I have recommended Scrivener — for me the best writing software ever — multiple times. It is hard to give a correct impression of the advantages, but the posting Scrivener — A perfect program for dissertation writing tries to give an overview. It is my most frequently read posting. However, some people might like a video and there is an excellent one linked on the Scrivener Trial page, or available on YouTube. The creator of Scrivener, Keith Blount, gives a 10 minute introduction of the program:

Highly recommended, especially if you combine it with a good outliner like Circus Ponies Notebook, and available for Mac and PC (Windows).

Hey everyone,

I’m still working on the second edition of Organizing Creativity.

It takes longer than expected (it is a spare time project), so, I’m putting the current draft version online.

It contains the content of the wiki I had here, so I have removed it.

Like I said, it’s a rough draft — some parts are (almost) finished, others are missing in part or completely — but to make the best of the longer work process, posting it online gives me the opportunity to ask for feedback. This is your chance to influence the final version. What do you think of the content and/or the layout? Any suggestions for improvement? I’d like to hear them. Drop me a line at danwessel@organizingcreativity.com or write a comment.

All the best

Daniel

“Sure, I had tried out the Hipster PDA (verdict: too hipster), read up on the Moleskines (verdict: too much pressure to be the next Hemingway and Picasso), and even thought about Getting Things Done, but I just wasn’t up to the task.”
Bill Westerman on http://www.utilware.com/gsd3.html

I’ve already written a short entry on OmniFocus when I started to try it out end of November last year. After almost two months of experience with the program, I really like it — and what’s important, I think it helps me do my work more effectively.

Here’s a short overview of my workflow, somewhat inspired by the excellent series at asianefficiency.com:

Short work description and programs/apps used

I am a scientist. Most of my work is in the office behind a computer, so I can use the desktop version of OmniFocus. However, I also love to walk — for good reasons like health, time for ideas, fresh air to clear the head — and I spend about 60 to 90 minutes each day walking (30 to 40 minutes for each way to and from the office, some walking during the lunch break). And I love to use that time – including for task management and actually doing the task. Given that I can type while walking without walking into lampposts, I use the time to go through my day, plan the next actions, and do as many as I can (you can do a lot with mobile eMail). So I use the OmniFocus App as well — and far more frequently.

Adapting and Using the OmniFocus App

You can and should configure the App in many ways, and given that the desktop version mirrors this structure I focus on the mobile version here.

