Personal Wiki as a Todo/Idea List

~ quadko ~ Leave a comment

I recently started using a private wiki as my todolist – this rocks!

Previously I’ve unsuccessfully tried things like carrying a notebook around, emailing myself, the various todo-list software options (home computer, phone or online), text files. Each has their strengths, but none got the job done after the novelty wore off in a week. I’ve heard a few people swear by products like Microsoft’s OneNote for this kind of thing. I can see how it would work but it proved too heavy to work for me.

The wiki is fantastic – easy to edit, available from everywhere, flexible enough to put structured data in (I live off bullet points several levels deep), tables, files, and images. All just works great. Long term notes, shopping lists, half-baked ideas, project and book and whatever concepts. It is flexible and doesn’t get in the way of capturing the thought.

I can certainly imagine improvements now I’m using it this way. That doesn’t really matter. This works for me, and that’s the most important thing a todo list needs to do.

My life as a autobio-wiki! Fantastic. Now I just need to remember to back it up…

Activity Solves all Problems

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“Activity solves all problems.”

I love this rule of thumb. To solve the problems we face, we must be actively working on their solution. Mix it with an idea like Jim Collins’ 20 Mile March – always be moving forward in good times and bad; a day doesn’t have to progress 100 miles, but don’t let a day go by accomplishing nothing – and you can intentionally set out to overcome the issues you face.

Like all rules of thumb, it is not the complete story. Truly, some predicted problems never reach you, some problems resolve themselves, and for a few problems perhaps lack of activity is the right solution. None of that matters. If you have a problem that needs solving, get active to solve it. Get moving, stop procrastinating, avoid analysis paralysis; the solution will consist of some sort of activity.

Also, this rule of thumb says nothing about helpful verses unhelpful activity. It is very possible to do the wrong thing or just be busy instead of solving a problem. That is the point! Try a different solution, get focused rather than busy, and keep being active on the problem. When the cost of doing a wrong thing is low, it is faster to experiment and collect new data to discover the correct solution than to keep analyzing existing incomplete data.

Go be active on your problems!

50 Classics book series by Tom Butler-Bowdon

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I read “50 Success Classics” by Tom Butler-Bowdon a few years ago, and loved it. Most valuable was the appendix summary of quotes and ideas, which I’ve kept re-reading through on kindle as part of my daily motivational readings.

He has several books in the series, all available on Amazon and likely elsewhere, and I’m working my way through a few more; very useful! I hope these will also be added to my continuous re-read list.

  • 50 Success Classics: Winning Wisdom for Work & Life
  • 50 Self-Help Classics: 50 Inspirational Books to Transform Your Life from Timeless Sages to Contemporary Gurus
  • 50 Psychology Classics: Who We Are, How We Think, What We Do
  • 50 Philosophy Classics: Thinking, Being, Acting, Seeing: Profound Insights and Powerful Thinking
  • 50 Spiritual Classics: Timeless Wisdom From 50 Great Books of Inner Discovery, Enlightenment and Purpose
  • 50 Politics Classics: Freedom Equality Power: Mind-Changing, World-Changing Ideas

He even has a (currently free) kindle summary book as a series overview:

  • Explore the Literature of Possibility

It’s a great way to get an overview of an area of thought, and the author collects different perspectives and voices to teach the conflicting schools of thought and idea in each topic. Whether the overview is enough or it is just providing orientation for deeper reading in an area, I am grateful to Tom Butler-Bowdon for doing this work and collecting these great resources. I highly recommend the series!

To succeed, begin. Then just keep going.

~ quadko ~ Leave a comment

“Code something, and get people to use it. Anything. Just keep shipping” – I lost the author

Stories of success so often are about starting; delivering; failing; adjusting; redelivering; failing differently; rinse/repeat ten or ten thousand times; adjust again; deliver; surprise success!

So the first step to success most of the time is failing publicly at something you can adjust. That’s painful! But it is a lot easier than having to succeed the first time. So many quotes are variants on this, to paraphrase: “failures are the stepping stones to success,” “you only truly fail if you give up,” “all problems are solved by action,” “just start,” “angry customers are your best source of learning,” and the ultra famous “Never give up. Never give up. Never give up.”

“To succeed, begin. Begin by failing. Begin by trying. Begin now. And just keep going.” Joel McIntyre @Quadko

Don’t waste them!

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“You can accomplish so much in ten minutes. Don’t waste them.” -Ingvar Kamprad (Ikea) paraphrased

We get busy and there seems to be too little time or energy. But so often we try to choose between doing big things or nothing. That’s a false choice. Squeeze ten minutes in here or there, even build a list of ten minute items to accomplish, and just check things off all the time.

“Time is wasted in little increments spent accomplishing nothing, not in hours and days. Stop it!” Joel McIntyre @Quadko

Small Programs

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Inside every large program, there is a small program trying to get out. –Tony Hoare aka “Hoare’s Law”

This is one of the most encouraging truths for entrepreneurs and happy hackers. Every successful program, from Microsoft Word to Calculator, Angry Birds to World of Warcraft, Facebook to FaceTime all are “large” successful programs that a small successful program could be derived from.

You don’t have to start with the big one – get the small one working. Soon. Now. Worst case you figure out how they do it. Best case your small program solves the needs of users cheaper and faster than the big program. Better best case your small program solves the essential problem better than the big program. That’s where Facebook and Google came from, after all!

“Inside every successful program is a small idea that you can win with!” – Joel McIntyre @Quadko

Velocity is Success

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“Build velocity through lots of successful mini projects.” -Nate Berkopec

Velocity, the ability to keep moving quickly through milestones, projects, and successes, is important to maintain headway toward ultimate goals and successes. Project and people management at its best is a way to keep velocity high while maintaining proper direction to success of the current hierarchy of goals. Another way to build and maintain velocity for yourself or your team is to successfully accomplish small things. Call it baby steps, call it mini projects, call it a todo list item – accomplish something, celebrate it briefly for a quick euphoric “pick me up” and quickly move to another small thing on the path to the big goal. Use that feeling of success to dive into the next, and the next, and the next, building velocity, and moving from success to success, from small success to big success, until this goal is done.

It’s a great feeling! And it can survive small non-successes between successes, or be used to recover from non-successes that derail previous velocity.

“Success breeds success, small quick successes breed large important successes” – Joel McIntyre @Quadko