There are lots of programs on the web. In fact, you can waste a lot of time looking through all the different sites and programs. But this one beats them all hands down:

Remember the Milk

If you follow David Allen’s Getting Things Done system, you’ll find it easy to impliment. How about the covey system? You can implement that one too. But the best part is–it’s free. If you have an iPhone, you pay a minimal fee and it’ll sync right up. It works like a charm on my phone.

Have a look, play around with it…or at least put it on your to-do list.

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Did the diet work?

Well…it’s been a while since I’ve posted to the blog. What happened?

Did I go crazy from the lack of msnbc.com? Think maybe I couldn’t cope without knowing what was going on in the world? Wait! Presidential election? You mean there was an election? I finally checked out msnbc.com today and that guy looks nothing like Bush!

Just kidding. It seems that I was so productive at work that I was sent into a spiral of work that nearly led me to complete burnout. I am not kidding at all. The big downside of being productive is you might be expected to kick it up a notch. And like some people, it took me a while to get skillful in understanding my limitations and the need to pace oneself.

The great thing is I am still alive. I’ve learned a ton of life lessons all along the way, and I regret not sharing them with my readers.

But all that is about to change. As you can see, I have revamped the blog and I will be making more exciting changes along the way.

With renewed vigor I bring back Possess Less Exist More to help others find fulfillment in life from within instead of from without.

Special thanks to all my friends who stuck with me through my difficult times (you know who you are).

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To paraphrase Al Pacino, “The more I try to get productive, the more they try to suck me back in to un-productivity.”

Since I was getting my work done so quickly, people in my office started asking me if I could “help” them (do their work for them) or “discuss a few things” (talk about nothing).

These time vampires (to borrow a term from Dan Kennedy) literally sucked all my productive time away.

Well, today I will employ a tactic my 4-year-old uses—the NO tactic.

I have written about it before, and have used it to great success. But it seems that when you start getting more productive, the time vampires smell blood. They figure that since you’re not “busy” you have time for them.

So, I will be cultivating my “busy” image even more. And when people ask me for help, I will use some phrases like:

“I’d love to, but I really have to take care of something right now.”

“I only have a minute because I’m on my way to X. Let me see what I can do now.” –Only at the end of yesterday did I employ this tactic (because it was true). But by forcing people to deal with me right then and there and putting a short time limit on it, those “emergencies” completely disappeared.

Do not and I repeat DO NOT let them say they can talk to you about it later. With the time vampires, if you leave the door open for them to “ask you later” then by gosh they sure will come by and ask you something later.

We’ll see how combining NO tactics with my media fast improves my productivity.

On the LeBron Front

It’s amazing what you can learn from headline news! I heard briefly that there was some trade to help out LeBron.

Now, I wasn’t able to read commentary telling me what to think about this trade. And I don’t even know the details. So, I can’t be so sure if this qualifies as giving LeBron respect.

I mean the media could spin the trade in so many ways so as to show utmost disrespect to LeBron. I’m sure they can. But since I’m not reading it, I don’t know.

I just have to deal with the raw facts of the matter and make up my own mind about what it means. Here goes that critical thinking again.

But with all the stories about the trade I’m sure some joker of a sportscaster will talk about how LeBron has “no more excuses” or use some other term that shows disrespect to LeBron. So, I’ll hedge my best and say they are still disrespecting him.

The protest continues…

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The results so far?

Here are a few things I’ve started to notice from my media fast:

#1 Productivity has nearly doubled, but I have a lot of work

I roughly doubled my productivity. I’ll give myself a few more days to see if this wasn’t just a fluke. But what used to take me all morning and half and half an afternoon now took me only 3 hours.

I’d say that’s pretty good. Was I mindlessly surfing that much?

But this sudden jump in productivity made me realize I do have a lot of work. I’ll need to address that issue pronto!

#2 Is my critical thinking kicking it up a notch?

I do love politics and political news. As one my regular commentators to this blog Corinne Edwards said she couldn’t live without MSNBC, I was starting to feel the same way.

You see, I like election coverage. From headline news I know who’s winning the primaries. But without reading all the commentary, it feels like I don’t have anyone to tell me what to think anymore.

I may have to start thinking for myself. Perish the thought.

Seriously though. I get this same feeling I used to get in college. I used to read primary sources so I could come up with my own conclusions before reading others’. But with news, I find myself looking to see what others say before I make up my mind.

