Tomorrow I’m going to Europe for a month. I like to make travel todo lists, so here it is:

• Cash cheque.
• Bill clients for May.
• Pack clothes and bathing kit.
• Get supplies for Will.
• SWIM SUIT.
• Set up email autoresponse.
• Tech: latop, iPad, iPod, camera, sound recorder.
• Buy travel insurance.
• Do laundry.
• Pack book.
• Print ephemera. Got yelled at by officemates for wasting paper, got the app for that.
• Cover self in traces of cannabis and explosives.

I like to have travel projects which I inevitably ignore in favor of photography:

• Learn Box2D or GLSL.
• Make travel video.
• Continue Infinite Jest.

Looking at it now, IJ is a big brick — maybe I’ll just load the tablet up with comic books.

I contacted my mentor to ask if I could drop his name and processed his list of outsourcing recommendations today. I think I’m done collecting potential firms now. I have eight requests outstanding for a design document, so I’m going to assume that SOME of those eight are competent. Here’s more Missy, who is illustrating the design document for me:

She’s probably going to handle concept art and maybe final. I need to find a musician/sound designer.

Second contact with the second outsourcing firm, and first contact with two more (one in India, one in Eastern Europe). I also found an article online profiling an entrepreneur in the UK who started a one-man studio the same way — contacted him for mentorship.

I’m pro-crosstrain-ating by “slacking off” work — ie, taking breaks — to start my own company.

I finished an abridged 4HB and complete The Miracle of Self-Discipline today, so I figured I’d compare them.

Most of The Miracle of Self-Discipline is the kind of time-worn advice that doesn’t work for anyone: work more, with priority todo lists. Save for retirement.

The attitude behind The 4HWW, and present in the 4HB, helped me to ignore that shit. The actual work is the same, but the implications and strategy are totally different: save for retirement versus retire to save.

The crux seems to be the value each method places on deferred gratification and the nature of happiness: MSD sez, “be virtuous and the kingdom will be yours” whereas 4HWW sez, “the kingdom is yours, be virtuous.”

The idea behind The 4-Hour books is to use an acceptance of reality, via the scientific method, to turn small changes into big results. The MSD is about victim blaming (which some victims quite like).

Got a bit bored/frustrated. Went for a walk and an iced coffee (I’m experimenting with thermal loading), came back, and contacted another Indian developer to get a comparison quote. Now that’s procrastination.

At some point I should make a todo list, to leverage structured procrastination, but I’m currently procrastinating on that by actually doing things which would go on — OMG IT’S ALREADY WORKING. Kidding: I’ve been feeling pretty great recently* and am using the energy to make positive changes.

Your mileage may vary — just do the bare minimum you feel comfortable with.

* Sam Harris: “most people who smoke weed everyday would do better smoking less. Most people who don’t smoke weed would do better smoking more.” — I’m currently dry and I’m thinking about cutting back to one-to-five (major) sesh(s) per month.

Via Dutchman, Structured Procrastination, an essay on dovetailing objects of procrastination in order to get more done.

“The observant reader may feel at this point that structured procrastination requires a certain amount of self-deception, since one is in effect constantly perpetrating a pyramid scheme on oneself. Exactly.”

I just finished the audiobook for The Four Hour Workweek… Now!

I’ve wanted to read it for a couple of years, but I’ve been conflicted (not least because some thinkers I respect don’t like it). Mostly the book can be summed up like this: elimination over optimization, outsource everything you can, and get to the point where you’re truly untethered to a desk — and then telecommute from the beach.

I’ve already started. Today I contacted an outsourcing firm in India to get quotes for some of my game ideas, but a couple of weeks ago I outsourced editing for my next (long-procrastinated) short, a music video. Here’s some test footage:

So the new modus I’m trying is to do the parts I really love, pay people to do the rest, and take (appropriate) credit for the finished product. Capitalism!

I just checked out Joel on Software again after a long hiatus during which I cared not for accessible talk of software development best practices. Fog Creek has a new product, available for free, called Trello.

It’s essentially a simple way of storing lists of todo lists online, working with them, assigning them to people, and tracking completion. I’m using it right now to manage my own personal development/art projects and it’s pretty sweet.

It’s true what they say about recording todos being relaxing. I’ve just written down a plot sketch for a story, blocked out two screenplay outlines I might combine, added two lists for tracking some sales leads, planned post production for a video I’m working on, planned production on another, blocked out two software ideas in my head, and made a quick todo list for learning more about Kinect hacking.

I wasn’t fully aware of all of it until I put it all into Trello. At some level all of that was/is living in my head causing me “argh, I should really be…” stress. Now it’s all online, and prioritized, into nested lists. Now I can choose what to do and not do and use The Now Habit to crunch through some of it.

All this took maybe 1/2 hour — maybe less. inb4 “you should go do things instead of organizing things to do and then blogging it.” Somehow Trello’s also made me confident enough to stop using email for todos and get to inbox zero.

Trello is designed for teams but scales down to a singleton really well, and you can log in with your Google account (single sign-on is finally happening peeps).

No word yet on the ultimate software design test: is it better than a piece of paper? It’s certainly more fun and just as quick, which is a good start — it’s a program you can think in, which is rare.

And there’s also a mobile app.

It’s that time of the liturgical year again: the jihad against norms; Lent.

It’s supposed to be about fasting, about giving things up, which is why Fat Tuesday is such a big party: Ash Wednesday is the first day of the rest of your eternal life.

But the Lenten fast can contribute, I think, to a poverty of experience — and I’m not sure giving things up really works as a method of self improvement. That thinking implies that you’re already perfect and just need to shed some cruftybads. I prefer to work on building skills, on adding happiness to my life.

To that end, my Lenten jihad is against procrastination. No promises, but my Now Habit system is working swimmingly — after 40+ solid days I might have some nice stats to share.

Today I had a tough conversation with a professor. He said that I was talented, and that my procrastination problems made him feel sad for me.

Thanks to Jared this blog has a minor reputation in the productivity sphere. His post on GTD with Evernote is an MPF classic. But GTD doesn’t work for me. It’s too high-level. It presupposes a level of organization utterly foreign to me. It assumes the answer to my productivity problems is to make my completely-nonexistent system more efficient.

What do you do if you can’t even start? What if you’re not just disorganized, but anti-organized? What if productivity setups you come into contract with implode?

Despite Merlin’s disdain for the Lifehacker crowd (“joining a Facebook group about creative productivity is like buying a chair about jogging“), Lifehacker’s shotgun-survey method of productivity tools dredged up a winning suggestion: The Now Habit.

The thesis of The Now Habit is that procrastination is not a problem, it’s a symptom. The problem is anxiety, which is treatable. Entrenched procrastination, divorced from the underlying condition, is not treatable. It’s the only productivity book I’ve read which feels like it addresses problems I actually have instead of ones I’d like to. If you feel like “schedule time to do your weekly review” is a vaguely humorous existential joke the book might interest you.

Essentially The Now Habit, a very quick read, boils down to a powerful change in point of view: that workaholism makes workaholism necessary (entrenched procrastinators can easily be end-of-cycle workaholics), that procrastination is incurable because it’s not the problem, and that creating, identifying, and defending lots of downtime is an essential productivity skill. It moves procrastination away from Puritan morality (“work harder”) and towards positive psychology (“think different”).

If Getting Things Done seems like too much work then check out The Now Habit. First, the systems are compatible. Second, TNH requires very little effort, most of it fun: plan your time off before you plan your work; orient your thinking towards the well-deserved break and away from dreading the task; work in little chunks and follow them with outsized rewards.