iAdd version 1.3 Live In AppStore

After only 5 days of waiting, iAdd version 1.3 is live in AppStore. As I already wrote, this version features a complete redesign of the iPad version and a lot of small usability improvements, as well as numerous bug fixes. If you don’t know what iAdd is, I will briefly tell you that it’s my iOS implementation of my own Assess – Decide – Do framework. If you want to know more about the framework, feel free to visit its (brand new) homepage at Assess-Decide-Do. And if you want to know more about iAdd, the app, of course, there’s a site for that too, iAdd.

They say an image is worth a thousand words, so, as I planned to write a few thousands words blog post today, I will only share a few screenshots.

Oh, and one more thing: the book that started all is now available on Kindle. That means you can read it on your iPhone, on your iPad, on your Mac, or even on your Android powered device. In short, pretty much everywhere. And, to make things even spicier, the Kindle version is only 9.99 USD, compared with the regular price of 27 USD. Here’s a screenshot of what the ebook looks like on my iPad, using the Kindle app for iPad.

You can get the Kindle version of Natural Productivity: Assess, Decide, Do for your Kindle by clicking here.

Taming Monkey Number One: Second Update

It’s February 2nd, which means there are already 2 days past the initial liveline for taming my first monkey. If you just got here and have no idea what I’m talking about, you may want to read first why I ditched my new years resolutions (and decided to tame some monkeys instead), and also how to find those monkeys, if you want to tame yours too.

Now, very briefly, what was my monkey about: to have a new iOS app in the AppStore. It was something I was wanting to do for a long time, but postponed it indefinitely. The app is relatively simple, but it does require some external storage in the cloud. So it’s not only on the iPad, it’s also on the web.

Last time I shared my progress, I was having a website set up, the CoreData model ready and so was the basic functionality for adding and editing data on the device. What changed? Well, now I have the functionality for adding, updating and deleting data on the website too. For those of you with a little bit of a technical touch, I had to create a small API for that. I also bought the artwork for the app and finished the basic layout and design on the iPad.

So, was I able to tame my first monkey in the allotted timeframe?

Short answer: nope. The app is not finished yet and it was not submitted to AppStore.

Long answer: it’s complicated. Let’s talk about that.

It’s Not A Monkey, It’s A Symptom

The moment I started to work on that monkey, I realized that there was much more to it than I thought it was. At the surface, it was just another app. But deep down, it was a symptom for some of my deeper issues. I don’t use the term issues in its negative sense, but rather as a description for something that needs to be clarified.

First of all, my desire to build a new app was not isolated. I had many more ideas and plans related to other apps. As a matter of fact I think I have around 20 separate iOS ideas. All with a clear description and some of them even with mindmaps or project stubs in Xcode. This one was just strong enough to resist at the border of my active focus, and also was “advertised” as a personal plan in several conversations.

But the moment I allocated time and energy for something that was just floating around, everything that floated around exploded. It was like instead of a single monkey I had a whole pack. Dozens of monkeys dancing in front of me, waiting to be tamed.  What seemed to be a single monkey activity became a herd management activity.

Outcome Number One

So, the first thing I learned was that this monkey was not just an app, was a way to organize my ideas and put them in the right order. Prioritize. Allocate resources properly. And build a stronger stream of value for this channel.

Wait, There IS A New App In The App Store

One quick consequence of this approach was that I realized I needed much less energy and time for some of my apps. They were relatively simple. All I needed was under an hour per day for some of them. So, I started to grow those too. And one of them is finished. Exactly

Let me detail on this. A few months ago, after I launched iAdd, my productivity app, I wanted to publish some of my ebooks in the AppStore too. It made sense from many points of view. The IOS platform offers a very easy way to consume this type of content, the ebooks were already made and so on. But somehow, I couldn’t find the time to build a template app for all my ebooks.

Well, while working on my first monkey, I stumbled upon an open source framework which does exactly what I want. It’s called Baker and it allows to create standalone apps as ebooks on the iOS (currently only on iPad). So, I started to reformat “Natural Productivity”, I put it in this framework, test it, and, hell yeah, submit it to the AppStore. Which is exactly where it is at this very moment, waiting to be approved.

Outcome Number Two

Although I didn’t have my designated app in the AppStore, I did have a new one. And it’s a very timely app, giving the fact that iAdd is getting a lot of traction lately, especially since the free version, iAdd Lite is also public in the App Store. Now the ebook will be available on the same media.

How Much Can I Really Chew?

Not much. I can only chew the size of my biggest bite. And we’re all designed like this, it’s just a fact. But I have this constant habit of biting more than I can chew. Trying to tame this monkey revealed this to me so clearly, that I cannot hide it anymore. And this is a real problem. The monkey, as I said, was just a symptom for something way bigger.

One of these “way bigger” things behind my first monkey is my attempt to get on exaggeratedly big projects. It may be because I enjoy doing them so much, but it may also be because I try to prove myself worthy of something. As you can see, we’re not talking about apps in the App Store anymore. We’re talking about some inner insecurities that are in big need to be addressed.

I somehow had a little bit of an intuition of this when I first decided that I will tame those monkeys “while still having a life”. Somehow, this was touching the core of the problem. One of the reasons I wasn’t able to finish the app in time was the fact that I did have a real life outside my work. Spending time with my kids, traveling, relaxing. And you know what: I realized it’s ok to be like that.

Outcome Number Three

One of the most important results of this taming process is that I kept having a life outside work. It may sound very counterintuitive, but, in a way, the fact that I didn’t finished the app was a good “result”. It proved to me that I don’t need to prove anything to anybody. And still have nice life in the process.

Where To With This First Monkey?

As you can see, although I didn’t have my monkey tamed in time, there was a huge process of cleaning up and evolution. In only 4 weeks.

So, I still want to tame this monkey. I wasn’t able to do it in time, so I will postpone it. The new liveline for it is the end of February. I don’t know if something else will interfere again, but if it will, I know it’s for the better. Will manage it somehow.

The Second Monkey

As a matter of fact, I know there will be something that will interfere, and that will be the second monkey for this year. Namely, the monkey related to my New Zealand company. This month I’ll be in New Zealand, taking care of this baby. There are a few logistical loose ends and there are also some strategical moves that I need to evaluate. At the end of the month I expect to have a growing and much more manageable company in New Zealand.

As always, I will keep you posted on the progress. I kinda enjoy this.

Oh, I do love my monkeys

iAdd Lite Available On The App Store

As of today, iAdd Lite, the free version of my productivity iPhone / iPad app, iAdd, is available worldwide in the AppStore. Here’s a quick iTunes link for the impatient:

iAdd Lite

iAdd Lite has all the features of the regular iAdd, including syncing with Dropbox. The only limitation is that you can have a maximum of 5 items in each realm. For instance, in Assess you can have, at any given time, a maximum of 5 tasks, 5 projects, 5 ideas and 5 events. Items which are containing items, like ideas or projects, are following the same pattern: they can have a maximum of 5 subtasks / details. Also, Collections can hold maximum 5 items (regardless of their type, being them tasks, projects, ideas or events) per single collection.

Managing Rejection

There is a very interesting situation related to this version of iAdd. I don’t know why, but this took way longer to be approved than any other versions I had so far. First of all, it seems that I got some pretty nasty reviewers because they rejected my app based on some ultra-orthodox user guide principles. Which, to my surprise, weren’t applied to the regular version. I guess it’s just luck. Or bad luck.

