Cute little video showing how not to get your stuff done:

Note: There was a video here, but it was screwiing up my formatting. Instead, head to this YouTube video.

Now I’m going to shut the door, unplug my email, and get my stuff done.Via Ian’s Messy Desk

Are you tired yet of hearing about the Seinfeldian chain? No? Excellent!

If you don’t know what the heck I’m talking about, you can read about Seinfeld’s productivity secret at LifeHacker.

The whole premise is that if you want to motivate yourself to do something, get yourself a big calendar, and mark a big red X on it every day that you accomplish that goal. The idea is to keep marking X’s, and to not break the chain. “Don’t break the chain”, says Seinfeld.

It’s a wonderfully simple idea, and thus has become quite popular in the blogosphere. It seems that every time I turn around, there’s another post in my feed reader about Seinfeld’s chain, or the Seinfeldian Chain, if you will.

Now, there’s even a cute online application that provides said big calendar, complete with red X functionality. The folks over at SmarterFitter allow you to create a web page for your very own chain.

But what if you don’t want to have a web page devoted to each and every chain that you might want to monitor for yourself. What if you want to see several goals at once? What if you just hate online apps? What if you have a secret, or not so secret, spreadsheet fetish?

Well, have I got a deal for you.

Inspired by the SmarterFitter web page, along with David Seah’s recent Excel Gantt Chart spreadsheet, I decided to make myself an Excel spreadsheet to hold multiple Seinfeldian Chains. Its layout is very much based on the old Lotus Organizer Planner view, which was great for seeing an entire year at once, with colour-coded blocks to show when you were on vacation, working on various projects, etc. (Man, I loved that software many years ago!)

Here’s what my spreadsheet looks like:

Note that I’m using Excel 2007, which means that I can make use of the diagonal lines inside a cell in order to make my X’s. If I recall correctly, the diagonals are new to 2007, but I could be wrong. However, even if you don’t have access to these diagonal lines, you can still make use of the spreadsheet. Instead of marking an X, just colour in the cell.

The reason I like working with Excel is that it’s so very versatile, especially where boxes and lines are concerned. All I did was:

• lay out the remaining months of 2007, one per row
• offset the first day of each month so that it starts on the right day
• use dark grey to shade in weekend days
• use light grey to shade in unusable cells
• insert the date numbers into each cell; using a smaller font, in a grey colour, makes it look like a real calendar
• play with the column width and row height so that each cell was approximately square
• separate all days of the month with thin lines
• outline the whole month’s days in a bolder line
• set the background colour for a big portion of my worksheet to white, so that I don’t see the grid lines

I’ve got one worksheet for 2007, plus another that just holds a blank version of the calendar. Now, when I want to add a goal to track, I just copy it from the “Blank” worksheet, and paste it under my other goals. This way, I can track as many goals as I like, all in one place.

You don’t even need to have a spreadsheet program - you can simply upload the xls file to your Google Docs (or any other online document application that handles spreadsheets) and make use of it there. That way, you can take all of your Seinfeldian Chains with you. Here’s what the spreadsheet looks like in my Google Docs:

I did have to recolour the weekends, since both the “unused” grey, and the “weekend” grey came out the same. Plus, I’ve turned the afore-mentioned diagonal line X’s into coloured cells. It’s actually easier to fill in a cell this way, than it is to add two new lines to it.

Downloads

I’m including both the xls and xlsx versions of the spreadsheet. The former will work with Excel 97-2003, as well as any other application that supports xls, e.g., Google Docs. The latter works with Excel 2007.

So, if you want your very own Seinfeldian Chain to customize as you see fit, download one of the files above and start playing with it!

2007-06-14 08:00 Update: Turns out I didn’t miss the boat after all; Mark was able to squeeze me in. You definitely have to check out his awesome set of interview questions now!

Mark Shead, over at Productivty501 has a new set of blog posts up, based on a group interview he did with many famous (and not so famous) productivity bloggers. He actually asked me to participate, but I seemed to have missed the deadline by a day, heh.

What I really liked about the interview questionnaire was that contained only three questions, each of which was different from the standard, “so, what’s your favourite tool” kind of thing. You can read the introduction to the blog interview here, which will also lead you to the three posts containing all of the meat. And let me tell you, there’s a lot of meat there. Unless you’re a vegetarian. Then there’s a lot of, hmmmm, sweet potatoes, there.

And for those of you who are dying to know what my answers would have been if I had made the deadline, read on:

What is the single biggest way people waste time without even realizing it?

Confusing “busy-ness” with productivity. You can be completely busy all day, uber-organized, on-top-of your calendar, next action lists, reference material, etc., and yet still not get anything done. It’s not just about Collecting, Processing, Organizing. You really need to get to the Doing and Reviewing.

What change has made the most difference in making you effective in life?

I finally realized that I am very busy, but not as productive as I want to be. Admitting there’s a problem is the first step! Now that I know that I have a tendency to do the easy, even boring stuff first, I can try to take steps to combat this procrastination tendency.

If someone were to read just one post from your site, which would you recommend they read and why?

I think my most thought-provoking (at least to me) post was about how buying a skidoo changed my perspective on winter. I like to think about this often and try to relate it to my work/research.

I’m always on the lookout for new ideas and ways to improve my work habits. So, I just bought myself a few books:

1. Mark Forster’s Do It Tomorrow (US, Canada). I’ve been wanting this book for a while; unfortunately, I kept bumping into the 4-6 week delivery time. Finally, it’s in and available.
2. Brian Tracy’s Eat That Frog (US, Canada). I’m always interested in procrastination - enjoying it, excelling at it, maybe even reducing it. This book looks like it might be good for helping me out there.
3. Tony and Barry Buzan’s The Mind Map Book (new edition) (Canada). I’ve just upgraded my Mind Manager software. It’s about time I learned how to really make use of mind maps.

I’m looking forward to reading these, and sharing gems with you.

I’d like to introduce you to another new blog, focusing on productivity through GTD, and a good life through balance.

The Daily Saint is an extremely well-written blog, with posts that are interesting, informative, and just the right length. So far, Mike St. Pierre, has covered some of my favourite topics:

• The evils of multitasking in Get Behind Me Multitasker.
• The pitfalls of perfectionism in 3 Ways to Overcome Perfectionism.
• Becoming a recovering procrastinator in 6 Ways to Overcome Procrastination.

As the name of the blog might imply, there is a certain Christian faith-based undertone to the blog, but I find that the posts are very much non-denominational. If you’re looking for another perspective on productivity, and especially Getting Things Done, check out the Daily Saint.