Use the STING method to stop procrastinating

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There's been a number of writings on overcoming procrastination, with a tidy summary at Recap: Turning procrastination into action. However, one technique that I hadn't heard of was presented last week during an on-campus seminar ("Developing organization skills to be more effective in the workplace"). It's called the "STING" method of addressing procrastination, and it's an acronym that stands for:

S - Select one task.
T - Time yourself.
I - Ignore everything else.
N - No breaks.
G - Give yourself a reward.

In my case I applied it to a programming task that I've been avoiding for almost two months. I set the timer for one hour (3 x 20 minute increments worked well), quit my email program and browser, and closed my office door. The beauty of it is ... it worked! Friday and today I was able to put in enough hours to get that piece working (using Test-driven development, of course). Actually, it was better than that - I was able to get enough momentum to keep going a while; very satisfying. Oh, the reward? Chocolate! (Lately I've been enjoying Lake Champlain's Small World Chocolates - nothing like their usual chocolate, by the way.)

References

Surprisingly, the only reference to this I could find on-line was It's All about Mothers and Babies, where they provide a bit more detail:

• Select one task you've been putting off. Break it down to just one small piece if it's complicated. For instance, if the task is cleaning the kitchen, reorganizing a drawer is just one piece of the larger task.
• Time yourself. Use a kitchen timer so you don't have to watch the clock and give the task one full hour. Children might need to reduce that time to just 10 or 15 minutes.
• Ignore everything else that needs to be done.
• No breaks allowed.
• Give yourself a reward when the task is completed.

On saying yes - 3 possibilities: Always yes, always no, or only when you really want to

On the topic of when to make a commitment, I recently came across two great perspectives. First, Bert Webb post Say Yes More talks about Danny Wallace's book Yes Man, his journal of saying "yes" to everything for a year (the book went straight onto my Amazon wish list). This is a wild example of the idea of using an extreme to make a point, or to learn something, and as a person who's learning the "Joy of yes," it's a great data point. Of course the other extreme is always saying "no," something that is satirized in the standard bureaucratic joke about everyone having only the power to say no, which results in nothing getting done.

Between these two strategies is the rational approach talked about in Marilyn Paul's book It's Hard to Make a Difference When You Can't Find Your Keys (which I found full of good ideas) - She has five questions to ask when thinking about saying "yes":

• Does it give me energy?
  
• Am I excited about doing it?
  
• Does it bring me joy?
  
• Does it connect me to the people I care most about?
  
• Does it help me manifest my most valued goals?

I think this is a great list because a) it's comprehensive, b) all the questions are positive, and c) it makes explicit the process of committing to something. The bottom line? Whether I pick an extreme or the middle road, I'm increasingly becoming aware of the value of being conscious about each of my commitments. I figure I have only a fixed amount of time left in the world (I just don't know how much!), so I want to be conscious about how I spend my precious minutes. As the saying goes, you can't actually manage time, you can only manage how you use it. Hopefully Paul's tests will help me get better at this.

My GTD collection points - guided tour, with pictures

In GTD for the overworked graphic designer the author talks about having too many in-baskets, and the resulting problem of loosing important papers (meeting notes, etc.) He (or she) rightly hits on the solution of reducing the number of in-baskets, and of centralizing them. As it turns out, I had a similar problem when I was implementing GTD, mostly because I have two offices, I bike between them, and I have notes coming in from lots of sources. By popular request, what follows is a detailed tour of my collection points and how they're used.

I have four collection points, one of which is the "real" (or final) one, and the other three are for convenience of access during the day:

• First is my "Portable In-Basket" file folder that I carry in my backpack everywhere I go. How it's used: If I'm on-campus (or away from home) I stick everything into the folder, including memos, printed emails, and snail mail from my work mailbox. To make it stand out (and thus to make easy filing in it), I use a special non-manila color for this folder, an idea shamelessly stolen from David Allen during his GTD | The RoadMap seminar. In the following picture it's one of the mauve folders in the portable file carrier open on the left:
  
  
  
• Second, at home we all have our own mail slots, located in the front hall. These are used both for snail mail arriving at the house (just outside the front door), and for notes such as phone messages, "We're at the library," etc. How it's used: Anyone picking up the mail files each person's stuff in her in-basket. Ditto for messages, rent checks, etc. (NB: Having in-baskets for each person - including my five year old daughter - is a great idea, and is one that David Allen strongly encourages; I agree, but there are consequences - see the note below.) The following photo shows our wonderful stack of in-baskets:
  
  
  (And no, mine is not that overflowing one.)
  
• Third, I include my wallet because I recently realized that it functions as a kind of specialized in-basket, one for financial receipts, including ATM statements, VISA receipts, and shopping receipts that were paid by check. How it's used: When I participate in any financial transaction that leaves a paper trail, I put the receipt in my wallet. (Sorry, no wallet picture; I have to draw the line somewhere.)
  
