(on notetaking) incoming gadgets – what to buy, if anything

I’m now in the market for a new toy to use for my note taking. I’ve recently found that I take lots of notes and do not, in any fashion, organize those notes; every day I find myself looking for something that I wrote down “somewhere” or a piece of paper that I stashed away somewhere.

This is not a big issue yet, but as I get more and more notes and papers, I can see it becoming one – wait, actually, it kind of is an issue since I’m taking the time to talk about it. Anyways …

I don’t have the money to burn on a really nice “affordable” 700 dollar tablet PC, nor do I want to deal with the following issues on a day-to-day basis: battery life, finding a plug every hour, glare, vista, did I mention I don’t wanna spend 700 dollars on another computer?

Now, of course I would LOVE to own a tablet and play with it constantly and use it to death, but the pricetag alone would be bad for me. Now that we’re over the tablet pc’s, what are my other options?

software to organize my notes
Well, the two softwares that I imagine using to organize my notes in windows would be onenote or evernote. I like them both.

Onenote review

Evernote review

hardware to make my notes
For this area, I’m going to disregard ugliness, bulkiness, and all around shoddy design. I’ll focus on functionality and price for my needs.

capturx

+ works very well with onenote
? don’t know if it works with evernote
– requires special notebook
– 300 dollars, I could almost buy a tablet pc for that pricetag

livescribe

+ records audio along with the writing
– requires special notebook
– doesn’t work with onenote
– doesn’t work with evernote
+ reasonable pricetag

cyberpad

+ doesn’t require a special notebook
+ reasonable pricetag
+ there’s a program out there that makes this work with onenote
+ works with evernote
– does require special clip board, but that’s comes with the one time purchase of the set

So there is obviously a clear winner for my needs – I NEED to have searchable notes, otherwise I might as well use paper and a scanner. But even still, I’m reluctant to spend the money. Maybe I should just stick my head back in my sewer and try to keep my paper notes organized? The feature that I just swoon over in regards to evernote, and onenote, is that 5 years from now, my notes should still frikkin be there waiting for me to type in a search expression and summon the golden nuggets from history – really, how could you possibly top that.

Lastly, I don’t know much about scanners. I do know that there are some nice small scanners out there with a nice small pricetag, but when you scan your notes into a computer, can those notes become searchable? So far, I haven’t found any real clues to indicate that this sort of thing works; still have to do more research. Initially I thought the only downfall of the scanning idea would be that I’d have to go HOME in order to scan in notes I just took, unless I was cool with looking ridiculous in that moment, but I later realized that’s not a downfall at all. With any of the note taking tools, aside from the expensive tablet pc, I’d have to wait until I get home in order to put the notes back on my PC anyway since I don’t want my business on public computers. And with that in mind, here are two other potentials:

random “portable” scanner – no I wouldn’t really carry this in a bag

random flatbed scanner

And that’s where I’m at in regards to incoming gadgets; I’m in the grey area of “still trying to decide to get anything at all”.

I purchased an ebook in “adobe format” – no such thing as .pdf format anymore?

“Q: Why should I use the Adobe eBook format instead of another format?
A: Adobe Digital Editions can be used on Windows and Mac computers, allowing for a little more versatility between those two operating systems. Adobe Digital Editions is a new program from Adobe that’s made specifically for eBooks and will be developing even further in the future.” – http://www.ebookmall.com/knowledge-collection/adobe-reader-faq.htm#4

“Adobe Digital Editions 1.0 (“DE”) is a free ebook program designed especially for PDF-based ebooks. It’s only a small download and, compared with Adobe Reader, it’s lightning fast and very easy to use. If you’ve been using Adobe Reader to read Adobe ebooks previously, you should upgrade to DE now.” -http://www.ebooks.com/help/Adobe_Home.asp

Upgrade to adobe digital editions? Are they on crack? Have they even tried that buggy beta crapware? I WANT PDF FORMAT!!! C’mon, why can I not download an ebook in .pdf format ANYWHERE in 2008 guys? *crying*

What the crap folks. I can’t even own my ebooks anymore. Every single ebook site (all 3 of them) says “available in adobe format” or something similar but they fail to mention that “NO, when we say adobe format we don’t mean pdf, we mean this piece of crap software called adobe digital that’s in friggin beta and buggy as crap … oh and no exporting!”

