Audit time is a chance to see how we're doing with the processes we have cluttering the to do list with bright ideas. It shouldn't be any longer than six months after you went through the process of [[Determine]]. Put it in your trusted calendar application. In three or four or six months, you'll be checking up on yourself on how that went. It's a handy psychological lever in making to do list items actually happen.\nLets say we are still going with the two examples taken from [[Determine]]. How in heck do we audit them? And yes, you needed to bear this in mind before you got stuck in to sorting the problem out!\n*Paying the bills - If you have an easily accessed record of your bills, then you know what you are paying to who. An audit scheduled on your calendar six months down the line can simply check that you have at least examined each supplier. Keep a note in your files as you do it. "Phone - Checked alternatives on internet, decided to stay with current provider." That needs to be dated and filled somewhere at the top of your phone bill store. When you come to audit time you can quickly run through which providers you've looked at and which are outstanding. You can even schedule a "re-check phone supplier" item in six months or a years time when you file the fact that you already looked.\n*Maintaining the house - Will be to do list based but with some extras. Have you tackled any of the problems in the last six months? Do you need to shift things from DIY to find a contractor? If you used a good contractor, do you have a record of it? If they were dire, do you have a note never to use them again?\nIn ISO audit terms, these things boil down to simple questions, we can skip "tell me what you do" since it's your life and you are already living it. But when you do schedule an audit, give yourself the following questions:\n*Show me how you know what to deal with - The to do list / calendar\n*Prove to me when and how you dealt with it - The note on file / calendar\nThis is where dating and storing those to do list items that you checked off really pays out.\nIf you don't have a to do list entry, you may have already done it. Big points to you! Or you may have missed it. Ooops!\nIf you can't prove you did it then your file system still sucks, or you never did it. Ooops!\nIf you got an Ooops! That's your first non-compliance. You are not an ISO9001 accredited individual, do not pass go, do not collect £100. Instead. Figure out ''why''? And look at [[Corrective action]].

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In ISO9001 world, this is the idea that you can always improve on what you output right now. I'll admit I had doubts about this, I mean who can improve on a bic pen or a paper clip? But we are looking at a complex business model. Parts of it are always changing even if everything is working smoothly. There's always room to adapt and improve your inputs, outputs and processes.

Ok so we had big plans, put things in to do lists and still, six months down the line the audit picked up that nothing had happened or that the file system sucked.\nIf it's the file system, then rework the system. Move it closer to your work spot. Change the way you file. Check if your computer based record or paper / card based record is getting to the right place. If it was stuck on your Palm when it crashed horribly, find a way of making sure that won't happen again.\nIf it's simply a lack of action, you have more serious problems. Take the audit time to re-evaluate why you arn't tackling that to do list item. Is your to do list too long? Are you avoiding it for personal reasons? Is cash the problem? Was it really important in the first place? Be honest. Here's a chance to address a nagging problem that you keep avoiding. Throw everything you have at it. If all else fails, tag it back on the to do list with a non-compliance date and get on with everything else you can improve. It'll annoy you again at the next audit...

[[What?]][[The Basics]]

A summary of Deming's contribution to productivity can be found [[here|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming]]. He has a 14 point plan which is of interest in the work sphere, but I like the other bits...\n\nThe Seven Deadly Diseases:\n# Lack of constancy of purpose.\n# Emphasis on short-term profits.\n# Evaluation by performance, merit rating, or annual review of performance.\n# Mobility of management.\n# Running a company on visible figures alone.\n# Excessive medical costs.\n# Excessive costs of warranty, fueled by lawyers who work for contingency fees.\nA Lesser Category of Obstacles:\n# Neglect of long-range planning.\n# Relying on technology to solve problems.\n# Seeking examples to follow rather than developing solutions.\n# Excuses such as "Our problems are different".\nThey don't all hit the mark, but:\n# Lack of constancy of purpose.\n# Neglect of long-range planning.\n# Relying on technology to solve problems.\n# Seeking examples to follow rather than developing solutions.\n# Excuses such as "Our problems are different".\nAre all relevant points to the ISOLifeHack system and are worth bearing in mind.

