Last Sunday, I posted a detailed review of Mark Forster’s excellent time management book Do It Tomorrow. During the review, I mentioned that I had actually started using several of the ideas from that book, mixed them together with ideas from Getting Things Done, and started using my own task and idea management system based on TaDaList. I’ve been using this system for a few months now and it works really well for helping me keep track of my ideas, moving forward on larger projects, and also keeping focus on what I need to be doing each day.

Quite a few people wrote in and asked me to walk through what I’m doing. It’s actually pretty simple, but hopefully it’ll make sense to you and you can find something useful from what I’m doing.

What’s TaDaList?
TaDaList is a free checklist manager without many bells and whistles at all. Instead, it just strives to be as clean and as simple as possible. Over the last year, I’ve migrated to using it for my checklists from my old favorite, Remember the Milk, which was suffering from a bit of feature creep and unnecessary clutter (though, lately, it seems that they’ve gone in a more simplified direction, so I may move back to using Remember the Milk because there are some bells and whistles there I like).

Basically, both TaDaList and Remember the Milk (you can do everything I describe here using either one, and they’re both good) allow you to easily create checklists, add items to checklists, reorder those items, and check them off as you go along. Given that they’re both web-based and both have good mobile support, you can easily use either one from pretty much any device that has net access.

A Daily To-Do List
One thing I do each evening, as my last work task of the day, is prepare my to-do list for the next day. Here’s a peek at my to-do list for October 2 (a screenshot from TaDaList).

As you can see, my big focus for October 2 is getting four posts written, which I consider to be a good (but not necessarily great) day for article writing.

Rocks and Sand
Another thing worth noticing is the ordering of the tasks. Let’s look at that list again.

You’ll noticed I’ve highlighted two different groups of tasks. The first grouping, noted in red, are what I like to call “rocks.” They’re items that require me to close my email program, get rid of distractions, and focus intensely for an hour or two. These tasks are the big things I want to get done today.

What about the other tasks, the ones marked in green? Those tasks are “sand.” They can be done without intense focused concentration. They can be done in five minutes, or done with regular interruption. They are the things I do in between the “rock” tasks. Many days, I have other tasks like “Call Mom” or “Send niece an email” and so on.

I learned about the whole “rocks” and “sand” distinction from Stephen Covey’s First Things First, which I consider to be by far his best work.

So, during a normal day, I alternate between the tasks at the top of the list (where I buckle down and focus) and the tasks at the bottom (which I can do with great flexibility and interruption).

The advantage of doing things this way is that I can deal with any urgent task within a couple of hours no matter what’s going on, plus I get the focus and concentration I need to write good, detailed posts that actually contain useful and worthwhile thoughts and information.

A Focus on an Ongoing Project
You’ll also notice the first item on that list, “One hour on book marketing project,” is also a bit different. My “book marketing project,” something I’m working on to support the release of my book in December, is something that is a good-sized project, not really one I can complete in a single day.

I have a lot of these projects that I want to work on - things from a proposal for a second book to a video experiment. But each of these projects are much bigger than I can get done in a single day, and I have tasks that I need to get done each day - writing articles and so forth.

So I devote an hour each day - usually the first hour of the day - to one of my ongoing projects. In Do It Tomorrow, Forster refers to this idea as the “current initiative” - and it’s helped me get through several very big projects recently.

I also usually start a separate checklist for whatever my “current initiative” is, especially if it has lots of short sub-steps along the way. Then, I just spend an hour each day working through this checklist.

Random Thoughts, Ideas, and Appointments
When I’m out and about, I tend to record my random thoughts and ideas in my pocket notebook, but when I’m at the computer, I tend to simply use a separate checklist for recording random thoughts and tasks. I usually open up a new browser window with an empty checklist that I call “GTD Inbox” and whenever I have a thought of some sort, I just type it quickly there, adding a new item to the list, and then get back to the task I’m focused on. Then, later, I process everything in that “inbox” list, dealing with it right then or adding it to a later to-do list.

I also “schedule” appointments with to-do lists. I start lists up to a month or two in advance and add items to it that need to be handled on that day, like making certain phone calls or sending invoices. If it’s at a certain time, I put the time right at the start of the item - like “9 AM - Take daughter to doctor’s appointment.” Since I look at the list quite often during the day, I’m continually reminded of that appointment. It doesn’t entirely replace my calender, but it’s certainly a powerful complement.

Good Luck!
This is exactly how I deal with my blocks of work time during my days. I’ve been using this pattern for about two months and even though several personal matters have distracted me during this period, sapping away my work time, I’ve felt very productive since adopting it. It keeps me on appropriate tasks throughout the day and also lets me deal effectively with my random thoughts, too.

I hope it points you towards something useful, too.

Every other Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a book on personal productivity, personal development, or entrepreneurship - books not directly related to personal finance, but deeply relevant to personal success.

I’ve long been a fan of time management books. My philosophy is that if you can get just one really useful nugget out of a time management book and apply it in your life, you’ll eventually save enough time to make up for the time spent reading the book and more, making you more efficient in the long term. The only problem is that once you’ve read a few time management books, you tend to find more of the same - record your thoughts, make a to-do list, prioritize it, and so on.

I stumbled upon this book a while back and, based on the title, expected it to be more of the same. I read a few quick Amazon reviews of it, but it was a brief excerpt from the start of the fourth chapter that really stood out to me:

The two things I want to examine are the concept of prioritising by importance and the frequently used tool of making a to-do list. Both of these tend to be the sacred cows of time management, and I believe both of them are fundamentally wrong. The reason is the same in both cases: they tend to make us do more of what gave us the problem in the first place.

Interesting perspective, really - tossing two of the “sacred cows” of time management out on their ear immediately. My favorite book on time management - Getting Things Done by David Allen - did much the same, eschewing to-do lists in favor of just jotting down your ideas and going through them later. Needless to say, I was intrigued.

But did Do It Tomorrow (by Mark Forster) live up to the promise? Let’s find out.

1 - What This Book Is About
Forster opens the book with the argument that most of the challenges people have with time management are a result of conflict between our rational nature and our reactive nature. For example, when I’m sitting here focused on writing an article, I’m using my rational nature. However, if a phone call interrupts that message, I switch into my reactive nature. Since that switch isn’t immediate, we end up losing time in the transition between the two states. This makes a lot of sense - I can get into two different kinds of “flow” based on which state I’m in. I can sometimes get in the zone when writing a long, focused article (my rational nature) or when I’m handling little tasks and dealing with a sequence of small interruptions (my reactive nature).

2 - The Principles
But how is knowing that distinction useful? Forster identifies eight key principles for maximizing the benefits of our two natures and suggests an exercise or two for each one. The one that really clicked with me was focusing on one thing at a time, and it provided a very good exercise that contrasted well with other time management guides. Forster suggests making a list of all of the things you’d like to get done sometime, both personally and professionally. Then, take one item from that list and focus on it - and completely ignore the rest. Don’t take any action on the others until that one you’ve chosen is done. In other words, instead of moving reactively from project to project, focus on just one and get it done. Then, move on to the next one. I tend to get bogged down on doing too many things at once - and when I do that, I usually don’t get anything done and feel rather frustrated. The solution? Just do one of them and finish it.

3 - Creative, Ordered and Effective
Forster makes the point that creativity is stifled by a lack of organization, and organization is useless with a lack of creativity. For example, if you have a disorganized office, you’re in the middle of a creative task and are focused, and you can’t find a particular resource you need, you are forced to break that focus. You have to shift from your rational mind (doing the task) to your reactive mind (looking for the missing resource). Since you’re most productive when you have long swaths where you do one or the other, you’re better off devoting some time each day or each week to keeping your office organized. This is the big reason why organized people often seem more productive - with organization, they can remain focused on their tasks and don’t lose valuable time to the switch between being reactive and being rational.