What the crap.

That means, unless I have that other crapware installed, I can’t read my books. I can’t even use acrobat reader on them at all. The actual book isn’t compatible with anything else but this beta software – the software has had a 1.0 release (*sigh*) and a 1.5 beta release (*cries*) and both are buggy and have almost no functionality.

Why would they do this to me? I really want my money back. I’m going to scream!!!

reflecting on failure in order to bathe in success!

After reading this blog post, I decided that I love the idea of “only for today will I [do this/that]. If it’s good enough for the pope, it’s good enough for me. And you already know I’m not yet comfortable doing things that have yet to be done if you read my previous post on entrepreneurship.

That brings me to todays post. I didn’t really complete any MIT’s from my previous MIT post on that particular day, but I did complete one of them today. I got my birth certificate! Hurray.

After reflecting on how I managed to not do any MIT’s the past two days, I realized that I often fail to take my own advice – nothing new there. If you see my last post about failing to do it, you can see that I do actually know how to get “it” done, but when it comes to making the decision to do it or not, I sometimes decide not to do it – that last post was also advice for myself, which is why I took the time to post such a lengthy collection of words.

That last post, in summary, basically said that we fail at “do it” because we decide that “doing it” is too hard for one reason or another although it’s really not hard at all and only takes time and attention to turn around and decide to do it. Now, with that in mind, and if I know the trick yet decide not to implement it, there must be something else going on in the background to block me.

After reading the stuff about “only for today will I [yada yada]”, I get this thought in my head … I think that the reason I don’t go pwn it every single day, even though I could easily do so, is because I’m afraid! I’m afraid I’ll run out of energy and, although I’ll feel good for a moment after getting those things done, instead of feeling satisfied, I’ll feel worn out and over worked – I know, I know, it seems like a list with 3 things on it isn’t much, and it isn’t much; exercising discipline by following a list every day, consistently, is not something I’m used to.

Digging into my background, I see a line of uncompleted projects (see: how to memorize a book, in my previous posts), neglected tasks, doors left half open, etc. I have a history of starting out with flying colors, and tossing any successes to the wind when I decide the task/project/whatever isn’t “worth it”. This is both good and bad. I do give myself the liberty to throw a task in the trash-can if I’m unsatisfied with it; but, more often than not, I unintentionally neglect said task/project/whatever upon setting my sights on a new task/project/whatever.

I do things throughout the day, but a lot of times, I find more interesting and instant-rewarding things to do that aren’t on my to-do list. My to-do list isn’t necessarily boring or anything, but if I were to actually do all of those things currently on the list, what would I really get out of it? Where’s my reward? Why is it worth it? Why do [item on my list] as opposed to writing a blog post or reading something interesting and insightful?

Are you with me? Do you understand what it’s like to have an item sit on your list that you know you want to do yet, even though the deadline is quickly approaching, you manage to negotiate with yourself that it’s not worth the time and attention required to get it done yet? Alright if you’re with me and all the other “do it at the last minute” when it finally feels worth it, read on.

Here’s a [true] scenario: I’ve got this paper to fill out for my new job. It’s only about 5 pages long. It’s composed of a bunch of intrusive questions about my history on all fronts. Now, I’ve had “fill out paperwork for work” on my to-do list since I got this form. I completed everything else except the last 5 pages of this document because those last 5 pages would take the most TIME and ATTENTION, and of course, my time is valuable and I have better things to do that seem to be ‘worth it’ more than spending an afternoon filling out this jazz.

So, my next step from here is to figure out how to make this [name your task] feel like it’s actually worth the time and attention it requires. And I need to figure out how to escalate the worth of a task on command.