	The overview of the App is reordered to have the most frequently used actions on top (easier to reach when holding the device in the right hand and typing with the right thumb). Inbox — if I quickly need to capture a task without having the time to sort it into the correct project. Projects — all projects (see below) Flagged — you can flag action selectively. I use this feature extensively to decide which actions I want to do on that day (and only those actions I want to do on that day!). See below. Forecast — beautiful view of the tasks that are due today (according to due dates, not according to flag status). Contexts — Tasks have a context, usually used to describe the places or circumstances you need for the task, e.g., some tasks can only be done at home (e.g., repair the roof), others require specific people, etc. See below. Map — If you have set locations to your tasks. I do not use the map frequently enough for it to be of use to me. Search — like the name says.
	Rituals (idea from asianefficiency.com) is the first project I open each day on my way to work. It has six repeating tasks that reappear each day. Going through these rituals helps me to prepare for the day. As you can see, I review my annual goals (because otherwise I forget them), my monthly goals (work and private — monthly because this is the largest time horizon I can sustain), review my calendar for tasks that absolutely have to be done today (usually meetings or other time critical stuff), review the waiting for context (all tasks with the context currently set to “waiting” are listed there, useful to remind others of their tasks ), process the Inbox (e.g., assign projects and contexts to these tasks) and finally — and most importantly — pick the most important task for the day.
	I flag any actions that I want to do on the given day — and only those actions I think I can actually do. Reason being I think if you have all your tasks visible you have to do, it overwhelms you and you are prone to do nothing. Thus I plan each morning after reviewing the information in “Rituals” (see above) what I can actually do on that day. If I finish early, great, if not, I plan more carefully the next day. Of course, there are other pressing tasks that I would love to do that day but really cannot. So I have a second layer of tasks that are critical. I use a context (see blow) called “Do (soon)”. Each task that I should do soon gets this context, in comparison to the normally used context “Do” (for a task that is not so time critical). Point being, I can quickly see which tasks are also pressing, yet I only see the tasks I have to do today. Note: I rarely use “Due” dates, because for fixed appointments I use the calendar (which fulfills a different purpose than a task manager) and which data OmniFocus also shows (see “Forecast” below). Other tasks are often time criticalbut not that critical to do on a specific day, so due dates do not make that much sense for me. OmniFocus shows you the Task and the Project (smaller in gray) below the task. This is usually all you need. You can put in more information, including longer text notes, images and sound recordings in the task entry.
	Projects gives an overview of all the tasks, sorted and grouped into projects or project folders. They can be sequential (first task in project has to be carried out before second task, etc.), parallel, or single actions.I use two folders — private and work (see below), a sequential project called “Rituals” (based on asianefficiency.com), and three single actions projects (annual goals, private monthly goals, work monthly goals). OmniFocus is great in giving you exactly the information you need, e.g., the amount of projects, how many are overdue or due soon, and it allows you a quick view on all remaining actions. Note that “Annual Goals”, “Monthly Goals (work)”, and “Monthly Goals (private)” are not tasks per se that are integrated into “Work” or “Private”. They are high-level reminders. Whereas they get checked when they are completed, it is the tasks in “Private” and “Work” that I refer to in doing them. The reason for having them as single “tasks” in an extra project folder is that I have a lot of private and work projects, but not all are goals for the given month or year. That is a conscious decision where a simple review of the “Private” and “Work” folder would overwhelm me each day.
	I have split the projects in two general categories — private is the first one (I’ve covered some text because — well, it is private). There is “Single Actions” for all the miscellaneous stuff that does not warrant an own project, some projects that are important to me, and a “Private Someday/Maybe” section for all the future stuff I would like to do. I strongly recommend keeping such a list — it keeps the ‘more distant wishes’ away from the current todo’s …
	The equivalent for the work projects. As with the private projects, one “Single Actions” project for miscellaneous stuff that does not warrant an own project, some projects (including teaching and publications, sorry for the German-English mix here), and of course a someday maybe folder (not visible).
	I use only a few contexts, as most of the work I do couldbe done anywhere. Do (soon) — For tasks that are time critical yet not fixed to a given date. Do — All other tasks I simply have to do, no matter where. Errands — The only location specific task, or rather, the context that specifies that it is neither the office (sorted under work projects) or (most likely) home (sorted under private projects). Waiting — Important context, each task where I have to rely on/have delegated the task to someone else gets this context. It’s no longer a “Do” or “Do (soon)” context because I cannot do anything but remember the person to do this task. I check this context each day during the “Rituals” (see above). Annual Goals, Monthly Goals, and Rituals have these contexts to prevent interfering with “Do” or “Do (soon)” tasks. I do not use “office“, “home“, or “people” contexts, because most of my work tasks I can do anyway, I look at my private projects usually at home (or on my way home), and I love eMail communication so there is no need for a people context because I can reach them anytime and anywhere.
	Forecast is a very interesting function that brilliantly displays a lot of information. On top it shows you the overdue tasks (here: 4 in the Past, it doesn’t matter really when they were due, I missed them, that’s what counts), the tasks due today (here: none), and the tasks that are due in the next four days and in the future (here: 6 on Monday — my rituals, 1 on Wednesday, 1 on Thursday, 5 in the Future). Due Today would show tasks that are due today if there were any. Calendar Events access your calendar and shows the appointments of your calendar. Very useful and very interesting view — if it were a time-frame it would show small bars, giving you a good overview of the day in minimum space.

Working with it

I think what makes this solution work for me is that I have integrated it into my daily life. I walk to my office and have time to review and plan the day (and do those things that can be done via a quick eMail). I can use my iPhone with only one hand (using the other for the coffee I drink while walking or the umbrella if it’s raining).

What matters to me is that I have a view (flagged tasks) where I see only the tasks I have planed to do that day, preventing me to be overwhelmed (I have configured OmniFocus to show me only the flagged items as badge count, which makes sense regarding the way I use it). At the same time, I can easily see my goals for the year, or month, or all my work and private projects (and their specific sub-tasks), allowing me to see the big picture easily (at least regarding the tasks — the why is something different).