Also, I did have a number of crahses, some of them incredibly hard to spot, and very time consuming. So, to make a long story short, iAdd Lite was rejected 4 times before making it to the AppStore. The first submission was on November 9th 2010 (just one day before my birthday) but the app is live only now, on January 11th.

Being rejected is not a nice feeling. Having your app rejected is an order of magnitude lighter than in person rejection, but it’s still frustrating. It’s irritating to look in your inbox and see the infamous subject line coming from Apple: “Feedback regarding your application”. Usually, the expected subject line is: “Your application has changed state” and nothing else. Which means the app is processed for the AppStore.

But there is a very positive outcome of this rejection situation. The app is far more polished than it was initially. It was more thoroughly tested and it does contain fewer bugs than before. I dare saying that it contains fewer bugs than the commercial version of iAdd (but that will change pretty fast, as I have already ironed a bunch of them).

Now, if you just want to take the “Assess – Decide – Do” framework for a test-drive, you can go to iAdd Lite official page, where you will also find some additional resources. And remember, if you like it, you can buy the commercial version at any time, just with a touch of your finger.

How Goal Setting Works (For Me)

Goals are just milestones. Places where you stop for a while and enjoy the scenery. The trip is what gives you the ultimate thrill, and it will always be like this.

But, as interesting as the trip may be, goals have their own importance. They can either add more awesomeness to the mix or make the whole experience dull and boring. It’s one thing to stop on the side of the road, eating some dust watching how others are passing you by, but it’s a completely different thing to stop at a 5 star hotel, relax, and get your strength together for the next part of the trip. As I said, both are just milestones within a bigger trip, but their quality is different.

Let me share a personal story with you about some goals I set a few years ago. Although these are material goals, closely linked to money, I’m using these examples because they can be easily measured. The same approach works in many other areas, like personal evolution, lifestyle, or relationships.

The Early Years

A few years ago I was spending the majority of my time trying to build an online publishing company. I had a considerable degree of success, some would say, but it involved a considerable degree of personal involvement and time spent making things happening.

At that time, I could barely afford my own car. I was driving a very old Dacia model (a local brand, based on a Renault chassis). It was a wreck. I remember that at times the engine would heat up to the point where it would let out waves of white steam from the hood. Often I had to pull over and replace the water from the expansion recipient. Before going to a meeting, I would always making sure I was carrying around at least 4 liters of water on the back seat. It wasn’t unusual to stop 2-3 times a day to watch the white steam and to replace the water.

So, eventually I decided that it was time to get a new car. A beautiful one. Of course, I couldn’t afford it. I was barely affording the maintenance expenses for my wreck. But I wanted a new, beautiful, and shiny car really bad. So, after browsing a little on the internet I decided I want a Volvo XC90. It was 6 years ago and the model hadn’t even been launched yet, but since one of my niche websites was the biggest car portal in Romania, I was wired to everything that was new in the car industry. I already had a few wallpapers for the upcoming Volvo XC90. Beautiful, shiny pictures.

I set up my computer wallpaper to the most beautiful picture in the whole album. Each morning, it was the first image I saw when I opened my computer. Each evening, before shutting down my laptop, I saw the same image. I had made a very strong commitment. I think I had that wallpaper for more than one year. One day, I decided it would be no more than 3 years until I would have that car.

Time passed and in the process I changed my wallpaper. I also changed my car, but not to a Volvo XC90. I started gradually with a Skoda, then an Opel. At some point, after 3 years of countless hours spent in the office with clients, partners and employees, I realized that I could finally afford a much better car than my Opel Astra.

So I bought an Infiniti FX 35, a huge, powerful and luxurious car, more expensive than a Volvo XC90. That Volvo disappeared from my goal horizon, but the associated lifestyle didn’t. In fact, the goal of having a big, shiny and powerful car (which could act more like a statement of what I was doing at that time), become even stronger.

The whole process took about 6 years. From the moment I set up a certain goal, to the moment that goal became reality, there were around 2100 days. How did I feel the day I drove my new Infiniti home? Exactly the same. I wasn’t different. The car was, but I wasn’t. However, the car was a very clear sign that my intention to change my mindset towards a much more abundant one was working really well. The trip was unfolding in the right direction and this milestone was a very rewarding one.

The Current Situation

Now, this may be an interesting story, but it happened 6 years ago. How about now? What is an easy to measure goal that I have right now, and what exactly am I’m doing to make it happen?

If you read my last post, you already know, but I’ll say it again anyway: I want a jet. A Learjet, to be more precise. I know, I know, it sounds crazy. It may even be crazy. But that won’t stop me from wanting it.

Can I afford a jet right now? You’re kidding me, right? Of course I can’t! Compared to my “car goal” situation, I don’t even have a wreck to call my “first jet”. I have nothing in this area and the financial difference between how I’m doing right now and how I would need to do in order to afford a 17.9 million dollar jet is enormous.

But I’m reading about it. I started to look around for flying courses. I’m enjoying its pictures. I don’t have a wallpaper with it, but one of the tabs of my browser is always opened with that image. I’m “soaking” myself with a jet the same way I soaked with the image of a Volvo XC90.

I want it in 5 years from now. And I’m working towards it.

The Three Stages Of Goal Setting

Those of you familiar with my ebook already know that I’m using a life management framework called “Assess – Decide – Do”. Of course, 6 years ago I didn’t know that I was using that framework in particular. At least, not consciously. But, on a very deep and hard to grasp level, I have always done stuff following this pattern. Now, how can this be related to goal setting?

First Stage: Assess

This is the stage in which you’re pondering how your goal should fit into your life. It’s the stage in which you are wondering, day dreaming, brainstorming, and drifting away in dreams about your goal. This is the part where you are making room to fit your goal into your current lifestyle.

That’s the stage from which I am slowly getting out of now, with my jet goal. I impregnated its image into my daily activity. I made it familiar. I found ways to integrate it into my lifestyle.

6 years ago, wanting a better car had a close relationship with my lifestyle. I had the biggest car portal in Romania, and having a state of the art car was somehow part of my image as an owner.

Right now, I want a location independent lifestyle. Having a jet to support it looks like a good fit.

Second Stage: Decide

This is the stage in which you are signing the contract with your goal. And you do this by placing it into a space/time continuum.

Speaking of my car goal, the decide stage was when I clearly stated that I want the car in a time frame of 3 years, here, in Bucharest.

And speaking of the jet goal, this is the stage where I am right now. I have a clear time/space context in which I can see this goal happening. In this case: I’ll have it in 5 years from now, when I’ll be fully location independent.

Third Stage: Do

This is the most confusing stage for people, because they think they should focus on the goal. There’s a very subtle difference here. And I guess this is the most important difference in my goal setting approach versus other techniques. I’m not advocating a “fixed eye” on the goal. On the contrary. If you start moving towards your goal, you start making it happen, and you don’t have to focus entirely on it. Instead, you should focus on the chosen lifestyle.

That’s a fundamental difference and here’s why.

Focusing on the goal will be like focusing on the hotel. Instead, your focus should be on the trip itself. A goal is just a milestone. The trip is the great thing, not the goal. If you focus on the hotel, you’ll get stuck on the hotel. You may get a nice room, but your trip will be over.

So, in my “goal car” example, once I assessed it (having its wallpaper on my computer for a year) and once I placed it in a time/space context (3 years) the things I did where not directly even really related to this goal. I just continued to work on my business. I constantly improved my lifestyle. I grew up. I just went on with my trip and enjoyed myself.

