papershine

A recent question on LinkedIn asked about how people deal with to do lists and keeping things organized. I responded with a link to my galaxy. Mark Bradford of Our Web Department was inspired enough by my reply to make his own and kind enough to share it with me. And as Mark pointed out, it’s a solar system, not a galaxy.
I like Mark’s version and some of the fun things he did to make it his own. Hard to discern in this low res capture, the green planet to the top is the Tax Planet and features a huge dollar sign on its surface. There’s a comet at the bottom that represents the fun projects he has going on as well. He reported it took about five minutes and was fun to do. The next question- in a couple of weeks- will be, did it help organize things and get stuff done?
Mark, thanks for sharing.

I taped a penny onto my wall to show just how tiny this proposed layout of a book is. I was at the library when I stumbled on this idea for organizing my book on facilitation graphics in this way. I had limited paper, but apparently I did have scissors. The book itself will be a more regular size.

In the latest issue of Fast Company, the Heath brothers of Made to Stick fame discuss whisker goals, a good way to make changes in your world, particularly in crisis times. In the current economic climate, people are not making radical professional or personal changes- at least not by choice. But holding still is even more dangerous; incremental movement is still movement.

I am a sucker for crossing stuff of lists, which is harder to do when working in increments. I recently reorganized my action plan/to-do list into a galaxy poster. I wanted to try a new representation and it was fun to draw. At the same time I came up with a new tracking system, one that measures increments in a positive, encouraging way. At the end of every day I go to the poster and put orange dots next to things I worked on in some way, shape or form. If I made progress I earned a dot. In one corner of my galaxy I write the date and then put down the number of dots I got that day. I aim for four dots a day but have topped out at eight a couple of times. This doesn’t accurately measure if I worked like heck on one thing all day, but I’m trying to keep myself rolling, not create data metrics. It’s been a successful system for me. I look forward to getting out the marker and I can track where I’m making good progress and what things are being neglected. And since it’s on a big poster on my wall, the information (and motivation) is never far away.