Snow Day! (Or, How to Use "Found Time")

With a foot of snow outside my window right now, it seemed like a good time to revisit a favorite post from last year: how to use a snow day. Whether you are snowed in today or not, check out these ideas for how to use the gift of extra unscheduled time.

8 Great Uses of a Snow Day (or Other "Found Time") originally posted on February 10, 2010

My former boss used to talk about the wonderful feeling brought about by “found time.”  Found time is when you unexpectedly gain free time — because of a cancelled meeting or a postponed lunch date — and get to decide how to use it.   As over-scheduled as most of us are, a few hours of found time can feel pretty luxurious.

Many on the East Coast are getting some found time today in the form of a snow day.  Why not make the most of it? While I wouldn’t suggest doing ALL of these things in one day — after all, you should relax — I guarantee that taking on two or three of these activities will make you feel more energetic and accomplished than, say, a whole day spent watching HGTV (ahem).

1. Do one task you’ve been putting off. Crossing something off your list will feel so good, you might even be inspired to do something else. For me, this will be finding out how to change the address on my driver’s license.  I moved two years ago, so I expect that finally doing this will feel pretty good!
2. Plan your charitable giving for the coming year. Many of us only make donations at the end of the calendar year or when disaster motivates us to give.  But nonprofits need our generosity year-round for the work they do day in and day out.  Think about how much you are able to donate this year, and consider donating now or in installments over the course of the year.
3. Pick a small area to declutter. What space in your environment aggravates you, embarrasses you, or slows you down? It could be your desk drawer or your sock drawer, the pile on the kitchen table or that black hole where you toss instruction manuals.    Pick a manageable area that you can declutter in an hour or less, and get it done.
4. Check in with your New Year’s resolutions. It’s a few weeks into the new year: how are those resolutions going?  It’s okay to refine your resolutions or  drop one altogether.  Just be intentional about it!  If you did any end-of-year reflection, revisit your notes from that process.  What’s changed already since the year began?
5. Do a brain dump. When was the last time you got everything off your mind?  Sit down for 15 minutes and write down everything that is taking up your attention right now – from upcoming birthdays to grocery lists to the broken dining room chair.  Then, identify the next action needed on each item, and put it in your trusted system (a sure-fire process brought to you byDavid Allen).
6. Create something. Make soup from scratch, build a shelf, assemble homemade Valentines, crochet a scarf for your dog.  There is little as satisfying as creating something from start to finish in one sitting.  Short projects provide instant gratification and don’t hang over your head like that sweater you started knitting two years ago.
7. Set a date.  Not to get married (though a blizzard engagement would make a nice story) but to get together with that person you’ve been meaning to see.  Look at your calendar, find three dates that would work for lunch or for coffee, and suggest to that long-neglected colleague/cousin/college buddy that you finally get some face-time.
8. Write down ideas for how you’d like to use your next block of found time and put your list in a find-able place.

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What are your favorite uses for found time?  If you have a snow day today, how will you use it?

My GTD Second Year Review - What's Stuck?

A year ago, I wrote about my first full year applying the Getting Things Done methodology to my life and work.  For the uninitiated, GTD is a system created by David Allen for organizing all of the "stuff" that comes at you in life -- all the to-dos, projects, things other people owe you, etc. (The best entry point to GTD is to read the book.)  GTD was a revelation for me, helping me gain control of a lot of loose ends and allowing me to clear both desk space and head space as I left a longtime job and went back to school. So, a year later, has it stuck? In large part, yes.  While I'm less regimented/disciplined about the way I employ GTD these days, its principles are what guide the way I stay on top of everything going on in my life.  Here are a few of the ideas that have been most central to my implementation of GTD in the second year:

First things first, it's not about the technology. David Allen says this, but most of us have to figure it out on our own.  I, like my time management coaching clients, spent a good deal of time looking for the "right" technology to implement GTD.  Is it Remember The Milk or OmniFocus?  A simple list on my smartphone or a pen-and-paper list in a notebook? And should I be using Evernote?