And, at some point, the goal was already there, on the side of the road, waiting for me to enjoy it.

The Quantum Element

One more thing: you may have noticed that there was a little bit of a difference between what I wanted as a car, and what I got. I wanted a Volvo XC90 and I got an Infiniti FX 35. In this case, I outgoaled myself. I did better than I thought I was able to.

Most of the time this is the case. I set up a certain goal, start working towards it, and then I wake up one day realizing that I have much more than I initially wanted.

I call this the “quantum element”. If you do your job properly, if you stay on the trip, the milestones will be much more rewarding than you can imagine. It’s like reality is suddenly activating some invisible triggers telling you “ok, I know you wanted this, but I’m going to give you that instead, because, well, it’s much more fun”.

But be aware that sometimes this “quantum element” may be working “against” you. You may get a lower vibration. For instance, I am fully aware that I may not get a jet, but only a regular, 4 seater plane. That may happen.

We may not get exactly what we want. Sometimes we get more, sometimes we get less. I think it’s part of a bigger process, which is tightly connected with acceptance and observation. This “quantum element” adds a certain degree of randomness to our trip. Maybe for preventing us from get too wired up in our own little wishes. If we would always get what we want, life would be pretty boring and predictable, isn’t it?

But that’s another story.

Well, 5 years is a lot of time. Since I’m finished with the Assess and Decide part of my jet goal, I’ll just continue to do my work here, on this blog.

And that’s how goal settings works. At least for me.

How to Assess, Decide, Do with Pen, Paper and Magnets

Since I launched my ebook “Assess – Decide – Do: Natural Productivity” a little more than a month ago, many people have asked me if they need an iPhone or an iPad in order to implement the framework. While the fact that I wrote an app implementing the framework, called iAdd, is true, equally true is the fact that you don’t need the iPhone app in order to implement this system.

Here’s what you should have (click on the image for full size, goes for all images in this post):

Make sure you find a comfortable spot for your board. It should be close to your office but also far enough to be able to see the whole picture at any time. Hang the board up and put the magnets on it.

The leftmost part will host the red magnets, the center will host the yellow magnets, and the rightmost part of the board will have the green magnets.

Assess part - red magnets: stop and think

Assess + Decide - orange magnets: prepare

Assess + Decide + Do - green magnets: just do it!

Have the pen and paper handy. That’s it. You created your productivity setup. Really simple, right?

How To Use It

Now, how do you use this board?

Every time you think of something and need to stop thinking of it in order to move forward, write it down on a small piece of paper. Put it on the board on the leftmost part, under a red magnet. It doesn’t really need to be in the form of an action, just write it down as you see fit. Empty your mind and then get back to work.

It may be just a thought, or it may be something you wrote before in other forms. It may contain appointment data, or just ideas, or dreams. Everything you do at this stage about assessing.

Assess something

Now, after you start using the board like this, something interesting will happen: your mind will start to become clear, and at the same time the red part of the board will start to be really crowded. It’s ok. That’s the expected result.

Now, every time you feel like assessing what you wrote down, go on the board, choose a piece of paper and start working on it. Some of the papers will go directly to the recycle bin. Some of them will be rewritten as single tasks. Some of them will remain there and be brainstormed again and again until they evolve into a form you’re comfortable with. And some of them will become projects, a sequence of single actions.

Every time you feel you can’t add anything else to one of the pieces of paper, move it to the Decide section of your board (in other words, put a yellow magnet on it). As you slowly advance with processing, your Assess area should start to decompress, while the yellow area, the Decide realm, should start becoming crowded.

Decide on something

As for the Decide realm, processing should be fairly simple there. Once in Decide, you don’t edit a task anymore. You can only assign a context and a due date to it. That’s all you do in Decide. Fill in the contexts and the due dates. Then, if you really commit to performing the task, move it to Do.

In the Do section, using the green magnets, you now have tasks that you have decided to Do. You won’t assess them anymore, nor change their context or due date.

Do something

The trick is to understand that you act not only in the Do realm, crossing off tasks from a to do list, but also in the Assess (brainstorming, day dreaming, etc) and Decide (planning and signing the contract to perform the task).

Everything you add in Assess is just a thought. Everything you process in Decide is a firm contract stating that you will do that task in a specific time/space continuum: a context and a due date, that is. And everything you have in Do represents your daily list of things.

This is what I meant by levels of commitments instead of inboxes. You don’t really have an Inbox zero in ADD, unless you don’t come up with anything more to Assess, which is highly unlikely, at least as long you’re still alive.

ADD means switching back and forth between these 3 realms, and changing your focus accordingly. During the day you may feel the need to brainstorm, not to do, hence, you’ll be hanging out in Assess. Sometimes you just need to put more on your plate, so you’ll start to commit to more in Decide, by signing more contracts to future tasks. And sometimes, you just tackle pieces of paper from the Do realm, happy to finish them off.

Congratulations! You just had your first Assess – Decide – Do setup. The simplest setup ever.

Assess - Decide - Do with magnets

A Few Simple Rules

Don’t keep related information spread over two or more realms. For instance, don’t spread a project task in more than one category of Assess, Decide or Do. This will break the atomicity rule of the framework

Once a task goes past the Assess section, the body of the task can’t be modified anymore. You can only add contexts and due dates to it.

Put everything in the Assess realm first. Resist to the temptation to throw something you KNOW you will do directly to the Do realm. Pinning it first to Assess will help you integrate it into a bigger context.

Try to keep the same ink color. If you like red, keep it red, if you like green, keep it green in all realms. The color of magnets is enough to signal you the required behavior (red: stop and assess, yellow: decide, green: move on).

***

“Assess – Decide – Do: Natural Productivity” Reviews

As promised, I am back with a few words about my latest ebook’s reviews. I initially planned to do this the other week, but some of the folks who wrote reviews told me they had a little bit of a hectic schedule and their reviews will be a little late. I wouldn’t want to let anyone out, so I waited.

Why am I posting this? First of all, as a sign of appreciation to anybody who took the time to read my latest ebook and post his own opinions. Second, because it really opens my eyes as how the ebook was perceived. Contrarily to what you may think, the reviews were quite different. For some readers, the motivational part sounded stronger, while for others, the tutorial in the end seemed more enjoyable. All in all, just browsing through these reviews will give you a very interesting bird-eye view of not only what’s in the ebook, but also about each of these bloggers expectations, values and, to put it in a simpler word, preferences.

Without further ado, let’s start.

Lyman Reed of LymanReed.com

Lyman is a personal development blogger for as long as I can remember. He’s also one of the most authentic guys I ever met online. Two highlights about his review: first, he gave away one copy for free to one of his readers (meaning he paid for that copy but the reader got it for free) and second, he started with a very funny joke (some of you may know it already):

Riddle me this, my friend:

Three frogs are sitting on a log.

One frog decides to jump.

How many frogs are still on the log?

.
.
.

Three.

If you’ve heard that little story before, then you know that it’s normally used to disparage people who don’t act quickly enough… who are always making a decision but never taking any action on those decisions.

Read his entire review here. If you want to know more about Lyman, he recently guest posted on my blog, you can find his article here.

