Happy October! It’s time for yet another Groundhog Day Resolutions Update, which I have decided to do as just a picture (above). It took 4-5 hours to draw, but it was a novel way of approaching the report. I’ll provide a little more information in the RECAP. (more…)

Happy September! It’s time for another Groundhog Day Resolutions Update!

To recap, in last month’s review I realized that (1) I was tired of tracking and (2) it really wasn’t delivering the results it used to. I decided to substitute MORE EXTERNAL MOTIVATION TRICKERY in place of tracking to see if “harnessing my tendency to help others before helping myself” would have positive results. In other words, I was trying to WORK WITH the following personality quirks rather than FIGHT or WORK AROUND them as I have in the past:

• My main motivation to work is meeting someone’s immediate aspirational need. (I like helping people if I know how to help)
• My ability to focus is very fragile. (I am easily distracted without external aids constantly redirecting my attention)
• I am easily angered and frustrated when I can not move fast. (I am enraged by poor tools and information that wastes my time)
• I do better work when I don’t think about time. (When I am thinking about time, I could have been doing focused productive work)
• I feel trapped by too many scheduled tasks. Unscheduled tasks, though, are fine. (When I am worried about missing an appointment, these worries interrupt my focus constantly)
• Any scheduled event prevents focus for 8 hours afterwards. (My brain takes time to process external stimuli and is very “noisy”, so deep work is constantly interrupted by memories of the event).
• I absorb other people’s emotions easily and need to guard against sadness.
• I can’t rely on my brain to always be in charge, so have a backup.
• Despite all my shortcomings, I can always rely on my brain to converge toward a good solution, because that’s the way it’s wired.

Instead of fighting them, I wanted to try using them in my favor. Over the past 15 years I’ve tried a lot of tracking systems and productivity tools, and they ALL work so long as you stick to them, but these quirks seem to be innate traits. I’ve developed a lot of good habits and empowering perspectives, but these traits are stubbornly rooted in my very psyche.

So here’s what I did. (more…)

Happy Groundhog Day Resolutions for AUGUST 8! It’s a day late, but it’s taken some time to figure out how to write about the month. The big news that I alluded to in the recent Fear of Losing Information post is that I’ve dropped a lot of the personal activity data capture + analysis I’ve been doing for the past couple of years. The reporting has always been time-consuming and tedious, but the insights I derived were often useful. I’ve come to realize that I’m well past the point of diminishing returns; in hindsight, many of the insights of recent years are refinements of old ones I’ve had ten years ago, KonMari-style!!!

Instead of detailed GHDR weekly tracking, I’ve started using my digital notebook (Good Notes 5 on an iPad Pro) for my continuity management (photo above). It’s a lot more satisfying and flexible, and I already have switched to using the notebook for ALL “thinking away from the computer”, replacing multiple paper notebooks with one relatively-compact device.

Before I dump the entire tracking process (and get HOURS OF MY LIFE back every week), it’s worth making a list of what I think I’ve learned from it. The result is a kind of “operating list” that I believe keep me feeling balanced.

(more…)