you really need that 20 second distraction from "Zombie Dinosaur Rider" telling you about some special offer you're not going to take up? No. Go through all the apps that send you notifications, turn every single one of them off, even email. Now go through them all again and turn on the ones you really *need* to have instant notification about.
4. Go a step further and consider scheduling the Do Not Disturb  function on your phone to kick in a) all work day and b) all night. Studies show you can suffer lower quality sleep if your phone lights up at night, even if you don't wake up.
5. Use a time slicing focus technique. The Pomodoro method boils down to little more than focusing intently for 25 minutes and pushing interruptions, internal or external, to specified, planned periods later in the day. Used carefully it reduces the number of interruptions that need actioning (as they have been deferred to later, on reflection they are often un necessary) & forces you to get into a good working rthym as you spend 25 quality minutes on a problem.
6. Have a trusted bucket to put your concerns and issues in. Consider, I'm busy writing a proposal for a potential new client. Whilst writing out the project specification, into my head pops "You ran out of milk this morning when you made coffee". You can't stop these internal interruptions and if you don't do something with the interruption, it will keep popping up. Your brain doesn't differentiate between "Buy Some Milk" and "Finish this proposal before the end of the day or you'll get fired". My bucket is Omnifocus (Mac, IOS), although you could easily use a paper notepad, sticky notes or a dozen other tools. An interruption comes in, I triage it - basically "Is the house on fire" if it's not an emergency I put it in my bucket and check over them later. The interruption is handled, my brain stands down and considers things dealt with, I can concentrate on the task at hand. Use whatever bucket you like but make sure you a) trust it not to lose things and b) you sort through the bucket regularly. Yes - this is directly from Getting Things Done by David Allen. He rules, seriously.
7. Opt out of emails. Create a smart folder in your email programme of choice and filter into it any emails that mention "Subscribe", "Unsubscribe", "Newsletter", "Subscription Settings", "Your Account" & any others that come to mind. Run through this folder and hit the unsubscribe link for everything. No really, everything. If it's that important you'll either go find it yourself or someone will contact you personally. I bet 50% of your emails are messages not addressed solely to you. Stop wasting your time deciding if you're interested in 10% off a new sofa, you're probably not looking for a new sofa and even if you are, why would you go with the first shiny thing dangled in front of you?
8. Opt out of meetings. You probably don't need to be there, I've not been useful at more than 25% of the meetings I've ever been to. Generally they are time sinks that don't benefit you and are set up merely to fan the ego of some old wind bag who wants everyone to know how much effect they have on the project. You've got your prep time to worry about before you get to the meeting, travelling to and from the meeting, the time actually there and lastly, probably most importantly, the focus shift between writing your important report and moving into listening mode. Make an excuse, don't go.
9. Shut the door. If you've got one, shut it.
10. Change how you sit, if you share your room or office with other people, put your back to them so you're not distracted by people walking by, visitors to the office, the cleaner coming to change the bins, the pretty receptionist, the window cleaner.

These tips on their own won't make you a productivity genius but I reckon you can probably double your working time by implementing them all.

What steps do you take to reduce distractions? Please leave your comments below!

Ooo before I forget - here's a great video that might help as well.

24 Things I have in my mobile office - how I stayed productive during a hospital visit

Local anaesthetic, hopefully routine. The people waiting with me are, generally, older. One sits making small talk with their husband, another sits reading the paper with their daughter.

I'm working. Not just 'a bit of work' full on UX work, wireframes in Omnigraffle. In my small InCase rucksack I've brought every single thing that I have available to me at home except my A3 sketchpad and my 27" monitor.

My productivity is surprisingly portable, with a little forward planning I have an entire office with me and with some judicious use of hospital furniture I've built a tiny office in the corner of the ward.

In my bag I have:

• MacBook Pro - mid 2011 model (2.5Ghz, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD)
• Mac power supply, importantly including the long extension that you can pull on and off. This means I can sit somewhere comfortable and still plug into hard to reach plug sockets. I also have the regular plug that just slots onto the PSU for convenient power sockets.
• iPad (3rd generation, 64GB, 3G), with all of my reading material. Although 95% of use is over WiFi I opted for a 3G model, not only because the price bump was small but because using tethering it serves as a back up internet connection should there be an issue with my phone. This is essential - use a different provider from your regular phone, should Tmobile (my phone provider) have bad signal, it's possible that 3 (my ipad 3G provider) has a good signal. Less chance of losing connectivity.
• Bose QuietComfort 15 noise cancelling headphones. I find it hard to concentrate at the best of times, these help by filtering out background noise, they're also very very good at playing me music.
• A4 lined notepad, ring bound. For planning Pomodoros, making quick action lists, quick sketches etc. I favour Europa Notemakers - as they have nice rounded corners.
• 2 USB cables - one for my phone and one for my ipad. The ones for my ipad was a cheap 99p ebay job, the one for the phone came in the box.
• An iphone 5, 64GB. I use this as my primary internet connection as there is rarely WiFi available. I'm using Tmobile and paying for unlimited fair use tethering (£36 a month for unlimited calls and texts as well)
• A plain black pencil case with 3 compartments.
• Pens - many. There are 9 Mitsubishi Uniball - fine, 9 different colours. Used for some sketching but mainly for adding colour to ketches drawn with the 5 Mitsubishi Uni Pin - Fine Line black pens in 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.5 and 0.8. I have to be honest I only really use 0.8 and 0.1.
• Pencils - some. 2 Propelling pencils from Pental, 0.5mm, B.
• Spare leads, 12, to match the pencils.
• Rubber - Staedtler Rasoplast Combi. Yes, the propelling pencils have rubbers built in, no they aren't any good.
• 2 nail files & a pot of "Stop 'n Grow". If I forget to put this stuff on for a day I fall back to old habits and start biting my nails. At least I worry I will so I keep this with me!
• A5 sketch pad, plain. Doesn't get the use I expected it to as I tend to just use the A4 pad.
• Sun glasses, prescription, in a hard case. Including a large polishing cloth.
• Glasses, as above.
• Sinus pain killers and decongestant, Ibuprofen & Heartburn tablets. Always be prepared.
• A Thunderbolt to DVI adaptor.
• Glasses polish spray, small 35ml bottle from vision express. Helps clean the laptop screen as well as the glasses.
• USB Battery charger, excellent model from Energiser, cost £4 and included 2 AAA rechargeable batteries.
• In addition to the AAA from above, another 2 AA batteries that also fit in the fantastic USB charger.
• A 10cm USB extension cable in case things get crowded around the 2 USB slots my mac has.
• a pitifully small 512MB USB memory stick just in case I need to transfer files and we have no network access.
• I also have, although I carry it everywhere rather than it being part of my mobile office, a Swiss Army Cybertool 41 which covers any tool related tasks I've ever needed to do.

I think that's about it.

My ruck sack is small, comfortable and totally portable - got a really happy place with me.

CheatSheet for OSX - all the keyboard shortcuts, all the apps, all the time

I came across this fantastic little app the other day called Cheat Sheet. For any programme, at any time, if you hold the Cmd key for a few seconds on its own, up pops a window with a list of all of the available keyboard short cuts & a description. I don't know about you but I only ever remember a few, Cmd+Shift+D to send an open email is one of the very few I've ever committed to memory.

CheatSheet is free, customisable and does exactly what it says on the tin, no Mac user should be without it.