Eric of EdenJournal.com

One thing you may not know about Eric (apart from the fact that he’s running a very cool blog, of course) is that he helped me a lot with proof-reading my ebook. He actually sent me back a PDF with annotations to help me spot that stupid grammar (and sometimes not only grammar) mistakes I did in my own text. So, here’s a short excerpt from Eric’s review:

As I started reading Assess-Decide-Do, Natural Productivity, I felt a little lost.  It’s like I was starting a new fiction novel, and I had to get to know the characters. [...] In addition to the new concepts he slides in some great advice, which I really enjoyed.  Things like, “If the decision will not change something in your reality, it’s not a decision, it’s still an assessment.”

For the rest of it (which also includes a table of contents and a very exact description of what you get) go read the entire review here.

Ruben Berenguel from MostlyMaths.net

Ruben is a programmer and he writes at his blog about topics including programming, linux and productivity (he will soon be featured on this very blog with a very interesting guest post, so keep an eye on your feed reader for this guy). What was interesting about Ruben’s review was the fact that he found the first two parts of the ebook almost “boring”. The light seemed to come from the third section, which, as I already said, is a very detailed manual for the iPhone / iPad app I created in order to implement the framework on day to day basis. Here’s a short excerpt from Ruben’s review:

Personally, I found the first two sections a little fluffy, and the third section brilliantly clear. I asked Dragos about that, and he said that some people were completely in reverse, saying the first two chapters were eye opening and the third, boring. We guess it has something to do with analytical/emotional type of thinkers. I am pretty analytical, in case you wonder.

If you want to know more, read the whole review here.

Steven Aitchison of SteveAitchison.co.uk

Steven is an old blogging friend (and, to be honest, we’ve been through so many challenges and we exchanged so many messages that I consider him a real friend, which is somehow weird because we never met in real life ). His review, also detailed, is the only one featuring a description of mine as being “swine”, which, to your surprise, may be sometimes pretty accurate. Joking of course, and so did Steven, but I thought to mention this here, just in case you need an extra incentive to read Steven’s review. And here’s a short excerpt from it too:

I am of the strong belief that life begins and ends with a decision, if we can’t decide what to do in life we will stagnate.  However the beauty in the guide is that it gives you the steps before and after the decision, which makes the decision and after effects of the decision so much easier.

For the whole cookie, go read his review here.

Sid Savara of SidSavara.com

I remember that my first serious encounter with Sid was a “let’s agree to disagree” situation. I can’t even remember what was the source of our disagreement, but I do remember that fact that we were both able to overcome it and maintain a healthy virtual friendship. In case you’re wondering, Sid’s review will win the prize for “the review with the bigger number of quotes from the ebook” so in case you’re looking for some ebook juice, go read it. My favorite part from Sid’s review:

An argument can be made for every phase being the most important, but for me, I think the key really is deciding.  As I’ve discussed in a previous article on metawork, I know all too well how to overanalyze and “overassess” a situation, and once I get going I can finish tasks relatively quickly.

The rest of the review is here.

Ian Peatey of QuantumLearning.pl

Ian is a real life friend, we met a few times in Bucharest. During the last few weeks he restarted his blogging routine at quantumlearning.pl and for that I am really happy, Ian is a wonderful writer (and, for me, the number one source for learning and implementing things about non-violent communication). My favorite part of his review:

Because Dragos isn’t a regular guy he doesn’t get a regular review. It’s a Lite Review:

You will like the book if you:

• like his site
• want to know how he’s so damn productive
• want a method to help you get productive yourself
• want to know how he’s so damn laid back AND productive at the same time.

Go read the rest of the review here.

ProductivityBits.com

This review came a little bit unexpected. In the pre-launch post I announced that I would give away a few copies of the ebook for free, if there will be a review following up (not a positive one, just a review). Here’s a short excerpt from ProductivityBits.com review:

1. I like that the framework proposed in this book is flexible enough that it can be integrated to any work style that anyone prefers.
2. I like the fact that the principles I learned in this book do not only apply to work in general but also to any other aspects of life.

For the rest of it, go here.

Abubakar Jamil of AbubakarJamil.com

Last, but definitely not least, my blogging friend Abubakar Jamil gave me one of the most interesting approaches on my own ebook.

There are only two kinds of books in the world. There are books that people write and then there are books that make people write them. I call the later—organic books.

Never realized that he was right, the ebook actually wrote itself. Go read the rest of the review here.

***

It goes without saying that I strongly advise you to subscribe to the blogs above. Each and every one of them will teach you something valuable, while entertaining you at the same time. I have a strong connection with many of the blog owners above and I support their activities 100%.

Well, those were the reviews on the blogs, but there were also countless mentions on social media, twitter and Facebook. I want to tell to each and every one of the people who helped me spread the word a big “THANK YOU”! And I mean it.

7 Life Lessons From A Self-Taught Programmer

I always had a thing with languages. For some reason, I always found it easy to learn them, and had a great time using them. Surprisingly enough, I followed a tech high-school, majoring with a diploma as a programmer in… FORTRAN. After that, I went to the University of Letters in Bucharest, where I studied Romanian and French literature. And in the last 10 years I had my own online publishing company, where I wrote more than 70% of the source code for the underlying software platform.

Why I’m telling you all this? Not to show you that my career life was a roller-coaster, if you read my blog for some time you already know that. But because there’s a link between spoken languages and programming languages. At a certain level, they’re both a vocabulary over a grammar. A programming language can be learned and applied just like learning French or Japanese.

Reality Is Created With Words

If you ever learned a foreign language you remember that special feeling of expansion, both inward and outward. It’s like space is growing around you. And that’s because every time you learn to describe the world in a new language, you actually redefine it, you reinvent it and enjoy it as a completely new reality. L’amour en Francais it’s a completely different thing from love in English, or from dragoste in Romanian. They’re actually new realities. Learning a new language is a beautiful travel.

Now, a programming language is almost the same. It enlarges your mind and gives you access to areas in your life that you didn’t even know they exist. It puts you in uncomfortable situations and forces you to solve complicated problems. Every new app that you start coding is like a trip to Thailand with only a pocket Thai dictionary. When you start the app, you barely know how to say sawasdee, but at the end of it, not only you know how to have a conversation with the locals, but nobody will be able to tell that you have an accent.

7 Life Lessons From A Self-Taught Programmer

I recently finished a very dear project to me, an iPhone / iPad app based on my own life management framework, Assess – Decide – Do. The app is available on the App Store, by the way, and it’s only 3.99. It took me 30 days to put together the first version, but around 90 days in total to have a solid, mature and feature packed app. During this trip, I had an incredible time, learned tremendously and thoroughly enjoyed every breakthrough. What follows is a collection of life lessons learned as a self-taught programmers, mainly while I was coding iAdd.

1. Bugs Are On You

Always. Don’t blame the compiler, the lack of documentation, or the horoscope. You made a mistake somewhere. At some point, something happened in one of your Assess – Decide – Do cycles (yes, you have those cycles even if you’re not aware of them) and you screwed something. I spent countless hours trying to find a flaw in some class or API, basically banging my head against the wall by not accepting that I was the source of that mistake. A typo, a bad copy/paste, or whatever: every bug was in fact my own responsibility.

It’s the same thing in life. If there’s something wrong, check your own history. Don’t blame somebody else. It’s not the universal compiler’s fault (if there would be such a thing like a Universal Compiler, anyway). There’s no glitch in the Matrix. There’s no failure in the Universe. It’s in you. Look in the mirror and try to find out what you did wrong. And then solve it.

