Session 5 of the Year of Productivity, and
I think I need to work on my productivity, as I’ve come to it pretty late!
Anyway, I was definitely impressed with the different paper productivity tools
available. I love my electronic tools like Google Calendar and Evernote but I
still have a soft spot for paper – after all, the battery doesn’t run out and
it doesn’t crash. I am definitely going to check out the printable paper
productivity tools in the LifeHacker post.
- Chapter 4
of The Sketchnote Handbook is available for preview. Go to the author’s
blog to download the sample chapter. You can also view three short
podcasts by the author at his site.
Not being a lover of podcasts, I gave those
a miss but I read through the chapter. I can see why Sketchnote appeals to
people but I don’t know if it’s for me – I don’t really like expressing ideas
in this way, I’d rather just write them down. However, there were some good
tips in the chapter such as preparing a title page for your notes, scanning
them once they are completed and correcting any errors afterwards – however I
find it hard enough to write legibly
when note-taking, let alone draw
legibly.
- Having
read Chapter 4 in Exercise #1, try practicing the method while listening
to a pre-recorded webinar. If you
don’t have one already waiting in your to-do queue that you need to view,
you could watch the video of David Allen presenting his Getting Things
Done method that Mary introduced in Session 4.
I gave this a go but ended up writing notes
in the usual way! I do use bullet points and abbreviations in my notes anyway,
but I don’t know if even more complicated note taking the way to go for me.
- The
Moleskine company has collaborated with the Evernote folks and created a
special Evernote Smart Notebook.
Take a few minutes now and check it out here at the Getting Started
Guide. How might this tool help your
workflow and productivity? Could
you combine it with the Sketchnote method?
I use Evernote a lot so this could work
really well. I prefer to use a combination of paper and electronic methods to
create notes so this is definitely something I’d like to look into. It could
definitely work with the Sketchnote method, for instance if you’re in a meeting
and want to make notes by hand then add them to Evernote later.
- Review
the Pomodoro Technique. Try to
apply the method on a project you need to start today. How often did you have to keep yourself
from straying from the task? How much
did you accomplish during the session?
I tried this, but I found that as soon as I
wasn’t allowed to check my emails or
distract myself in any other way, I immediately wanted to even more. Also, I
found myself spending twice as long mentally ‘preparing’ myself for the
25-minute stretch of work knowing that in theory, at least, I wouldn’t be able
to stop. I think I’m going to need more practice…
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