My learning here is that there is no "best" technology for GTD - the best technology is the one that works for me.  Further, what is best for me may change, and that's okay.  There are weeks when I need to have everything on my phone so I can access it anywhere.  And there are weeks when I need to have a handwritten list staring up at me from my desk.  Both are okay, and I adjust for what will work for me at any given time.

Second, GTD is not about perfection. When I first started doing GTD, I wanted to do it perfectly: everything captured on the appropriate list, email inbox and desk inbox empty at the end of each and every day (no exceptions), a weekly review chiseled into my calendar.  What I've learned is that I don't have to do GTD perfectly for it to work for me.  I fall off the wagon for weeks at a time, start to feel the disarray that results, and then get back on.  GTD is a very forgiving system -- and once you learn the basics it is there to help you clean up however messy you've let your life become.

But it is about the principles. The basic GTD principles are what have continued to work for me over the two years.  Among them:

The 5 stages of workflow: Collect, Process, Organize, Review, Do. When things feel out of sorts, it's usually because I need to jump back in on one stage of this process.  If you are still thinking of the things on your plate as just "done" or "waiting to be done," the 5 stages of workflow will be an eye-opener. Chapter 2 of Getting Things Done, which explains the five stages, is something I return to again and again.

The inbox. Having ONE place where all incoming stuff lands -- my physical inbox in my home/office space and my email inbox in virtual space -- means that I always know where to put and where to find stuff I haven't dealt with yet.

The full capture. When I'm feeling an ambiguous sense of overwhelm, it's usually because I have stuff bouncing around my head that I have not yet captured on a list.  This will happen when I'm trying to focus on some big project but all the while feel a nagging sense of all of the other stuff that I need to attend to.  I've learned that when this happens I need to stop what I'm doing for 5 minutes and do a full capture -- or what D.A. calls a mindsweep -- of all the loose ends that are taking up space in my working memory. That list goes into my inbox for future processing, and I can go back to my project with a clearer head.

The review. This, along with the full capture, is the other instant stress-reliever.  Knowing that I will regularly sit down and review everything on my plate - big and small, from the recent past to the near future - allows me to relax into the moment and not worry about things slipping through the cracks. David Allen preaches the virtue of the Weekly Review of everything on your plate  -- and yes, ideally the reviews are weekly -- but I've allowed my review schedule to be a bit more fluid and driven by my internal sense of when I need to step back.

For those of you just thinking about starting GTD or something like it, my advice would be to first adopt, then adapt.  Jump into it with both feet -- listen to the man when he says to use only fresh file folders and to use a label-maker.  But then, once you've gotten a hang of David Allen's way, make it your way.  Modify it to fit your needs, and don't worry that you're not doing it "right."  What's right is what works for you.

How have you made GTD your own?  Share your thoughts in the comments.

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Golden Guidelines for Working from Home

Note: Student of Change is now Do Your Best Work.  Welcome! For seven years I had a full time office job -- and then I had none.  In making the transition from office worker to full time student/part time consultant, I had to learn a new way of working. Gone were the opportunities for casual interaction with coworkers, the sense that others noticed whether or not I was busy, and the pre-defined work hours.   Full days stretched out in front of me, and it was up to me to fill them productively.

Working from home -- whether it's your full-time gig, a once-a-week thing or a special arrangement with your boss to get that report done -- requires adopting a new set of behaviors.  Of course, having increased flexibility and the option to see a friend, bake a cake or go to yoga in the middle of the day is one of the reasons we choose to work from home.  Still, I find it useful to keep these guidelines in mind to make sure that I'm on track and as productive as I want to be:

