The "broken windows" theory comes from a 1982 Atlantic Monthly article on strategies to reduce vandalism.
Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it's unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside.
Or consider a sidewalk. Some litter accumulates. Soon, more litter accumulates. Eventually, people even start leaving bags of trash from take-out restaurants there or breaking into cars.
My theme for January (and possibly February as well) is to fix broken windows (or as GTD puts it, open loops). That is, to clean up all the half-finished miscellanea in my life. This ranges across everything from finishing books I've started to cleaning out that last box from my move six months ago to ongoing things such as not letting dishes, garbage, and laundry pile up for too long. Having broken windows not only draws energy, but also subconsciously let's you know that it's okay to not finish what you've started. Starting with a clean slate is a necessary condition for success in any new endeavors. In addition, the tiny successes brought by fixing broken windows create a positive feedback loop and it helps you complete even larger projects.
For the transition period, I think it's probably a better idea to save New Years' Resolutions until March. Take the first couple of months of the year to patch up anything left outstanding from the previous year(s) and start fresh, even if you are a few months late. I'd love to hear what other people think about this approach, so if you've had experience doing something like this, drop me a line in the comments or via email.
Technorati Tags: broken windows, lifehacks, GTD, Getting Things Done, open loops, New Years Resolutions
voo2do is a simple web-based to-do app utilizing AJAX. I've tried a couple of online list apps, including 37 Signals' Backpack and Ta-Da Lists and the excellent (and completely self-enclosed) TiddlyWiki. They never really stuck, though, since they weren't very time management-oriented but more organizational-oriented. The deal breaker for me was that I couldn't assign due dates to tasks.
In comparison to the aforementioned alternatives, voo2do is more like the Tasks/To-Do function of a PIM than a simplified Wiki. For example, voo2do lets me assign projects to tasks and add notes to them, as well as letting me add time estimates a la Joel Spolsky's Painless Software Schedules system, none of which any of the alternatives allows me to do.
Here's a quick overview of all of voo2do's features:
- The Dashboard tab gives a general overview, providing a list of tasks on the left hand side and (the latest?) notes on the right.
- The Tasks tab is where the action happens. On this tab, you can create new tasks, edit their details, mark them as completed or delete them. This tab is split between Pending Tasks and Recently Completed Tasks.
- The Projects tab lists your different projects, listing the number of tasks, the number of hours a project will take and the number of hours remaining for each project. In addition, you can create different "views" that will allow you to group any number of projects together. I can see this appealing to Getting Things Done fans who will most likely use voo2do views as GTD projects, voo2do projects as GTD contexts and tasks as next actions.
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The Notes tab will display the notes attached to all your tasks. It provides a convenient "delete" button to eliminate the hassle of going through and having to click multiple times to get into a task and delete each note the long way. I would like to see a way to free-standing create notes that aren't attached to any task, but I suppose I could just create a task called "Notes" to get around this limitation for now.
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The Deadlines tab displays tasks by due date. Overdue tasks are listed at the top, followed by tasks due today, then tasks due tomorrow and finally, tasks due this week.
Though I haven't used it much yet, I'm already a big fan of voo2do. It is a simple app which only does one thing, but it does that one thing very well.
The bottom line is, if you need central repository for text that's available online, give Backpack or TiddlyWiki a try. If you're like me and need an online to-do list application, or are looking for the best app to implement GTD with, voo2do is the best I've found so far.
Technorati Tags: organization, ajax, wiki, gtd, getting things done, to-do, tasks, backpack, 37signals, web2.0, pim