4 - The Problem with Time Management
According to Do It Tomorrow, there are really only three problems that cause people to feel pinched for time (and thus feel the need for time management): we are working inefficiently, we have too much to do, and we have too little time to do it in. Forster argues that a to-do list and prioritizing don’t actually solve any of these problems, they merely postpone them or make the symptoms a little less painful. For example, take your current to-do list and ask yourself how long each item has been on that list, and also ask how long that item would take if you did nothing but work on it. If it’s longer than a day and you have stuff on there you haven’t addressed for a week or more, you’re jamming too much onto that list and it’s not a functional tool.

5 - Real Work v. Busy Work
Here, Forster distinguishes between busy work and real work. Real work is what advances your business or job - busy work is everything else, often stuff that could be delegated to someone else because it doesn’t require the particular expertise that you have. From my perspective, the real work is my writing and research and the busy work is all of the other peripheral stuff I do, such as approving comments, listening to pitches from people, and so on. Forster recommends that I delegate this in whatever way I can. This is basically the same logic behind much of The 4-Hour Workweek.

6 - Emergency, What Emergency?
Forster’s argument here is that most of the stuff we allow ourselves to be interrupted with - forcing our mind to switch from rational to reactive - is actually not that important and should be put off or ignored until the task at hand is complete. His only exception to this is if you work at a job that focuses on reactiveness - if you’re a cashier, for example, or a waitress. Otherwise, if you’re regularly getting interrupted, you need to cut those interruptions off through delegation and clear limits, because each time you’re interrupted, you lose more time than just the time of interruption - you also lose the time it takes to switch back and forth between a rational and a reactive mindset. Also, you can just simply schedule significant tasks to be done tomorrow when they come up instead of trying to jam them into today.

7 - Closed Lists
The idea of a “closed list” is much like the “rocks and sand” idea proposed by Stephen Covey in his worthwhile First Things First: you should define a short list of things that you can easily get done in a day and focus on actually accomplishing those tasks. Then, if there are interruptions and emergency response tasks, let those fill in the extra gaps in your day. In essence, Forster argues that a shorter to-do list makes you more productive - it shouldn’t ever be longer than what you can easily accomplish in a day, which then gives some time to the small interruptions and other tasks that are a part of most worker’s lives.

8 - The Manana Principle
The two previous chapters point to a workflow. Each day, you get through the small number of doable tasks on your to-do list - which should be only long enough to include stuff you can easily get done today - and between (and after) those tasks, you deal with the reactive stuff: organization, answering messages, dealing with phone calls, etc. These reactive tasks should help you fill in the things that need to be done tomorrow, and so you create that list for tomorrow as you go, adding items (and sometimes removing them). You can also keep a “future” list if you’d like, consisting of larger tasks that need some focus, but don’t need to be done today, but that’s not a real to-do list, just stuff that you hope to delegate to others or will only tackle if you happen to have a day with less on your plate. Doing this guarantees you get tasks done well, keep things organized, and still always have an idea of what to do next.

9 - Task Diary
Forster recommends keeping both the list of things to do tomorrow as well as an ongoing list of the little tasks you need to get done in your gaps today in a task diary, along with lists of other tasks and procedures that you regularly follow (as well as a “future” list, if you need it). I find that this actually works pretty well for me - I have started using TaDaList to handle my “task diary” for me. By default, I have a spot open to add to my “GTD inbox” (meaning any idea that I might have as I’m working on a task), then when the task is complete, I process that GTD inbox, moving things to my to-do list for tomorrow. If anyone’s interested, I’d be glad to write a detailed post on how exactly I manage all of this stuff.

10 - Current Initiative
Here, Forster introduces the idea of the “current initiative,” which basically means it’s the major project you’re wanting to focus on right now. In order to make it happen, he suggests devoting some time to it every day at the start of the day - an hour or two. So, at the end of the day, you might want to have the first thing on your to-do list for tomorrow be another task in moving that project forward, followed by the other work tasks in your day. This way, whatever that current initiative is, you’re always moving forward on it. After reading this chapter, I picked out one of the projects I want to be working on and made it my “current initiative,” slotting an hour and a half at the start of each day for focusing on just that project. It’s moving forward now, full speed ahead, and it feels pretty good.

11 - Will Do v. To Do
One key part to remember is that your list of things to do tomorrow is more like your “will do” list - they’re the things you will do tomorrow - tasks, daily procedures, and so on. Of course, we often have many more tasks on our plate that we’d like to be working on and it’s worthwhile to record those as well - they’re on our “to do” list. Whenever you need more fodder for that “will do” list, you turn to that “to do” list and choose things that fit in there.

12 - Completing the Day’s Work
What do you do, though, if you simply have too much that has to be done as a matter of course? Your list of things that have to be done simply fills up your day beyond capacity, and nothing helps? Forster suggests simply adopting the idea of the “will do” list for a while - and throw all of the other stuff on the “to do” list, drawing from that only when your “will do” list is empty. Then, focus on getting the things on that “will do” list done to completion before even thinking about another task. If this still doesn’t work, you may need to talk to your supervisor about cutting back on commitments, because you may simply be overcommitted.

13 - Keeping Going
Once you get into this routine, how do you keep it going? Forster has a bunch of ideas here, most of which are pretty common fodder for time management. Keep yourself healthy. Take regular breaks. What’s really amazing for me is that when I start feeling behind (like after a long weekend with the family) and I eschew some of these elements in order to “catch up” or “get ahead,” I might get a very short term productivity boost, but it’s not long before I realize I’ve spent a day not being all that productive. I’m better off taking a jog, taking a shower, and taking breaks regularly to read something personally enjoyable.

14 - More on Dealing with Projects
If you have a large task that’s too big to be completed in a single day, try to break it down into smaller tasks that can be swallowed. If that doesn’t work, you should just keep re-entering it on your task list for the next day (your “will do” list) until it gets done - and don’t add any new things from your “to do” list until it’s taken care of.

15 - Sorting Out Systems
For many, setting up an organizational system seems like a waste of good, productive time. Why do it when you could be getting “real” work done? The truth is that all of the time you spend organizing yourself - both your time and your stuff - makes the time you spend on your “real” work much more efficient. You can find stuff, handle regular requests easier, focus on the stuff that needs to be done, and not switch back and forth between reactive and rational thinking as often. While you may have invested significant time up front in getting organized, that time will be earned back and more over the long run because you’ll be more productive with your “real” work. It really is an investment.

Some Thoughts on Do It Tomorrow
Here are some things I think I think about Do It Tomorrow.

The concepts in this book complement what I was already doing very well. I was already using a simplified form of the Getting Things Done philosophy to manage my time, but there were several tidbits here I started using, most importantly the idea of the “will do” list and the “current initiative” idea. Any book that has stuff that you can immediately start applying is worthwhile.

The biggest issue I always have with time management schemes is how to deal with jobs where you are constantly interrupted. I have a friend who does a lot of tech support for his company, but also does some programming. He has a very difficult time getting his programming tasks done because of the constant interruptions. I think his best solution is to have him simply talk to his boss and get some uninterrupted time each day to program.

