Productivity Tools

[worshiptrench]

Hey, I am always looking to be more time efficient. Two life savers for us are
(1) The Getting Things Done system as untilized online at www.vitalist.com and (2) the dreaded but needed time audit (we threw up the templates here http://www.worshiptrench.com/?p=78)

Any other worship leaders have monday-friday type tools for effectiveness?

[fmckinnon]

Hey -
I just stated a new forum specifically for this over in Technologies, so I'm gonna move the thread there .. thanks for jumping in!

FM

[El Ben]

Jordan, I could kiss you in the mouth for your productivity timeline thingy. (Not really of course, but...oh well, you get the idea.) This is exactly what I've been needing to stay on task. As you guys may be able to tell from my post times, I'm very ADD'ish when it comes to my work day. I've got a to-do list that I run off of, and each time I finish a task, I habitually space out. It's not that I don't have a lot to do, I just cram everything I have to do into thirty minutes "oh my God, this is never going to happen" blocks, and when I finish, I crash.

Plus, this timeline can help me out with all those pesky "So what exactly does a youth pastor do every day?" kinds of questions.

I'm going to try this out of a week and see what happens. I'll let you know, okay?

[russhutto]

Could you nutshell the vitalist thing for me? I'd like to get a synopsis of what it's good for before I try it.

[worshiptrench]

It is a GTD system (getting things done) which is mind-dump (make sure you catch everything so nothing is rattling around in your brain whilst you work on other things) and also advocates working by contexts rather than priorities (sort of) you need to read the book...

This is an easy flowchart http://www.econsultant.com/book-reviews/getting-things-done-by-david-allen.html
but don't just look at it. I promise the book is worth the read.

I am extremely anal and organized so when Brent (ADD boy) told me about it, i thought, "Good for you, but I don't need it, i have a system." Boy, was I wrong...this thing is so efficient and vitalist makes it easy and free online as web 2.0. (by the way www.vitalist.com is NOT paying for the ad on our site, just for the record...we like it that much)

You can read the Getting THings Done book in a day (even an audio form for you reading challenged). TRY IT!

[worshiptrench]

vitalist just came out with a beta....smokin......totally

[fmckinnon]

Jordan -
I'll check out vitalist in teh AM - and I've been enjoying your blog a lot!

[fmckinnon]

Jordan -
Just signed up for Vitalist, but I can't seem to find any easy-overview instructions for how to use it ... only the KB and the forums ... is there a pdf manual, or overview that I'm missing? I synced to my iCal, but wonder if the the two are going to be redundant - iCal already allows me to setup a To Do list, email reminders, etc. How do you use it? (in both ways - how to you USE it .. and how do YOU use it?)

[mjdaniel]

Specifically in the field of managing worship ministries, take a look at www.planningcenteronline.com. Found it in a blog last month and I LOVE IT!

[worshiptrench]

read under the helps section on vitalist-tons of good stuff there. i know it syncs with ical because brent is a google calendar freak and it is based on the ical platform. you really need to spend three hours reading the Getting Things Done book and then the program will become 90% intuitive...without that background a little more "hmmm why is there a context view?" and such.

after you read the book, ping us with questions and we'll be glad to help in anyway possible. i use a paper calendar but brent is a big sync'er.

I sit each day and minddump into it. Every possible task and worry that I can think of. I also send emails that need and action into it so it auto sets them up as tasks. The key is the context sorting that is VERY GTD focused. In other words, instead of working by projects i work by contexts (example @phone, @errands, @online, @office paperwork, @sanctuary, @meeting, etc.). During the day, I might think what are all the phone calls i need to knockout. By sorting in context view they all fly up and i can knock them out in one setting without sorting through a long list. On the way back from my lunch swim, I could have viewed the @errand context and knock a ton out in one trip rather than getting back to the office and thinking. "Shoot, i was right by home depot why didn't i get that/"

I will have it send me email reminders of key events.
I have a large staff and delegate a lot. When i delegate i can set up the action as "waiting" and put a name in the field. Then when i meet with Cristian I can sort by "Cristian" and check with him on his progress on everything I have delegated to him (if we chose we could actually share projects and he could check them off but we haven't messed with it yet).

The thing is just genius. DON'T use the prioritization function as that is STUPID and actually anti-GTD philosophy. REad the book.

[worshiptrench]

So El Ben did you complete the time audit? What did you learn...share with us? Unless 120 hours of Xbox is too much for you to let us know...hahahha

[worshiptrench]

I am now mandating that all worship and creacomm (creative communications not a communist org) staff move to vitalist.com and use the GTD system so i can delegate to them easily, share the context (ex. @brent @missy @chris @cristian, et.al.) and have them check off when it is completed.

We are also working on a new web2.0 product to help your media/graphics/bulletin/announcements areas flow better. When we get it up does anyone want to be a free beta tester?

[El Ben]

Jordan, I did do the time audit, and I found that it did help to keep me on track in general, but I lacked consistency in filling it in. I'd need to get more in the habit to have it be more effective, but it seemed to work pretty well.

