Node Glue

So apparently, I need to torch my hot dashboard.

In response to my post yesterday about my hot dashboard, Nick Duffill addressed the GTD_Mindmanager yahoo group summarizing some very helpful diagnostic points about dashboards, apparently some of the content of the Gyronix Gold Module for reviewing. I thought the guidelines were so helpful, I’ve got to log them somewhere to refer back to. So here they are for myself and the rest of us! Take it away, Nick!

This approach comes from our Gold Module on reviewing. We classify dashboards as:

• Hot (where you’re afraid to look at it)
• Cold (where it doesn’t inspire you to action because it is missing things that you know are important), and
• About right (where it contains just enough actions for the next 1-2 days at most).

How many “next actions” is right for a daily actions dashboard is obviously dependent on individuals.

• Less than 4-5 probably means you might not be breaking things down far enough, ie. they might not be real next actions.
• More than 20-25 might mean that you are over-planning and capturing actions that don’t benefit from being in thesystem, such as something very quick and small.

The overall goal of the Actions dashboard (and ResultsManager in general) is to help you stay focused on bigger priorities.The process for getting a review back on track is roughly:

1. make sure you are scanning all the maps you need to.
2. make sure these maps are up to date.
3. Set to someday-maybe anything that has been in your maps for more than a couple of months, or take a different decision than the one you have been taking every day for the last couple of months. It hurts to do this.
4. Defer the start date on anything that will not kill you if it is not done this week.

If you are a fan of pain and humiliation, a great way to force a review is to share your actions dashboard with a colleague and defend your decisions out loud. I’m not about to volunteer for that myself

Finally, I’d just like to say that, as you can see here, these guys at Gyronix know what they’re talking about.

The beauty of this company is that they aren’t just a software company building productivity tools–though they make great tools. They are deeply into the philosophy of productivity themselves. They “get it”. They know how to help people use their tools for real life. Nick surprises me with how responsive and interactive he is on the GTD_Mindmanager yahoo group and on the support forums on gyronix.com.

So there’s a lot of helpful material for free. On top of that, Gyronix offers training modules for a fee.

I’ve done the Bronze Module, which is a good starter. And even though I’d already been using ResultsManager for a while when I took the Bronze, I found it helpful and learned some new tricks. After realizing how messy my life is for lack of good Review habits, I’m seriously considering buying that Gold Module that Nick refers to above!

I wholeheartedly recommend Gyronix. Not just for the tools, but also for the therapy

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 28th, 2006 at 7:49 am and is filed under GTD, productivity, ResultsManager. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.