My current feeling is that these tasks really are not worth it at the moment. They will be worth it eventually, close to the time that they’re due, but right now, they just aren’t worth it at all. So why should I bother if it’s not worth it … in fact, it’s hard for me to even do something trivial if it’s not worth it. I rely on “worth it” almost entirely in order to complete a task. Otherwise, the only way it’s going to get done is because of an outside influence (*cough* my girlfriend *cough*).

Let me back up a bit. Let me get down to the feeling level of why, when presented with task, I manage to weigh the odds and come out empty handed.

example: changing the tail light

Walmart is soooo far away, I know if I drive over there, it’s going to take me an hour just to find what I need. And then, I’m going to get to the car and it’s not even going to fit, or I’m going to be missing some tools needed to get the friggin broken light out of there. I’ve also gottah figure out what type of light it uses and to do that, I’ve gottah find tools needed to get it out of there and then take in the bulb with me to match it up, and then even with the bulb in hand, it’s probably not going to be labeled to where I can easily find one that matches. And, I know this entire process is going to take FOREVER and completely kill the rest of my day because I’ll be worn out from travel and light bulb frustrations. Then, if I do do this, I’m going to be nagged at constantly by outside sources to do this/that and to get this and that while I’m at walmart. Plus, I’m probably going to have to take my daughter with me and I’ve gottah worry about keeping her pleasantly appeased at the same time. Then when I get home, I’ve still got task [whatever], task [whatever 2], etc into infinity and it just doesn’t stop.

Does that seem worth it to you? It doesn’t seem worth it to me. It actually seems pretty scary.

example2: filling out the last 5 pages of this paperwork for new job

I know that when I first even look at those papers again, I’m going to be met with something I don’t want to see. It’s going to ask me some question that I’ve gottah dig through generations of people, who are no longer anywhere near my place and don’t have cell phones, to get the answer to. I’m going to have to call 10 dozen people just to find out the answer to question such and such. It’s going to take me 10 hours just to fill out this piece of crap, and I don’t want to give it 10 hours. Also, what if I write something down there that the new employer doesn’t like? I already quit my stable job after this new job had me sign papers to get it – but they could always fire me on the spot for giving misinformation or because of something I wrote down that they weren’t pleased with. They hire me first, without paying me a dime, get me to quit my current job, and then do all kinds of in depth and unrelated background checks so that they can up and fire me because I once walked out on an employer for good reason? How could I not feel uneasy about that.

Now that, that’s over the top for five sheets of paper. How scary is that?

How could I even begin to “focus” on my other tasks when these two buggers keep knocking at my door. I’ve written them down in efforts to get them out of my head, but they’re still in my head banging away at the walls.

On the flip-side of things, when push comes to shove for both of these issues; the due date will come for these last 5 pages of paper and I’ll spend an hour max filling them out to the best of my ability and be done with it; a cop will pull me over after noticing I have a messed up tail light and I’ll roll my vehicle straight to walmart, disregarding any outside influences, and purchase/install the new light in less than an hour.

So, these two things have a maximum of being monstrous tasks and a minimum of being hour long tasks. I can handle an hour long task that takes up only a fraction of time, but I’m willing to bet that something wont go as planned and it might reach the maximum allotted time and attention required to complete the task.

The thing is though, that’s inevitable! I can’t stop that so why don’t I just get started and mow my way through it? Good question me thinks. Lets dig deeper!

One thing that both of these tasks have in common is that they’re scary. And that, to me, rings a bell. I don’t like being scared, and I know that fear is something that has plagued me in the past (see post about entrepreneurship). It is TIME to address that issue as it’s creeping up into my every day normal tasks. It definitely feels “worth it” to solve this riddle.

[fruitful research went on at this point in this post]

So after mucho googling (what would I do without you!), I’ve determined that this issue is a matter of not having a strategy for my TIME OUT period (see previous post). Basically I get to step 3 (doing the task) and I FREEZE. I take a moment to think of my strategies and then realize that’s just not going to cut it for these two scary items. So, I’m going to use the end of this post to list out all the strategies I’ve found and can think of at the moment. But before I do that, let me tell you how I’m going to prepare for battle *rawr* today.