Media fast day #1 is showing me that I can come up with my own opinion about Barack Obama’s victory sans three columnists telling me what I should think about it and all the major implications thereof.

#3 Playing toy animals with a 4-year-old is quite fun

Cutting out some TV, I instead played animals with my daughter. I mean WOW! That kid does a spot on imitation of me and her teachers at school. She thinks I’m a zebra.

I thought I should be the lion, but nope…zebra.. There you have it. In the animal kingdom, I’m a zebra. Her teacher, however, got to be a tiger. My daughter was a small tiger.

I think I preferred it when my daughter was on a Star Wars kick and I got to be the Emperor.

#4 Lost is a cool show

I picked up the first season of Lost on DVD. I took in 45 minutes of TV this evening and watched an episode. Cool show.

I’ll tell you though. It pained me to listen to Daniel Dae Kim’s Korean. I’m sure most Americans don’t know, but I certainly hear the difference in his Korean and Kim Yunjin’s. No matter though. I liked Daniel Dae Kim in Crusade, so I won’t hold his Korean ability against him too much.

#5 Somewhere out there is LeBron James still getting disrespected?

Of course, my protest continues! Because I am not reading any sports pages, I have no idea whether or not LeBron is getting any respect. I assume he is not.  But this media fast continues until LeBron James is shown some respect.

Those are my thoughts for today. I’ll keep you posted on this media fast and you can read more on how it is affecting my work and my life.

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I’m about to tell you something that I am not proud of. Are you sitting down? Here goes:

I am a junkie.

An information junkie. Troubled by a lack of production recently, I decided to track my internet usage. And lo and behold (though don’t tell this to my current employer) I spend WAY too much time looking at news sites. I then go crawling through to other sites and next thing you know, I’ve been reading news sites for over an hour.

And what was the result? I simply read six different people’s opinions about whether Roger Clemens was telling the truth about steroids—nary a one of them defending ol’ Roger.

So, what can I do about it?

Well, I’ve decided to take the advice of one Tim Ferriss, writer of the Four Hour Workweek. Tim spoke at South by Southwest last year at the same time I did. And let me say, this is one of my favorite books of non-fiction. I’ve been re-reading it recently, and he has an entire chapter on a low-information diet.

Tim recommends cultivating “selective ignorance.” This means acquiring information that is “actionable” and being ignorant of the rest (or simply ask knowledgeable people on a subject).

Like me, Tim really doesn’t buy into the whole time management concept, as much as he says that “time management” is a process of eliminating wasteful activities. I quite agree.

So, I have decided to battle my own demons here. In the past, I turned off my internet connection when I worked. This is a great method. But it’s time I battle this head-on.

To that end, I am going on a one-week media fast. According to Tim Ferriss, a media fast means:

1. No news web sites (so long WSJ, MSNBC, Slate, please not Fark.com too)

2. No newspapers, magazines, audio books, or talk radio.

3. No television, except one hour of pleasure viewing each night.

4. No reading except for Tim’s book and one hour of fiction.

5. No web surfing unless it’s necessary to complete a task for that day.

I shutter just thinking of these. How will I find out about the Hillary-Obama showdown? How will I know about what happened to Roger Clemens? In Ferriss’ book, he recommends taking 5 minutes to read some headlines and asking people what’s going on. As for me, part of my job is writing an educational program based on the news, hence I tend to go to sites in order to confirm some information only to find myself NEVER getting off.

So, I will limit my news intake to only that which my job requires: listening to a 4-minute headline news broadcast and reading tow Korea-related news articles. And that’ll be that.

But some will be easy. I don’t really watch TV unless you count the half-hour of Power Rangers I should endure in the evenings with my daughter. There’s nothing I love more than watching the Japanese version of Power Rangers with Korean dubbing over the top!

But I do read a lot of fiction. Tim and I will agree to disagree on the role of fiction. He finds it’s good to put you to sleep, but I find fiction triggers the creative process.

I will document how my media fast is going. And you will see if it boosts my productivity any more than it is now.

Shouldn’t I be fasting in protest of something?

As I am about to end this post, it occurs to me that shouldn’t I be fasting in protest of something? I think personal development is great cause in and of itself. And going on a media fast to increase productivity is great.

But I mean, think about it. All the other great fasters fasted for a great cause. Every time I read in the news about someone fasting, it is in protest of something. So, I think I’ll come up with a noble cause to go along with my media fast.

I guess I could say this is about protesting the media. But I kind of like the media. Why don’t I use my last few minutes before fasting to get on a news site and find a cause worthy of my media fast.