No time management book in the world helps if you don’t use the ideas inside to change your habits. Just like personal finance books, they’re useless unless you actually try the stuff and put some of it into action in your life. If you’re stressed out about your time and are reading a book on the topic, don’t just let it end there - try some stuff.

Is Do It Tomorrow Worth Reading?
Aside from Getting Things Done, Do It Tomorrow is the best time management book I’ve ever read. It is filled with tons of useful actionable stuff, but more importantly than that, it is more than just a recitation of all of the tired old time management materials. The stuff like just making a to-do list and prioritizing it with color coding simply doesn’t work all that well, and Do It Tomorrow knows it and gets it.

As I said in the review, I’ve already folded several of the principles into how I manage my time and tasks each day, and it’s really helped me to get started on at least one major project that I’ve wanted to get started on, but always felt like it was just too big to chew on today. Making it a “current initiative” and giving it some time right off the bat each day has moved things ahead, and I look forward to showing the results to my readers in the future.

Forster’s perspective is very positive and he presents tons of little, simple actionable pieces that almost anyone can adopt that aren’t just tired rehashes of other ideas. While it may not be as powerful (for me) as Getting Things Done, it does include tons and tons of stellar ideas - and that, to me, makes for a book well worth your time to read.

Each Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal productivity, personal development, or business/entrepreneurship book of interest.

One profound thing I’ve always noticed is that if you give something of value away freely, with no strings attached, and don’t expect anything in return, and do it routinely and often enough, you’ll get far more in return than you’ve ever given. It’s one of those things that’s impossible to express in a clear balance sheet, because there is no real balance to it. You give and you get. What goes around comes around.

One of my earliest book reviews, the excellent Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi, focuses in on this idea, in a way. Ferrazzi’s book mostly focuses on networking in the modern era, suggesting that you should use every opportunity you can to make connections and then when you see opportunities to help people, just do it automatically. The end result is a large collection of connections that have some loyalty to you, and that can be invaluable if you’re in need.

Love Is the Killer App takes that idea even further. The general idea that Tim Sanders presents here is that you should work to maximize your own personal value by learning as much as you can, connecting with as many people as you can, and sharing that knowledge and those connections as freely as possible. By sharing your knowledge and your connections, you multiply your value to others.

Is this a good complement to the excellent Never Eat Alone, or does it merely retread the same ground?

The Lovecat Way
What is a “lovecat,” exactly? It’s an overly cutesy term for something rather obvious: a person who is known for sharing what they have and is valued for it. You probably know a lovecat or two - think of the people you know who are consistently reliable with good information and help. You tend to turn to them regularly with questions and to bounce ideas off of them, and their responses are usually knowledgeable and spot-on. Plus, when you need a hand, they’ve usually got the resources you need. In short, you value these people - and you’re not alone. Lots of people value lovecats.

Now, take it to the next step - if a person like that, someone you’ve been able to consistently bounce ideas off of, get help from, and has regularly been a source of clients, calls you up and asks for some help, you’re likely going to give them all the help you can possibly provide, right? Also, when you are talking to your friends, you’re likely to notice that those “lovecats” come up often - you talk about them. That’s the inherent value of being a lovecat - by giving freely, value comes around over time.

Sanders lists quite a few additional benefits of being a lovecat: you build a reputation for yourself, you have access to the attention of a lot of people, they give you a positive benefit of the doubt, you get great feedback on your ideas, and you also get the personal satisfaction of helping people. Add them up, and it becomes clear that when you consistently give a little of yourself to others, a lot more comes around in subtle and different ways.

But how can you get there? Sanders breaks it down into three pieces, which should logically be followed in order.

Knowledge
The most valuable resource you can personally have, regardless of the area you’re involved in, is knowledge. By knowledge, Sanders refers to a deep and intrinsic understanding of your areas of expertise and how they connect to others. If you can become the most knowledgeable person around in an area that’s valuable to others, they’ll come to you for help and you’ll become known for this knowledge - and thus yourself valuable to others.

The first step is to figure out what areas you wish to become strongly knowledgeable in. Preferably, it’s an area strongly connected to your professional life. For example, if you’re a computer programmer sitting in a cubicle somewhere, you should become deeply knowledgeable not only about the art of computer programming, but also in how it relates to the overall function of your organization.

This means reading. A lot. Sanders suggests reading the trade journals a bit, but you should focus most of your reading and knowledge acquisition on meaty books on your topic of interest. Read the foundational books in your area - for example, if you’re a programmer, a good pair to tackle are Donald Knuth’s Art of Computer Programming and Abelson, Sussman, and Sussman’s Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. But don’t just read them - take notes on them and try to actually absorb what they’re saying. Take it slow, take notes, go back and reread previous pieces, and make sure you’re actually adding to your own knowledge along the way.

This shouldn’t be a one-time thing, but a consistent thing you do over time. Continual learning, particularly from challenging books, is the way to make yourself a strong source of valuable knowledge, both for yourself and for others. The trick, though, is finding ways to share that knowledge so that it does provide value for others.

Network
The next step, of course, is to take that knowledge and use it. But how? Sanders breaks it down into three pieces.

First, build contacts. This means meeting people and sharing your knowledge with them. Attend conferences and meetings, ask intelligent questions (based on your knowledge), and answer some, too (based on your knowledge). This will help cement relationships with a lot of different people in your area of interest. Talk to the people you brush up against in those meetings, learn more about them, and maintain a contact with them.

Next, build connections. If you do this enough, you’ll build a bunch of contacts, and you’ll begin to see some obvious connections among those contacts. Person A has a need that Person B can help fulfill. Person A and Person B don’t know each other, but have a lot in common. Your next step is to connect those people together - introduce them and point out what they have in common.

Finally, disappear. Once you’ve made that connection and you can see it’s clicking, back away. You’re not needed anymore, but your value in building that connection will be remembered. Quite often, if that connection bears fruit, you’ll be remembered for it, even though you only just helped to put the pieces together.

Compassion
The final key is compassion. At first glance, it seems over the top and silly, but it makes a lot of sense. If you genuinely care about the success of another person, let them know and do what you can to help them succeed. Tell them, flat out, that you want them to succeed, and back it up with whatever support you can provide.

To some, this will seem like sucking up or sucking down, but if it’s backed up by genuine care and action, it doesn’t really matter what it seems like. What matters is that you actually do care and that you show that you care, in thought, word, and deed. True caring comes through, and when it’s loaded with knowledge and contacts, it can be truly invaluable and can cement a lifelong relationship.

Some Thoughts on Love Is the Killer App
I really like Sanders’ idea that knowledge is such a fundamental part of building professional relationships. Many people focus too intensely on social relationships that really don’t matter because there’s no real value exchanged. You don’t learn anything or gain anything from the “power networking” guy down the hall other than a brush-off when you’re not useful for his immediate goals.

The actual part on networking seems to strongly assume you’re already outgoing and strong at mechanics of networking and socialization. Love Is the Killer App is pretty clearly a book that works best for extroverts - as an introvert who has to work very hard to make socializing work, I would have been lost by the networking chapter without some supplemental materials. If you’re in this boat, Never Eat Alone is far superior for teaching the fundamentals of how to network and build relationships - I suspect that book’s author to be highly introverted, which is actually a good thing for an introvert learning how to build such relationships.

“Disappearing” is something that many people fail to do well. The idea that you put a bunch of effort into cultivating and building a relationship between two other people, only to back away and leave them to their own ends, is fairly difficult for some. Think of it this way: three’s always a crowd, and if you’re not part of the value being exchanged, you’re the third wheel.