I have a pda that I use solely for MyLifeOrganized (an awesome hierarchal list manager – best I’ve found over the years, but only runs on windows so … yeah deal). Today, when I come across an item that scares me to inactivity for one reason or the other, much like a lot of my MIT’s, I’m going to flip to a word document with my TIME OUT game plan (steps to follow during my time outs) and play a motivational song on the PDA – I don’t have any music on there now, but I’m going to put some on there tonight (this morning).

OK, so here’s what’s going to be in the document, more or less. Here are the tips/tricks to boost my feelings from “uck” to “pwned” – oh, keep in mind that this is just what I’m going to use temporarily for personal use ’til I make time to edit it down, making it prettier and junk:

====================================

visualize doing the task, succeeding, and how you’ll feel afterwards

(10+2)5 – do it for 10 minutes, stop for 2 minutes, and do this 5 times for hour before taking a long break

15 seconds – do it for 15 seconds and then decide if you want to continue from there

remember what goal this item ties into, and realize that this is for the greater good

get the blood flowing by doing some exercise! Do 20 pushups, some situps, go for a run, whatever yah need to do

break it down into something that’s simpler. focus on the next step and succeeding in the small thing then relish in the success and move along

make sure that you have the time. if there’s nothing more important than this, then you have time

get someone else to motivate you

don’t feel down because you can’t get this seemingly “simple” task done. if it’s not that simple for you, then it’s not a simple task it’s a complex one

build on success by doing something else you KNOW you will be able to do, get a few of those under your belt and ride onto the new daunting task as a winner with success in sight

if this doesn’t tie into your goals, rm -rf and delete it

80/20 rule – 80% of the results come from 20% of the tasks .. or something like that

imagine you were someone else or even some imaginary figure who pwns to-do lists. step into that persona and rake havoc

promise yourself a reward. if you do this this and that, you’ll treat yourself to dinner or buy yourself an ipod touch. pick a reward that feels like a reward

remember all those other hard things you did that turned out to not be as hard as you thought they were going to be

remember that one thing that was so hard and you still did it

ensure that your thoughts are positive – negative thoughts are just going to screw you into the ground

write down your fears of doing the task and look at it in its true form (not all that big bad or ugly is it) then write down counter thoughts to resolve that fear right below what you previously wrote

think to yourself “i only have to do this once”

boost moral by listening to some motivational music

think to yourself “only for today will I [do such and such]”

breath in deeply for five minutes and imagine yourself doing it slowly and meticulously as a way to relax

take a moment to realize that you need to live it, do it, be it, now. You need to be your dreams now, feel how you’d like to feel now, get things done as you’d like to get things done NOW, act as you’d like to act NOW. You need to BE the you of your dreams NOW because tomorrow may never come for you or me, seriously. Be accomplished now. Be fulfilled now. Yes, you can reach that goal NOW with what you do NOW and how you feel NOW in these 24 hours. Tomorrow may never come, why wait for [whatever] to arrive .. have it now. NOW is the time to have everything you ever wanted and perform like you want, and get things done like you want, etc. You only have to do it for today. Just today. Just now. Only now. This is a one time event.

if the task is important enough that it made it to your top priority list, it’s important enough to spend the time and attention needed to negotiate your thoughts from “wanting to do it” to “doing it”
-remember that guy bill? Yeah, he did this same thing you’re doing and he didn’t have the slightest of a problem. You gunnuh let bill show you up like that?

if human kind can create a rocket ship to blast into outer space and play around on the moon, human kind can also do [name the task you’re frozen on]

if you don’t try, you have 100% chance of failure. any attempt at all will raise your chances of success by a ridiculous amount.

got something else on your mind? if it’s more important, switch to that. If it’s equally important, flip a coin. If it’s less important, write it down and throw it in your inbox

recite some positive affirmations in relation to the task “I am awesome”, “I will complete this easily and effortlessly”, “I can relax while I’m doing this”, “I am happy and successful”, “I am productive NOW”, “I fulfill my dreams NOW”, etc