1. Get dressed in the morning. It really makes a difference.  Also: make your bed.
2. Protect your time from others. It can be tempting, especially at first, to set up a lot of lunch dates with friends across town - just because you can.  But with that lunch date goes half of your day.  Schedule social engagements during work time sparingly.
3. Protect your time from yourself. This is about setting boundaries between work and non-work.  Don't let household projects, non-work email or heaven forbid, TV, become procrastination devices.  On the flip-side, don't let work encroach on non-work relaxation & renewal.
4. Worst/best first. Two ways to approach this: get the worst thing you have to do all day out of the way first.  OR, start your day with the best thing you have to do -- usually the most creative and thus most energy-consuming but also energizing.  I vary my approach depending on what's on my plate.
5. Create colleagues.  Find at least one other person who is also a solo-worker and make a regular date to check in.  Gaining additional perspectives and support from others in your field is essential to your sanity and your growth.  And, your partner will appreciate not having to play the role of coworker at the end of his/her own long day.

Do you work from home?  What are your Golden Guidelines?

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Joan Rivers and Twyla Tharp, Organized Artists

I saw the hilarious and disturbing  Joan Rivers documentary this weekend. One of my favorite parts was seeing Joan's low-tech joke library. Take a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87yztkvEsIk

Joan is onto something.  Though artists have a reputation for being messy and spontaneous, many have organized workspaces because their art demands it.

Organization is in part about being prepared for the moment when insight strikes.  It's about creating the conditions for creativity to flourish, so that when you enter into creation mode, your physical world is set up to support you. Being organized also creates the mental order that many people need to be able to put aside mundane things and enter a creative head-space.

An organized workspace, for artists an non-artists alike, needn't mean office-standard manilla file folders and labelmakers.  In her book The Creative Habit, choreographer Twyla Tharp describes the  unconventional system she uses to support her creativity*:

Everyone has his or her own organizational system. Mine is a box, the kind you can buy at Office Depot for transferring files. I start every dance with a box. I write the project name on the box, and as the piece progresses I fill it up with every item that went into the making of the dance. This means notebooks, news clippings, CDs, videotapes of me working alone in my studio, videos of the dancers rehearsing, books and photographs and pieces of art that may have inspired me...

The box makes me feel organized, that I have my act together even when I don’t know where I’m going yet... Most important, though, the box means I never have to worry about forgetting. One of the biggest fears for a creative person is that some brilliant idea will get lost because you didn’t write it down and put it in a safe place. I don’t worry about that because I know where to find it. It’s all in the box….

As different as their systems (and their art forms) are, Joan and Twyla's methods are fundamentally similar.  When they are ready to create, neither the comedian nor the choreographer wants to spend time searching for things -- they want to be able to quickly access what they need and get down to creating what they want to create.  Both feel grounded knowing that their creative works-in-progress have a safe home outside of their heads.  That's one sign of a working system - it makes you feel better.

No matter what form it takes, a good organizational system supports you to do your best work by allowing you to put your brain power where you want and need it to be. For some people that system will be a cardboard box of ideas, and for others a card catalog of naughty jokes.

Do you have an unconventional organizational system?  If you're an artist, how do you organize your workspace?

*With thanks to Merlin Mann for introducing me to this passage.

Your Brain on Computers: A Do Your Best Work Roundup

This week the New York Times began a great series on computers and the brain, examining how our thoughts and behaviors (and frighteningly, our very ability to parent) have been altered by the multiple screens and data feeds that divide our attention.

Here at Do Your Best Work, we've spent the past 8 months exploring some of the same issues, only with fewer scientists and a smaller team of reporters (okay, it's just me).

If you've been captivated by the Times series, check out this roundup of Do Your Best Work pieces on related topics:

• Stressed out by technology? Maybe you need to learn how to tame the stress of your plugged-in life.
• Do a fun little test that demonstrates that multitasking is a myth.
• Email taking up all your time?  Learn strategies to ease the grip email has on your life.
• So you're ready to stop checking Twitter and do some actual work, at least for the next hour. Mazel tov!  How many minutes of Freedom do you want?
• Maybe you need to step away from your desk and take a walk to improve your productivity (and your health).
• Or even better yet, unplug altogether.

It's great to see some of these ideas taking hold in the mainstream media.  Have you read the Times series? What most surprised you?  Don't be shy, jump into the conversation by posting a comment below.

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