• Finally, my "real" in-basket is at my home office, and is the top shelf of a set of five metal stacking shelves, which you can see in the upper right corner of the first picture. (FYI the rest of the shelves read, from top to bottom: Waiting For, Action Support, Current Projects, and Mary Receipts.) Everything from the other collection points goes here whenever I process, i.e., every day or two. How it's used: It functions as the primary collection point (see following text).

Overall, it's pretty straightforward: All my collection points funnel into the final "real" place, which is the only one I use during the GTD Process phase. (Recall Allen's five phases: Collect, Process, Organize, Review, and Do - available in his Advanced Workflow PDF.) I try to follow Allen's advice and process the items in the in-basket every 24 to 48 hours, applying his methodology (available in his GTD Workflow PDF) and creating/moving items into their respective organization "buckets." (See the periphery of the basic workflow diagram for the organization portion of his system.) The key points that making this work are: a) being clear about the small number of collection points, b) using them appropriately (i.e., with nothing on the kitchen table, in the car, etc.), and c) dumping them all into the final in-basket. Any thoughts?

Notes:

• Having separate in-baskets for every family member is great for me (a GTD practitioner) because I can simply drop notes, "you might want to read this" printouts, etc. into the appropriate person's basket. However, people not practicing a methodology like GTD might have a problem with this because their boxes fill up, oftentimes causing frustration. I tell them: a) as long as I can get it out of my head and to them, it doesn't matter what they do with it, and b) if they would like to hear more about GTD I'll gladly talk with them about it (heh heh).
  
• My wallet also functions as a specialized financial 'Action Support' folder, solely for checks to deposit. I don't know if this is S.O.P., but it works for me. However, it's important to note that the "deposit checks" Next Action is on my @errands list, i.e., I am not using the check itself as a reminder. (This can be a subtle point.)
  
• I also carry my "Ubiquitous Capture Tool" (UCT) with me at all times. In my case it is an "In-Basket" section of my planner (the first tabbed section), with blank sheets for taking notes when I don't have the time or resources to process them at the moment they appear. (Interested parties can get more detail, with pictures, in my post Fare thee well Hipster PDA - I barely knew ye.)

Related posts:

• Actually getting things done with Getting Things Done! Surprises and learnings from my implementation.
  
• Dealing with Meeting Notes - GTD to the Rescue!

Handling worries: keep a list, schedule them, and have a worry place

I'm always delighted when multiple inputs in my life converge on a single idea, book, or solution. Yesterday this happened with two books I'm reading, which both talked about the problem of incessant worrying (something I'm susceptible to). The books are The Worrywart's Companion: Twenty-One Ways to Soothe Yourself and Worry Smart and Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life. They both recommend managing worry using three ideas:

• keep a worry list,
  
• schedule worry time, and
  
• have a worry place

(The last idea comes just from the first book.) Here's how Learned Optimism describes keeping the list:

[...]write the troublesome thoughts down the moment they occur. The combination of jotting them down - which acts to ventilate them and dispose of them - and setting a later time to think about them works well; it takes advantage of the reason ruminations exist - to remind you of themselves - and so undercuts them. If you write them down and set a time to think about them, they no longer have any purpose, and purposelessness lessens their strength.

(Rumination is the process of obsessive analysis - contemplating a problem, mulling it over and over, trying to analyze it, determine its source, etc.) Learned Optimism also describes why a list works, and why it's a good idea to explicitly schedule dealing with the worry:

You can undercut ruminations by taking advantage of their very nature. Their nature is to circle around in your mind, so that you will not forget them, so that you will act on them. When adversity strikes, schedule some time - later - for thinking things over ... say, this evening at six P.M. Now, when something disturbing happens and you find the thoughts hard to stop, you can say to yourself, "Stop. I'll think this over later ... at [such and such a time'."

The final idea of having a special worry place comes from The Worrywart's Companion. Here are the author's points in setting up a time and place to worry:

• set a time
  
• do nothing else
  
• reduce disturbance
  
• be a little uncomfortable
  
• make it accessible
  
• always worry when in your worry place
  
• keep a worry list
  
• go to your worry place when a worry comes on
  
• instruct yourself - "This is a nonproductive worry. I'll write this on my list for worry time. Right now I will use my time to get something else done."
  
• pat yourself on the back often
  
• do something pleasant after worry time

The ideas of keeping a list of worries and dealing with them appropriately tie in nicely to the ideas and mechanics of David Allen's Getting Things Done methodology (the discipline I use to keep my life sane). Here's the summary from Matt Vance's book notes:

1. keep everything out of your head
   
2. decide actions and outcomes when things first emerge on your radar, instead of later
   
3. regularly review and update the complete inventory of open loops of your life and work

Specifically, writing down worries as soon as they appear gets them out of my head, and helps keep them from reacquiring my attention until the time/energy/place is more appropriate. Second, Allen's tools help me deal with the worries - asking what each one is (is it valid?), if it's actionable, etc. Finally, I look at managing the worry list as a kind of continuous on-demand mind sweep.