Thursday, September 28, 2006
Day Ten - Learning Communities - Hacking Folders and Things
I don't know about you, but I often find that I am a poor time planner. I think that it is just part of the human condition in these days of information overload and multi-tasking. David Allen wrote a fine little book a few years ago, about his experiences at fighting to maintain control of his scheduling and stress levels throughout years of professional work. The book, "Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity", spawned several communities of like-minded learners who embraced Allen's approach and then went beyond. One of the best known of those communities was 43 Folders.
43 Folders is a geeky little community, whose inhabitants have an almost religious zeal around Allen's thoughts. The site is full of information based on the book and has a nice GTD Wiki in addition to discussion list and MP3 potdcasts. There is a very narrowly focused niche here, and seldom do the constituents stray from it. It is sometimes as if the book were the original open source platform, but this dandy little group of developers has taken the API and created a myriad of by products all aimed at the same end result....saving time and alleviating stress. It is hard to visit this community without bookmarking it and coming back here to spend a lot of time and take away a lot of great ideas about how to take better care of yourself and your work.
Poke around the community a bit and see if you can find the motivation under the activity here. What is the "value ad" that keeps people coming back?
See also:
Life Hacks - A spin-off community from 43 folders with much the same general focus
LifeHacker: - The products end of 43 folders.
NOTE: I am not a fan of pseudo-scientific time organizers and stress releivers...things are usually not that simple. But seems like the more times I read Allen's book and look at these sites, the more I agree with his simple approach. Now if we could just approach life with a similar process.
43 Folders is a geeky little community, whose inhabitants have an almost religious zeal around Allen's thoughts. The site is full of information based on the book and has a nice GTD Wiki in addition to discussion list and MP3 potdcasts. There is a very narrowly focused niche here, and seldom do the constituents stray from it. It is sometimes as if the book were the original open source platform, but this dandy little group of developers has taken the API and created a myriad of by products all aimed at the same end result....saving time and alleviating stress. It is hard to visit this community without bookmarking it and coming back here to spend a lot of time and take away a lot of great ideas about how to take better care of yourself and your work.
Poke around the community a bit and see if you can find the motivation under the activity here. What is the "value ad" that keeps people coming back?
See also:
Life Hacks - A spin-off community from 43 folders with much the same general focus
LifeHacker: - The products end of 43 folders.
NOTE: I am not a fan of pseudo-scientific time organizers and stress releivers...things are usually not that simple. But seems like the more times I read Allen's book and look at these sites, the more I agree with his simple approach. Now if we could just approach life with a similar process.
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