Is Love Is the Killer App Worth Reading?
Sanders provides the most rational and detailed description and explanation I’ve ever read of the “what goes around, comes around” phenomenon and how it can help you personally and professionally. If you honestly don’t understand the benefits of just helping others without sweating the consequences, Love Is the Killer App is a must-read.

Aside from that, the general premise of the book was something that seemed very common sense to me. The value, for me, was in the details - for example, the connection of building your own personal knowledge to the process of building valuable relationships isn’t something I’d ever really considered.

In short, Love Is the Killer App is a great read if you’re interested in connecting with others and building professional relationships. It’s actually quite complementary with Never Eat Alone - the latter focuses specifically on the mechanics of how to make those connections, while this book focuses on the context of why you should do it and what steps you should take to build a foundation for it. Personally, I found them both valuable, with Never Eat Alone being a bit more personally useful, but I can easily see how Love Is the Killer App could be more useful and compelling to many.

Each Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal productivity, personal development, or business/entrepreneurship book of interest.

When I was a young boy, my grandmother passed away very suddenly, on Mother’s Day, actually. While I don’t remember her passing away very distinctly, I do remember my grandfather living alone afterwards, and I remember that he just seemed different - sad, and a bit withdrawn, almost as if he were just going through the motions. It was less than a year later that he passed away, too.

It said on his death certificate that he died of cancer, but even through my seven year old eyes I could tell that he died of a broken heart.

My grandfather’s final months are the earliest memory I have of someone suffering through a life-altering and painful event. Since then, I’ve witnessed many others - and experienced some myself. Some people handle them well and recover in a short while, often taking away some valuable lessons from the experience and using that experience as motivation for success. For others, such experiences can be the beginning of a long downward spiral.

What’s the difference? What enables some people to turn those negative experiences around and use them to build character and fuel greater success in life? After the Darkest Hour by Kathleen Brehony addresses that very question, offering a great deal of insight into how to channel the power of a painful event into something positive.

Part One - Reflections on Suffering

The Truth about Life - Everyone Lives a Drama
Everything changes. Change is the natural state of things - people change, situations change, lives change. An inherent part of that change is loss - we lose what we once had, and sometimes that loss can be deeply painful, but that loss is something that happens to everyone. While we can’t control the loss, we can control how we respond to it - the death of a loved one may be out of our hands, but it’s up to us to figure out how to respond. In that loss, though, new doors open, and often in the most painful of moments, we find that we have opportunities and experiences that are new and valuable and important. A death can bring about a reconciliation. A disaster can bring about help from unexpected places. A personal crisis can bring your true friends to the forefront.

Lead into Gold, or the Alchemical Process of Making the Best from the Worst
Here, Brehony largely focuses on the analogy of alchemy to recovery from a bad situation. In both cases, you’re attempting to turn lead into gold - one literally and one metaphorically. What’s key in both is the idea of transformation - you go through the flame and come out on the other side, transformed and better than you were before.

Brick Houses and Straw Houses: How Prepared Are We for Hard Times?
Brehony argues here that the most valuable thing we can have to prepare for a bad situation is a strong sense of self-worth. People who enter into a downward spiral after a disaster often have low self-esteem - they believe that the bad event was largely their own fault or else made worse by their personal faults. Instead of picking up the pieces and moving on, they blame themselves, making for an even worse picture of themselves. The key thing to remember is that most bad events are not your fault, and to convince yourself that it is is not only bad logic, but mentally unhealthy and even dangerous.

Beyond Resilience
Some people are simply more resilient to disastrous events than others. After the Darkest Hour points to seven personal characteristics that show up in resilient people: insight (asking the tough questions and seeking answers), independence (standing alone and having reasonable boundaries), relationships (having fulfilling ties with others), initiative (pushing oneself to understand the world around them), creativity and humor, morality (having a strong sense of right and wrong), and a general resilience made up of persistence and flexibility. Focusing on these traits in the good times will make it much easier for you to weather the bad (plus, they make it easier to deal with day-to-day life).

Rowing versus Flowing: Luck, Destiny, and Free Will
Another challenge that people face is distinguishing between luck, destiny, and free will. Quite simply, the decisions and actions of others are almost always entirely out of our hands - we can hope to guide them, but the choices they make are often up to them. A concerted effort to help is a wonderful, powerful thing, but you are not the person to blame if that help is left unused. That choice not to use the help is in the hands of the other person.

Part Two - A Dozen Strategies for Growing Through the Pain

1 - Discover a Larger Perspective
No matter how devastating something seems, in the greater scheme of things, it’s not really that big of a deal. Consider the entirety of the human race, for one - the great suffering that others have experienced. Or, go beyond that and recognize how tiny humanity is compared to the whole universe. Solace in a higher power is also powerful - spirituality and religion can be a big help in putting your personal problems in perspective.

2 - Turn Toward Compassion and Help Others
Instead of wallowing in your own self-pity, look to those around you who may also be suffering and try your best to help them through this crisis. When you complement your own suffering for compassion for others who are suffering, it can make your own suffering much more manageable. One effective way to do this is to get involved with volunteer work, helping out those who are less fortunate than you.

3 - Recognize and Stop Self-Imposed Suffering
Many people take bad situations and use them to beat themselves up, offering these situations up as “evidence” of their own personal failings. If you’re experiencing something difficult in your life and find yourself using that difficult experience to “prove” that you’ve somehow failed, try stepping back and looking at the situation more carefully. Quite often, you’re not the one at fault at all, and you’re merely letting your own self-esteem down.

4 - Practice Mindfulness
Be mindful of what you’re feeling and thinking. Don’t let your emotions get the better of you. Instead, practice calmness. Brehony encourages people to take up meditation, observing their own breathing and simply get in touch with how they’re truly feeling. She also encourages yoga as an opportunity to be mindful of one’s current situation and personal feelings.

5 - Grieve
Don’t try to bottle it all inside when something bad happens. Allow yourself to grieve. Cry. Let that pent-up energy flow out in a non-destructive way. Find a shoulder to lean on, if you need one. Talk about what you’re feeling, and remember the positives of the life that person led or the situation that has now ended. I’ve always found that a wake helps more than anything for a funeral - get everyone together who cared about the deceased before the funeral, and share food, drink, and remembrances.

6 - Build Good Containers
“Containers,” in this context, refers to stored-up love and positive feelings that you can tap into when you need them. In other words, spend time when you’re happy building deep and strong relationships with your family and your closest friends, and then tap that positive relationship when you’re facing a disaster. Reciprocate, too - be there emotionally for your friends and family when they need that shoulder to lean on.

7 - Count Your Blessings and Discover the Power of Optimism
It’s often hard to think of the positives in a negative time, but stopping for a moment and thinking of all of the positives in your life when something’s wrong can be a great way to put that negative experience in perspective. Think of all of the people you care about, and those who care about you. Think about all of the great experiences you’ve had, and the experiences you’ve got planned for the future. Your life is filled with great things - step back and look at them when the chips are down.

8 - Find Courageous Role Models and the Hero Within
Brehony suggests also finding a few personal heroes, particularly ones that have overcome personal tragedy to accomplish great things in their life. For example, I often use FDR as a personal hero, and I reflect of the dark times of the early 1920s when he was struck with Guillain-Barre Syndrome and largely became confined to a wheelchair. He nearly died, found himself with a body unable to do what he wanted, and nearly gave up. But he recovered and went on to guide the United States through the Great Depression and almost all of World War II. Many others have survived situations when the chips are down and gone on to much greater things.