Let’s see…world news…Darfur, war, poverty…too heavy for this kind of fast…US News…Obama..Hillary. McCain..nah, politics is not my thing..I’ve got it. Sports! Frivolous enough, yet taken seriously. Let’s see…videotape scandal…steroids…hold the phone…here we are…LeBron James is quoted as saying his team doesn’t get any respect.

I’m a basketball fan, so there it is folks. From today, I am going on a one-week media fast to protest the media’s lack of respect for LeBron James and his team. Since the media has upset LeBron James, I too am upset.

(cue the rage) How dare the media criticize LeBron’s team! They made it all the way to the finals last year for Pete’s sake (only to get beaten by my beloved San Antonio Spurs).

But you wouldn’t know that by the way the media totally disrespects LeBron James. I’ve had enough!

I will continue this fast until the media starts showing LeBron the respect he deserves. And I am sure after my one-week fast I can google up a puff piece on LeBron, but until I do so–I am fasting.

Wish me luck.

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My desktop reflects this tendency. Many times I’ve looked at this giant mass of programs running as I creatively think of ways to shut them down. Or how many times have I been doing something (like writing this blog post), glanced at my open internet browser and just started surfing…uh, I mean, researching?

It happens to a lot of us. But with desktops getting more “gadgetized” I have found some free tools that help you to “devolve” your computer.

I call them computer Zen. I’ve heard the term Zenware. And that’s exactly what these programs do. They seek to save us from ourselves. They seek to aid the ADHD user that dwells within us. And help they do.

There are a lot of programs out there nowadays that help you to stay focused on what you’re doing. And I wanted to share with you some of the tools I used to help me stay focused on my work.

1. Swept Away

Cool program that hides programs that are on your desktop that you are not using. The only drawback is if you do get distracted and start surfing internet sites, Swept Away will “sweep away” the work you are supposed to be doing so you can focus better on being distracted.

All in all though, it works well.

2. Dropcloth

Cool little app that overlays a solid window over your desktop. Out of sight out of mind. This app covers that cluttered desktop. Use it in conjunction with Swept Away, like I do, and watch your focus go WAY up.

3. Dark Room

MS Word. Love it, but man it distracts the you-know-what out of me. I fiddle with margins and formatting like you wouldn’t believe. Enter Darkroom. With its retro green monochrome with the flickering cursor, it keeps me focused on one thing and one thing only—writing. Guess what I’m writing this post on right now?

Those are a few tools, and I know there are more out there. If you know of any, please comment and let my readers know.

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A book fell on my hand! It literally came crashing down smacking my right hand and sending my co-workers rushing to my rescue. To gain maximum sympathy, I acted as if my hand was broken and would have to go to the hospital at any moment.

After a couple of minutes of method acting, and my co-workers leaving me to my misery, I wanted to discover how it was that a book (a thick usage dictionary) came to land on my hand.

Well, it was little crazy actually…

…because the book was on top of a large stack of papers, which in turn was on top of a large stack of folders. And when the wind was blowing through the office, I guess I put the dictionary on top of it, to stop all those papers from flying all over the place.

This got me thinking. As I looked at my desk, I saw it was full of books, papers, post-it notes, pens, and all sorts of other “stuff.” I thought it made me look busy. The only problem is that I couldn’t find anything. And despite my efforts, the stacks of papers never seemed to disappear. In fact, the stack only got bigger.

So, I said “this is it.”

With the exception of some immediate work, I threw away all the papers. I put the books on the bookshelf and was left with a perfectly cleared off desk. The only thin on it was my computer, a red pen, and 6 pages I needed to edit right away.

The then the most amazing thing happened. I edited the pages. Done. Finished. That was my big job for the day! So, I went onto tomorrow’s task on the computer. One hour later. Done finished.

Before it would have taken me a day to do it. What was the difference?

Lack of clutter on my desk. Seeing my productivity go up leaves me with only one conclusion:

A cluttered desk is a cluttered mind.

Once I removed the clutter from my desk, I got a new sense of purpose. The clutter on my desk was not aiding my work ability; it was distracting me. And having a bunch of things on my desk did not make me look busy; it made me look unorganized (which I was).

So, now, I keep a clear desk. At the end of every day, I clear off my desk completely and come to work the next day with a clutter-free mind.

And today I recommend this to you. If you want to get more work done with a clearer mind, take all the garbage off your desk. Try working in a clutter-free environment and see just how your mind reacts to it.

