rewrite the whole site

Signed-off-by: Lars Wirzenius <liw@liw.fi>
Sponsored-by: author

1 files changed, 0 insertions, 180 deletions

diff --git a/projects-next-actions.mdwn b/projects-next-actions.mdwn
deleted file mode 100644
index 39cd6e3..0000000
--- a/projects-next-actions.mdwn
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,180 +0,0 @@
-Projects and next actions
-=========================
-
-In the GTD system, a "next action" is a physical action you can take,
-preferably something that lasts a fairly short time. Examples of
-next actions would be "write e-mail to project mailing list explaining
-your plan to implement a new test driven development approach", or
-"buy apples and bananas for home".
-
-A **bad** next action would be "start a side business". It's bad for
-two very important reasons:
-
-* it's not short; indeed, it might be of indefinite length
-* it's unclear when it's finished
-
-When you actually start doing things, it's much easier if you know what
-you need to do, and when you're finished. A **good next action** would
-fulfill the following criteria:
-
-* a _physical_ action ("write", not "think about")
-    * thinking is part of planning! and that should happen during a review phase
-    * planning can be broken down into next actions, however
-* it's clear what I need to do (a widget to crank)
-* duration at most 15 minutes, preferably
-* I'm committed to doing it
-* does not depend on anything, can be done immediately
-* it's clear when it's done
-
-Obviously, some things you want to get done are going to take a lot of
-time. That's OK: they just should not be next actions. Next actions need
-to be things that you just do. No more thinking or planning should be
-required.
-
-Anything that takes more than one step (more than one next action),
-is called a project in GTD. Like next actions, projects should have
-a clearly defined goal so that you know when you're finished. For
-example, "form a corporation for side business" might be a good
-project:
-
-* it's clearly defined (it's done when the corporation is formally and
-  legally founded, and has a bank account, accountant, e-mail address,
-  and other such things)
-* it takes several steps: decide on name, register, open bank account, etc.
-
-Also like next actions, projects should be finished within a limited
-time, though the time will be much longer. Next actions should typically
-be doable within half a day (but shorter is better), whereas projects
-might last up to a year.
-
-It's a good idea to write down the goal of a project in a sentence or
-a paragraph. This concentrates your thinking to be directed at achieving
-that goal and makes it easier to avoid spending time on things that are
-related to the goal, but don't help you achieve it.
-
-Update: Finishing things is an important motivator, at least for me.
-It's probably a good idea to prioritise finishing existing projects,
-and to scope and plan projects so they're easy and quick to finish, to
-gain from the motivational boost.
-
-Update: Getting started in the morning can be difficult. Sometimes it
-helps to have really simple, tiny next actions to choose from that you
-can do and get started. I tag such actions with a "zombie" label, to
-find them easily.
-
-Keeping track of projects and next actions: the art of lists
-------------------------------------------------------------
-
-You'll likely have more than a handful of projects or next actions.
-Even if you only have a few of each, it's best to write them down.
-The human brain is not good at remembering things without triggers,
-whereas even the cheapest pen and piece of paper will do lists with
-excellence. (In fact, my memory seems to work better the more I write
-things down.)
-
-You should keep one list of projects, and another list of next actions.
-You can keep them in any way or form that you like:
-
-* a single plain text file for each
-* a web page for next actions (so you can read it on your phone), and a 
-  folder on your computer's desktop for every project
-* using an outliner: one tree for next actions, one for projects
-* using a specialized GTD application
-* a sheet of paper for next actions, and a project folder for each project
-
-If you choose to have one folder per project, whether digital or physical, 
-that provides a convenient place to store files related to that project.
-However, this requires all files to be arranged according to project,
-which can be inconvenient: if you have two projects related to the same
-software, do you check out the source code twice, once per project folder?
-You might instead keep a simple list of projects, and then store the
-supporting files in a way that is more natural than per project. Or you
-might decide that per-project is the natural way. Your choice.
-
-There is one right way to do this: anything that you do that helps you
-keep track of things is fine. Anything that is a hassle or gets in your
-way is wrong.
-
-Next action contexts and categories
------------------------------------
-
-The list of next actions is what you will be dealing with most with GTD.
-It is important that it's easy and fast to use. However, as soon as it
-grows longer than two or three dozen entries, it will become hard to
-pick something from it quickly: you need to read through a lot of it
-to find something suitable to do.
-
-Say you're waiting for the bus, and you have maybe ten or fifteen minutes.
-You have your laptop, and there's a place for you to sit. This would be
-a perfect time to knock off an item from your next actions list, but
-what should you do? If it takes five minutes to scan the list and find
-something to do, you've wasted maybe half of your available time. Not good.
-
-You should break down the list by context or other suitable category.
-A context is the things that are required for you to do the action:
-"at phone" would be the context for anything that requires you to use
-your phone; "online" would be all the things you need Internet access
-to do; "at home" for things you must be at home to do, etc.
-
-Productivity geeks have spent inordinate amounts of times figuring out 
-the ideal contexts and categories
-for them. This is an easy thing to obsess over. However, it's
-also clear that nobody else can decide what contexts suit you than yourself.
-Still, for inspiration, here's the list of contexts I use:
-
-* **In progress**: for anything that has been started, but is currently
-  waiting for something, typically a long computation being performed by
-  a computer
-* **Unfun**: anything that is unpleasant, and is therefore easily postponed;
-  having this as its own category helps avoiding that (also, I have a rule
-  that every workday at least one unfun thing needs to be done)
-* **At phone, able to call**: for phone calls one needs to make (a special
-  category of unfun, for me)
-* **Errands**: things that require you to go somewhere, such as a shop, or
-  office, or meet someone outside your normal locations
-* **With person X**: things that need to be discussed with a specific
-  person, either in person or perhaps over the phone
-* **At home, not using a computer**: cleaning, dishes, etc.
-* **At home, using computer**: typically involves a desktop computer, or
-  external hard disks, or a printer/scanner, or other hardware that is
-  hard to carry
-* **At laptop, offline**: the laptop being my primary computer, this is all
-  the things I need to do at a computer, which don't require Internet access;
-  I travel a bit, and I often go sit in a cafe to work a bit, and so I can't
-  take the Internet for granted; there's a lot of things that fall into this
-  context, so this is often quite a long list
-* **At laptop, online**: like the previous one, but these require both the
-  laptop and Internet access
-
-
-"My lists are too long"
------------------------
-
-Inevitably, life dumps more on you than you can handle, at least in
-the short term. I feel like that every Monday morning. One sign of
-this is that my next actions list keeps growing, and doesn't ever
-seem to get shorter.
-
-Sometimes this becomes so overwhelming I can't stand it, and I need to
-do something about it. My main strategy is to drop commitments until
-I have the situation under control again. For example, if I've got
-five ideas for blog posts to write, I'll delete those, or move them
-to someday/maybe. Or I find other things I can wriggle out of doing,
-though sometimes that requires careful diplomacy (also known as
-throwing a tantrum).
-
-The feeling of being overwhelmed is an important indicator to me
-that my level of stress is rising too high. In principle, it doesn't
-matter if your next actions list is very long, as long as you keep
-doing each thing before it's too late. However, if I'm under too
-much stress, the mere length of the list starts causing stress, and
-I start avoiding even looking at it, and then everything starts
-falling apart.
-
-And that's why I try to keep my lists at manageable lengths.
-
-Before dropping commitments, I try to do things like doing as many
-quick tasks as possible, or avoiding new commitments while I deal with
-the old ones. Those strategies tend to work only if I'm not already
-overstressed.
-