9 - Keep a Sense of Humor
Laugh. That seems impossible during some of the saddest times, but laughter is often the best medicine for what ails you. Above, I mentioned the idea of a wake for a person who has passed on. Take that opportunity to tell humorous stories about that person, ones that will get everyone to laugh about a fond or funny memory. I remember my family having many informal wakes for people - recently, we had a wake for my deceased uncle that was filled with laughter, which helped everyone deal with the situation.

10 - Express Your Feelings
When you’re feeling pain, it’s healthy to find ways to express it. Start a journal and write down exactly what you’re feeling. Dig into an art form that has meaning for you. If all else fails, just call on someone who’s willing to be an ear and talk it all out. Say what’s on your mind and in your heart - just get it out there, so it doesn’t sit inside of you and weight you down.

11 - Silence, Prayer, and Meditation
For some, introspection may be the answer - I know that for me, silence, prayer, and meditation all help in times of crisis. It provides a chance for me to reflect on what’s really happened - what I’m missing now, what I’ll do next, and what I still have in my life to cherish. For me, such meditation is part of the grieving process, making it easier for me to internalize what happened and move on.

12 - Come to Your Life like a Warrior
Negative events are something to be conquered and something to gain experience from, much like a warrior on a difficult quest. Face this negative event like an enemy - focus on it intently, defeat it, and learn from it. Treating a negative situation with intensity and all of the strength you can muster can help you build a path to success beyond the situation.

Some Thoughts on After the Darkest Hour
Many of the techniques discussed can be a strong part of daily life, even if you’re not suffering from a negative situation. I meditate and pray daily, and I make an effort to work on many of my personal relationships, too. There will come a time when this effort put into relationships will pay off - people will be there for me when I need them, and my own routines of reflection will enable me to internalize the pain.

One of the big meta-themes is that the process of internalizing pain is often fertile ground for growth. When something bad happens and you deal with it in a healthy and successful fashion, you often will find that doors are open that were blocked before, either by the pre-existing situation or by your own attention in different directions. If you let the pain obscure these doors, you miss out on potentially great events.

Is After the Darkest Hour Worth Reading?
After the Darkest Hour is the perfect book to read if something very painful has just happened in your life and you’re having a very difficult time internalizing it, falling into traps of blaming yourself and surrounding yourself with negativity. We all weather painful events in life, and there are two outcomes from it: you can either let it drag you down or let it lift you up - this book does a very good job of pointing you to the latter.

After the Darkest Hour is one of those books to keep in mind for when the situation happens. Most of the time, it won’t have any value to you at all - it doesn’t really help when things are going well at all. The information inside really only steps up to the plate when things are at their worst: someone you deeply care for dies, you’ve lost a key relationship, or something else crucial in your life is lost. In those situations - particularly when you’re finding your negativity and pain festering and perhaps building - After the Darkest Hour can offer some excellent advice. This is a great one to check out from the library during those key moments.

Over the past month, I’ve been doing quite a bit of traveling - family-related trips, vacations, and so on. That basically means that I’ve been managing my writing and other professional obligations out of my travel bag for the most part.

How do I do that? How do I manage to keep up with my writing, keep adequate research materials with me, keep track of my ideas and ongoing projects, and manage all of it effectively enough so that I can sit down anywhere and get right down to business.

While figuring out how to write this post, I started by simply making a list of the little things that really add up when taken as a whole, and when I had them all written out, I realized that it might be really effective to just list them all. So, here are ten productivity tips I’ve found that help me keep my ideas and writing straight as a writer on the road.

Get a good messenger-style bag. This has made all the difference for me. Up until recently, I used a backpack as a travel bag and it would quickly descend into chaos, with items floating around all over the place in the bag, making me dig forever for the individual item I needed. Recently, I moved to a messenger-style bag, with a large single pocket for my laptop, a few magazines and books, and some papers, and a side panel with a ton of additional pockets. This has made traveling far easier than before.

Utilize those pockets sensibly. One challenge with having a lot of little items and a lot of pockets is that you forget what pocket you put your things in. What I’ve found is that putting stuff into pockets so that just a bit of the item is peeking out is really useful for finding stuff. When I open up the bag, I can see at a glance where my small notebook is, my pens are, my current reading is, my memory stick is, my USB mouse is, and so on.

Use Backpack to manage notes for projects and meetings and store to-do lists. For simple personal to-do notes, I still use Remember the Milk (which does that job fantastically), but for collecting notes for work projects and making more complex to-do lists, I’ve fallen in love with Backpack. I can use it anywhere I have wi-fi access and it does a stellar job of storing all of the data I need in one place. I actually prefer it to most offline tools - plus, if my laptop has a hardware failure, I don’t lose those notes or project ideas.

Keep a pocket notebook and pen with you always - it’s even more important on the road. Without the familiarity of your normal work environment, it’s very easy to lose ideas through the cracks. This makes the idea of a pocket notebook even more paramount. Keep it with you - along with a good pen - to jot down any ideas that creep into your head that merit any follow-up whatsoever. Then review your jottings once a day or so.

Keep at least one item with you that inspires ideas. When I’m at home, I have all kinds of books and other materials to help inspire my ideas. On the road, such items are unavailable to me. Because of that, it’s vital for me to include at least one item in my travel bag that’s not strictly there to aid as research material, but there solely to inspire my ideas. For me, it’s often recent issues of magazines related to personal finance in some way - Consumer Reports, Money, The Economist, BusinessWeek, or something like that. If I need inspiration, I leaf through those and try to find ideas to riff on.

Distinguish quickly between things that can easily be done on the road and things that can’t. Whenever I’m struck with inspiration, I have a tendency to want to start digging into a hot idea immediately. Of course, there are some ideas that simply don’t work out of a travel bag. The key is to distinguish which is which as quickly as I can. I ask myself a few key questions: to do this well, does it require research materials I don’t have? Are there supplemental materials (such as pictures) I’d need to create elsewhere? The key to staying productive is knowing what you can actually do in your given situation - and figuring it out quickly.

… but don’t abandon a great idea just because you can’t do it right now. What I do for those things is open up a document on my laptop, sketch down all of the details I can, then save it in a folder of things to look at when I get back to the office. A good idea is a terrible thing to waste, but so is chasing something that’s really beyond your means to complete successfully.

Make your work environment as conducive as possible - wherever you are. For me, that means controlling the sound, and that means having a pair of very good headphones that cancel out external sound and only allow in what I want (usually calming music that helps me to write). For you, it might mean other things - a picture of your family or the right kind of beverage might be the key. Make sure whatever it is you need to make your work environment a success is in your travel bag if possible.

Know where to find the things you need to work (such as wi-fi). For me, wi-fi is essential to the work I need to do, so I made a master list of chains that give away free wi-fi to patrons, and I keep it in mind when I’m out and about. Because of this inventory, I often keep an eye open for Panera, Caribou Coffee, and Fazoli’s when I’m traveling, with several other lesser options, and use those places as my “home away from home.”

If all else fails… If I know I’m going to need a piece of information that’s only stored electronically, I make a printed version before I go. I keep a paper copy of my schedule, key phone numbers, maps of each route I’ll need to know, a to-do list, and other such materials so that if an electronic item stops working, gets damaged, or fails in some fashion, I’m not completely lost while on the road. This has saved me more than once.

Each Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal productivity, personal development, or business/entrepreneurship book of interest.