“Consider the impact of your decisions and actions, and how they will affect your life in the next 10 minutes, 10 months, and 10 years.” – someone

Got any hero’s? What would they do in this same situation? They would PPWWNNNN

Do Your Worst: Give yourself permission to suck. Relieve the pressure of needing to achieve perfection in every task on the first run. [Just run wild.] – lifehack.org

give yourself a break. take a rest to recoup and then go attack this

is someone bothering you or are you being interrupted somehow? Remove the obstacle in your way. Tell them no. Unplug that television. Grab the modem and stick it in the trunk of the car.

read a motivational article

google up blog posts about failure and read that for a bit

visualize becoming your future self, then looking back on your present self and giving your present self a word of advice

add new stuff to this list as I discover them

If you get to the end of this list and still can’t do it, postpone it and move on to the next item with confidence and vigor.
====================================

One more thing,

Now that I mentioned tips/tricks to use during a time out, I’d like to also mention that in addition to the following steps in the game of a day of life:

1. realize
2. stop and take a time out
3. turn it around and do it

There’s also a PRE-STEP that I kind of glossed over simply because I really didn’t feel like going there yet – so, I guess I’ll just dab in the topic a ‘lil bit.

Just like a basketball game or any sports game, or any big event, it benefits you to prepare. In the sport of pwning your to-do lists and/or beating procrastination, it helps if you’ve got your PRE-GAME down tight. I suppose I could cover this in more detail at a later date… well, here’s some parts of the pre-game that, if not addressed, might be the root cause of a lack of motivation when doing that “hard task”.

PREGAME

remove all distractions

ensure that your self maintenance is up to par: showered? shaven? well dressed? eaten breakfast? exercised? brushed teeth? slept? – your body is like a car, if you don’t take care of it, it will break on you and cause all sorts of problems along the way

prepare to say NO to outside influences

write out a plan of attack and visualize that plan of attack

schedule to get things done during the first half of the day, and leave the last bits of the day open for whatever. take comfort in knowing you will have ‘no obligation time’ and ‘reflection time’

make sure you know what you want … and if you dont’ know what you want, find out

is your environment clear enough to allow you to bypass

check your compass (ala the secret); how do you feel?

are you prepared to singletask, focus, and do one thing at a time?

have you automated or outsourced (to your children) the little bitty tasks so they don’t distract you today? And do you have reminders setup to remind you when [such and such task: dentist appt, oil change, etc] becomes important?

do you know your de-motivators and your do-not-do list? avoid the bugs and hiccups since you know where they are already

…and so on

PS: After writing the entry, I couldn’t help but be motivated to go and start filling out the paperwork. I didn’t finish it but I definitely put a dent in it. Hmm… seems like I was right about the time out thing. This blog post, essentially, served as a big time out where, at the end of the time out, the result was motivation where there previously was no motivation. Sweeeet.

PPS: Note to self. It is OK to postpone a blog entry to the next day in exchange for more sleep.

dear vista … please sign these divorce papers

If you saw that last post (and I’m about to delete that) you’d know my hard drive got corrupted because Vista doesn’t play nice with external drives formatted in NTFS. Well VISTA plays nice with it if you’re only going to be using it on VISTA machines, but when you switch between a lot of different operating systems like I do, vista fondles something on the drive, preventing the other guys (windows xp) from being able to read it like it would normally read an NTFS drive. This page explains some of my problems, but doesn’t get too specific: NTFS vs Fat

Now, my drive comes up as corrupted and well … that’s just poop. This is the second time that this has happened -the first time I thought the drive pooped on me because I did a quick format on it. The second time i did a full time-consuming format and everything was dandy … until I tried to read the drive in XP.

I’m not so much angry as I am annoyed and angry. I know these kind of things happen from time to time, but this thing has corrupted on me twice in two weeks. Tired of it. I was already tired of vista anyway’s, but it did come with the computer and well I didn’t think it was horrible enough to be worth the time and effort that it takes to flatten and install something else on the box. Wait- That’s not exactly true, at one point I tried to install ubuntu on it because I was fed up with looking at vista and it’s silly buttons and icons, and all the silly quirks it has. But, unfortunately, the machine refused to boot the ubuntu disc. It just flat out refused! Yeah it would load up, but it would die after something got corrupted somehow. I re-tried this about five different times with three different discs and two different downloads of ubuntu. What a night of wastefulness.