Here is where you get to do some thinking. List out the processes you [[Identify]] earlier. And get your thinking cap on. We are aiming to do two things. Determine the sequence that process requires, and how we can control them. Lets take a couple of examples from [[Identify]]:\n*Paying the bills - There's very little sequence here. I use something for a month, I get billed for it, the money leaves my account. How I control it has more scope. Cheque or direct debit? Where do the bills come from? Are they the best providers? Can I change the day they arrive to better suit my pay day?\n*Maintaining the house - Much more sequence here:\n**Identify problem and either:\n**Do it myself - Controlled by my own skills and time constraints\n***Source materials\n***Purchase materials\n***Find time and skills to do the repairs\n**Find external labour - Controlled by finding a good contractor, cost and time constraints\n***Specify work\n***Accept quote\n***Calendar the works\n***Pay the contractor\nThe point is, we are clearly thinking through the process that's bothering us. Just by thinking it through and putting pen to paper or finger to keyboard, we have cut through the fog and clarified the problem.

The freak who thought all this up and bothered to write it down.\nTry [email protected] if you want to contact me. Customer feedback is always welcome!

Look [[here|http://www.iso.org/iso/en/iso9000-14000/index.html]] or [[here|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_9001]] for a brief run down on what ISO 9001 is and does in the business world. I hack it a little (ok a lot) to suit the fact we're applying it to living not being a business.\nNote that In 1997, two people took the BSI to the Advertising Standards Authority for claiming in an advertisement that ISO 9001 "improves productivity ... almost always gives an immediate result in terms of productivity and efficiency, and that means cost reductions ... pays for itself ... Staff morale is better because they understand what is expected of them and each other," whilst being unable to produce any objective metrics to substantiate these assertions. The complaint was upheld.\nSo it's not a magic bullet, and yes it does add overheads to living. But if by applying a system like ISO9001 or [[Kaizen]] to your own life you get a few extra hours free in a week or a bit more cash in the bank, the short term pain will probably be worth the gain.\n----\nThe standards are broken into sections, and the links to the ISOLifeHack version follow each point:\n\n__Section 1__\n*Identify the process (or activities) needed for the quality management system - [[Identify]]\n*Determine the sequence and interaction of these processes - [[Determine]]\n*Determine how these processes are effectively operated and controlled - [[Determine]]\n*Ensure that all information is available to support the operation and monitoring of these processes - [[Info store]]\n*Measure, monitor and analyze these processes, and implement action necessary to correct the processes and achieve continual improvement - [[Audit]]\n__Section 2__\n*Management Responsibility - [[Management]]\n__Section 3__\n*Resource Management - [[Resources]]\n__Section 4__\n*Product Realization - That sequence of processes and sub processes required to achieve the product - [[Product]]\n__Section 5__\n*Measurement, Analysis and Improvement - [[Audit]]\n----\nAchieving [[Continual improvement]]\n#Goals and Metrics: setting goals on various levels and using metrics to gage performance.\n#Customer Feedback: measuring what customers think about the company and its products or services.\n#Internal Audits: periodical evaluating if the company still meets all ISO 9000 requirements.\n#Corrective Action: systematical identification of underlying causes of existing problems and then correcting these causes.\n#Preventive Action: systematical search for potential problems and correcting their underlying causes before the problems can occur.\n#Management Review: management’s periodical review of key business indicators and planning of improvement initiatives.

A wildly unpresciptive system for beginning to get organised that refines itself as you use it. Born of the ISO9001 business model but applied to living how one wants to.\nUse what you've got and what you know.\nRecord it, assess it, update and improve it.

The first step, and it's all about you.\nIt really doesn't matter what the first process you look at is. But it helps if it's something you know you'd like to improve, and you'd get a warm happy glow from knowing you'd made it work better for you. Even better, choose something you have a good chance of making a difference with. Some examples would be:\n*Paying the bills\n*Maintaining the house\n*Improving my work output\n*Stopping smoking\n*Eating well\n*Spending quality time with wife and kids\n*Finding a better job\n*Starting up a business\nYou can add as many processes you want later, but to begin with, start with a few of your big blockers and concentrate on them. This isn't a all in one solution to begin with. Start with the things that bother you most and you can make most change in. Short term yes, but this is the practise stage. Later you can apply the same techniques to more complex and subtle processes.