2. You Have To Face The Problem, Detours Are Not An Option

Even if you don’t like it, in programming you have to take the most “difficult” path simply because there are no other options. Workarounds are fragile. They may solve the problem for the time being but their fragility will show up the moment you’d want to expand your app. Do it the right way, fix the problem for good. Or, if you settle for workarounds, expect things to blow in your face the moment you’re expecting this the least.

It’s like in life: you can’t live in a continuous status-quo. You gotta take responsibility for your choices, climb the mountain you have to climb, because the solution is always on top of that mountain. You can’t take a detour. Or if you choose a detour instead of facing the problem upfront, you may overcome some temporary difficulties, but you won’t find the real answer. The real answer is always on top of the mountain.

3. Today’s Problem Is Tomorrow’s Laughter

If you learn constantly, what seems difficult now, tomorrow will seem like a joke. Not only once I hit “impossible” situations in my coding, but staying with them long enough made them fade away. I remember the feeling of frustration and powerlessness every time I had to learn something new. Every time some new class showed up, some new algorithms appeared and I felt like I will never finish. But I did. And I laughed at my own frustration afterwards.

If you really take the time to look back at your life, you’d be amazed how far you’ve already gone. Just try to remember how was your life 5 years ago. How much was changed in your financial life? In your personal life? In your career? If you did your homework well, as in the number two above, the answer will amaze you. But if your answer will fill you up with sadness and frustration, go back to number two above and climb your mountain.

4. Good Focus Builds Good Things

The temptation of having something running out as fast you can, publishing it on the AppStore and waiting for the cash to pour in is big. Tens of thousands of programmers are hitting this road just like the gold rush in Wild Wild West. But if you look at the top 10 apps they’re all solid, verified, tested and really polished apps. Hurrying up is not a good solution. Especially in a highly competitive ecosystem like the App Store.

They say “all good things come to those who wait” for a reason, you know? You can’t expect to go on with quick fixes for ever. And yet, the perspective of waiting will frighten you up. So bad, that you’ll just run with something that works for the moment and lose sight of the big picture. Doing things incessantly, just for the sake of coping with your day to day challenges won’t take you far. Take some time to think things over.

5. If You Feel It, Do It

Many times you won’t have the tools to query your user base about the features they’d want in your app. You’re either an indie developer (like me), or the company doesn’t have a budget for creating focus groups or there’s nobody watching the forums, etc. Fact is you’ll have to rely most of the time on your own intuition when it comes to adding or eliminating features from your app. So, if you feel like something new will fit in, just go for it.

Of course, there will be times when you’ll be hit by the “feature diarrhea” but that’s a risk you’ll have to take. In time, you’ll develop a fine sense of what’s appropriate and what’s not. And you’ll grow that sense by practice, by direct interaction, by doing stuff.

That’s exactly with life decisions. When you feel it, go for it. Don’t delay, don’t ask for permission. You know better.

6. Be Neat

If you ever wrote a project with more than 5 source code files, you know that managing those source code files can be a nightmare. At this point, iAdd has almost 200 source code files. It would have been impossible to manage them without being organized and neat. By the way, iAdd was developed from the idea stage to the final implementation stage using Assess – Decide – Do, my life management framework. Without a formalized methodology in place, the project simply wouldn’t have been finished. Never.

If you have unfinished things, unspoken sentences or forgotten promises, uncover, speak out or fulfill. Don’t leave things floating around, hoping that someone else will come over and take care of them for you. Nobody will. It’s only you and your life. Keep it in order. Even if you did a mistake, a neat mistake is far easier to be repaired than a complicated one.

7. There’s More Than One Way To Skin A Cat

And perhaps more than 10 ways to implement an algorithm. In my early days as a programmer, I always was afraid there isn’t any way to do it. Now I’m afraid that I won’t choose the right way to do it. You always have more choices than you think you have. The same algorithm can be implemented in dozens of ways and a problem can be solved in thousands of ways.

That’s the same in life. If in the beginning you’ll be afraid that you won’t reach your goal, as you advance and learn, you’ll be afraid that you didn’t chose the most simple and effective way to do it. The subtle lesson here is that there are always solutions. Abundant, flowing and ready to be used. Embracing risks and daring to be different will teach you that nothing is impossible.

Nothing.

Assess – Decide – Do: Natural Productivity

More than a year ago, I was traveling to Thailand. It was my first trip to South-East Asia. I clearly remember the colors, the smells, the images and the overall excitement mixed with curiosity. I had an incredible time during that trip. I don’t know if it was the visual shock or the cultural difference, the jetlag or my raw food diet (at that time) fact is, at some point during that trip, I had a sort of a revelation. It came in the form of three words: Assess – Decide – Do.

During the trip, those words repeatedly came into my mind until I realized they were my unconscious response to a lot of questions. How do you get up in the morning? How do I get to that place I want to visit? How do I get to the airport? How do I manage to write the blog posts I planned to write on this trip? All those questions stacked up somewhere in a darker corner of my mind, until they got a sudden and unexpected response. Assess, Decide, Do. While my conscious mind was busy absorbing all the fresh experiences, my unconscious mind had to come up with an answer to all those questions.

During that trip, I started to follow that short sequence of activities more and more, hour after hour, each and every day. I started to calm down and assess what I want to do, then decide if, when and where I want to do that, and then do it. I practically started to slice up my reaction to outside stimuli following this pattern. First assess, then decide, then do. Somehow, it seemed to work. The events were flowing down easily, I was focusing exactly on what I wanted to focus, while still maintaining a high degree of awareness. As I told you, I still remember the colors, the smells and even the noises.

After I got home, I put those words apart. There were things that needed to be done, bills to pay, meetings to attend to and so on. But somehow, the words kept popping out in my head. And somehow, I started to apply that sequence to other parts of my life. I started with work. In a matter of days, I started to experience a smooth flow and a surprising increase in my productivity. I said surprising because I’m not a lazy person. And then tried to apply it in my personal life. And then in my relationships. The more I practiced it, the better I became at. Eventually, I took this to a whole new and bigger level. After a few months of trials and errors, I was sure that I was into something really good. And by lack of any other name, I named this a “life management framework”.

What’s This Ebook About?

After I realized that I finally discovered something, I started to write about it. There were a few articles on the blog, all of them very well received. I started to incorporate feedback from my readers in it and also started to share these ideas with my friends. Basically, everybody who was exposed to the ideas seemed to “click” with the approach. At some point, when all the structure of the framework was clear, I started to build an app for it. Exactly, an iPhone app. There must be an app for everything, right?

During the app building process, I applied the same framework rules: I assessed, I decided than I did what seemed to be necessary to move the app forward. It took me roughly 30 days to build that app, without any prior knowledge of Objective C. It took me roughly 30 days to build that app, without any prior knowledge of Objective C. (No, this was not a mistake, I deliberately wrote that twice. Just to get it right.)

Now, the app is in the AppStore for more than 2 months, the latest version syncs your data with Dropbox, there is also an iPad version and so on. It may look like I started a business on this idea and to a certain degree, that’s right. But this perception of business will have to stop at the level of employees, though, because I don’t have any. I did everything by myself. Everything. The app, the blog, the promotion. Everything. Oh, and in the process, I had to handle the reconnection with my 13 year old son, I had to take care of my 4 year old daughter and also manage the separation details from my ex-wife. Just in case you’re thinking I had nothing else to do than to write on the blog, on the ebook or write Objective C code.

