Do project management apps help productivity?

Yes, thanks Jay, I have been thinking on using S3 too... will try Jungle Drive...

I think S3 had an outage no long ago. Was that true? How long it lasted?

What is an SS drive?

SS Drive = Solid State

I didn’t notice if S3 had an outage or not. I have never noticed any failures with JungleDisk other than local connectivity problems or when I am not connected to my external drive. I check the local and Jungle logs once a week to see how things are going and all seems to be humming along well. If there are outages that may be more of a concern for required availability from Software as a Service like BackPack uses or some of the other companies that store data there.

Yes SS drive is solid state. Sorry for being a hardware geek.

Cheers,

Jay

Quote from: smashingred at Mar 31, 2008, 09:37 AM

I also read Tim Ferriss’ book the Four Hour Work Week and even though I was on the GTD track I realized that 90% of the stuff going into my inbasket was stuff I would never really do. Selective ignorance became my new method. So what I was managing was rapidly reduced. I went extreme on this as I ended up disconnecting with some valuable information streams, some motivations and most of all I forgot the motivating effect some blog authors had on me.

Sorry to pop in : this thread is very interesting ! Can you elaborate about the paragraph I quote ? I don’t quite understand your last sentence... Do you mean you went too far in ignoring what seem to be irrelevant stuff ? And what’s the connection between "The Four Hour Work Week" (haven’t read it) and "GTD" (read it) ? Are their philosophy contradictory ?

Thanks

Quote from: aspeum at Apr 02, 2008, 07:43 AM

Sorry to pop in : this thread is very interesting ! Can you elaborate about the paragraph I quote ? I don’t quite understand your last sentence... Do you mean you went too far in ignoring what seem to be irrelevant stuff ? And what’s the connection between "The Four Hour Work Week" (haven’t read it) and "GTD" (read it) ? Are their philosophy contradictory ?
Thanks

Well to elaborate on the last sentence, there was a point where I would read a few very inspiring blogs every morning from Steve Pavlina to Guy Kawasaki to Rajesh Setty to Tom Peters. They got me excited about taking action, thinking boldly and controlling my day.

When I started trying to increase productivity I turned to GTD (Getting Things Done by David Allen) and picked up some productivitybut felt I spent a lot of time spinning wheels. I eventually read FHWW (Four Hour Work Week) in which Tim Ferriss discussed selective ignorance. Ignoring all those things that weren’t necessary and instead of processing all the inflows, eliminating most of the inflows (this is a missing part of GTD in my opinion) so I went on an information fast. Ferriss doesn’t say don’t do it but do it if it needs to be done not because it is there or get someone else to do it.

So the relationship between the two books is a comparison and contrast on viewpoints on productivity. Allen shows you how to get everything done but Ferriss shows you to get rid of most of that everything, delegate or automate so it is no longer seeking your attention. The ends for each book are very different. GTD aims to get you to work effectively and efficiently (but fails to enable you to eliminate) and FHWW book aims to free you from work, create a muse income and allow you to pursue mini-retirements and and shift your lifestyle.

On the back of FHWW it suggests that you "Don’t read this book unless you want to quit your job". That is a bit extreme but it suggests that much of what we do is busy work, as part of the middle class social construct that we work for 40 or 50 years and then retire. Ferriss makes a valid argument that it is silly to waste away our most vital years working and then try to "live" when we have sore knees, backs and are burned out from working for 40 years. This I agree wholeheartedly with and am working toward that end.

Hope this all makes sense.

Cheers,

Jay

It makes a lot of sense. I guess I’ll read Tim Feriss’ book to dig a little deeper about selective ignorance.

One last question : today, where do you stand : drastic selection first, then GTD applied ? or a whole different mix of your own ? I’m asking because I can relate to what you say (the blogs you mentionned, the problems you encountered), and I’m curious to know how you find your way through all these attractive though sometimes overwhelming advices...

@aspeum.

I don’t know yet. I think that I am letting a few more things in now but I am still leaving a lot away. I am GTD with my email inbox. I tried Ferriss’ method but as a webdesigner it was impractical. I guess I am in the middle of swimming out into the pond to see how much (information) I need and what effect it has--positive or negative. I think that just handling every particle that comes your way is ridiculous. I think you have to decide before it hits your inbasket, what you are able to do, what you want to do and what you want others to do for you.

There is more advice in Ferriss book on firing clients (although Jay Levison and others touch on this) and working with the 20% of people who provide the 80% of your income and losing the rest. That was a big win. I have no problem turning down work if the client and I won’t see eye to eye or if I don’t think the project is a fit. I also read some sample chapters of the new sitepoint book about Project Management (an area as mostly solo freelancer, I haven’t really formally delved into) and found a great concept of looking at new projects as part of shaping the brand of the company.

I don’t plan on being a web designer, or a programmar (I am definitely not this now) but as a guy who works at building, learning growing and hopefully helping clients. That being said, I’ve not traveled much and have things that I’d rather do. So currently while I clean up the old projects i am working on my muse (web project) to free me from everyday work.

There is more advice in Ferriss book on firing clients (although Jay Levison and others touch on this) and working with the 20% of people who provide the 80% of your income and losing the rest. That was a big win. I have no problem turning down work if the client and I won’t see eye to eye or if I don’t think the project is a fit. I also read some sample chapters of the new sitepoint book about Project Management (an area as mostly solo freelancer, I haven’t really formally delved into) and found a great concept of looking at new projects as part of shaping the brand of the company.

Good discussion, i never expected this tread to blossom into such an interesting exchange of ideas.

Turning down work has always been a difficult task for me but I find myself doing more and more lately. I will need to take a look at some of this since I have also been "firing" some clients to focus on the best clients. It is a tough process, and I wonder if it will pan out in the long run. I am doing this instinctively so to read up on this theory might make the process clearer.

I have skimmed the new SP book, it seems like it may be a good one (you never know with SP, some great stuff and some not so much). I will read the sample chapter and see how it sits first.

Yep firing web development clients have definitely helped my business to improve in what we can do and offer, at first I was quite worried about less income but then I seen the bigger picture and that was I could potentially earn more money and do more than with some small development clients who were unsure of what they want and were always changing their mind during the project.

The books suggested earlier have great reviews on Amazon I’ve been thinking for a while to try and improve my time, I would say my biggest problem at the moment is distraction.

This thread is definitely a great help and I’m sure it will help lots of others.

Quote from: awardle at Apr 02, 2008, 10:40 AM

I would say my biggest problem at the moment is distraction.

Yeah. Damn Twitter!.

Yeah some of the best productivity books are GTD but some of the best productivity articles I have ever read are from StevePavlina.com. Even though Steve focuses mostly on personal development his PD insights have led me to many discoveries in productivity. Some of the other blogs out there that make me think about work are LifeHacker.com and Zen Habits. There are far more out there but I have tested tools, read posts, tried some simple yet effective and not so effective for me stuff. It makes it fun to work. How can I do this easier? How can I stop doing this? And etc.