I think you’ll see, just like I did, that your production will increase dramatically and more importantly you can take the pressure off yourself. The stress of having all that clutter around you adds a lot of pressure to finish it all. And you also can feel like you aren’t getting anything done.

By removing the clutter from your desk, the pressure and stress it produces in your mind will be removed as well.

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You see, when I was running my own business I worked some wacky hours. I did a lot of work for companies overseas, and so sometimes I wouldn’t start working till 6:00 PM.

So, when was I supposed to shop, go to the bank, etc.? Well, one day I started grocery shopping at about 10:00 AM. And that’s when I started noticing something was amiss.

I noticed that hardly anyone was at the store. Whereas it used to take me at least an hour to get through the store, it now took me half an hour. Then I started running other errands at different times. Go to the bank at 2:00. Go out to eat at 11:00.

Heck, I was missing the lunch rush. Traffic was non-existent. It didn’t get any better.

Live Off-Peak

And that was the key right there. The key is to live your life off-peak. Do things at times other people aren’t doing things. Shopping and eating out are two things that can take up a lot of time. By doing those things off-peak you can save yourself A LOT of time.

“But I Have a Job. I have to do everything at a certain time”

Some people might be thinking this to themselves right now. And it is true. Having a job requires you to do things at certain times, like show up for work and leave at a certain time.

At the moment, I am working at a publishing company in South Korea. So, I understand this. However, I still live off-peak. How do I do it?

Here are a couple of ways you can shift your way of thnking (and that of your boss) to live more off-peak:

• Think in terms of hours worked, not a schedule

I work a set amount of hours. Why should it be 9-5? I go to the gym every day. Now, I could kill myself and fight with all the other people who go before work. But I go at 4:00 PM. NO ONE is there. My workout goes by quickly. I simply worked it out with my company that I take an hour break at 4:00 and I still work the same amount of hours. Just at different times.

This shift in thinking can also lead you to work some from home. I do that occasionally. And in that case no one can “count” your hours.

• Negotiate an off-peak schedule

Again, who said you have to work 9-5? How about 10-6? 11-7? You get my drift. Of course, the best option is to work remotely. But we all assume that we have to take the schedule we are given when the truth is many times the only thing a company cares about is that you get your work done.

These are a couple of things to think about. But if you want to increase your productivity and get your errands done in half the time, you should find more and more ways to live an off-peak lifestyle.

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That is good advice. But I have found that there is one thing that will kill your production. And it has nothing to do with modern technology. In fact, this was a problem since the dawn of mankind and doing nothing about it will stop your production dead in its tracks.

And that problem is…

…depression.

Now, I don’t mean depression with a capital D. This is not clinical depression. Such a disorder should be treated by a trained professional.

No, what I am talking about here are all those times we get into a funk. Get the blues. Whatever you want to call it. I can honestly tell you that when I get in one of those moods, I find it almost IMPOSSIBLE to work. But that’s not all. I can’t study. I can’t concentrate on much of anything.

And let me be upfront with all of you: I am one of the most happy-go-lucky, go-with-the-flow people you will ever meet. But I still get down sometimes. And when I do, I can go an entire day or more doing nothing.

Compared to that, e-mail distractions are nothing.

So, what do you do when you find yourself feeling depressed?

I can’t give you any “magic pill” that will satisfy everyone, but here are a few things I do to help me crawl out of those periods of depression that kill my productivity:

1. Use the “so what” method

Usually something gets you down, or maybe you feel down and have to justify it by thinking of something that makes you feel down. For example, thoughts like “where I am going to get the money to pay for X”, “what will happen if I don’t get that job,” etc. etc.

Worries like this need to be put under the “so what” test. Ask yourself honestly, so, what if I don’t have the money to pay for X. Will the world end? Half the time the consequences we imagine are much worse than the actual consequences. Reality is a good tonic when we start getting down.

2. Sing

This is my #1 method for getting myself out of the blues. I sing. Quite loudly. And I honestly don’t care if others don’t like it. It may be annoying to some, but I when I sing the stress just melts away.

In Korea, I can go to a “singing room” (private karaoke room) and sing for hours and hours if I want. This is good for me.

3. Laugh

Learn to laugh at the things around you. You can find humor in almost anything (even in dark things…hello…”dark humor”). Watch a funny movie. Read some jokes. Read some comics. Do whatever you can to produce laughter. I was feeling down the other day and watch a few video clips of Will Ferrell doing a George W. Bush imitation and I laughed so hard that the people around me were getting a bit upset.