And still, every morning when I look in the mirror I see a healthy man, doing what he loves to do and enjoying a life of balance and fulfillment. This is what this ebook is about.

Let’s Get Practical Here

Now, if you made it till here, you must need some real life data, not some motivational stories. You’re right. I have what you need.

The ebook is structured in 3 levels: the conceptual one, the practical exercises and the tutorial for the iPhone/iPad app.

You start by learning from a very high perspective what Assess, Decide, Do means, how your being is acting on each realm and how you can identify your life imbalances using only the 3 aforementioned realms This will sound more like what I write on my blog on a regular basis. Many chapters are sharing large parts with the articles already published.

Then, in the second part, you take the framework to a real life ride. You start to apply it to relationships, to personal crisis management or to strategies for dealing with interruptions. This is the practical stuff. Once you have the concepts clear, you start to apply them to various areas of your day to day life.

And finally, in the 3rd part, you actually see, screenshot by screenshot, how to use iAdd for iPhone. This is the “tutorial” part of the ebook. I felt like a practical section was not enough. I needed something very “in your face”. Step by step. That’s what the third part is.

That’s it. This is the ebook.

I said it before, I will say it again: I suck at writing long, boring and deceiving sales pages. I simply can’t afford to insult your intelligence with all kind of cheap incentives, when I know that you know better than me if you need this ebook.

What Others Are Saying About It

As you may already know, the ebook was on pre-order for 48 hours on my blog. Since I wanted to have some feed-back, I kindly asked some of the people who read it to give me some impressions. These are real people, with real blogs and real lives. And, to my surprise (well, not quite ) they gave me feedback for both the ebook and the app.

Ian Peatey – QuantumLearning.pl

You will like the book if you:

• want to know how Dragos is so damn productive
• want a method to help you get productive yourself
• want to know how Dragos is so damn laid back AND productive at the same time.

You will be wasting your money if you:

• hate Dragos and wish him to live in poverty for the rest of his days
• are perfectly content with both your productivity and level of laid-back-ness.

Lyman Reed – LymanReed.com (iTunes feedback)

iAdd is an excellent app if you want to get out of the “add things to a list and then cross them off” world of productivity. It incorporates much from the GTD world (such as Contexts), but really shines in the area where GTD leaves off – where we assess what’s important to us and make decisions based on what we want to do.

The app is based on Dragos Roua’s Assess-Decide-Do framework – without an understanding of this framework, it could easily be mistaken for just another to do list with what seem like some extra useless steps. I strongly suggest that the user takes the time to learn the framework (links are in the app) to get the most from it.

It’s now my go-to iPhone app for productivity, especially when it comes to using the Assess realm for idea collection. It may even have convinced me that purchasing an iPad would be worth it – unless of course Dragos is planning on creating a version for Windows.  Or even better, a Google Chrome extension (hint, hint…)

Eric – EdenJournal.com

Assess Decide Do is a revolutionary way of approaching Life Management.  It’s more than managing productivity, it’s a framework to underlie day to day decision management.  Assess Decide Do clearly organizes the pre-decision, the decision, and the post decision (or doing.)   Decision making can be a challenge, but Dragos makes it easier by creating a process that allows for all the information gathering to happen first, and then the decision follows a simple go/no-go format.  I have struggled with many forms of organization, and I despise task lists.  Assess Decide Do is a great alternative to the task list, and is really a much more comprehensive solution to organize my life.  It really is a Life Management Framework.

Ruben Berenguel MostlyMaths.net

When I read about the ADD framework in Dragos’ blog, or about the iADD application, I wasn’t impressed. Maybe it was not the correct time, or I just didn’t get it at the moment. Then, I was offered to review the ebook, and reading chapter 3 opened my eyes. I definitely needed to buy that app: it was my workflow. Said and done, I bought it a few hours ago and can’t stop thinking about how much attention to usefulness Dragos put in it. If you have found other to-do apps useless, this is for you.

Pat Flynn – SmartPassiveIncome.com (iTunes feedback)

I agree with one of the other commenters. This really helps take the GTD mindset to a whole new productivity level. Understanding which tasks are most important to us is key, and I’m really glad I have an app to help me with this now, because I often lose my way throughout the day. Thank you!

***

The ebook is only 27 USD and you can buy it by clicking here.

I do hope it will give you at least a fraction of the benefits I had from creating it.

iAdd For iPhone / iPad Now Syncs With Dropbox

It has been a very exciting time for me in the last few weeks. Not only I finished another ebook, one that is very close to me, called “Assess – Decide – Do: Natural Productivity” but I also finished a brand new version of iAdd, my iPhone / iPad implementation for the ADD framework. As a matter of fact, I’m still in the “eye of the hurricane” as we speak. The ebook is currently on pre-order now (for the next 20 hours and something) which means you can still get it at a discounted price and the latest version of iAdd for iPhone / iPad, 1.2,  is live on the AppStore. So, I’m right in the middle of action, knowing that the actual launch of the ebook will happen only after a few hours.

Yes, We Run On iPad Too

Noticed how I silently added the iPad suffix too? Well, that’s because iAdd is now natively working on the iPad too. The good news is that you don’t have to pay extra bucks for it. iAdd is a Universal app. You pay only once (and you pay 3.99 USD, for a limited period of time) and you get 2 apps. If we take into account the iPod users, well, you get 3 apps in only one.

That’s one of the most important features of the latest version of iAdd. It’s not an app running in compatibility mode, it’s specifically designed for iPad. You will notice that all the main interface elements have been designed specifically for iPad, and the data enter workflow has been completely rewritten (click to see full size).

Look, I’m A Landscape!

Another new feature of the version 1.2 will be autorotation. Any data input app should have this, especially on smaller devices like the iPhone. It’s much more comfortable to type, or even to read your tasks while your device is on landscape. As many of you noticed this was an important oversight of the first version of iAdd. Well, it’s fixed now.

Send Anything By Email

Another common suggestion from iAdd customer was a way to make the data accessible in many ways. Everybody agreed that the app is easy to use, but not having a way to share your data outside the device was perceived like an important limitation. Well, starting with version 1.2 you can send any information via email. You can send tasks, you can send events, you can send even projects or ideas and all the contained tasks / details within the projects or ideas will be automatically added. All you have to do is to add an email address and hit send.

Cloud Syncing Is The New Black

As useful as it may be, email is kinda obsolete. I mean it’s a very good back-up solution, but the nicest thing of all is to have cloud syncing. Well, you asked for it, you got it. iAdd version 1.2 sync your data completely with Dropbox via Edge, #g or WiFi. You can now have access to all your tasks, projects or ideas from anywhere. Dropbox released an API for interacting with its widely popular cloud storage service only a few weeks ago but when I saw the press release, I knew I had to work with it.

The API is really fresh, so there might be some inconsistencies. I took all the measures I could think of to ensure a proper backup and syncing of your data, but as always, bad things may happen. Please use the support page listed in iTunes to give me a very thorough description of what wen bad. I’ll fix it.

The most common use case for syncing is when you have 2 devices: an iPhone that goes with you everywhere and an iPad which is more static. You can also have any combination of iPod, iPhone and iPad, of course. That’s one of the main reasons we have an iPad version too. You can use iAdd on any device, with its local database and once you hit sync, your information will be updated. As in most common syncing algorithms, I used the “most recent wins” approach. There are many ways in which you can sync your data, but for a sequential use case (not a concurrent access) this one seemed the most appropriate.