One of the most interesting aspects of writing a great deal is that I’ve found that writing works much better if you break it down into littler pieces. First comes the brainstorming: what basic idea is behind this piece? What basic elements do I need to convey? Then, organization: what order should these pieces go in? How can I make an orderly progression from the basic understanding at the start to a new understanding at the end? Then, application: how can I make it seem real and tangible? Then, criticism: what’s wrong with the ideas, and how can I improve them? Then, finally, I write the whole thing, taking all of those little pieces and combining them together into something (hopefully) smooth, readable, and thought provoking.

Discovering this process on my own over time was exciting. Sure, it’s an extension of the writing process I learned from my high school English teacher, but then it was just a process to follow, not really something that I understood as an aid to make my thinking and writing better. It was exciting because, by breaking it down in this fashion, it made me think in a certain way about each stage of the writing, almost as if I were using a completely different part of my brain.

This is almost exactly the premise of Edward de Bono’s book Six Thinking Hats. The entire premise of the book is that problems are best solved by thinking about them in an orderly fashion, by intentionally looking at the problem and the solution with intentionally different angles, then switching to new angles. He refers to these “angles” as thinking hats - each one tied to a certain way of thinking about a situation.

Using the Hats
Obviously, the “six hats” metaphor is intended to indicate six different ways of looking at a problem. De Bono suggests a bunch of different ways to use the hats: individually or in groups, singly or in sequence, and in varying sequence. The real key is to realize that when you run into a roadblock in solving a problem, putting on a different “hat” might help - in other words, step back and make a tangible effort to look at the problem in a specific way. In other words, when you’re stuck, try one of the following six approaches (or have someone else apply that approach) to tackle the problem.

Each of the sections below offers a ton of examples and supporting information for each way of thinking about a problem, well worth reading through if you’re intrigued.

The White Hat
The white hat refers to the simple gathering of facts. It’s neutral and objective. All you’re trying to do with the white hat is just gather information.

I put on the white hat when I’m researching something. If I come to a spot where I realize I’m out of my realm of expertise, it’s time to step back and just gather facts and look at them to see that I understand what they’re saying, then perhaps go back and gather more facts. If I’m at the library, the white hat is on. If I’m doing intense reading, the white hat is usually on.

The Red Hat
Red hat thinking is geared toward the emotional side of things. How does this particular fact make you feel? What is your emotional response to the situation?

I use the red hat when I’m thinking of real-life examples of how something’s going to work, particularly when it affects my family or myself. When I’m writing a heartfelt anecdote about my children or my grandfather, relating those facts to their lives, the red hat is firmly in place.

The Black Hat
The black hat comes around when you’re playing the devil’s advocate, trying hard to find flaws in thinking and being very careful about absorbing new ideas. The critic wears the black hat constantly, making what he or she is reviewing win them over by overcoming the negatives.

My black hat comes out of the closet when I’ve collected the facts I need for an article and have already decided on how it will progress. At that point, I try hard to pick some holes in it. What’s wrong with this article? Will it be any good? Does this idea make sense? Is it actually supported? Does this piece actually fit with everything else? I’m trying to poke holes in things, in order to make the end solution better.

The Yellow Hat
The yellow hat is the “positive thinking” hat, looking at the best possible outcome of the situation. Yellow is almost the opposite of the black, because while black looks for the problems, yellow looks for the best case scenario, the reason why all of this will pull together and work, and the big rewards when it does click.

I use the yellow hat when I see the message getting lost in negativity. In the end, personal finance is a positive thing, but there are many negative pieces to the puzzle. When something feels overly negative, I put on the yellow hat and see where it fits in a broader context of positive personal finances.

The Green Hat
The green hat is the brainstorming hat, where you just pull out ideas and throw them on the table. It doesn’t matter whether they’re good or not (black hat will work on that) or whether they’re supported (white hat, please!). The purpose is simply to get some fresh ideas out there.

Most of my posts start off with the green hat - they begin as jottings in my notebook. I try to wear the green hat as much as possible, looking everywhere for ideas and recording them when they come up. In fact, my green hat is usually on whenever I’m not actively engaged in the process of writing - I’m just brainstorming along the path of life.

The Blue Hat
The blue hat is all about organizing and planning. Are things in a sensible order? What sort of structure needs to be here to complete the project? Does the first step go before the second step?

I use the blue hat when I pick out brainstormed ideas (from my green hat thinking) and combine them with facts that I’ve researched (white hat thinking). These need to come together in some sensible order - how do the facts line up to present a case? I also use my blue hat when actually planning my daily schedule.

Some Thoughts On Six Thinking Hats
More than anything else I’ve ever read, the “six thinking hats” metaphor really clicked with how I think. I had never considered it in the sense of discrete ways of thinking before, but nearly the entire book made sense to me. Prior to it, I had focused mostly on creative thought - green hat stuff - but I hadn’t considered how important the other hats were and how I had to use them all to really pull things together.

The author needs to get his ego in check a bit. While there is a lot of compelling information here, the preface is almost insufferable. “The Six Thinking Hats method may well be the most important change in human thinking for the past twenty three hundred years.” Come on, that’s a bit over the top. It almost made me close the book right then and there.

While conceptually good, the metaphor goes a little far. Some of the examples of how to use the hats in meetings go a little far. Literally mentioning the hats is a bit over the top, and I can’t conceive of people actually doing that. While it makes for a great metaphor within the book, I’m not sure it stretches into the real world.

Is Six Thinking Hats Worth Reading?
Six Thinking Hats is a very compelling book, broken down into perfect little bite sized pieces for contemplation. The overall concept that de Bono lays down, about how to separate out the pieces of your thought process and put effort into using different aspects or varying up the order, is a very strong one, indeed, and matches the way I think better than any other book I’ve read.

Because of that, I’d say Six Thinking Hats is worthwhile reading for anyone in a career that utilizes thinking skills.

That doesn’t mean I think that everything in it is right on. The book takes using the metaphor a bit far. While the tools can be very useful within your own head - and can be very useful when used in conjunction with others - sitting in a meeting talking about “putting on your red hat” doesn’t really help anyone at all. In short, utilize what the book says in between your own ears more than anywhere else. Make an effort to understand how you’re thinking and try hard to slip on a different hat on occasion - it can really help.

This one’s well worth a peek.

Each Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal productivity, personal development, or business/entrepreneurship book of interest.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about overcoming the tendency to lie to yourself about money. In it, I strongly encouraged people to set microgoals for themselves, pushing themselves towards small successes that would eventually build into a bigger pattern of success in their lives.

After writing that article, I was contacted by a reader who strongly encouraged me to pick up The Seven Minute Difference by Allyson Lewis. The book, the reader claimed, focused on exactly what I was talking about: building towards big successes through little changes - microgoals building into short-term goals and eventually turning into major changes in life.

The Seven Minute Difference basically argues that you can trigger major changes in your life in as little as seven minutes a day by planning, clearly stating, and committing to a change that can be broken down into little pieces. The dust jacket uses the example of wanting to read more books - just set a microgoal each day of reading ten pages - that might take ten or fifteen minutes or so. But by doing that, you’ve basically found a schedule where you’ll complete a book every month or two, adding up to some pretty impressive reading over time. Give yourself a couple years and you can have a pretty strong understanding of a topic or covered a wide range of literature.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? What can an entire book have to say about it?

Discovering Your Purpose - and Passion
The book opens with what I think is a brilliant exercise for everyone to try - a microgoals notebook. Here’s what you do: get a new spiral-bound notebook and spend some time thinking of about ten goals you’d like to accomplish over the next few years. They can be personal goals or professional goals. Here are eight that I came up with while thinking about it.

