/Culture/ Banish stress forever with lifehacking
30/11/2006 | Filed under Discover > Culture
Being in a job that grinds you down is bad enough. But if organising the constant stream of information means you’re drowning in data and seriously stressed at your desk, lifehacking can genuinely help. Gary Marshall examines the theories and explains what it’s all about.
Technology was supposed to save us, making our lives so much simpler that we’d barely work at all. So much for that idea: this morning we’ve already cast our bleary eyes over at least 468 new emails, 700-odd blog posts and a few dozen irrelevant Word documents. The diary’s a terrifying mess of multi-coloured scribbles, crossedout appointments and illegible notes, and our keyboards are already buried under post-it notes and phone message slips.
If that sounds familiar, you’ll be pleased to know that help is at hand. Give a warm welcome to lifehacking, which can tame your inbox, help you get a handle on even the most stressful situations and make you fitter, happier and more productive. All you need to do now is to take time out from hacking HTML and hack your own head.
An explanation
The term lifehacking was coined by Danny O’Brien (www.oblmovka.com), who used it to describe hacks, tips and tricks that increase productivity, help you become more organised and generally make life more pleasant. Lifehacking is based on similar principles to homeopathy: the same thing that’s causing your ills can also cure them. And lifehacking actually works.
The guru of lifehacking is David Allen (www.davidco.com), whose 2001 book, Getting Things Done, (known as GTD in the lifehacking community) is a must-read for anyone drowning in data. In his book Allen explains some extremely simple rules that can make a big difference to you, and he also shows you how to reorganise your working environment to boost productivity.
GTD’s most famous rule is the Two-Minute Rule. When a new task hits your inbox or lands on your desk you have three options: if it will take less than two minutes to complete then you should do it immediately, but if it will take you longer then you should either delegate it or defer it. However, if you defer it, you shouldn’t just decide to try and look at it later, you should break it down into achievable tasks, decide when you’re going to do them, and make sure that you deal with the tasks at the allotted time.
There’s much more to GTD than the two-minute rule, but that alone will give you an empty inbox, a clear desk and a quiet mind – provided, of course, that you stick to it. And that’s where technology can help. GTD is particularly well suited to computerbased jobs, and as a result it has become very popular online with sites such as Lifehacker (www.lifehacker.com) and 43 Folders (www.43folders.com, which, incidentally is named after a system described in GTD) acting as magnets for the lifehacking community.
The two sites take very different approaches, though. Where Merlin Mann’s, 43 Folders, is largely focused on GTD, Lifehacker (and similar sites such as lifehack.org) takes a wider view and covers anything that might make your life easier.
Take charge
Technology can help lifehackers in two key ways. You can use calendars, to-do lists and other timemanagement tools to keep on top of projects and appointments. And you can also use technology to process information for you. For example, you could spend a few minutes creating rules in your email program that automatically process, file and delete incoming messages, or you could use Google Alerts or your RSS reader’s smart feeds option to keep track of news that’s important to you.
Here’s the lifehackers’ approach to email: first, an anti-spam tool zaps the junk; then, automated rules sort the incoming messages into folders – work, personal, news alerts and so on. The lifehacker then goes through those folders, in order of priority, and applies the two-minute rule. This means messages that can be dealt with in less than two minutes are processed there and then. The remaining messages are either delegated, for example by forwarding them to the appropriate person, or deferred. However, rather than leave deferred messages in his or her inbox, the lifehacker files them and fl ags them for action. Inbox emptied, the lifehacker then looks at that day’s fl agged items and can happily get on with that day’s tasks.
The same principles apply to projects. Rather than put a vague project name in the diary such as ‘Redesign site’, the lifehacker breaks it down into chunks: plan page structure, define colour scheme, choose stock shots, tweak logo, create CSS, get Bert to write copy, and so on. Each of those project chunks can then be fl agged for action, for example, by putting them in a to-do list or calendar entry. If you use a web-based calendar system such as Google Calendar (calendar.google.com), 30 Boxes (30boxes.com) or a desktop application such as iCal or Outlook, you can then create an automated reminder so you don’t forget to do it. Such reminders are key. There’s no point filing things or fl agging them for action if all you’re going to do is ignore them.
You can also take a smarter approach to the sites you read. First of all, dump the browser and subscribe to sites’ RSS feeds. Then, use your RSS reading service or software to create a smart feed which only shows posts or articles that meet specific criteria. Doing that slashes the amount of headlines you need to read each day, and if something else attracts your attention then, once again, the two-minute rule applies – so you might click on the link to read the full story, file it in an interesting things folder, fl ag it for attention at a later date, or forward it to a colleague for action.
Getting (more) things done
Lifehacking isn’t just about your job, though – you can use it in your personal life too. For example, spending a bit of time tagging photos when you put them on Fl ickr can make specific pictures easier to find in future; using a desktop search application makes documents appear in a snap; using Google Mail rather than your ISP’s mail enables you to Google your entire email archive; tagging bookmarks and saving them to Delicious makes it easier to refer back to interesting things at a later date, and so on. However, many lifehackers will go even further. On Lifehacker.com you’ll find hacks covering relationships, fitness, healthy eating, digital photography, cooking, trip planning and, er, turning old bottle caps into magnets.
It’s debatable whether it vastly improves your life – such claims are usually the preserve of scary motivational speakers who charge an arm and a leg to state the obvious – but lifehacking is different. It’s not about mumbo-jumbo, visualising your perfect life or any of that nonsense; instead, it’s about making small but significant changes in order to abolish information overload, get more from your software and make monster projects more manageable. And it’s easy – if you save code snippets for re-use, get Thunderbird to filter incoming messages, keep a to-do list on your PC or just hang around blogs to pick up top tips from experts, you’re doing a little lifehacking already.
Comments
Rob Knowles / 10/12/2006 / 15:34
If I were you I wouldn't be publicising a company like Magnatag who appear to have blocked their site to US and Canada viewers only. What a petty small minded attitude - having to req
Jim / 18/05/2007 / 01:07 / http://your-free-xbox-360.blogspot.com/
Well, to me it sounds like a fancy term for being Organized. Then again I'm sure there is more to it than that. No doubt it will still be of use to people who need it and I'm sure there are tips for even the most organized person.
omoora / 30/03/2008 / 09:00
i think the 'ef it that'll do rule' is vital to me sometimes as i get rather obsessive around computers.
Patrick / 27/04/2008 / 13:10 / http://www.ebooksresearch.com/
I follow the concept of Prime Time. I isolate my-self for 4 hours in the morning from 8 am to 12:00 noon. No phone calls, no emails, no walk-ins allowed in my cabin at this time. I complete all my Priority 1 task during this 4 hour and do the routine work of emailing/calling in the next 4 hours. I manage to accomplish 150% every time with this technique.
