Thoughts on task management
(cross posted from HEY World)
Last week I started doing a “week in review” in my Day One journal. The idea being to put down some of the things I’ve done or was thinking about the previous week. One of the things I wrote about in that first review were thoughts about task management because I’ve been struggling as of late trying to really keep things moving forward. I talked about several things I might try because a Kanban board seemed like a really good way to get a handle on everything going on. Trello is a fantastic product for that but I have little desire to add yet another application on to the list of things I need to check on a given day.
Looking back over that review this morning I came to the conclusion that my ideas about task management were short lived. I have been using Things 3 for years for task management. In my journal entry I noted that I was going to start by sticking with Things because it still is the best fit for me but that I was going to drop using Areas because I was having issues keeping a grip on what is happening/what needs to happen. Tasks and projects seem to get hidden too easily and I lose track of them. The idea behind getting rid of Areas was to have all active projects in one list that was viewable in its entirety.
Change of plans; I’m back to Areas/Projects as I was before. This is due to having come across a very good article by Tiago Forte about a system he calls PARA:
- Projects
- Areas
- Resources
- Archives
Right now I’m just worried about projects and areas but his distinction about the two was very interesting:
A project has a goal to be achieved — a discrete event that will happen, allowing this item to be completely checked off and struck from the list. And this goal is supposed to take place by a specific moment in time. It has a deadline or timeframe, whether externally or self-imposed.
An area of responsibility, by contrast, has a standard to be maintained. And there is no end date or final outcome. Your performance in this area may wax and wane over time, but the standard continues indefinitely and requires a certain level of attention at all times.
A good example of project vs. area where I have been making a mistake is my gardening tasks for this year. I’ve had this as a project where I keep adding/removing tasks but it’s not really a project because there really is no defined outcome or deadline save for some time in the Fall when it all wraps up for the year. It really is an area of concern, separate from my “Home” area.
The article was good food for thought that I’ve been grazing on and made me think more about intentionality and thoughtfulness about what I’m doing. For instance the weekly review in my journal. It’s not just about getting it done and checking off some item on a list. I need to be more thoughtful about what I’m writing to get a really good overview of what is going on week to week in my life. This needs to extend to everything else. The goal here is to be more thoughtful (in other words, take more time to think, don’t just do!) about any of the tasks I’m doing and taking the time to get them done with purpose and conviction, not just check an item off a list.
Another problem is that I’ve not been doing a proper weekly review of everything at hand. I have items in my “weekly review” project for things like “Review Someday list” but again I haven’t been really thoughtful and deliberate about it. I’ve just been doing a quick look at things and checking off items. This was never the intent for the weekly review process. The result is I have a mess that needs to be fixed.
The initial step was to put all projects on my “Someday” list. The next step was deliberately going through each one looking at the real priority which resulted in me picking a few projects off and assigning to Areas once again. But that list of active projects won’t grow until something has been completed. It’s now a much shorter list that doesn’t feel overwhelming and won’t feel overwhelming because it won’t keep growing.
Tiago wrote:
Now, imagine the psychological effect of waking up to the list on the left day after day, week after week, month after month, even year after year. Areas of Responsibility rarely if ever change, remember? No matter how hard you work, how many years of service you put in, the list of never-changing obligations only gets heavier and longer.
I couldn’t design a better method of killing personal motivation if I tried.
That fits my situation perfectly. The solution is breaking things down more effectively into shorter projects that have defined outcomes with a definite end in mind. This is where I’ve been having problems and now it’s causing a larger issue with motivation.
Intention. Thoughtfulness. New ideas to apply to my life. But they sound a lot better than chaos and anxiety. And in the end I was doing this before and somehow got off track. It’s just time to get back on.
April 12, 2021
Gut punch: Unsplash bought by Getty
Ugh. I just read this post from Om Malik about Unsplash being bought by Getty. Real gut punch given what they had wanted to do. Deleted my account.
April 5, 2021
Ever feel like you keep getting into conversations you don’t want to be dragged into? Yea me too. Just did a tweetdelete bomb and going to try harder next time.
April 2, 2021
Yes let’s blame the victim…
(cross posted from HEY World)
I’ve been having some odd conversations on Twitter around a story that @DHH tweeted and frankly they’re so obnoxious that I had to take the time to write something longer-form.
Here is the story. Long story short:
App author writes a client to play Go games via OGS
App author gets a rejection from Apple because his client doesn’t offer “Sign in with Apple”.
Author appeals to Apple because author doesn’t control the login form on OGS, and he’s simply a third-party client.
During appeal, the author notes to Apple that by section 4.8 of their own App Store Review guidelines he doesn’t need to offer “Sign in with Apple” because his application fits the 4th bullet point under “Sign in with Apple is not required if:”
Author is rejected again for the same reason.
Section 4.8 of the App Store Review guidelines covers “Sign in with Apple” and specifically states that you don’t need to provide support for “Sign in with Apple” if:
Your app is a client for a specific third-party service and users are required to sign in to their mail, social media, or other third-party account directly to access their content.
This is exactly the category of the author’s application. The author says:
Since my app is a client for OGS
The author does not run or maintain OGS, his app is only a client for playing Go games via OGS. This is the same situation of any Twitter client like Tweetbot from Tapbots. Tweetbot is a third-party client of Twitter and Twitter is completely under control of the authentication system.