Recently what I've been doing is compiling a fearlessly honest list of my strengths, my weaknesses, and my passions. Adding that to an in-depth personality profile that I've recently gotten my hands on, I'm trying to get a handle on exactly what I bring to the table as a staff member at my church. What I'm aiming for is being able to offer a clear, concise, and accurate representation of just what can be expected from me, but also, where I need to challenge myself.

For those of you familiar with the Jung-Myers-Briggs Typology, I am an ENFJ, also known as The Teacher. For those of you who are not, I'll post a brief summary of what that is:


The Teachers are abstract in their thought and speech, cooperative in their style of achieving goals, and directive and extraverted in their interpersonal relations. The Teacher is especially capable of educing or calling forth those inner potentials each learner possesses.
Teachers expect the very best of those around them, and this expectation, usually expressed as enthusiastic encouragement, motivates action in others and the desire to live up to their expectations.

Teachers are very much at home in complex situations which require the juggling of much data with little pre-planning. An experienced Teacher group leader can dream up, effortlessly, and almost endlessly, activities for groups to engage in, and stimulating roles for members of the group to play.

Teachers value harmonious human relations about all else, can handle people with charm and concern, and are usually popular wherever they are. But Teachers are not so much social as educational leaders, interested primarily in the personal growth and development of others, and less in attending to their social needs.



All of that to say this: I suck at administration. I'd rather be with a group of high schoolers or young adults, dialoguing about what their struggles are, and asking them tough questions. I suck at organization. I admire those who have the gift, but despite all my best efforts at being an organizer, I a simply not one. I can organize people, just not tasks and objects. I know that I need to challenge myself in administration, but I'm learning that challenging myself means more about coming to terms with the fact that I'll never be an administrator and proceed accordingly.

What I learned from the time audit is that the VAST majority of my time is spent networking (talking to people, organizing lunch plans, IM'ing with eight people at once), studying (reading a new book [reading a lot of Sam Chand stuff right now], researching for a sermon, checking out new music, practicing new musical techniques on the piano in the sanctuary), and doing some minor organizational stuff (planning youth trips, returning calls and e-mails, organizing sound training, ect.).

Mainly what I learned is that I am not even close to being task-oriented, and that when I try to be hyper-task-oriented, not only do I fail at it, I end up feeling guilty for not being more task-oriented.

[russhutto]

Sign me up for BETA!!!

[worshiptrench]

El Ben.

Go take the ministry insight's leading from your strength test at ministryinsight.com (you can see description http://www.worshiptrench.com/?p=163 and sample results from yours truly....http://www.worshiptrench.com/?p=170) Works great with the Myers Briggs. Then start on your comprehensive year end review (http://www.worshiptrench.com/?p=194) to get more tools to help you do what you have started.

Be who God made you but grow in your admin abilities.

[worshiptrench]

Or hire a killer Admin Assistant.....ha! Let him/her fill in your time audit for you.....hahahahahahaha

[fmckinnon]

Hey Jordan -

I tried Vitalist a couple of times, and just couldn't "get it" ... what is Vitalist really doing that my iCal won't do?

[worshiptrench]

You gotta read the Getting Things Done book by Allen (there is a link thru on worshiptrench). I know when brent first told me i was like, "whatever, my system works for me..." boy was i wrong once i made the jump totally to GTD not just vitalist. Call me on the phone and I'll walk you through why it KILLZ man. (i'll let you hack into my account and show you why it is so genius whilst we converse on the phone.) find my phone number at www.northwoodchurch.org. my ext is 152.

Why you need GTD and vitalist:
1. you probably are not truly mind-dumping by next action but instead just making to-do lists.
2. you are probably not working with contexts rather you are trying to live off of priority systems which is sucking more mental energy or project based list at best. brent syncs his iCal with vitalist...he'll have to tell you more about to do this as for the actual calendar i am a paper guy. He can do that on that phone call.
3. you are not using the 2 minute rule for sure
4. you are not using the killerly efficient in box system
5. you are not using a genius delegating system which takes all worries off you and puts the responsibility on the person delegated to.
etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

[fmckinnon]

you tempt me.

[inworship]

I've been using central desktop with our tech and graphics ministry for a while and have thoroughly enjoyed it. It seems to be a similar to vitalist, but maybe you can't point out why vitalist would be better :)

I am always looking for something smoother.

[BillyChia]

I haven't read the book but I have read several blog posts on GTD and I love the general concept.

What was so powerful to me was the concept of context. Even with out vitalist understanding context has helped me be more productive.

For example. The other day I was mowing the lawn and it was taking longer than I expected (I had neglected it.) I got to a logical break point where I had all the lawn cut but had grass clippings everywhere that needed to be swept up. The day was dragging on and it was getting hot and I had other things I wanted to do that were higher "priorities."

My first thought was stop working, take a shower, get some other stuff done and sweep up the clippings in the evening when it was cooler.