1. Get down to the target weight my doctor suggested for me.
2. Work on an exercise routine until I find one that feels completely natural and fun for me.
3. Improve my ability to cook quick, tasty meals without recipes.
4. Improve the quality of food that my family eats throughout the year.
5. Increase the readership of The Simple Dollar.
6. Improve my writing in other areas besides short personal finance essays.
7. Keep up with a steady diet of personal reading on challenging and diverse topics.
8. Seek innovative ways to increase the gap between our spending and our income.

Then, on each page in the notebook after that first one, list a very simple thing you can do today to reach that goal. Start with a date at the top of the page, then for each big goal on that first page, list a microgoal for today that moves you towards that big goal. Here are mine for today.

1. Do a rung on the fitness ladder.
2. Jog for fifteen minutes.
3. Make a croque monsieur variation (without a recipe) for lunch.
4. Get some extra tomatoes at the farmer’s market for winter use.
5. Spend fifteen minutes writing exceptional correspondence to individual readers.
6. Work on my current “project” (it’s kind of a secret for the time being).
7. Read at least twenty five pages in a book (usually, I go way over this).
8. Make a new batch of homemade “simple green” laundry detergent.

Although the chapter goes on to discuss finding a balance between your passions and your skills and using that balance to figure out what your most valuable mission in life is, I found the simple “microgoals notebook” idea to be quite powerful - in fact, I’ve adopted it myself.

Expanding Your Possibilities for Growth - Seven Minutes at a Time
It’s great to have these microgoals each day, but where can one possibly find the time to do all of this stuff in the flow of a busy work day and a busy home life? Lewis shares a very clever tactic from Stephen Covey’s First Things First (and also used to great effect in Zen to Done).

Lewis basically advocates for defining a small number of key tasks (two to five or so) for the next day in advance. For example, my key tasks for today are writing four posts and doing a correspondence session. Then, around them, have a bunch of short, small tasks that you can do in the gaps, and this list of tasks should include those microgoals for the day you defined earlier. Covey likes to refer to these as “rocks” and “sand,” terminology which makes a lot of sense - your day is like a container, and inside that container you first place some rocks (big tasks), then you pour in sand (small tasks) that fill in the space around those rocks.

Choosing Success - Every Day
Act with confidence. Even if you don’t have it. That’s basically the point of this portion of the book, which encourages much of the same advice as How to Win Friends and Influence People and Never Eat Alone. Act confidently around clients and peers in the workplace. Make an effort to make new connections with your peers, both inside and outside of your organization. Put time into maintaining old connections.

Why do this? How does this fit into the broader context of the stuff mentioned before? Lewis argues that such socially confident behavior helps you open doors that would have been unavailable to you before. The person who gets something valuable is not the person who quietly sticks to themselves - it’s the person out there confidently talking to others, building new relationships and cementing others.

Exceeding Your Customers’ Expectations
Here, Lewis argues that at least a few of your long term goals in your notebook should be geared towards exceeding your customers’ expectations. That way, you’ll have a few microgoals each day geared towards making very happy customers. The value of this comes not in the immediate sense - you’ll simply turn an existing customer into a more positive existing customer. The value comes over the long tail, when that customer is out there speaking positively about your organization and your products. They become something of a mini-advocate for you, and that helps you slowly acquire more customers and grow.

For me, this takes the form of taking the time to write a few detailed, heartfelt messages a day to readers who write in and ask me questions. I try to answer as many as I can in this way, because I know not only am I helping them with their immediate problem, but they’ll also look at The Simple Dollar afterwards in a much more positive light and are more likely to share the site with their friends, which brings in new readers. The drawback, of course, is an overstuffed email inbox and a lot of tough decisions with regards to what the priorities are.

Powering Growth through Momentum
Many people look at long term goals and think that they’re just too big, that they could never really achieve something like that. The real key to making it work, according to Lewis, is simply finding a clear starting point and then pushing it forward over and over again with microgoals.

Take one reader’s stated goal of understanding philosophy better. The starting point here would be reading a book that provides a very general grounding in philosophy, something like my personal favorite book of that type, Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy. From there, just follow what interests you and makes you think, as that basic book will point you in a lot of directions.

You can take that basic principle and apply it to any number of big goals. Take my own desire to learn how to cook things without recipes. The obvious starting point is to get in the kitchen and master how to make things from recipes, then start making simpler, common things without recipes, then gradually move on from there, making complex things from recipes, then moving on to trying similar things without recipes. A big key is just finding that starting point.

Pushing Past the One-Yard Line and Breaking through to Peak Performance
The central idea here is stepping back and looking at how you can make things more efficient in your life. Are there common tasks you can centralize, such as perhaps only doing one email session a day? Perhaps your energy bottoms out in the early afternoon - maybe you could move your tasks during the day around to take advantage of that fact, or maybe you can schedule an exercise session during that energy valley.

If you can eke out an extra 5% or 10% performance by making little changes like this, that’s an extra 5% or 10% of your day you can devote to making those big goals happen. If you can dig out an extra half hour in your day by optimizing things, then you have time to invest in three or four microgoals - reaching out to customers, taking care of a personal task, or improving your own skills.

Life-Changing Decisions, Life-Changing Actions
Things change in life. Two years ago, if you told me I would be writing full time in the spare bedroom of my four bedroom home, I would have laughed at you. Four years ago, if you had told me I would have two kids already, I would have thought you were joking. Seven years ago, I was waist-deep in interviews at Microsoft and plotting a move to the West Coast.

That’s where the big goals come in. Most of them should help build up your personal skills and connections so that no matter what twists life hands you, you’re prepared for them. Improve your skills. Build a financial backbone that you can rely on. Seek lots of connections with a wide variety of people. All of these big goals will help you deal well with whatever big life changes might come your way.

Some Thoughts on The Seven Minute Difference
The “daily microgoals list” idea is very solid. It’s one that I’ve already started implementing electronically in a spreadsheet with two wide columns. The one on the left has my big goals. The one to the right is where I list my microgoals for the day. It works quite well.

Most of the book does an effective job of pulling out useful key pieces from other works. I saw elements of a bunch of time management books, business books, networking books, and other things in there. Lewis does a very good job of synthesizing all of these different elements and putting them together in a general context.

The conclusion, that preparation now for the big decisions that may come later is invaluable, is one I wholeheartedly agree with. After all, that’s really what the whole spend less than you earn idea is about. You’re putting away resources now for the big opportunities and situations later on.

Is The Seven Minute Difference Worth Reading?
Lewis takes the fundamentals of a lot of different books and ideas and synthesizes them here, making the overall point that it only takes a few minutes a day to start making changes in your life (and that you can find those few minutes). This is a really empowering message for people that have a big dream but simply feel like they don’t have the time to even attempt achieving it.

The nice part is that the ideas in here work. Lewis does a very good job of putting together little elements of time management, networking, personal growth, and goal setting into a package that really fits the need of that overly busy person with a dream.

If you identify with that description - a person with a very full plate in their professional and personal life, but with a big dream or two you’d like to find space for - The Seven Minute Difference really fits the bill. It actually is a synthesis of a big pile of good books - How to Win Friends and Influence People, Never Eat Alone, First Things First, and Getting Things Done were all strongly evoked here, among others - but that may be perfect for some readers who want a nice overview of how to accomplish their dreams. The others can fill in gaps later on.

Each Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal productivity, personal development, or business/entrepreneurship book of interest.

Over the past few months, several readers have written to me asking for me to seek out quality e-books to review - e-books being documents you can download to your local computer for your own use without the need to print them off or have a paper copy. Frankly, I’ve been hesitant to do it because … well … in my opinion, most e-books are awful. Many are poorly written and very hastily put together - they’re done so poorly that you can’t help but wonder if minimal care was given to the content as well. The problem is that there’s little threshold for entry - anyone with a computer can create an e-book, but not many can create a useful and valuable one.