This is by far the most re-worked area of the current GTD fad, and is a baseline for how you implement everything else. In the ISOLifeHack world, it's anything you can use that you like. You are an individual with your own constraints and preferences. So you decide for yourself how your going to store your to do list, calendar, documents, reference material, archives, whatever! If your work and home life are split. Don't sweat it. Just use the best method you can at work, and the best you can at home.\nAmongst the most rated methods are PDA's, Index Cards (or hPDA's), filing cabinets, box files, concertina files, paper diaries, blank books, PC based software and web based software. Perhaps the most often used is the legendary "stack of paper", I find a stack of around eight inches is manageable if I'm looking for recent information I haven't filed yet. (Feel the productivity guru's withering gaze!). Use what you've got and feel comfortable with. This is your system. When it comes to [[Audit]] time, you can judge if you need to change your system. If you're starting up from zero, just go for ease of use & familiarity.\nFor the examples in [[Determine]] we need:\n*Paying the bills - An easily accessed record of who is billing us for what\n*Maintaining the house - More complex:\n**List of items outstanding (the to do list)\n**Recommendations of any contractors in the area\n**Access to information on any past work done\n**Calendar information on when the work can be done\n**Finance information on how / when the work or materials can be paid for\nYou also need to file away some information on how you are going to evaluate your success in each process. It can be a cash figure, estimate of time involved, number of to do list items eliminated, whatever suits the process, but you have to keep it somewhere!\nYou determine how much information you need for each process, and you determine how and where it is stored. It's pretty basic. If you find your billing information is all over the place, you need to think up a way of better organising it. I don't care if it's a ring binder or scanning everything to PDF with a digital camera. Just identify it as a weak link and put it on the to do list. Better yet, just get on with sorting it out and avoid ever having it on the to do list.

In the ISOLifeHack world, these are the fun and easily changed parts of life, and most people will feel drawn to start here, but it's a long list:\nShops, dentist, ISP, landlord, mortgage, phone, gas, electric, garage, workplace, your calendar, archive, reference documents, bills, to do list.\nNote that some of these items are both inputs and outputs. I output to my to do list, but it also inputs back to me what I want to be doing. At first glance this seems to make things horribly complicated. Don't let it get to you yet. Wait till you start looking at your processes and it sorts itself out.\nIf you went down the split mind from body route, there is also food, drink, caffine, tobacco, alcohol...\nI tend to go for a spreadsheet for this stuff, but with the ISOLifeHack system, at the top of each sheet you want to add a "satisfaction" rating. If one of your goals is to be eco friendly, then consider it or even enumerate it when you are considering your supply chain.

A brief run down of the Kaizen concept can be found [[here|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen]]\nI've taken the ultra simplistic root of the concept:\n# Standardize an operation\n# Measure the standardized operation (find cycle time and amount of in-process inventory)\n# Gauge measurements against requirements\n# Innovate to meet requirements and increase productivity\n# Standardize the new, improved operations\n# Continue cycle ad infinitum

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----\n[[What?]]\n[[The Basics]]\n----\nISO9001\n[[Identify]]\n[[Determine]]\n[[Info store]]\n[[Audit]]\n[[Management]]\n[[Resources]]\n[[Product]]\n----\n[[Putting it together]]\n----\n<HTML><IMG SRC=http://visit.geocities.yahoo.com/counter.gif ALT="Counter"></HTML>\n<HTML><a href="http://geocities.yahoo.com/pstats/fluffkinuk"><img src="http://us.geo1.yimg.com/pic.geocities.com/us/i/geo/ao/pstat.gif" width="14" height="14" alt="See who's visiting this page." border="0"></a>\n</HTML>\n

Management of the system is an internal thing, but there are two aspects to Management in this sense:\n*It's your drive to actually see through the processes you've identified\n*It's the overall vision of what you are trying to achive\nIt's important to try and be a good manager in any sense you interpret that. But it includes not setting yourself impossible goals, taking feedback from your [[Audit]] on board and changing direction if needed, giving yourself the time to put the system in to practise, providing the [[Resources]] you need to get it done and so on...\nIf you are not a manager at work, now's your chance to see if you're any good at it. If you already are a manager, it might be worth seeing if you apply the same approach at work that you do to yourself.\nOne aspect of the ISO9001 approach worth mentioning is management's responsibility for setting the overall goals / targets for the company. This tends to get printed on bits of A4 and stuck in cubicles titled "The mission statement" or something like that. You don't have to, but it's actually quite a good idea to try and develop your own mission statement. Take in to account your long term goals, what methods or resources you will or won't use to achieve them, and your main priorities in life. Keep it brief, give it pretty colours and stick it somewhere in your home cubicle. Now you can check it every once in a while when you're analysing the next process in your life. If you do produce the pretty Mission Statement, be sure to schedule a review of it between six and twelve months time.