Then I thought about context. I was already dirty and sweaty from mowing. If I took a shower I'd then worked on something else then came back the lawn I'd get dirty again which would require another shower and would be less productive. So I "batch processed" the lawn and I finished sweeping up.

The bonus side effect was that after my shower I didn't have the grass clippings in yard nagging in the back of my mind and I was clear to get stuff done.

Applying the same concept to vitalist you organize by context. So when you are making phone calls, you only look at your @phone context list and you don't have to look and any other next action to dos you have created. This keeps the distraction down and let's you focus on task at hand and also batch process similar tasks.

[worshiptrench]

because central desk isn't a GTD system in the truest sense for all the reasons i listed to fred...

if it won't sort by context (@call, @email, @meeting, @brent, @cristian, @write, etc.) AND ALSO by project (worship design, Knock Knock series, pastoral care, graphics projects, etc.), it cannot possibly be GTD an you are stuck working by projects instead of contexts (knock out all emails, hammer thru 15 calls regardless of project affiliated with, deal with everything i have delegated to cristian at a single glance.)

It also won't do the tickler/later function the same and probably isn't auto shooting you out email reminders (maybe that one does)?

[fmckinnon]

what is GTD?

[inworship]

I would need to understand the GTD thing more to see if Central Desktop would work in that format. Obviously it isn't created by the guys who created GTD, so it didn't follow that guideline. But with that said...

Central Desktop let's you creates task that you can assign categories, people(members) a task is assigned a project name for the task and the priority of the task. Also it lets you create "milestones, which let you track larger projects. There could be 10 tasks that would fulfill a specific project and a Milestone keeps track of your progress to see the bigger picture.

So I could focus on specific tasks(phone calls, scheduling, a project, etc.) or just tasks for a specific person and how well those tasks are being accomplished.

I am not sure what the tickler/later function is, but Central Desktop allows you to use the milestone feature to look ahead and plan for things down the road and be reminded of the process at a later time to keep you on task. Not sure if that is a similar thing. And yes it include email notifications for reminders, calenders updates and member participation.

Other things I love about Central Desktop is the "community" feel to it. Think Google docs, calender and blog all in one. I can have all of my tech team online at once. All of my approved members can discuss(blog style), have access to files and documents I place on the "desktop" and also access a global calender. They said they will be adding video soon for video conferencing as well. I can also use Central Desktops reporting features to allow me to see process habits, work integrity, individuals activity and who or what is consistently doing well or doing poorly.

I guess what i am saying is. I love Central Desktop and the way it works, I would hate to lose any features, but it seems I could implement the GTD strategy into what I am already doing. Maybe if I knew GTD better.

[worshiptrench]

Would all you punks just take a day a READ THE STINKING BOOK...hahahaha!

[fmckinnon]

So, for the sake of everyone, (pardon if you already posted somewhere on pages 1-3), what book are you talking about?

Oh yeah - and thanks for the walk-through on the phone, Jordan.

[inworship]

I'll answer since I'm here :)

Go to his web page worshiptrench.com and you will find a link to the book "Get Things Done" in the right sidebar.

I'll be checking it out

[BillyChia]

If you guys still haven't read the book here are some websites that will be helpful:

Life Dev did a series on the basics of GTD. This talks a lot about GTD and gives you all the basics you need to know to use Vitalist with out reading the book. As you finish one article look under the "related posts" section for the next article in the series:

http://lifedev.net/2007/02/gtd-cheatsheet-the-workflow/

This website features an advanced flowchart to explain GTD:

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2006/11/06/getting-things-done-how-to-take-control-of-life/

[El Ben]

:( *brain hurts* :(

Too much data. Too much data. Jordan, you're such a beaver!

[fmckinnon]

(reminds me of Naked Gun scene ... "nice beaver")

[russhutto]

Have any of you added the GDTInbox to you gmail?

I'm looking at it right now, and it looks like the amount of time you spend labeling and putting everything into contexts, would actually eat into your productivity time.

I don't know. I've tried to get a handle on the GTD system, but it appears to me that the system I already have in place is just as effective (for me).

[worshiptrench]

Ok, ok, ok

I just posted all my contexts in a post and all my projects categories. So you guys who are blurring contexts (the tool, location, or person needed to get things done) and projects can see the distinctions. It will help tons.

contexts at http://www.worshiptrench.com/?p=213
projects at http://www.worshiptrench.com/?p=216

if you guys have more questions, call me at northwood 817.431.2088x152 as several other of you had more questions that are easier to answer thru the phone (and yes it will be an @phone context...hahahah)

[Razzaq]

hi everyone

I must say it a great place with lots of great info...

Nice to find the place...


Take care
:)

[worshiptrench]

The new upgraded vitalist version came out in Nov 2008. It BURNS, read my arguments in the preceding posts. You will love the GTD system whether you use vitalist (or even become a traitor like "some people" I know and use rememberthemilk.com)

vitalist.com (for the record, neither I nor the trench gets one cent from them...I just love it enough to give them free pixel space).

[worshiptrench]

Vitalist is STILL the best GTD tool out there. Especially for delegation. It works perfectly for us.