Kennedy-Spaien, Dot Com

About 2 1/2 months ago, I was in a car accident. I’m largely alright at this point, but my right hand and foot, as well as my back were fairly messed up.

2 weeks ago I started getting “back in the game” so to speak, but I had to completely re-invent my ‘to do’ structure. For whatever reason, the system I had been using was now alien and obtuse to me.

So I started scouring Lifehacker, Lifehack.org and the holy testaments of Merlin Mann, Steve Pavlina, David Allen and Steven Covey. As a result, I quickly became overwhelmed by “process”. Particularly bad were the software based solutions which became a large time sink and source of “analysis paralysis.”

Finally, one day I realized that my productivity had actually sunk to ZERO! I was actually spending 100% of my non-family time trying to find a productivity system I could live with. That way, of course, lies madness.

I had become Ahab, and my white whale was named “To Do“.

Ultimately, the pressure of time slipping away got to me and I simply grabbed a blank sheet of printer paper. I made 7 columns corresponding to the days of the week, and filled in my recurring tasks. I left non-recurring tasks in my mind for the short-term, and quickly became productive again! Yay!

Now this clearly won’t do for the long-term, but I’ve developed a taste of pen and ink, and I’ve been eyeing that fugly, oversized calendar we got free from the local Chinese delivery restaurant…