Charles and Christy’s Weblog

I think the thing I liked most about Test-First development was that it had such a simple routine. This routine allowed me to focus on the task(s) at hand for at least a while and Get Stuff Done.

The routine:

1. Define the next baby step in the project
2. Write a specific criterion for what it means to be complete
3. Implement to meet that criterion
4. Repeat

That simple loop increased my productivity tremendously. Before, I would get distracted about some new library, or thinking big thoughts, or worrying about things irrelevant to the task at hand. All of those things are fine, of course, in moderation. However sometimes they prevented (distracted) me and the end result was significantly less productivity.

If I had to estimate, I’d say test-first development accelerated my coding by about 25-40% just because of the routine. That I spent less time debugging (because everything passed tests!) sped me up an additional 25-40%. Sometimes I’d lose a little time because I couldn’t figure out how to create a test framework for the task at hand (GUI especially). But that wasn’t a tremendous drain.

Now, if only I could make a similarly simple routine for getting through other knowledge work.

Looks like I’m not the only one struggling to navigate PIM-Land.

Today I stumbled across some folks who are also intrigued by Getting Things Done and are trying to maximize their personal productivity.

They describe such productivity tricks as “Life Hacks.” These blogs were largely inspired by a talk at some conference where Danny O’Brien introduced the concept.

Related Blogs:

• 43 Folders
• Lifehacker

Ok, let’s start over. First, I’ll draw the ideal process from a GTD point-of-view.

Next, I’ll add the two desired media in which I’d like to work to enable this process. Eventually, maybe I’ll replace the Paper Planner with a PDA.

This is already looking complicated. Let’s see why I need these two media. Without a PDA, I need something to have with me at all times. Plus, I like to be able to jot down ideas as I come across them in meetings, transit, etc. Thus the Paper Planner.

Online storage is so that I can seamlessly work with the PIM information in applications across several computers. I need to be able to sort, print, share, and backup. To me means that I have them centrally located, networked system for consistent backup.

That’s it for now. Next, I’ll try some technology options to enable the edges.

I’ve recently been inspired by successfully settung up a webdav server and playing around with Mozilla Calendar. It’s an incredibly useful thing to be able to centrally store my schedule while segmenting it into publishable units based on context. For example, I plan to set up a family birthdays calendar file to share while keeping my personal appointments (read: class schedule) seperate.

iCalendar also brings the possibility to centrally categorize and store my TODOs.

Having read David Allen’s book Getting Things Done (GTD), I’ve been trying to get organized and be more on top of things.

A critical component to that is setting up contextual TODO lists, having them at your fingertips at all times, and refreshing them once a week from a master project list.

As usual, PIM tools tend to get in the way more than they help. I’m incredibly frustrated by the myriad of needs and the imcomplete approaches provided by any existing tools.

I’ve fumbled with Evolution and certainly have been strapped to Outlook, neither of which are platform-independent enough for my needs. On top of that, Outlook isn’t very compatible with LDAP or iCalendar.

My PDA is really tired and I can’t afford a replacement. It doesn’t play that well with standards and doesn’t bounce between FreeBSD and Windows very well.

I stumbled across PlannerMode for Emacs, which looks promising if I can get it to be GTD-friendly and synced up with my iCalendar files. Looks like there’s been some discussion, but doesn’t seem quite on the right track yet.

Tonight I tried a mind mapping exercise to see if I could gain any insights into the PIM mess. By looking at the resulting network, obviously not.

Have I mentioned how much I like GraphViz? Pure genius.