31
May
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by Darren
Not been feeling too well recently and coupled with the fact that most of my spare time has been taken up doing a lot of freelance work I seem to have neglected posting anything here. Also I am a bit lazy at times and so it is far easier to post to twitter than here.
Went to see the third installment of Pirates of the Caribbean the other night. It wasn’t bad but at the same time I didn’t enjoy it as much as the previous two. I felt a distinct lack of tension throughout so perhaps it was the fault of the director.
Can’t really afford to go to the cinema again in the near future and that is a shame as I’d like to see The Simpsons, Shrek 3, Die Hard 4 and Fantastic Four 2 plus all those numbers are beginning to make my head ache.
Prison Break has almost finished on Five so I’ll gain an hour there.
And finally Dr Who, as expected, got into its stride with Human Nature. A superb episode, well written and with a scary feel that was worth waiting for. Can’t wait for the second part of the episode.
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and tagged: cinema, Dr Who, films, TV
25
May
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by Darren
Spent the week feeling a bit out of it really. Have been struggling with a cold for a couple of weeks but this week it seemed to come to fruition – lots of sneezing, coughing and filling of handerchiefs.
I am also upset that Martin Allen has left the MK Dons to got to Leicester… get ready for lots of tabloid headlines about a Mad Dog amongst the Foxes. However, I’d like to wish him all the best, he managed to halt the slide down the tables of a team that one day will be quite good (yeah, why not).
Going to rest a bit more now. Next week kicks off with a Bank Holiday and then two days of almost solid meetings… deep joy
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and tagged: Mad Dog, MK Dons
23
May
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by Darren
Coming home last week from an event and I was listening to Steve Wright on Radio 2. (No, that’s not it, and Radio 2 isn’t for old people, with Russel Brand and co they have an eclectic mix of DJs). Still, back to my little narrative. Steve Wright plays a series of oldies, chosen by a listener, each afternoon. As I drove I thought I may switch the station as I didn’t really fancy listening to a bunch of old tracks, way before my time. However as the opening beats from the drum machine clicked in I felt as though I had been kicked in the stomach. Oldies? That was the Human League!
I think it may be time for me to hang up the guitar and get out the pipe and slippers.
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and tagged: age, music, oldies
20
May
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by Darren
“Bong!” (that’s the sound of Big Ben)
Chris Chibnall writes a reasonably good episode of Dr Who.
“Bong!”
The top two teams in the Premiership play out a boring showpiece FA Cup Final (me bitter with the result? never).
“Bong!”
Howard Moon arrested for signing photo for his fan.
“Bong!”
I must stop procrastinating
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19
May
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by Darren
I have been striving to organise myself since I was born, or so it seems. A couple of years ago I got into David Allen’s
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-free Productivity
and that has been very helpful in clearing my desk and keeping my inbox empty.
Whether it is because of my personality (INTP last time I checked) or some other quirk that I have (and I have many), I have found that GTD hasn’t provided a complete answer for me. Although GTD talks about reviewing your life in terms of short term goals, longer term goals and life itself, the book itself is a little sparse at this point. In an interview with David Allen he said that this was an area that perhaps needed expanding. While he thinks about doing that I need to crack on with things though.
GTD has been for me a very ‘reactive’ approach to organisation. Dealing with items as they arrive, sorting them and dealing with them as and when they need to be. This works perfectly well and as a system is great. It is basically a
bottom up system. I like to see the big picture, I like to view things a whole and therefore I crave a
top down approach. The problem is, when I have tried
top down approaches before I don’t get anything done, or I get things done way past the deadline.
Therefore I am working on my own hack of GTD (as most people do and as David Allen says use what works for you.) The main mantra of GTD is probably to aim for what is called the ‘mind like water’. This is that everything needs to be out of your head and onto lists. If it is in your head, it is on your mind and therefore causing you stress, worry and stopping you from being fully productive. My problem has been that the big things are also on my mind and so I need to deal with them. In this, I have found Stephen Covey’s
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
really helpful.
The next steps I am going to take to move forward in this are the following. I’ll keep you all up to date on what I am doing and perhaps you’ll find some of the things helpful too.
- Write a Personal Mission Statement
- Create my 3 to 5 year goals
- Create my 1 to 2 year goals
- Note my areas of responsibility (this will provide me with things that need to be regularly done)
- Keep a list of projects
- Keep contextual next action lists handy
Although GTD advocates the above I want to be more proactive in putting things into my own ‘inbox’, for GTD purists I suppose it is making sure I do a weekly review and regular ‘mindsweep, but for me it is more about making sure my top down relates to my bottom up, and no that isn’t a euphemism.
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