Monday, January 31, 2011

Listening to silence

During my recent trip to Death Valley, I had my first experience of listening to silence at the sand dunes. It was a remarkable experience that one can never encounter in a city. The surroundings were so quiet that the only thing I could hear was my own breathing.

No wonder silence is golden. Have you listened to silence before?

Sunday, January 23, 2011

The Pirates of the Caribbean - Jarrod Radnich



Very nice video shooting skills for piano performance. Didn't know that you can play piano with your butt (see the very end) :P

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Sunday, January 2, 2011

The chart of Getting Things Done

The image below is a very good illustration of the GTD process that I have been following for a long time to get things done. It's from the December 2008 issue of the Costco Connection:



If I am to improve upon the process, there are two modifications I would make:
  • Before eliminating a non-actionable item, you should find out how it goes to your "IN" in the first place. If possible, remove the source of such garbage so that you won't spend time on reviewing it in the future.
  • If it is a big project that involves multiple steps and not important enough that you have to get on it now, one should just defer it instead of breaking it down into actionable tasks immediately. The reason is that you need time to "dive" into a big project and it is kind of a waste if you just plan it out without working on it.
My personal preference is to use Google Calendar to keep track of time sensitive actions and ActiveInbox for tasks that I should work on as soon as I can.

Do you use GTD to manage your tasks? Leave a comment if you have any thought or suggestion :)

Saturday, January 1, 2011