Every time I think of my computer, I wish I had a mac, linux, or xp box. I’m to the piont now where it feels like vista doesn’t do anything like I’d like it to be done. It doesn’t look like I’d like it to look. It doesn’t search like I’d like it to search. It doesn’t stop corrupting my stuff like I’d like it to stop corrupting my stuff. It doesn’t want to play with any other operating system, and so on.

I. am. fed. up. with vista. Of course, if I were to format my drive to fat32, it should play nice … but I’m just tired of problems. I never did have any problems with my macbook, except that I couldn’t play the games I wanted. That’s why I got this desktop, but now that I have the games, I rarely every play them -except for fifa 07. And, Fifa 07 runs on an intel 950 64mb integrated card (mac mini) just fine.

I’m really considering replacing my pretty desktop with a nice underpowered base model mac mini when they release leopard next month. Lets look at the specs.

	my desktop	mac mini
video card	256mb gf + 128mb gf	intel 950 64mb (integrated)
os	vista	xp + osx (leopard)
ram	3gb	1gb
disc	16x dvd+/-RW	dvd rom / cd rw
size	xbox sized	teeny tiny
processor	Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 2.0ghz	1.83 intel core 2 duo
space	250 gig	80 gig

….see anything that stands out in that chart as bad? I do. It’s VISTA.

Yeah yeah, I know I could just fork out 100 bux and get xp on the desktop, or just transfer my xp serial from my old crapdesktop to the newer one, but … xp has it’s own problems. I’ve never had any problems with OSX. So now I’ve got this idea in my head to sell the desktop on craigslist for 500-600 bux, wait til october and buy the mini from the galleria for 600 bux, use bootcamp and parallels/vmware to run xp (i’ll use the license from my old crapdustin compaq desktop), format my external 500gig drive to fat 32, and finally be at peace with the world of computers once again.

Sounds like a plan.

Also… I know the mac mini isn’t a great gaming machine but it seems like the wii’s, ps3’s, and xbox 360’s are taking over the gaming market anyways so it’s not that big of a deal.

Procrastination – not laziness, but misdirection! Lets beat it *cue MJ’s hit*

In order to beat procrastination swiftly, it helps to understand the nature of the beast. But first, let me say a bit about tools. Firstly, tools are meant to assist people in being efficient! Tools are for the very best of the GTD crew. Tools are like when you upgrade your linux os to unstable just to be on the bleeding edge and for that small chance of improvement. Tools are NOT meant for people who don’t already know how to get things done – unless they’re using it to create an initial motivation I suppose, or maybe a start-up quick kit or something, I dunno. Before you upgrade to tools and tricks and crap like that, I’d like to first and foremost suggest that you learn how to GET THINGS DONE instead of developing a crutch before you can even walk. Walk, then run, then fly. Anyways – onward!

1. Tools – this section isn’t very important
As others have suggested, there are lots of tips/tools/tricks to help you stop procrastinating. Here are some additional TOOLS that might make you happy at first and create that initial spark of desire. But you need more direction than that. Still I’ll share:

-Do it for just five minutes <- tip to get started
-(10+2)*5 <- efficiency tip
– david allans gtd workflow <- book
–next action
–Tracks <- pretty fun
–Shit load of GTD software tools for PC & Mac
–blogs and other resources about getting shit done
–another long list of tools and resources for getting things done

I’ll stop there because this list could really go on forever, and some of the lists I listed go on forever already, but that alone will only give you that initial spark of interest. The interest may last awhile since there’s a whole cult/society behind getting things done. It might help you at first, but you might also get stuck in a never ending spiral of trying to find the best “tool” to use. This is a time waisting endeavor. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. But, tools are kind of fun to talk about so let me talk about mine before I get to your procrastination issue there.

