And it’s not about software development…. directly… but it has helped my productivity more than any other title I’ve read in my career.
It’s called Take Back Your Life and it’s a book on using Outlook to get your world it order. Don’t be put off by the Outlook thing, the ideas work in any software package that offers categorised tasks, calendar and contacts, so Evolution would work great too.
The ideas in this book have, quite honestly, changed my entire thinking about getting organised and staying organised. What gets me is that the thing is so readable, and so practical. Some of the ideas that really shifted me were:
- To-Dos without Dependencies: Instead of putting incredibly broad items in your lists, make sure ever item has no dependencies. Don’t write “Fix lightbulb”, write “Purchase 75W Bulb at Hardware”.
- Categorise by Place: Categorise the items in your todo list by the place where you actually do them! All my “online” stuff goes together, all my “desk” stuff goes together, all my “call people” stuff goes together. It saves stacks of time.
- Turn off the ding: It’s not realistic to respond to all emails within 5 minutes. So turn off the popup ding. Do your email once or twice a day. If you get email after 5, and then reply at 9 the following morning, they’re waiting 16 hours already. So why not formalise and make sure that people get a response once a day. You’ll get more work done, and you’ll get more respect from them. Ditto for your phone, turn it off and give yourself some blocks of hours to get “in the zone”.* Collection points: Most of us have around 25 collection points in our life - places we keep incoming information and notes. Multiple inboxes, voicemail boxes, sticky notes, notebooks from design meeting, bits of paper that we leave on the dining room table, you name it. The biggest of all is our head. The thing about your head is that all that stuff you cram in and seem to forget about goes into your subconscious and comes back to you when there’s space. Normally at 2AM in the morning. So instead of 25 collection points narrow it a half dozen. Everything actionable in my world goes into “Categories: None” - the Outlook “catch all” category. It stays here till I categorise it (by location, you’ll recall). These days, with the PDA around me most of the time, my recall is pretty much 100%. It all get captured. And in a single place. Even emails that require action get dragged there, so my inbox is no longer my “todo” list.
I’ve been at “the program” for around 5 months and I’m still loving it. This one essential developer resource, and, for mine, the book that has most helped me improve my software delivery in 2004. Recommended.