Productivity & Organizational Progress Suite 1: Intro Part 2

[2)Some solutions people have have just so much absence of logic and lack of practicality imbedded in them it's hilarious.] Cont...

I'm seriously thinking of submitting "Stupidest Productivity Ideas" to some kind of segment for the Jay Leno Show. I hear people rave and talk about how these "productivity systems" work so magically well, when they're really wrought with stupidity and inefficiency. One of my favorites of this category is Google Notebooks.

Laughing at other methods. Here's a "genius" method I've seen people raving over. What is with it with these people? I just start laughing at how much infuriation they create for themselves (and I've experienced it by trying out their system with my own tasks) with such idiotic systems! Here's a brainbuster: loading all your tasks and projects into numerous Google notebooks. Why this works: it doesnt'. Why this doesn't work: Endless reasons, but some important ones are: What do you do when you don't have internet access, genius? All of your tasks and projects are inaccessible. Never a state you should ever want to come across. Secondly, the loading delays: waiting and extra 5 seconds while google loads information for EVERY task I update? I don't think so, mabye if I was an 80 year-old grandmother who liked watching the "colors pop up" on the computer. Productivity needs to be electricity-like fast and google notebooks doesn't cut it. Finally, advertisements. Period. What kind of moron delights in seeing countless advertisements when he's trying to go into a zen-like mode of organization and productivity? There you have it, I dub "google notebooks for productivity" "mind-bogglingly dumb" because of Inaccessibility, Loading delays, and Distracting advertisements.

But it astonishes me how someone could not only deem such a "mind-bogglingly dumb" system not only "efficient" (when it's anything but) but worthy of sharing with others. I couldn't believe when that the author of that productivity post actually thought he was helping people providing obtuse methods.

Frank Addante, A brilliant start-up guru, whom I respect, suggests we learn how to make quick decisions and then as quickly as you effectively and swiftly make the best decisions you can, try to find out if that was a bad, poor, or good or excellent decision! Moving to california was definitely and excellent decision. Using google notebooks was a bad decision and going back to chicago last year was a pretty poor decision, but didn't have much choice in that one, that one was neutral. California uplifting decison.

Now, I'm making such a huge deal out of this because, frankly, I used about a month of my life up dealing with the daily infuriations with the idiotic google notebook method. I find all gmail sluggish, buggy iwth IMAP, and full of plain awful, but flaws. But I just blindly took that person's suggestion and "tried out" that google notebook system.

I think the most moralistic "fable" lesson here is stop listening to the advice and suggestions of others. If it's a suggestion so off-base from your own "doings" it will wreak havoc and not solve anythign and if it's close enough to how you operate then a suggestion to "keep doing what you're doing" is redundant! So advice is pretty pointless. You'll connect with what you need to by gathering more information and knowledge. Knowledge is not so much "power" as it a solution for generating massive clarity.

Also on that note. I'd almost much rather read about all these different systems while just using mine that works than go through the pain and anguish of trying out a system and having it falter.

While my system may not have perfection, it at the very least has perpetual accessibility, instantaneous (zero loading delays) updates, and of course zero advertising distractions. I won't go as far to say that my system is "mind-bogglingly intelligent", but in many respects it embodies everything the "google notebooks" system is not, the anti-google-notebook method, if you will.

Stay tuned for the next installment of the Productivity & Organizational (POP) Progress Suite.