Just Seven Things

Exploring why and how we do what we do, and how we can do it better

Archive for the category “Time Management”

22 Jul 2008
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Work Stress: Is it Wrong to Create it Yourself?

Men Sunset by Hilde Vanstraelen

Men Sunset by Hilde Vanstraelen

For a long (long) time, I’ve known very clearly about certain aspects of my personality. One of them that I had always labelled as somewhere along the spectrum of procrastination and laziness was the trait of always leaving important things to the last minute. Whether it was the last minute homework; the university essay deadline extension. The professional examination cramming or the Board papers finalised minutes before deadlines.

I had always put it down to laziness/ procrastination whilst at the same time being surprised whenever I came upon the output of my ‘rushed’ work. Invariably I was amazed with what I came up with in those final minutes. I was often left with the feeling that ‘if only’ I pulled my finger out, and gave myself ten times the time, I’d be able to incrementally improve what I produced tenfold.

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Posted in Action Orientation, Control, Creativity, Focus, Game Playing, Stress, Time Management and tagged , , , , , ,
19 Jul 2008

My Pursuit of Happiness III

Review

This is the main area in other systems (particularly in David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) ) that such emphasis is given to the importance and impact of this regular behaviour.

It’s always been something I’ve struggled with and I don’t really know why. It kind of feels like an easy thing to do compared to having to actually do tasks. I also find it to be an activity which is so easy to get sidelined in. So easy to just quickly do a short task that to come upon during your review……

I want to shift this by applying a structure to the review. A bit like I’ve heard about buffalos only travelling with the slowest in their herd, I want to cull the long tail of tasks by evaluating my accountabilities, projects and My 3 Very Next Actions for each. And then using Mark Forster’s ruthless time assessment (if you haven’t got the time longer term to do something, renegotiate it or drop it), review task ‘doability’

Posted in Control, Focus, Happiness, Management, Mindfulness, Time Management and tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment
18 Jul 2008
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My Pursuit of Happiness II

Working some more this morning on the idea of a Happiness Framework.

Not surprisingly, I think elements will borrow from trusted systems already referenced within Just Seven Things, and in the Blogroll. The first element:

Control

A first element will be a hybrid between David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) accountability review (the use of an aircraft runway/ flight path analogy sticks powerfully) and Brian Tracy’s Eat That Frog approach to identifying the biggest, ugliest frogs and dealing with them first.

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Posted in Control, Focus, Happiness, Time Management and tagged , , ,

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