It also matters that I can add new tasks quickly, even when I am on the move. All data I enter, e.g., while walking to another office at work or while going through the city, is immediately synced with the Desktop version of OmniFocus. I do not think about backups here, OmniFocus does this for me.

Likewise I adhere to David Allen’s golden rule to do any task immediately that takes less than two minutes, and I have tweaked this rule a bit (i.e., improved my infrastructure to make more possible within two minutes).

And finally the often mentioned but rarely adhered rule: Tasks should be easily implementable. Make them concrete and think what the next step is you have to do, instead of just writing down what you want to achieve (exception: high-level goals that serve purely as reminders).

Final comments

This way of using OmniFocus is a little different than the ways proposed on asianefficiency.com. And I think that’s an important aspect: A task management system must work for you and you have to try out a few things to find a solution that works for you. Luckily, you notice the amount of work you do and whether you are happy with the solution or not. OmniFocus is — unfortunately — quite expensive, but it offers you a lot of choice how to configure it and the way the information is presented and the ease of use is … just remarkable. I can highly recommend it — try out the trial version. If it works for you, great, if not, look around until you find something that works for you — and I also recommend the link in the quote at the beginning of this posting for a completely different but for some probably more effective way to deal with tasks.

One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty counsels.
The thing to do is to supply light and not heat.
Woodrow Wilson

It the time between the years — a time when things cool down, usually. It’s a time of remembering and looking in the future — and a good time to put an end to the tiny things that bugged you this year and that you do not want to carry into the next. The tiny annoyances, the small things that bug you enough to notice yet are below the threshold to actually do something about them.

If you think back at the past year, which things did bug you? Think on all the times it did bug you, tiny bites each, but taken together … now is the time to change it.

So, time to take out the trash, fix that leaking faucet, quit the subscription to that newsletter and to sort some newspaper clippings (and much much more).

Have fun & happy holidays

“Do you know what these are?” [Vorna] asked him.
“No.”
“They are from the foxglove flower. A tiny amount of them can give a dying heart fresh life. Like a miracle. But just a pinch too much and they become the deadliest poison. Pride is like that. Too little and a man has no sense of self-worth. The world would wear him down to dust. Too much and he becomes arrogant, vain and boastful. But just enough and he is a man to walk the mountains with.”
“Sword in the Storm” by David Gemmell

Every now and then there’s a presentation you did that you want to remember, because it went really well, because it brings to the point what you want to achieve (e.g., research) and who you are (e.g., how you ask the questions, try to answer them, and present the results). For me, it was a presentation on how to organize a scientific work (dissertation, but also applicable to almost any other type of scientific work), the original German version is here and the English translation is here.

But it’s hard to remember such a presentation — unlike a poster you cannot print it out and hang it into your office. Well, you can’t, can you? Actually, it’s quite easy to export the slides as graphics or PDF files and create a poster from the slides (here: made with InDesign, you can import a PDF and if you check the import options, you can say that each page of the PDF should be imported — if you have already drawn the placeholders for the images, it’s just a click per slide, some resizing (with select all done in 3 seconds) and that’s it):

It’s a bit vain, but on the other side, I want to remember it, especially in an environment where the pressure goes in a rather … different direction. And yes, the slides look better with the original graphics (which I had to gray out due to lack of copyright).

“But I thought YOU did the backups …”
Unknown

Many people work collaboratively while never trained to do so. Collaborative task management — who does what, who does how much, what are the next steps, etc. usually becomes a nightmare. Working in an interdisciplinary, multinational EU project I can only say that a good tool would have helped. We tried using a Wiki (at least internally), but that didn’t cut it.