Workflow Improvements And Bug Fixes

There are also tons of bugfixes in this release and I won’t stop to mention each and every one of them. Maybe the most important one is the date selection mechanism which has been drastically improved. There are also a lot of new workflow enhancements and here is just a short list of what are the most important ones:

• a new context based view in the Decide realm
• now you can send a task back to Decide even before you finished it
• a task can be detached from a project, becoming a single task
• a task can be assigned to another idea
• a single task can be promoted to a project

You can see a full list of what’s new in the iTunes listing page.

It’s All Part Of The Framework

But the biggest competitive advantage of all would be of course the fact that iAdd implements the Assess-Decide-Do framework in a very handy and easy to use application. It’s part of the bigger framework, one that could allegedly be used not only for life management, but also for simpler and more mundane tasks like blogging or shopping. That’s right, you can use iAdd to plan your next blog post, or your next shopping session. There are even 2 sample chapters in the ebook which are talking specifically about that: how to use iAdd for blogging and for shopping. Not to mention that one third of the ebook is a very comprehensive manual of iAdd.

So, if you like iAdd, I strongly recommend getting the ebook “Assess – Decide – Do: Natural Productivity” which is, as I already said, on pre-order until tomorrow at 7 AM, Bucharest time. The price is 27 USD, but you can get it at 20 USD while on pre-order. Not to mention that I’ve also thrown in 30 promo codes for the new version of iAdd (of which I have less than 10 now, so you should really hurry up).

You get both the ebook and the app on a very good deal. The bad part of the deal is that will expire in less than 24 hours.

Pre-order Now Natural Productivity – 48 Hours Until Official Launch

Today I’m extremely happy to announce that my latest ebook, called “Assess – Decide – Do: Natural productivity” will be available on this very blog starting Friday, September 17, from 7 AM.. Which is exactly in 48 hours. This is one of my oldest projects and it’s the kind of stuff that grows organically, without too much noise, but with the unmissable feeling of a strong, solid foundation.

Now I have a confession to make. I suck at sales pages. I just do. You know the type of sales pages I’m talking about, a long sausage filled up with cheap incentives and literally breathing the underlying assumption that you, the one who’s supposed to buy that product, are an absolute idiot, responding like a Pavlovian dog to all kind of “verified” buying techniques. I just can’t write those types of sales pages.

What I can do though, is to give you all the information you need, so you can make your own decision. Here are some things you will learn from this ebook.

• What is a life management framework.
• What’s the difference between traditional productivity and natural productivity.
• How to transform a deadline into a liveline.
• How to incorporate procrastination on your own working routine, rather than fight it.
• How to identify the root of your life imbalances, using the 3 stages Assess, Decide and Do.
• How to eliminate the guilt of “not doing enough” while still doing more than you think you can do.
• How to create your own life management framework, based on what you will read. Because you are unique and you need an unique way of managing your life.

In the last part of the ebook, after you have incorporated the base concepts, you will have something to work with, literally in your hands, and that is a tutorial for my iPhone / iPad app inspired by Assess – Decide – Do, iAdd [iTunes link]. iAdd is a 100% compatible implementation of the framework (you will learn in the ebook how can you subclass the main framework and add your own techniques to it) and it was built applying the very concepts described in the ebook, in only 30 days, without any prior knowledge of Objective C.

The ebook contains more than 160 pages written and reviewed during the last year. Its main structure is also split into 3, going from top to the bottom, from abstract to concrete, from concept to implementation. It’s by far the most comprehensive and complete product I’ve built since I start blogging, 2 years ago. And I mean it.

As for the price, I hesitated a lot until I decided to set it at 27 USD. Ebooks in this range are usually selling at 47 USD and up, but I decided to lower the entry point. I do believe the concepts in this ebook are useful, I really do. And so I want to make it available to as many people as possible. Talking about the price, I do have something special for you.

The Special Offer

I’m not going to write a long sausage of cheap selling crap, but I do have a special offer for you. Yes, for you, the long time reader of this blog, the one who stayed behind the lines, never commenting, but always consuming the content, and sometimes sending me a short email like “thanks, Dragos, that helped”. I know you’re out there and this one is for you. You helped me get through this and I want to let you know that I’m listening and I want to give something back.

Until Friday, September 17th, 7 AM, Bucharest time, you can get the ebook at 20 USD, instead of the normal price of 27 USD. That’s 25% off. That’s the least I can do. So, just click on the link below and write down the following code in the shopping cart:

buy now with PayPal

promo code: WakeUpEarly

No spaces, no commas, just three words into one. Your package will be discounted. Please be aware that this discount will expire on Friday, at 7 AM Bucharest time. After that, the promo code won’t work anymore and you could only get the ebook at its normal price.

Wait, There’s More

For the first 30 buyers, I have prepared a promo code for the iAdd app, which will let you have it, basically, for free. A promo code in the AppStore is just like a 100% discount code: you get the app at no cost. So, you will have the full package: the ebook (at a discounted price) and the app to actually implement the entire workflow.

I would have very much loved to give you more promo codes, but there’s a limit of 50 made by apple, and the first 20 went off like crazy (in fact, I had to turn down a few requests, specifically to keep this batch for you). So, if you bought the ebook, come back here and leave a comment. Use the email address you used to buy the book so I can check out the sale. I will send you at the same email address the promo code. Please be aware that those promo codes are available for the US iTunes store only (that’s a limitation imposed by Apple).

Again, please understand that I cannot give more than 30 codes, but if you move rather quickly, you can make it to the first 30. Oh, here’s how quick can you move, you don’t even need to scroll up, just click here (I copied the link for your convenience )

buy now with PayPal

That’s it. The clock it ticking.

The Death Of The Deadline As We Know It

I was a big fan of deadlines. Chasing them. Crossing them off of my todo list. Striving to meet them. Spending countless hours just to prepare myself for this date with my deadline. Oh, the feeling of pride when I was there in time to make it. The inner power and fulfillment… Yes, that was a very interesting experience.

I’m not into deadlines anymore but I do remember the feeling of satisfaction I got from crossing my deadlines off. I still enjoy doing things, I’m just not into deadlines anymore. As simple as it seems, this is a fundamental difference.

The Word

Have you ever really thought what is the meaning of the word “deadline”? It has the word “death” in it. Never wondered why? Because a deadline is a line of death. Once you meet that line, you kill the task. You take its life away. You conquered it. You extended your presence onto its territory, occupied it and now you have the right to eliminate it from your system. That’s a highly motivating psychology. Also, it’s a very disempowering one.

Thinking in terms of “death” lines will make you assimilate the end of a task with its death. Doing things will mean kill one task after another. Slashing tasks over a to do list has this feeling of power: I killed 32 enemies today, I feel good. Tasks are not your enemy. Nobody is, in fact. You just pretend that they are, so you can use the “warrior” resources you already have deep down in your ancestral behavior. The pressure of doing more and more exalted our warrior style way over the safety level.

We position ourselves as conquerors of our own task land. What lies in front of our work day is a field filled with enemies that have to be eliminated. Every day is a battle. Many productivity techniques are using this subliminal approach. What you have to do is a burden. You have to take it away, to overcome it, to eliminate it. The more you eliminate, the better you’ll feel. Train yourself to become better at killing tasks.