Some tools (the ones with the biggest impact) I’ve used are as follows, AND THEY ALSO CHANGE from time to time:

My Life Organized – I use the free version of this to track my goals for my LIFE. Yah know, the whole thing. I have my shit sorted out as follows: Family and Home; Spiritual and Ethical; Social and Cultural; Financial and Career; Physical and Health; Mental and Educational; and Incoming Brain Bombs to be processed when I get the chance. It’s an easy setup.

Wallet – I keep a little fold out notepad in my wallet. When the notepad is opened it has a paper on the left and right sides. On the left sides is my “incoming” space and on the right side is my “to-do list”. Pretty simple.

Picasaweb Albums – I use this to visualize my goals. I have pictures in there with affirmations below it. In the mornings, I play the slideshow and read the affirmations, then look at the picture, then visualize it.

Ring Notebook – This is basically everything from incoming, to to-do lists, to goals, to everything all in one. I mix and jumble everything up and organize it whenever I feel like it, if it needs it. It’s pretty fun to embrace that kind of freedom and discover new ideas in your … lists.

I could go on with this, but I just wanted to humor the post. This stuff won’t actually help you get anything done, unless you know what you’re doing, among other things. These are tools of efficiency to help the people who know how to stop procrastination to get their shit done in a different, and possibly more efficient fashion that suits their needs.

2. Understand the nature of the beast – very important!
Here’s a formula for procrastination (see below). Look at it and think about it for a second; if you know some simple algebra, you could deduct some insight from this:

quote:

Desirability of the Task = E x V / G x D

Where E is the person’s self confidence in the task, V is the value of completing the task, G is the tasks immediacy/availability and D is the person’s sensitivity to delay.

link

Ok that equation should give you an idea of why you’re not doing shit. In addition to understanding the nature of the beast, What you need is some supreme SElf DISCIPLINE-PLINE-Plin-pli-pl-p. Military school and boot camp can give you that, but lifting weights and working out isn’t going to do anything for you here. I was suggesting military school or boot camp not because they help you physically, but because they help you mentally. They teach the morons and jerk offs and lazy asses to be good respectable citizens who can stand on their own two feet. They teach discipline most of all -and other stuff.

That’s an easy way out, but it’s rather drastic. It’s always easy when you have a teacher telling you how to do it and it’s even easier when you have some meat head barking down your neck and threatening your physical health. You, probably wont go that route, so you’ve gottah figure out how to do this without that.

This is the advice normally given to people who don’t know jack shit about what they want out of life and what they want to do -maybe this is your case, maybe not:

1. Know where you want to go
2. Create a theoretical plan to get there -this plan will change, but having the plan there gives you some comfort and assists you in believing that you can get to wherever it is you want to go
3. Decide on what the next action is that can help you get there – make sure this is something that isn’t very overwhelming. If it is too overwhelming, you’ll have to break it down into a smaller bit-sized portion that you can manage.
4. Do it.

Your problem is at the bottom. You might know all the steps and tricks and everything you could want to know about getting where you’d like to go, but you fail at “Do it”.

Why do you fail at “Do it”? The equation tells you why you fail. Basically, you don’t do it because you (the bad you) has looked at all the evidence and deducted that it’s not worth it to you. But it is worth it. No it’s not. That internet sitting right there is much more entertaining right now. That [insert something you procrastinate with] looks like it’ll be of much more value to me right now. This is all true.

Because most humans only like to look at the shit that’s pressing right into their faces, they don’t see the loooooongterm value when they’re stuck in the moment. They’re distracted by all of the things that give the short term value -kind of like cigarettes.

You need something to stand right in front of your nose and show you that it is of more value to you than anything else right now. But how do you achieve that? You could use a drill sergeant, torcher, a challenge, a dare, money incentive, reward system, etc. Of course, if you really don’t want to do that [whatever], maybe you shouldn’t. Maybe you’re pointing your nose in the wrong direction. Maybe that isn’t something that you’re passionate about in the first place. Could it be an issue with passion? YES! But, lets not get too complex here. Lets assume that you do, in fact, desire to get this [whatever task] done.