But I simply replied, “put on your headphones cause I’ll be doing this for at least another half hour.” That took care of that.

These are my methods for getting myself out of a funk. And it’s important that you find your own ways. And most importantly you use them when you feel depression coming on. Don’t let it get so bad that your usual methods don’t work too well.

Depression kills production and dampens your spirits. Learn to recognize it and deal with it quickly.

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“You put everything off till the last minute.”

Of course, for years I’ve struggled with this problem. Everybody from parents, teachers, girlfriends, friends, spouse, and heck even my soon-to-be-4-year old tells me I wait too long to do things. In other words, I’m a procrastinator.

They’re mostly right. I tend to do everything at the last minute. When I was in collage. Study for a test? If I could ever be bothered to study, I did it last minute. Reports? The day before it was due. When I got a real job? The hour before it was due.

To hear everyone tell it, this must be a big problem.

To hear Wikipedia tell it (everything in Wikipedia just has to be accurate), this is either a symptom of my ADD or depression.

But there’s only one problem with the Wikipeida diagnosis.

I’m not particularly depressed. In fact, my easy-going, happy-go-lucky nature is annoying to many people, though in all fairness, admired by some. And I have been known to be able concentrate on things. So, in lieu of seeing a professional whose job it is to diagnose me with all sorts of problems, I am left with only one option…

Embracing my procrastination.

That’s right. I am embracing it. But there’s a reason for this.

I’ve always gotten things done. All those “time management” people tell me that I need to go through some elaborate rituals so I can do more work. But the thing is if I can get it done in an hour, why should I spend all stinkin’ day working on it?

Now, I’m not advocating waiting till the last minute and NOT getting it done. But the question here is: why is it necessarily bad to wait till the last minute to do something if you can get it done at the last minute? Most of us are told we have to do things well in advance. But I seriously question that wisdom.

And this brings me to the point of today’s blog post: Parkinson’s Law. Parkinson’s Law states that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” In other words, if you’re given 5 days to finish a project, it will take 5 days. If given 2 hours, it will take 2 hours.

I KNOW this is true. Once when I worked for a publishing company I was given 3 months to write an entire series of educational books—from conception to finished product. Well, let me be more specific, I was actually given short 72-hour deadlines to finish parts of the series. Did I finish it on time? You better believe I did. And did I work overtime to do it? You better believe I didn’t! I finished it EXACTLY when they needed it all within my shift.

And what was the result? Those books are now being used in over 250 schools in South Korea. Giving me short deadlines kicked my brain into high gear and produced some quality material that was both educational and entertaining.

One more example—this blog. Although I am a brilliant procrastinator, I write 5 days worth of material every Sunday and set it up in advance to go out each day. I give myself a set amount of time on Sunday to get it done. If I give myself 2 hours to do it, I can do it in 2 hours. If I give myself 10 hours, it will take 10 hours.

So, why not make Parkinson’s Law work for you instead of against you? Here are two ways I have found to do it:

#1 Give yourself a firm deadline.

This way I know when I have to do a project. Like this blog, I give myself a Sunday at 11:00 PM Seoul time to finish 5 blog posts/podcasts. And, yes, I do it at the last minute. But usually 2 hours takes care of it because I’ve had the ideas for the blog posts in my head for a week. But an added bonus to this is you can make any deadline you want. For this blog, my only boss is my readers who deserve their daily post. But rather than, giving myself daily deadlines (for which I have no time to do a post a day), I set my own deadline and stick to it. And speaking of time…

#2 Batch your work

I am usually busy with my personal pursuits to have to take time out every day to do routine tasks. So, typically, rather than spreading out daily tasks, I do them all at once. As I explained about this blog, I do 5 posts at a time. This way it gets done at once in a set block of time.

Mind you, this is NOT multi-tasking. This is setting aside time to do ONE thing.

Using these two methods has allowed me to embrace my procrastination and at the same time undermine any negative effects it might have on me. By setting firm deadlines and doing a set amount of work at once, I am more efficient.

So, people might still try to lecture me about procrastination. But the truth is I get things done. And if you too have a problem with procrastination, don’t pay hundreds or thousands of dollars (in money or in time) on courses on time management. Simply, give yourself firm deadlines and perform a single task in a given time.

This way you don’t have to try to re-invent yourself. You can make your tendency to procrastinate work for you instead of against you utilizing Parkinson’s Law.

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