At a certain level, this psychology is, as I already said, very motivating. Fighting for our survival is deeply wired in our unconscious memory. This is why we find it easy to understand this approach. Fear of our own death will push us to kill the “other”. And the “other” in this case, is clearly written on our daily to do list. If we don’t kill “them”, they will kill us, so we’d better jump off of our beds, rush into the subway and take position in our daily trenches, suitably camouflaged as desks.

But the downside of this approach, its disempowering part is that, by transforming your tasks into your personal enemies, you’ll eventually become so good at deadlines that life itself will look as a deadline. You’ll rush towards the biggest deadlines of all: your own death. Deadline by deadline, task killed by task killed, you’re going to eventually cross the final episode off of your to do list with great satisfaction. The ultimate project management victory: I crossed off my own death today.

For A Liveline Philosophy

Forget deadlines. Instead let’s have livelines. A liveline is different from a deadline in that it creates a new starting point. The point where you start something on the foundation you just finished, something alive. You restart the movement.

In Assess – Decide – Do, your tasks will always generate a new cycle. You’re not spending time only in Do. You’re also spending time in Assess or in Decide. Each time you finish a task in Do, you will have to feed your Assess realm with the results. You will evaluate feed-back. In this respect, a project is never “finished” in ADD. The graphical representation of a project in Assess – Decide – Do will look more like a spiral than like a Gantt diagram. I agree it’s a little difficult to understand this concept, especially if you’re coming from a long traditional task management experience.

A liveline will never ask you to cross a task over. You always have the possibility to re-start the liveline by sending it back to Decide, and, from there, back to Assess. A liveline will be met only if all its initial stages (Assess and Decide, namely) are completed and fulfilled. And every liveline will generate in turn several ideas, lessons or potential tasks.

A liveline means we’re taking the “death” out of the deadline. We’re taking the pressure out, we’re taking the urge of finishing it so we can get back to our regular life. Because there will be no dichotomy between what you “have” to do and your regular life. It will all take place in the same time/space continuum.

I hear you loud and clear: what about commitments? What about promises? What about our corporate life where we have to finish tasks before competition, otherwise we’re out of business? Well, if you do established a certain end date to a task, keep it. It means you Assessed it right and you also took the right Decision about it. If you spent enough time in those two realms, nothing can go wrong.

Every Do imbalance is in fact a liability you carry on from the previous realms. If you can’t finish a task in the specified time and space constraints, it means something went wrong on the Assess and Decide realms. Completing a task is not a function of the Do, is also a function of Assess and Decide. Until you won’t realize that, it will be really difficult to understand the benefits of the Assess – Decide – Do framework.

How about “unexpected” events? Let’s say you did your best in Assess to anticipate every possible outcome and you properly allocated time and space resources in Decide.And still, some catastrophe happened. A power outage 2 hours before the client presentation or a traffic jam which delayed your presence at that important meeting. Well, things are happening. It doesn’t mean you’re off track. Back to Assess.

In a traditional approach, you would consider the undone task a liability. In the best case, you would have tried to reschedule or postpone. Meaning you would still keep yourself in the Do realm. Stuck on the deadline. And for as long as you’re stuck in the same mindset, the problem will never disappear.

Take a leap of faith. Go out. Make a lateral step. Transform that deadline into a liveline. A liveline will give you flexibility not only at the action level, but also at the perception level. Start assessing what went “wrong” and see what could you’ve done better. There are many reasons for what you can’t really Do a thing. Keeping yourself only in Do will hide those details, will lock you in the Do box. You can’t see the real picture if you’re not taking time to assess.

Perhaps the presentation wasn’t ready. Perhaps the client wasn’t ready to receive your message. Perhaps the meeting wasn’t very good for your career. There are so many things you should ponder about what’s happening around you and still, because you’re pressuring on Do, you skip them. Or you avoid them consciously because they won’t “help” you in any way.

Inject Some Life Into That Deadline

And make it a liveline. By now, you should have understand that there is a little bit of a word game here: dead versus alive. I deliberately pushed the comparison a little bit. Of course you will commit to doing things in Assess – Decide – Do too. Of course you will do the best to meet your own expectations, at least. What’s different, though, from the traditional productivity approach, is an unprecedented degree of flexibility.

In a traditional approach, if something went wrong, you would at best re-schedule and try to refill the Do realm with that task. Or lose it all together. In Assess- Decide – Do, you will reintroduce the task into your Assess realm. Of course you can just Re-Decide it, and in many day by day circumstances, that would be the expected reaction, but you also have another realm to work with, Assess.

I will avoid using a term like “planning” when it comes to Assess. You do much more than planning. You evaluate, you imagine, you wait, you dream about it, you play with the task as in a dream world. The degree of flexibility offered by the mere idea that you can be productive while Assessing is incredible.

And finally, one of the most important benefits of this bouncing back and forth is the organic rearrangement of your activity. Projects, tasks and events will start to fall into their places. The initial feeling will be one of melting, of losing control. But after this rather scary period, another feeling will come into place: the feeling of flow. There is an inner capacity of natural order, of simple flow from one project to another.

The deadline carries with it a threat. If you won’t do it, something or somebody must die. In 99,99% of the cases, the task will die, and you will actually kill it. But a liveline will not have any threat associated. It’s like “doing nothing” and yet “doing it”. A good deal of resistance to implementing Assess – Decide – Do will come, ironically, from the fact that you associate “doing” things with pressure. And when you’re not feeling pressure you’re going to feel like you’re doing nothing. If there’s no deadline it means there’s nothing to do, right? Wrong. you can do things in the absence of a deadline, just by knowing that the results of your work will not get lost in a to do planner, but they’ll be part of a bigger, flexible system that you can work with. I know, you associated doing with pressure. But no, with a liveline there is no pressure. And you can still do things.

Now, I hear you for the final question: are one going to do more using Assess – Decide – Do than using any other productivity framework? My answer to this question will always be: “more” is not automatically “better”. The consumerist obsession put a lot of weight on “more”. If you live in the deprivation of only one realm, spending your entire life in the Do realm, “more” becomes important. “More” is a way of measuring what you’re Doing. But once you get out of the prison of Doing, spending time in Assess and Decide, “more” will lose its meaning as a measurement tool. It will be only a choice, an assessment. I can Do more today, or I can spend more time Deciding or Assessing.

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Ok, this was a teaser. What you just read is just a chapter from my upcoming ebook: “Assess – Decide – Do: Natural Productivity”. The ebook will be launched this Friday, on September 17th, but you will be able to pre-order it at a significant discount starting this Wednesday. Many concepts you read in this article and seemed a little foggy will come to life by reading the entire ebook. It’s a 150 pages text, grouped in 3 main parts. The last one is a very thorough guide of iAdd for iPhone, the app which puts the power of this framework literally in your hand.

If you’re a blogger, your audience is revolving around productivity or lifestyle design and you feel like reviewing the ebook, you can have a chance to get a copy of it for free, as long as you commit to review it on your blog. It doesn’t have to be a positive review, just an honest one. I’ve done this before with other ebooks I wrote and I was positively surprised by the results. After the ebook launch, next week, I will also do a round up of the reviews and post links to the blogs who published them. So, you’re not only getting the ebook for free, you also get a link back to your blog from quite a popular site. So, if you’re into it, just hit me up with an email in which you’re telling me your blog address, a few words about yourself and why would you like to review it. You should also tell me if you want to become an affiliate (you may include affiliate links in your review, if you want).

Other than that, I’m really looking forward to this Friday, September 17th, this is one of the most interesting livelines I’ve set up lately .