From emv@umich.edu Sun Jul 25 22:46:39 1999 Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 23:39:15 -0400 (EDT) From: Edward Vielmetti Reply-To: vacuum@egroups.com To: vacuum@egroups.com Subject: [vacuum] Getting organized Welcome to Vacuum! It's Art Fair in Ann Arbor, which means 500,000 art lovers descend upon town to buy art on a stick, eat food on a stick, and clog up the local roads. Anyone who can has left town for the week! But I'm still here. The theme of this week's (this month's) issue is "Getting organized". I have been slowly but surely putting a lot of things in order over the past few months, with the capable help of Rachel Selk at Twenty Fifth Hour. I've always been a bit scatterbrained, which makes for good conversation at times but doesn't do much for finding things that you left behind a couple of years ago and want to get back to. Deb commented on how much I've changed since she first met me. It used to be that my room was a total mess, with paper and junk and clothes scattered all over the place and boxes upon boxes of stuff in various bits of disarray. Now days it seems as though my work space is a lot calmer, there's really nothing to speak of on the floor, the piles of paper have been turned into folders and filed away. It's quite a change really. We'll see how long it lasts. [two weeks later] OK, I've backslid a bit. There is a big pile of paper on the desk, but honestly it wouldn't take a lot of time to sort through it. At least the paper piles are still not on the floor. Time management =============== These are notes to myself on how to work better and get more done that's important. After several months of procrastination and half-starts, an issue of Vacuum is again on the A-list of things to do. Be organized and manage your time effectively. Know the day before what your goals are for the next day. Identify the tasks that are the most important and do those first. Don't get distracted by the unimportant stuff that would be nice to do, good to do, not at least until you've tackled the most important bits first. Don't be distracted by e-mail. (How can you say that, you're sending this by e-mail, it's going to be a distraction? It's OK to delete this message if you don't have the time for it, there will be more.) I'm starting to believe that deliberately going off-line, pulling the plug, is the best way to avoid the constant temptation of checking what's coming in new in the inbox this micro-second. Get started on important projects well in advance of their due dates, and complete them in plenty of time for revisions, corrections, and changes. Do not rely on last minute efforts to get things done. Be positive and simple and direct in your writing. Do not complain or whine. When you get distracted, as you eventually will be, be distracted with a purpose. If you are scatterbrained at times by nature take glory in it and make the odd connections that no one else will. No one else thinks the way you do and no one else has your unique combinations of skills and experiences. Speak up. Ask good questions of the right people and don't let their first reaction be your only answer. By speaking out you establish a presence and people learn who you are. There are many more people that can be reached by a single e-mail message than can be reached in person. It's going to be hard work, but make a point every few months of writing something that will be eventually seen in print. (Some miscellaneous additional stuff that was in the paper version deleted.) This sounds good at least. We'll see how long the urge to be in control of things lasts. I also very much enjoy the random walk to the next interesting thing approach to being productive and useful, and it's hard to know what way is better in the long run. It depends on how well you can identify the "most important" tasks and how much you end up chasing after things that are neat but ultimately useless. The useless stuff can be useful if you accumulate enough of it! Books corner ============ The coolest bookstore to browse in in Ann Arbor is _Afterwords_, which sells discounted, remaindered, and otherwise affordable and sometimes offbeat books. Since everything is half off or so it's way tempting to wander in and buy more than twice as much as you would have otherwise bought in a normal bookstore. Afterwords is downtown on Main St., across the street from where Main St. News used to be. The haul from my last visit included "The Annotated Charlotte's Web", a very careful reading of E. B. White's classic book with references to the several manuscript editions. I saw it piled up and needed to get a copy (to go with my "Annotated Alice" and "Annotated Hunting of the Snark"). Postcards ========= Also at Afterwords at various times is books of postcards and note cards. These are cheerful, colorful, and somehow so much more satisfying to send than e-mail. At the very least you can address and write a card when you're stuck on the tarmac waiting for an airplane to take off (one recent 2-hr experience) and pass the time away usefully instead of reading in-flight magazines. I've been sending a steady stream (as best I can) of cards and letters to my dear friend who's ill, and after talking to her on the phone the other day - she sounds great, all things considered - I'm really glad I've been able to do so. Nothing like something small to hopefully make a difference, and it's the least I can do to help thank the people who've been good to me when I've been sick. And be honest - would you rather get 100 e-mails a day, or 100 postcards? thanks Ed Edward Vielmetti / emv@umich.edu / evielmet@cisco.com Vacuum: http://vacuum.mi.org Home office: +1 734 332 7868 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ GET $10 OFF ANY ORDER @ healthshop.com! No min. purchase req. Save on vitamins & supplements. Use coupon code: EGROUPS99 at checkout. http://clickhere.egroups.com/click/463 eGroups.com home: http://www.egroups.com/group/vacuum http://www.egroups.com - Simplifying group communications