You could listen to music and jam out or you could write your paper. Remember that formula? It applies here. The paper doesn’t yield any short term benefit, and it’s not like you have a chance at finishing the whole thing right now anyway. It’s too hard you might not even be able to start. God you’re going to fail, it’s not worth it. The music however, that’s easy, it’s fun, you wont fail, and it’s worth it right now. Look at that fucking formula come into action, damn.

Now, how to tweak this formula to your advantage.

quote:

Desirability of the Task = E x V / G x D

Where E is the person’s self confidence in the task, V is the value of completing the task, G is the tasks immediacy/availability and D is the person’s sensitivity to delay.

Here’s another scene: You have a one word paper -a paper that’s only 1 word long- due in 30 seconds and it counts for 90% of your final gpa for your four year college career. You could do that, or you could listen to music. You think to yourself hmmm, the paper isn’t that long, I’ll burn through that and it’ll be easy AND I’ll raise my GPA. Definitely worth it. Damn. Problem solved.

But wait, that’s never going to happen! You’re right. Like I said -i think I said it- you’ve gottah find an alternative way to raise your desire. Here’s a method: You can find something that you’re passionate about and piggy back the tasks (shit you procrastinate on) to that. That’s what competitions are. In general people really do like to compete, and it’s easy to piggy back a task on that in the name of competition. They’ll get it done because, more than anything, they wanted to beat someone else. Also, the accountability system works like that as well. You have two people who are holding each other accountable. If one should fail, they’re going to catch shit from the other person and they’ll theoretically lose. This is how I quit binge drinking! That’s just a couple of methods to piggy back your tasks too.

Another very popular method is Goals! Uh-oh, did I hit a nerve? Sorry. Some people only do their homework, swim 30 laps a day, do 500 pushups in an hour, read all of a series of books, and other stuff because that’s the only way that they’ll reach their Goal! If your desire to reach a goal is strong enough to carry your other tasks, then you can use that as a piggy back. But lets say you have a 5 year goal. That goal, while good and all that, is FIVE YEARS AWAY. IT’s not standing in front of your face, it’s a long ass time away. But that’s a start. Now, set a short goal, then a shorter one, then a shorter one -all the little goals should lead up to the big one. This, is how you bring the goal closer and closer to your FACE.

Now that you’ve got a goal in your face, what? You probably wrote the goal down somewhere in a text file, and while it’s good to have it, that’s not in your face at all. When I say in your face, I mean you have to see the shit and know it’s there. If it’s in the back of your computer you’ll forget about it for sure. Steve Pavlina gave an example for this. He said that he used to practice some martial art, and at the door of the dojo or whatever there was a sign that said “YOUR GOAL IS TO BECOME A [NINJA]” or something. In your face, bitch. IN YOUR FACE. ALso, you know, challenges are goals, competitions are goals, tasks are goals, etc. Which brings us alll the way back to step 1.

3. How do I get this goal/task done? Here’s your answer: “aint nuthin to it but to do it”

1. Remove the distractions -set up environment to assist you, not to distract you

2. Create the desire -piggy back something you already have desire for or put yourself in a situation where a strong desire is created -maybe a desire to not get your ass beat by your drill sergeant? hurr and if you’re a real badass, you can create some desire out of no desire by just getting the ball rolling (do just a tiny bit and force yourself to stop – feel free to look up other tactics to achieve this)

3. Never forget your desire -IN YOUR FACE

4. Get that shit done, mother fucker! – You can find tips/tools to help you do 1-3 but once you’ve done 1-3, THEN you can start using “tips” and “tools” and all that kind of shit for 4.

And… that’s all there is to it.

note: I first posted this on the awful forums. Figured I’d bring it over to my blog to share with ‘er one else.

OK, I lied

I wrote that I was updating another blog daily, well I wasn’t – er, I was intending on doing that, but that fell through the cracks as more important things came up that couldn’t be denied my full attention. And … I guess I’m back to this blog. I think I’ll delete the other one and wait until it works its way up my priority list.