At Barcamp Bangalore 10 on Saturday, I talked about GTD, Pomodoro and Productivity: NOTE: If you have trouble viewing the web version, there is also a PDF version of my slides. I was nervous when preparing for this talk because it is not a concrete topic, it’s something abstract and perhaps even illusive for many people, so when I started off my session, I asked people to set aside their cynicism for half an hour, I then established some source credibility, explained my view of how I look at productivity, success and happiness, and how GTD and Pomodoro tie into all this. The presentation above is quite self-explanatory, so I’ll not repeat that again, except for the demo-on-whiteboard part where I did a live session about how to do Pomodoro. (photo by @the100rabh) The session went surprisingly well, and most people grokked what I was explaining, which I’m still very surprised about. I guess part of it is because (1) the audience was so interactive and asked questions and (2) most people in the audience have already tried experimenting with todo lists and GTD, so it is a problem they were already facing, so they assimilated what I was saying very quickly. (photo by @anenth) The best part about Barcamp is that I got to talk about a personal obsession of mine and I would have otherwise probably never gotten a chance to discuss such a topic in-person with other people who are interested in this topic. Some of the feedback on my session: It was even more fun to hear from people when days after the conference, they were actually trying out the Pomodoro technique: http://twitter.com/kaushalgoa/statuses/80498975857324032 There were many other good sessions in Barcamp that I liked, I especially loved the sessions about the Namma Cycle project and about ShreeKumar’s adventures and how to survive while doing a yatra across the country, talking the locals, etc. And I really do hope that the Namma Cycle project takes off – Murali who effused passion when talking about it has shown a lot of progress already – got sponsorship, got government buy-in, and is starting off at Bangalore University and has big dreams about turning Bangalore into a cycling city. That seems to be already under way, with the new cycle stand near M G Road. Overall, even my non-techie wife thoroughly enjoyed the day and was inspired by the people she met at Barcamp. And that really says it all for me on how much I enjoyed going to Barcamp again. Special thanks to SAP Labs India for hosting the Barcamp in their beautiful campus and the great lunch as well. And not to forget, all the organizers of BCB10, kudos to you guys for making it happen! P.S. Regarding the Quantified Self phenomenon, I highly recommend reading the New York Times article by Gary Wolf on The Data Driven Life. Update: Just remembered a related old article of mine – Creativity and Organization is Impact”.

Philipp Lenssen recently had a good post on tips on information overload by various people. It got me thinking about the various tips and tricks I’ve imbibed in the recent past and which work reasonably well for me. So I tried to collate them into one place:

Email

• Always bring the inbox down to zero regularly. ‘Regularly’ is defined by you.
• Never allow anything to be in your inbox > 2-3 days
  • If you’re not going to reply in that time frame, you never will. So simply archive it or reply with a one-liner saying you can’t look into it now.
• If you don’t have anything to add, don’t reply.
• Make sure you are clear on what is the action you are expecting from the recipient.
• Reply in bullet points. Because everybody skims.
• Once you’re done with the email (replying, taking action or reading), archive it.
• If it is not actionable, archive it. Don’t let it remain in your inbox.
• Use keyboard shortcuts.
• Mailing lists go into folders. I simulate them in Gmail using “Apply label, Skip Inbox” in the filters. The reason is that mails not directly addressed to me are not urgent, so I can process them whenever I have the inclination. Whatever is in my inbox is what deserves immediate attention.
• Minimize the number of times you need to check email. The minimum that is required for you to stop worrying about it. The beauty of email is that you can reply at your pace. Make use of that feature. If you end up constantly checking email, you’re better off resorting to phone calls or instant messenger.
• [new tip] Before you send the next email, go through the checklist.

Feeds

• Use your feed reader once in a few days. The world won’t stop without you.
• Use a desktop feed reader because it is faster to use.
• Have a ‘Try Before You Buy’ folder where you add feeds. If it doesn’t turn out to be useful, delete it.
• Have a number in mind, say 100 feeds. If you add a new feed, delete an old feed that is no longer interesting.
• If you end up doing a ‘Mark all as read’ on a feed 2-3 times in a row, delete it.
• Separate them into categories and/or priorities.
• Most importantly, read interesting things. Do not aim for reading 500+ blog posts a day. Optimize, don’t maximize.
• Remember that the goal is to derive some value out of this reading and that value is usually knowledge. If it is not helping you towards that goal, delete it. Don’t think twice, just delete it.
• While working, if you feel the need to distract yourself once in a while or read something interesting, don’t use your feed reader but use good filters like TechMeme or programming.reddit or a good link-blogger on your subjects of interest. Have a separate dedicated time for reading feeds.
• Take notes. Over time, you’ll judge if a feed is useful or not depending on whether you’re taking (any) notes or not.
  • You can also use a mental version of the “McDowell Grid”.

Inlets

• Cut down on the types of inlets – Email, Feeds, Twitter, IRC, Messenger, Phone, etc. (this one is particularly hard for me)
• Spend at least 50% of your time at the computer with all these inlets shut down.

Focus

• Personally I find productivity inversely proportional to information overload. The days when I’m productive and “in the zone” turns out to be the days when I’m less affected by information overload. The vice-versa is true as well. So if you focus on the right things, the information overload problem will get solved by itself.
• Maintain focus by having a todo list. Have a big todo list and then pick random tasks from that list depending on your energy levels and get things done.
• Never indulge in tasks outside of your todo list. If you’re not in the mood for any of them, don’t indulge in wilfing. Go out instead – whether for a walk, or call up a friend or even read a paper book. If you’re not being productive, just get out of the chair.
• Don’t use fancy software for writing lists. Use a good plain text editor (like Vim).
• Use GTD.
• Use an auto-pilot schedule (I’m still learning this).

P.S. Many of these ideas have been borrowed from elsewhere. It’s been a long time since I imbibed all these, so I don’t remember all the sources from which I gleaned them.