Sunday, December 19, 2004
THE MASTERLIST
MASTERY + DISCIPLINE = FLOW
The MasterList is a tactical tool that provides focus and creates an organizational matrix for action, aka GTD.
As such it requires a limited discipline.
Once you understand a handful of basics, you achieve great flow in getting things done. The discipline is no more difficult than sitting still to meditate, proper swing dynamics for hitting a pitch, sifting the wheat from the chaff rather than just jumbling it all up in the same barrel. True flow in any endeavor requires mastery and discipline. There are no magic lamps when it comes to mastering the 1000 universes of who you are.
On the other hand, there is nothing else like The MasterList in terms of dynamics or results in taking on those universes one focused moment at a time, while holding everything else at bay and in control.
MASTERY + DISCIPLINE = FLOW
The MasterList is a tactical tool that provides focus and creates an organizational matrix for action, aka GTD.
As such it requires a limited discipline.
Once you understand a handful of basics, you achieve great flow in getting things done. The discipline is no more difficult than sitting still to meditate, proper swing dynamics for hitting a pitch, sifting the wheat from the chaff rather than just jumbling it all up in the same barrel. True flow in any endeavor requires mastery and discipline. There are no magic lamps when it comes to mastering the 1000 universes of who you are.
On the other hand, there is nothing else like The MasterList in terms of dynamics or results in taking on those universes one focused moment at a time, while holding everything else at bay and in control.
Friday, December 17, 2004
4 TIPS FOR BEST USAGE OF THE MASTERLIST (TML)
1. Any time you are working on anything, open or
create a related TML project.
2. As you work within the context of a TML project screen, start collecting notes, ideas, links; link in related email folders, document folders, etc; and build up a knowledge-object matrix, around the nucleus of the project.
3. Any time you get any to-do idea whatsoever, hit the yellow + sign in the project and put a future date to it, if not now.
4. Run the My Day Report as your TML regulator. It displays about 20 line items to a screen. If you ever have more than that, pare it down by "blasting" items to the future. If necessary use color prioritization to help you make snap prioritization decisions as you re-visit line entries you have continually pushed ahead and can't seem to get to.
One of the beauties of TML is that what you can't or shouldn't get to, doesn't get done. What you can or should get to, stays
front and center on The My Day report - so that you can see it, decide on it, and do it, without peripheral distractions. Think samurai focus. If you have read Miyamoto Musashi's Book of 5 Rings or seen the final duel seen in Toshiro Mifune's Duel at Ganryu Island, you know what I am talking about.
The MasterList is a tactical tool for focus. It allows you to penetrate any field of personal or professional action like a samurai sword through butter. It gives you multi-directional personal omniscience when you need it, and closes out anything but the moment when you need that.
It's just not fair that you can't do it all. But, it's right. So, why not have a tool that recognizes this reality and works with the grain of it, rather than against it.
The only tool that does this is The MasterList.
1. Any time you are working on anything, open or
create a related TML project.
2. As you work within the context of a TML project screen, start collecting notes, ideas, links; link in related email folders, document folders, etc; and build up a knowledge-object matrix, around the nucleus of the project.
3. Any time you get any to-do idea whatsoever, hit the yellow + sign in the project and put a future date to it, if not now.
4. Run the My Day Report as your TML regulator. It displays about 20 line items to a screen. If you ever have more than that, pare it down by "blasting" items to the future. If necessary use color prioritization to help you make snap prioritization decisions as you re-visit line entries you have continually pushed ahead and can't seem to get to.
One of the beauties of TML is that what you can't or shouldn't get to, doesn't get done. What you can or should get to, stays
front and center on The My Day report - so that you can see it, decide on it, and do it, without peripheral distractions. Think samurai focus. If you have read Miyamoto Musashi's Book of 5 Rings or seen the final duel seen in Toshiro Mifune's Duel at Ganryu Island, you know what I am talking about.
The MasterList is a tactical tool for focus. It allows you to penetrate any field of personal or professional action like a samurai sword through butter. It gives you multi-directional personal omniscience when you need it, and closes out anything but the moment when you need that.
It's just not fair that you can't do it all. But, it's right. So, why not have a tool that recognizes this reality and works with the grain of it, rather than against it.