Perhaps the brightest exception to this rule came from an old blogging friend of mine, Leo Babauta, who writes the blog Zen Habits, which has occupied a place on my list of recommended sites for years. The site is mostly a giant collection of personal productivity tips. Anyway, about a year ago, he assembled an e-book called Zen to Done, which basically outlined the system he personally used to manage his time. Leo and I are in much the same boat personally - he recently took to writing his blog full time after making it grow in his spare time after a full time job, he has six kids, and he has a book coming out near the end of the year, so I figured his ideas would make a lot of sense to me.

He sent me a nearly-finished copy for free for me to look through. I promptly forgot about it.

It was only recently, when chatting with him again about our mutual upcoming book releases, that I thought about Zen to Done again. He again sent me a copy of it - and this time I actually bothered to read it. What I found was a very clever system for managing one’s time that borrows from the best pieces of a ton of other personal productivity systems - in particular, David Allen’s Getting Things Done and Stephen Covey’s First Things First.

Here’s the scoop on it.

Overview - What Is It?
Zen to Done is basically a rewrite of Getting Things Done with a focus on resolving five key problems that Leo identified with the original. Getting Things Done falls short in that it focuses on building habits (which means it’s not instantly applicable), doesn’t focus enough on actually doing things, is too unstructured for many people, tries to do too much, and doesn’t focus strongly on your goals. Leo’s solution to this is to remove big chunks of Getting Things Done, leaving a bare skeleton, then adding a few parts.

Minimal ZTD - The Simpler Alternative
The most basic form of Zen to Done really focuses on four things. First, collect your thoughts by keeping a notebook with you to write down thoughts and ideas as they come to you. Second, process those ideas by making quick decisions on each of the things you wrote down - what do you need to do with them? Third, plan your day by focusing only on the most important things you’ve jotted down and letting everything else flow around it. Fourth, do some stuff - focus exclusively on one task at a time, then move to the next when that first one is done. That’s it.

Forming the 10 Habits
Leo’s primary pet peeve about Getting Things Done is that it requires you to commit to a whole bunch of new habits all at once. Leo argues that it’s much easier to learn one habit at a time, so he reduced Getting Things Done (and a few other concepts) into ten distinct habits which can be learned one at a time instead of all at once. Learning any one of the habits can be helpful - learning them all over time can be a major boost.

Habit 1: Collect
Keep a notebook with you at all times and whenever a thought occurs to you that you’ll need to recall later, write it down immediately. That includes ideas, tasks to be done, things you want to investigate later, little facts you need to remember, and so on. Get it down on paper. I’ve grown into the habit of keeping a notebook in my pocket at all times and it’s become invaluable to me.

Habit 2: Process
When you get home, whip out that notebook and process all of the stuff in it. Decide if it can be handled quickly (like with a quick action to finish up a task or a quick web search to find a fact), needs to be filed, needs to be given to someone else, can be tossed (because it was useless), or needs to be handled with some focused attention. Get through everything in your notebook at once - and in all of your other message spots, too, like your email, your text messages, and your voicemail. You should be assembling a list of things to do out of this.

Habit 3: Plan
Each day, you should have one to three Important Tasks that you really need to get done that day. Those tasks should be the first ones on your to-do list for that day. Those are your rocks - the centerpieces of your day. After that, you should fill your day with the sand - smaller tasks on your to-do list that fill in the space around the rocks. For example, my “rocks” are usually Simple Dollar posts or articles (or other such content creation), while my “sand” is stuff like correspondence with readers. Have a list of “rocks” for each day - one to three key tasks - and then a list of “sand” to fill in the gaps.

Habit 4: Do
This isn’t as obvious as it might seem. Basically, the idea is to pick a “rock” (one of your key tasks for the day) then get in the zone by eliminating all of the distractions around you - turn off your phone, your email program, your IM program, and so forth. Then just focus on nothing but the project. If you get interrupted, just write the interruption down in your notebook for the next processing (after you’re done with the project) and don’t get off task. If your rock is of a reasonable size, you can knock it off in a few hours, then you can deal with the sand - the missed messages, tasks, and other things you need to deal with during a processing session. This really works - I do it all the time when I’m writing a post. I’ll write a complete post in one shot, then stop and do other smaller tasks as a “break” before I take on the next post.

Habit 5: Simple, Trusted System
Don’t make your system for keeping track of things too complex. Leo suggests using five “to-do” lists - work, personal, errands, calls you need to make, and a “waiting for” list comprised of stuff you’re waiting on before you can make progress. I actually use just four, as I combine the errands and the calls list into one. Each one is a mix of big things and little things - on each one, I mark “big” jobs with a star so if I have some free time, I fly through the list and just eliminate unstarred stuff.

Habit 6: Organize
Clutter is your enemy. Everything should have a place, and getting in the routine of making sure your stuff finds its correct place is invaluable. This is easily the habit I have the hardest time with, as it’s easy for me to have my office area descend into chaos over the course of a week or so as I pull out reference materials and don’t put them back, leave stuff out for me to see later, and accumulate stuff that really needs to be filed or tossed.

Habit 7: Review
Each week, set aside some time to review where you’re at and where you want to go. Leo advises a five step process. First, review your most important long term goal and your most important short term goal. Second, review your notes - go through your notebook and make sure you haven’t missed anything. Third, review your calendar - make sure you didn’t forget about a follow-up for something that happened during the week and also make sure you’re prepared for the coming week. Review your lists to make sure you haven’t missed something vital or if there’s something that can easily be done right now. Finally, figure out what your short term goal for the coming week is and identify the big tasks you want to accomplish each day.

Habit 8: Simplify
Spend some time simplifying the things you need to do. Go through your “to-do” lists and make sure they’re stuff you really need to be spending your time on. Eliminate unnecessary responsibilities. Cut down on the stuff you read and absorb routinely, reducing it to the bare minimum. Focus entirely on your rocks and let the sand flow away - it’s not really as important, anyway.

Habit 9: Set Routines
Settle into a daily routine that incorporates as many of these habits as possible. My daily routine usually consists of a correspondence and processing session in the morning, then a series of “rocks” (usually posts), followed by a bit of “sand” (emails, eating, message follow-ups, etc.), and alternating back and forth until the day is finished. This works very well for me.

Habit 10: Find Your Passion
Leo makes the astute point here that if you’re not passionate about what you’re doing, it’s going to be very hard to adopt habits that enable you to succeed at it. If you love what you’re doing, the diligence required to make things work will come much more naturally. I love writing, so the “rocks” part of my day is a part that I thoroughly enjoy and it makes the whole day go by like a gentle breeze.

Some Thoughts on Zen to Done
Some of this stuff seems to come very naturally to some people and is very difficult for others. I think there is a certain set of traits that predisposes people to better time management than others. I think I’m pretty good at it - my problem is almost always clutter, not managing my time.

The most useful idea from this book - at least for me - was keeping a pad of paper and a pen on me at all times. I keep a little notebook and a pen in my front hip pocket and long ago got used to just pulling it out and jotting down things when they came to me.

There are some documents better published as e-books than in print. I think this is one of them. It includes a lot of references to online tools and other resources that aid in learning the various habits.

Is Zen to Done Worth Reading?
Basically, Zen to Done is a simplified version of David Allen’s excellent Getting Things Done with a few other useful e