Not a review: _Getting Things Done_, David Allen

From p 97 in a paperback version:

"Many times I have driven to the local office-supply store with a client and bought a filing cabinet, a big stock of file folders, and a labeler, just so we could create an appropriate place in which to put two-thirds of the "stuff" lying around his/her desk and credenza and even on the office floors."

I'm fairly certain this guy isn't cheap, either, which raises a whole series of fascinating questions. "Many times"? Was this in Allen's early days organizing people? Does this still happen to him?

The book is less irritating than I had expected it to be, actually, altho it retains a highly-paper centric approach that is less than completely useful to me. Also, people really keep clippings? I treated that as a Bad Habit over a decade ago and dug it out root and branch and then salted the earth it grew in.

ETA: Be careful with this book. It can mess with you. I just sorted through (and mostly deleted) several hundred messages from my primary inbox and an old inbox, some of them dating back to 2004. It took a while. That whole "never put it back into 'in'" is a bit of a brain-worm.

Oh, and it turns out that lj really did break journal wide settings for screening anonymous comments with the new update page; they're working on it. Glad I reported it, as I was apparently the first to do so.

ETAYA: page 133

I feel like I'm liveblogging this book. Weird.

"If you're in a large-volume e-mail environment, you'll greatly improve your productivity by increasing your typing speed and using the shortcut keyboard commands for your operating system and your common e-mail software. Too many sophisticated professionals are seriously hamstrung because they still hunt and peck and try to use their mouse too much. More work could be dispatched faster by combining the two-minute rule [if the next action will take less than 2 minutes, do it immediately rather than putting it in the tickler file for later] with improved computer skills. I've found that many executives aren't resisting technology, they're just resisting their keyboards!"

First response, oh, for fuck's sake. Second response, ahem, this _is_ resisting technology. Keyboards _are_ technology. Third response: I knew this guy, he could code about as fast as he could type. And he typed about as fast as I can type. He hasn't taken over the world, but that's mostly because he's a very nice Seventh Day Adventist and that wouldn't align with his values.

Today's Activities Include: bike, errands, play, exercise, organizing

R. took A. up to Mayberry (<-- not its real name) to put the stakes along the driveway so that whoever removes snow from it over the window doesn't go too far afield and, say, wipe out the wellhead. Or worse.

After he got back and finished assembling the new bike he bought T., and put the wheel on it that he'd bought separately that has a Nexus internal gear on it (or maybe an SRAM -- I don't really recall), they went out to the bike trail. While T. claims he doesn't like the bike and didn't like the outing, I don't think he means it. I think there was some confusion about verb tenses, and T. meant he didn't want to go do it again right away. R. says they had a really good time. Pretty exciting to get his first bike with gears!

A. has finally completely lost the last of the tiny penguins (the ones that came with Beautiful Bella in the Ty Lil Ones line); I cannot find it anywhere and given she was in the basement with R. for a while, the possibilities are daunting. I looked, but I gave up and ordered a couple more from a 3rd party seller on Amazon. At one point, I had a stash of three of these, but they've slowly disappeared. I got so discouraged about not being able to find it, AND not finding anything else in the course of the search (an indication that the main living floor truly has been decluttered) that I went and got a large trash bag and started filling it with stuff in the basement that I could not imagine where it could go other than the trash. It didn't feel good (that always feels like giving up, somehow), but it felt better. Also didn't find the penguin for me. :(

She's been in a firefighter phase lately: wearing the jacket and hat from a dressup outfit (which was convenient -- she was all ready to go treat or treating with R. at his workplace yesterday afternoon) and playing with the Duplos Fire station set. She even uses the little fire pieces and lines the hose up with the hydrant, puts it in the little guy's hand and points it at the flames. Pretty fun and in this household, that level of acting-out-with-pieces play is a little unusual.

I had a great conversation with R. (not my husband or my sister, aka B.), very heartfelt, about how we feel about exercise. It was extremely cathartic for me (hopefully it was good for her, too) and so motivating I actually dug out my copy of Miriam Nelson's book, found the weight training exercises, unboxed the weights and found a good spot for them where I'll see them and, hopefully, start using them.

I was able to get next week's book club selection in my hometown library, which is convenient (as long as I don't inadvertently return it in Mayberry -- that would be bad); it's _Your Inner Fish_ and I'm looking forward to reading it, but I'll probably finish _Getting Things Done_ first.

I even scanned in my cousin's photos of our Mennonite relatives and some others on that side of the family. I still need to burn a CD and upload the photos and info from the backs of the pictures to ancestry.com. Still, huge progress, given I've had the pictures for probably close to two years at this point. The FlipPal is truly awesome.

ETA: I swear, I'm NOT going to join the GTD cult. Really. I know it looks that way. Not gonna happen. That guy LUUURRRVES paper way too much.