This week, I’ve kept everything but the anti-todo list. It was fun, but this week I’m doing something more practical. I’m going to write down all of my thoughts before going to bed. So often I’ve got ideas that just swim around in my head and I can’t sleep. Well, this week, and maybe longer, I’m going to write them all down while I’m in bed. Outputting information does not keep me up like inputting information. I should be pretty close to having an empty mind after dumping everything out like that.

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Everything went well except the first day, I missed one little thing.

The anti-todo list went far in keeping me feeling like I was being productive. Some days I had over a page of things I had done. But, alas, I won’t be doing it this week. I have another idea that I’ll tell you about when I post this week’s chart.

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I suppose I should explain why I didn’t do my anti-todo yesterday. Well, I was going to do it at one point, and I didn’t have my pen. So I postponed it and then I just forgot to do it. I only wrote about half of my actions. I was debating whether to check it off anyway, but then decided that I was not going to accept that from myself.

The only change is that I reinstated my sleep schedule from before to replace shipping a feature. It’s more important to be healthy than to ship, I’ve decided. Which is why I’ve made the theme of the week Balance. Balance makes me happy.

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As you can see, Friday was not a good day for standards. Thursday night saw me rushing at the end of the day to finish all of the ones I did get done. Then I spent all day Friday working on the one I didn’t do on Thursday (shipping a visible feature). All of this on top of sleep deprivation (I hadn’t been sleeping well).

So, there you have it. I think I did pretty well, all things considered. It was a productive week. I like all of the items I had to do.

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Morning papers are three journal pages I write every day to get my creativity flowing.

You should read about anti-todo lists here.

I’m working on a not-so-top-secret web project, and I want it to be public-facing as soon as possible.

My theme is “Shipping!” because I want more of what I do to be visible and useful to others. So I’m going to ship products instead of just come up with ideas/plan.

I’ll post about it at the end of the week.

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The first week went pretty well. Here’s my sheet at the end of the week:

As you can see, I missed three investment calls. But I did record everything every day. It felt a little overbearing to have all of that stuff to do. But I did it and benefited from it. Notice that at the bottom left, I wrote some things to add for next week.

Here’s the chart from week 2:

It all broke down here. Not only did I start missing more items (more X’s), I didn’t even do it or check anything Friday or after getting up on Thursday. Then the chart stood hanging on the wall for a month as a reminder of my failure, until I decided to take it down last week. Notice that the last day of that chart was January 29. Today is March 8.

I think it was just too much stuff. My day felt like there was too much crammed into it, even though most of the things could be done in a couple of hours. Perhaps it was just the “schedule a meeting” task, which is mostly outside of my control. It seems to have poisoned the rest of the system.

Last week I wanted to do an at-home yoga retreat (which was a success, by the way). I decided it would be a good way to revive my standards process. Here’s the chart from last week:

I did everything except blog on Friday (which I did the next morning). I also followed the system, which is more important to me right now. I want the system to get ingrained so that I can get into regular habits.

What’s interesting is that I did develop a couple of habits from the first two weeks of doing it. For several weeks after I stopped using the system, I would still wake up at 8 and go to bed at 12. I don’t really do that anymore. And I don’t know if it’s really what I want. I didn’t feel more productive because I was awake earlier. But it is definitely a useful thing to correct extreme sleeping patterns (or lack thereof).

It’s Monday, now, so I should come up with another one. I think I’ll put a theme on it, like Jake does. (Jake Lodwick is the one who inspired me to do this). His system is now up to 7 pages. Too much for me, but he’s been evolving it for a while. Who knows what mine would look like in a few months. By the way, you should check out his app for generating those pages called We Have Standards.

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• Standards Chart Week of March 22
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And I feel that there are lots of things I do that I don’t really want to do. Like spending hours on Twitter or reading blogs. I am a creative person, and it’s kind of sad that I’m just idling away my days.

Maybe I needed two weeks to realize just how fully a waste of time it was. My job was a waste of time. But I was being paid. I don’t want my life to be a waste of time. So I’m doing something about it.

I was inspired by Jake Lodwick to create a little system for me to live within. It’s a way to put a little pressure on myself to get more done. Jake has been doing it a while. I’m just starting, so it will be an interesting, long-term adventure.

The way it works is I make a chart with things I’m going to do daily down the left and each day across the top. If I do it that day, I get a check. If I don’t, I get an X. Pretty simple.

Here’s a picture of it as it is now: nice and empty. I start on Monday.

But don’t let the simplicity fool you. It’s a powerful way to force you to acknowledge when you are not living up to your own standards. I’ve tried similar things before. As long as you keep the system simple and your expectations reasonable, it really does help you stick to your goals.

I’ve decided to start with five things. Of course, I want to do many more, but like I’ve said, this has to be longterm. Mostly, I’m investing in the system right now. It will evolve over time. One thing that I want to do, eventually, is to have weekly goals, too. Sometimes you don’t need to do something every day, but you still want to make sure you do it.

I’ll keep you abreast of my progress.

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