Smartphone GTD app: +10. The track record is 3 years or so. Absolutely indispensable. My primary app used to be Astrid, and when Yahoo killed it, I switched to Wunderlist (mostly because their Astrid import worked on the first try, and they imported all my recurring tasks correctly). I’m also playing with Remember the Milk, and really I like their user interface so far.
Automating life with recurring tasks in a smartphone GTD app: +9. Again, 3 years or so. I have a lot of recurring tasks in my app, with various recurrence periods, ranging from daily (e.g. pills) to once-in-several-days (usually checking up on important processes) to weekly (usually shopping and household chores) to monthly (administrative duties, banks, taxes and payroll) to yearly (dentist check-ups, important birthdays etc). The problem with this is that not all GTD apps do recurring tasks properly, or at all, and that there’s no smartphone GTD app on the market that fully satisfies all my requirements regarding recurring tasks. Because of that, I’m seriously thinking about rolling my own app / service.
Trello: +8. I’ve been using it since the beginning (about two years ago), and it has become essential for my workflow. I use two kinds of board organization, a project-based one (e.g. “Ideas”, “Next up”, “In development”, “Testing”, “Done”), and a freeform structure for personal and idea-capture boards. I wish their Android app was more convenient though.
Several promising things that not yet passed the 2 years test:
No mainstream news / social media: +10. I’ve been doing this since the last December, and it worked great so far, so I’m not going back.
GTD contexts: +6. I’m just discovering this, so the official track record is less than a month. Essentially, I separate tasks in my GTD app into groups, where a group corresponds to what GTD calls context, for example “Before going to work”, “At work”, “Shopping”, “Before sleep”. The implementation of lists / tags / contexts in my previous GTD app, Astrid, was atrocious, so I, without realizing it, was organizing my tasks into makeshift contexts using priorities, e.g. Red = before work, Yellow = at work, Blue = anytime, Gray = before sleep. When I switched to Wunderlist, I liked their approach to lists a lot more, and when I named the lists, I realized that they correspond to contexts.
I’m curious (nonjudgementally): do you get your news now from non-mainstream sources, or do you stay away from news altogether? I ask because I am considering trying this anti-akrasia tactic myself, but am unsure regarding the details.
I don’t read mainstream news sources, and I don’t participate in social networks, but I do read technical, professional and scientific news.
Here’s how I get the news: If a mainstream story is important, I’ll hear about it from co-workers or family. Also, high-magnitude stories (e.g. Snowden / NSA, or yesterday’s 5 year sentence for AlexeI Navalny) usually appear on non-mainstream news sources.
The point of quitting news is not stopping being aware of what happens around you. The point is to avoid their negative effects (scrambling the mind, incorrectly perceiving the environment as more dangerous than it is / overestimating the probability of dangerous events happening to me, cortisol release, etc).
Here are some good articles on the topic (you may recognize some of the authors):
Your heuristic for getting the news checks out in my experience, so that seems worth trying.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we’ve both seen plenty of Snowden/NSA on Hacker News.
Thanks for the links.
And while I agree with you that quitting the news would likely be intellectually hygienic and emotionally healthy, it would probably also work as an anti-akrasia tactic in the specific case of cutting out something I often turn to to avoid actual work. Similar to the “out of sight, out of mind” principle, but more “out of habit, out of mind”.
cutting out something I often turn to to avoid actual work
Mainstream news are a dopamine loop magnified by an intermittent reinforcement schedule. You keep clicking for more and checking the sources every 10 minutes. Plus you can’t break out of the loop intellectually because the news content switches you from the ‘intellectual mode’ into the ‘tribal mode’ or even the ‘imminent danger’ mode. In the absence of mainstream news, technical news alone were never that addictive to me.
Things that worked for me for at least two years:
Smartphone GTD app: +10. The track record is 3 years or so. Absolutely indispensable. My primary app used to be Astrid, and when Yahoo killed it, I switched to Wunderlist (mostly because their Astrid import worked on the first try, and they imported all my recurring tasks correctly). I’m also playing with Remember the Milk, and really I like their user interface so far.
Automating life with recurring tasks in a smartphone GTD app: +9. Again, 3 years or so. I have a lot of recurring tasks in my app, with various recurrence periods, ranging from daily (e.g. pills) to once-in-several-days (usually checking up on important processes) to weekly (usually shopping and household chores) to monthly (administrative duties, banks, taxes and payroll) to yearly (dentist check-ups, important birthdays etc). The problem with this is that not all GTD apps do recurring tasks properly, or at all, and that there’s no smartphone GTD app on the market that fully satisfies all my requirements regarding recurring tasks. Because of that, I’m seriously thinking about rolling my own app / service.
Trello: +8. I’ve been using it since the beginning (about two years ago), and it has become essential for my workflow. I use two kinds of board organization, a project-based one (e.g. “Ideas”, “Next up”, “In development”, “Testing”, “Done”), and a freeform structure for personal and idea-capture boards. I wish their Android app was more convenient though.
Several promising things that not yet passed the 2 years test:
No mainstream news / social media: +10. I’ve been doing this since the last December, and it worked great so far, so I’m not going back.
GTD contexts: +6. I’m just discovering this, so the official track record is less than a month. Essentially, I separate tasks in my GTD app into groups, where a group corresponds to what GTD calls context, for example “Before going to work”, “At work”, “Shopping”, “Before sleep”. The implementation of lists / tags / contexts in my previous GTD app, Astrid, was atrocious, so I, without realizing it, was organizing my tasks into makeshift contexts using priorities, e.g. Red = before work, Yellow = at work, Blue = anytime, Gray = before sleep. When I switched to Wunderlist, I liked their approach to lists a lot more, and when I named the lists, I realized that they correspond to contexts.
I’m curious (nonjudgementally): do you get your news now from non-mainstream sources, or do you stay away from news altogether? I ask because I am considering trying this anti-akrasia tactic myself, but am unsure regarding the details.
I don’t read mainstream news sources, and I don’t participate in social networks, but I do read technical, professional and scientific news.
Here’s how I get the news: If a mainstream story is important, I’ll hear about it from co-workers or family. Also, high-magnitude stories (e.g. Snowden / NSA, or yesterday’s 5 year sentence for AlexeI Navalny) usually appear on non-mainstream news sources.
The point of quitting news is not stopping being aware of what happens around you. The point is to avoid their negative effects (scrambling the mind, incorrectly perceiving the environment as more dangerous than it is / overestimating the probability of dangerous events happening to me, cortisol release, etc).
Here are some good articles on the topic (you may recognize some of the authors):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-rolf-dobelli
http://joel.is/post/31582795753/the-power-of-ignoring-mainstream-news
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/001226
Also, I don’t think quitting news is an anti-akrasia tactic. It’s more similar to hygiene, or not eating fast food.
Your heuristic for getting the news checks out in my experience, so that seems worth trying.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we’ve both seen plenty of Snowden/NSA on Hacker News.
Thanks for the links.
And while I agree with you that quitting the news would likely be intellectually hygienic and emotionally healthy, it would probably also work as an anti-akrasia tactic in the specific case of cutting out something I often turn to to avoid actual work. Similar to the “out of sight, out of mind” principle, but more “out of habit, out of mind”.
Mainstream news are a dopamine loop magnified by an intermittent reinforcement schedule. You keep clicking for more and checking the sources every 10 minutes. Plus you can’t break out of the loop intellectually because the news content switches you from the ‘intellectual mode’ into the ‘tribal mode’ or even the ‘imminent danger’ mode. In the absence of mainstream news, technical news alone were never that addictive to me.