The only tool that does this is The MasterList.
Sunday, December 12, 2004
THE SECRET LIES IN CENTERING, YOU KNOW
Who is at the center of all you do? You, of course. And when you survey all your responsibilities and obligations, whether mental, listed, or piled-up on desks and counters, isn't it like a thousand strands of light reaching into 1000 little worlds.
Think of one obligation you have today. Can you see yourself there? What do you need to do to get ready? When do you need to make a move to do it or go there. Who will you be with? What are you required to bring to it. That's a little world you will be in separate from all your other little worlds.
When we were younger, we were told to enjoy the ambience of these little worlds, like those 2 guys in Paris with their IBM ThinkPads, smoking cigarettes and drinking espressos with the tourists and like nouveau French existentialists. Too bad. IBM has sold its PC franchise to Lenovo and the Chinese. 2 more existentialists out of a job.
Wouldn't it be nice to enjoy the ambience of every moment, every event, every action, just like those 2 IBM guys at the cafe in Paris. Hey. That's not only an existential ideal. It's a religious and philosophical ideal that transcends all cultures. Think Zen. Or, think upper class privilege. However, you think of it, it's an ideal.
OK. Here's what I'd like to see on the screen of the laptop of the suave IBM guy in Paris. The MasterList Under Categories Job Search, he might have a project Lenovo. Links to Lenovo web site. Email folder dedicated to Lenovo contacts. Word docs with acting resume tailored to Lenovo. Email folder to acting coach for tips on Lenovo audition. To-do list for all envisioned Lenovo tasks. If you're an out of work IBM ThinkPad spokesperson looking for a job with Lenovo, or anyone, you should be using The MasterList.
Because you can immediately switch to another project and check it out.
Because everything you already know about any single project is centralized at a single screen.
Let's start with the Main Screen. List of Categories. List of Projects. Keyword search to find projects you can't remember the name of. My Day report to cut across all projects whether 48 or 1000, to see what's happening today. And, in the true spirit of Zen-Existentialist reductionism, minimalism, cool control, utilize precise, easy tools to pare that list down to what's simple and practical in no time whatsoever, without lifting a finger except perhaps request another espresso from the waiter.
Having spent the time necessary to take 2 sips of espresso, to reduce your 1000 worlds to maybe 10 you plan to enter today. Like the concert pianist rolling up his sleeves, you can now bend forward over your soon-to-be Lenovo ThinkPad and dig in. Strike one of the 10 to-dos still left on your My Day List and go into "the world" of that project, MasterList-style.
Imagine a project as a daisy, with yourself sitting centered in the middle. All aspects of the project including everything you know, need to know, and have listed to-do, which is accessible in your computer environment as petals surrounding you, one for each aspect of just that single project. You are centered in the universe of a project at a single screen re: that project. Daisy Petal: scrap data. Daisy Petal: Keyword List for search at Main Menu. Daisy Petal: Linking grids for linking to any URL, Doc Folder, Email Folder, doc, file, spreadsheet, app, URL, contact cards whatever related to this and only this little universe. Daisy Petal: "logs" which are free spaces for topical notepads, topical link storage, topical scrap data storage. Daisy Petal: this, that, and the other to-do, event, target date in-line, petal after petal, unfolding in logical sequences created ad hoc by you, to tell you where you are going.
That's just one project.
In the center, sits you, knowing.
With The MasterList, you have the power to center yourself in a thousand projects and never miss a beat. Flitting from project to project like a butterfly dancing across lily pads. Sorry, espresso drinking existentialists. The kind of control The MasterList gives you is really cool!
The MasterList is all about organizing what you already know, planning to find out what you don't know yet, and laying out what it takes to make it happen.
Does anybody except a made-for-TV espresso guzzling existentialist really think that "just being connected" to the vast infinite unknown through "Googling" is good enough? That Desktop Search can replace focus, planning, organization, and execution?
OK. If you know where you want to go, you have to start with what you already have and know. That's your intellectual capital for going forward. Pulling that together, and centering you, is the essence of The MasterList now.
The next step, with our proposed VIDA,is taking the database to a web-server that provides ubiquity, allows you and me to share little universes in each other's MasterList databases, and includes Desktop Search as a layered-in tool to refine focus and perspective at the project level.