I talked to a colleague of mine about it and, having the same problem, she searched around to at least coordinate the work tasks within her workgroup. She recommended Asana. Looking at the video:

it really looks like the kind of tool we could have used — and should have used. Seems to do exactly what is needed and on multiple devices …

If you work in a team, perhaps Asana is something for you …

How this feels is I’m just another task in God’s daily planner: The Renaissance pencilled in for right after the Dark Ages. The Information Age is scheduled immediately after the Industrial Revolution. Then the Post-Modern Era, then The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Famine. Check. Pestilence. Check. War. Check. Death. Check. And between the big events, the earthquakes and tidal waves, God’s got me squeezed in for a cameo appearance. Then maybe in thirty years, or maybe next year, God’s daily planner has me finished.
Chuck Palahniuk

I’m currently trying out OmniFocus as task manager. I tried out some other programs before (including Things), but difficulties with synchronization made Things not that comfortable to use. OmniFocus seems to solve the matter much better and the interface is really thought out well, especially on the iPhone (and you can configure parts of the desktop version). The main disadvantage is the price, if you want to use the desktop (63€) and the iPhone version (16€) it’ll cost you (no reduced price for both!). On the other hand, this program does not make that much sense if you do not have it available on your mobile and on your desktop. Currently I spend the time walking to the office planing my day, but using only the iPhone version is not comfortable enough. At least you can trial the desktop version for 14 days.

I could write a little about task management here, but for the moment I’d like to point to the excellent series about OmniFocus at asianefficiency.com. I think it covers a great deal of the things you might want to know about using task management systems and I can highly recommend it.

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.
Mark Twain

I’m currently reading a “self-help” book called “What’s Stopping You? — Why Smart People Don’t Always Reach Their Potential and How You Can” by Robert Kelsey. I love the subtitle which by no means states that the reader actually is smart. Judging from the first 30 pages, it should contain some helpful tips. Mostly because the author has digested a lot of self-help books and actually refers to psychologists and their findings (which usually are ignored by self-help authors).

In other words, the author has realized that many self-help books take the reader out for a ride without leaving him with anything in the long-term — and he looks at aspects that might be helpful.

One interesting tip was regarding todos — his advice is to deal with the worst thing first. He refers to other books that recommend a similar approach and yes, it makes sense. If you deal with the worst thing first on your todo list, then with the next worst thing, etc., your day improves as you knock off the things on your todo list. You will be inclined to do the things on the list as early and fast as possible in order to reach the pleasurable todos. If you would go the other way (starting with the best thing first), your day goes downhill and why would you hurry — you would only reach worse and worse todos.

Of course, this means that you must have pleasurable todos on your list and that you do not betray yourself and drop some tasks.

But it seems like a good tip and I’m curious what else is in the book.

I have translated the poster I did for the MinD-Akademie 2011 in English. I love it — it shows on one (very large) page the whole concept that I try to convey with “Organizing Creativity”. If you prefer it in German find the German version here.

I will probably do a similar version for the second version of the Organizing Creativity Book (still working on it) and use it as navigation help for the Organizing Creativity Wiki (likewise still working on it). But until both are ready, have fun with this poster (note: due to the size — DIN A0 — it is about 7 MB).

The poster shows the different steps that are necessary in organizing creativity. While the process goes top down (yellow arrow in the horizontal center), each step is also another occupation with the topic (yellow arrows upwards to occupation with the topic), which leads to further ideas. I have left the footer for the moment — in case you are wondering it translates as “MinD-Academy 2011 — Future and Research”.

To put it differently: You are highly qualified people who should not be wasted in the wrong job. You are ambitious, in the sense that you want to accomplish something, be advanced, move forward. Choose the right environment if you can. PhD positions are qualification positions — it is not sufficient that you do your work well, the work must also allow you to move forward and improve/qualify yourself.
Presenter Note from “The Future of Your Research — How to organize a scientific work?”

I’ve finally translated the presentation I did at the MinD-Akademie 2011 regarding “The Future of Your Research — How to organize a scientific work?”. The slides include the presenter notes, which in turn include the script. It’s not my best translation work, so don’t be surprise to see a lot of “broken English” — but at least it’s readable, I think.

Note that due to copyright constraints, I cannot show the pictures I did show in the presentation. I have replaced these images with grayed out placeholders and an image description in square brackets.

Click on the slides to see the presentation as PDF (about 5 MB).

If you have further points that should be included in a presentation like this, I’d appreciate a comment. The recommended literature is also shown here as a separate posting.