Here is Apple’s tone-deaf first response from the initial submission:
The tone-deaf response to his appeal was:
It is quite apparent that nobody at Apple took the time to read what he wrote nor look at the application. If they had they would realize this app is a third-party client of OGS like Tweetbot is to Twitter.
They are suggesting that he add code to OGS which is ridiculous. What’s worse is that they parrot back Section 4.8!
The story is bad enough up to this point but once DHH tweeted the link to the author’s story out came the Apple lovers on Twitter to defend Apple’s honor.
Here are some examples of the people I have been interacting with:
@dscape obviously didn’t read the article and neither did the people who liked his tweet.
Here @MichalLangmajer and @simped both are defending Apple and both clearly didn’t read the article. @simped’s response is absolute Apple Defender gold too:
Just because he doesn’t own the login process, they should change the rules for him?
Really? This suggests that Tapbots would have to change Twitter’s login process. This is a ridiculous stance. But @simped didn’t bother to read the article as he thought it was about the Go programming language.
For a wonderful look into some pure Stockholm Syndrome, with a touch of victim blaming, look at this line of thinking:
Read that line of responses and stew on it a bit. It truly is breathtaking. I actually laughed out loud when he said:
It’s funny how everybody with a different opinion in this discussion “didn’t read the article”. Is it your only argument here?
I honestly don’t understand where these people are coming from and I’m a huge Apple fan. This is not the first time they’ve made a mistake like this and it won’t be the last. I also know it won’t be the last time The Defenders ride out to defend the Billion Dollar Company from Small Developer.
This story is also yet another indication that people are forgetting how to read with comprehension. Twitter is literally killing our brains. Let’s not take the five minutes required to read the article nor another five minutes to let it digest a bit. Let’s just fire off a response because, well, Apple’s honor is being questioned.
April 1, 2021
Doing anything well is hard
(cross posted from HEY World)
Yeah I know, the title of this post is obvious, or it should be. The thing is, when you see someone who is really good at something they make it look easy, and the hours and years of training they went through never enter your mind.
I’m learning how to play piano and it is hard, like really, really hard. I’m learning “Invention #10” from J.S. Bach. I plunk through, over and over again, every time getting just the slightest bit better but it’s a slog.
If you haven’t heard of the Inventions they were a series of pieces that Bach wrote, along with the Sinfonias, as exercises for his students. The Inventions in particular are good exercises for learning to play 2 musical lines independently (as always Wikipedia has a good write-up here). As such, when I ran across Simone Dinnerstein playing #10 it killed my enthusiasm.
I’m being a bit hyperbolic because of course Simone has been playing forever and studied at Juilliard. But this is a piece that I am struggling with as a beginning player and she makes it seem so easy; it can be a bit disheartening. That gets back to the title of this piece.
Piano is hard. I know this. Playing piano well is even harder. I’m going to have to put in the work to get good at it. I’m old enough that I won’t ever be as good as Simone Dinnerstein but that’s OK. Part of what I need to remind myself of is that I should also be enjoying this. It should be a lifetime lesson that I enjoy and use to unwind from the realities of life. So here is to putting in the work and enjoying it!
March 25, 2021
(cross posted from HEY World)
So the big social media news of the day was Chrissy Teigen quitting Twitter after being on the platform for over a decade and gaining 13 million followers. Of course because she was an outspoken woman of color she was trolled, berated, and abused (anyone remember Pizzagate?) by many on her time on the platform simply for being a smart woman with a sharp wit. The only thing I have to say is good for her!
Writing about why she was quitting, it all boiled down to the platform not working for her and her not liking who she was becoming because of it. As I said, a smart woman who figured out what the line was she wouldn’t cross and doing the healthy thing and leaving when it stopped working for her.
I struggle with the same issues she mentioned every single time I log on to Twitter. It’s hard not to get wrapped up in the negativity. I’ve “quit” multiple times only to come back each time saying “this time will be different”. It usually hasn’t been but I keep trying anyway but this last time I “quit” Twitter, which just happened about a month ago, it dawned on me that for most of us, Twitter should be an ephemeral thing, not some decade-long account of every little thought we’ve had in public.
How many times have we seen someone held accountable for something they said 10 years ago, when they were a different person? Maybe they were younger and didn’t know any better, thinking that nobody would ever go back and search their Twitter “archive”. Maybe they’ve learned a thing or two and have come to different conclusions about life since posting something on Twitter they regret now. People like to point their finger at someone stuck in that situation, not thinking that the shoe may very well be on the other foot some day. We are not a very tolerant society.
Chrissy Teigen noted back in July of last year:
I actually deleted 60,000 tweets because I cannot fucking STAND you idiots anymore and I’m worried for my family. Finding me talking about toddlers and tiaras in 2013 and thinking you’re some sort of fucking operative.
There is a solution to that problem that just about everyone should be taking advantage of: delete your tweets. There are services like tweetdelete.net that will do this automatically every several days for the the timeframe you choose (older than a week, older than a month, etc). Take advantage of them, use Twitter like the ephemeral service it should be. There is little reason to keep things like tweets around for years. There is no reason to have your words used against you by bad people with bad agendas.
March 25, 2021