Who is at the center of all you do? You, of course. And when you survey all your responsibilities and obligations, whether mental, listed, or piled-up on desks and counters, isn't it like a thousand strands of light reaching into 1000 little worlds.
Think of one obligation you have today. Can you see yourself there? What do you need to do to get ready? When do you need to make a move to do it or go there. Who will you be with? What are you required to bring to it. That's a little world you will be in separate from all your other little worlds.
When we were younger, we were told to enjoy the ambience of these little worlds, like those 2 guys in Paris with their IBM ThinkPads, smoking cigarettes and drinking espressos with the tourists and like nouveau French existentialists. Too bad. IBM has sold its PC franchise to Lenovo and the Chinese. 2 more existentialists out of a job.
Wouldn't it be nice to enjoy the ambience of every moment, every event, every action, just like those 2 IBM guys at the cafe in Paris. Hey. That's not only an existential ideal. It's a religious and philosophical ideal that transcends all cultures. Think Zen. Or, think upper class privilege. However, you think of it, it's an ideal.
OK. Here's what I'd like to see on the screen of the laptop of the suave IBM guy in Paris. The MasterList Under Categories Job Search, he might have a project Lenovo. Links to Lenovo web site. Email folder dedicated to Lenovo contacts. Word docs with acting resume tailored to Lenovo. Email folder to acting coach for tips on Lenovo audition. To-do list for all envisioned Lenovo tasks. If you're an out of work IBM ThinkPad spokesperson looking for a job with Lenovo, or anyone, you should be using The MasterList.
Because you can immediately switch to another project and check it out.
Because everything you already know about any single project is centralized at a single screen.
Let's start with the Main Screen. List of Categories. List of Projects. Keyword search to find projects you can't remember the name of. My Day report to cut across all projects whether 48 or 1000, to see what's happening today. And, in the true spirit of Zen-Existentialist reductionism, minimalism, cool control, utilize precise, easy tools to pare that list down to what's simple and practical in no time whatsoever, without lifting a finger except perhaps request another espresso from the waiter.
Having spent the time necessary to take 2 sips of espresso, to reduce your 1000 worlds to maybe 10 you plan to enter today. Like the concert pianist rolling up his sleeves, you can now bend forward over your soon-to-be Lenovo ThinkPad and dig in. Strike one of the 10 to-dos still left on your My Day List and go into "the world" of that project, MasterList-style.
Imagine a project as a daisy, with yourself sitting centered in the middle. All aspects of the project including everything you know, need to know, and have listed to-do, which is accessible in your computer environment as petals surrounding you, one for each aspect of just that single project. You are centered in the universe of a project at a single screen re: that project. Daisy Petal: scrap data. Daisy Petal: Keyword List for search at Main Menu. Daisy Petal: Linking grids for linking to any URL, Doc Folder, Email Folder, doc, file, spreadsheet, app, URL, contact cards whatever related to this and only this little universe. Daisy Petal: "logs" which are free spaces for topical notepads, topical link storage, topical scrap data storage. Daisy Petal: this, that, and the other to-do, event, target date in-line, petal after petal, unfolding in logical sequences created ad hoc by you, to tell you where you are going.
That's just one project.
In the center, sits you, knowing.
With The MasterList, you have the power to center yourself in a thousand projects and never miss a beat. Flitting from project to project like a butterfly dancing across lily pads. Sorry, espresso drinking existentialists. The kind of control The MasterList gives you is really cool!
The MasterList is all about organizing what you already know, planning to find out what you don't know yet, and laying out what it takes to make it happen.
Does anybody except a made-for-TV espresso guzzling existentialist really think that "just being connected" to the vast infinite unknown through "Googling" is good enough? That Desktop Search can replace focus, planning, organization, and execution?
OK. If you know where you want to go, you have to start with what you already have and know. That's your intellectual capital for going forward. Pulling that together, and centering you, is the essence of The MasterList now.
The next step, with our proposed VIDA,is taking the database to a web-server that provides ubiquity, allows you and me to share little universes in each other's MasterList databases, and includes Desktop Search as a layered-in tool to refine focus and perspective at the project level.
