Time, Attention and Me

September 12, 2008

Merlin Mann’s recent post on the future direction of 43 Folders, Time, Attention, and Creative Work, kind of taps into a few things I’ve been thinking of lately. In a nutshell, his post is about refocusing, cutting out a lot of the crap and deciding what the game is really about. It’s also a reclamation of the site and a commitment to what the site is, or will be, really about.

After jumping on the GTD bandwagon and getting most of my daily life in order (see my series of posts on this, starting here), I’ve started slipping down the other side of the peak. I now have the energy and time to invest into other projects (or ‘creative work’, in Mann’s post); however, this has been wasted by more playing with productivity pron (43 Folders included…), reading too many feeds, half attempts at projects and other pointless, generally time-sapping, activities.

This needs to stop – it’s basically a waste of the new-found energy and effort I worked so hard to find. Taking a lead from Mann, this means I’ll be trying to refocus my efforts as well moving forward on some of the things that have been on the back of my mind and sitting on the Someday/Maybe list. I’ll finish my own series of posts on GTD, then consolidate this site and other online profiles under my own name at simongoudie.com, cut back on feeds, slash Twitter followings, cull other online time-sinks and start looking to use the extra energy on worthwhile pursuits.

Of course, the first problem is realising what exactly these pursuits or muses are; however, this seems as good a time as any to discover them. In short, I’ll take on three out of Mann’s five goals: cut the noise, walk the truer walk and make things count for me. Let’s see what happens after that.

Thanks for the insightful post, Merlin, I look forward to following 43 Folders (and YLNT) in future, in whatever form that is.

Posted in GTD