Nothing at all to do with productivity, all about creativity. I've come to appreciate MashUp music and the Photoshop world of art. The principle is to blend the bits you like that already exist to form something new and sometimes even more interesting. An interesting side effect is that in any MashUp you have to discard the bits you don't need.\nThis website aims to provide a few productivity concepts for your own MashUp mix of productivity. Along the way I'll add pointers to how I tend to apply things, but that's my mix. You'd do better to form your own unique style.

In the ISOLifeHack version our customers are defined how we want them to be, but the basics are everyone we interact with. Some are very important: children, wife, husband, family, colleagues, boss, clients.... and so on.\nBut it's important to remember that everyone we deal with is in some sense a client.\nIf you have a mind to, you could seperate your mind from your body, in which case your clients also include your liver, lungs, kidneys, muscles and any other body part you could treat better. To begin with though, unless you have a particular health concern, I'd go with treating your body and mind as one entity.\nFocused means we are going to [[Audit]] how well we deal with our customers and how we can improve how we interact with them.\nIn order to get the system up and running, we'll need to list our primary relationships, and have some idea what goals we want to achieve in relation to them.\nIn addition to the above. An output is also where you decide to end the process you're looking at. In the first [[Processes]] example, I end with "eat food" as the output. That's not strictly the end of it all though. By improving the food chain, I should be improving the time I can spend on other things / people, examing the ecological impact of how I get my food, and hopefully the money I have available for me and my family. I take these things as natural outputs and assume they improve as systems get evaluated and tweaked. I could build data up on my free time per week and carbon footprint and continually re-evaluate them, but I don't feel the need (yet). If I feel I've got more time to spare, that's good enough for me.

26th Nov 2006 : First published\n27th Nov 2006 : Revision 1.01\n27th Feb 2007 : Audit Nr 1

Ok so we have a if we have a vague idea of our [[Inputs]] and [[Outputs]], we probably something of a thought cloud of roughly what all that means. Now lets try and apply that to a process. For an easy example, I'm going to take an input system to start with. Lets say I'm on a tight budget, but I'd like to eat well.\nFirst I give it a category name. "Food". That defines the scope. I'm not including my other expenses or my level of income. It's all just about the food. So...\n#Buy food - Is constrained or constrains time, money and I'll add health as an item. I like organic food.\n#Store food - Is a storage constraint\n#Cook food - Is constrained by time and skill\n#Eat food - Is constrained by environment and time\nBelieve it or not. That is now a documented process. But we need a little more detail to allow [[Continual improvement]].\nSo lets add some data from our last food bills and a feel for how long things take. Since I tend to do a weekly shop, we'll keep things on a weekly basis:\n#Buy food - £125, 3 hours\n#Store food - 30 mins\n#Cook food - Hmmm lets say 45mins per night so 5:15 h:m I'm not going to worry about the cost here.\n#Eat food - 3:30 h:m\nThose are the benchmarks we want to try and improve on. Improve doesn't always mean "make smaller". I might want to spend more time enjoying my food for example, especially if that's time spent with the family.\nSo now we have a documented process and a rough idea what the process costs us in time and money.\nNow we can put all that info together and begin to make sense of the process and how to improve it. Basically this is the brain storm session and it kicks out lots of potential actions for the to do list:\n#Buy food - time and money - Check I'm using the cheapest good (organic) provider of food. What are my alternatives? Local organic farm box delivery of veg? Online shopping?\n#Store food - Have I got enough storage? Could I buy bulk in cheaper if I could increase storage? How fast do I consume items with a limited shelf life? Am I just chucking stuff away?\n#Cook food - Do I want to explore bulk cooking / freezing at the weekend? Do I need different cook books? Can I find alternative recipies on the web?\n#Eat food - Where do I eat? Can we turn the telly off? How can I arrange a meal with my wife without the kids around once a week?\nSee? We've taken a process, broken it down, and tried to reassemble it with some questions that reflect how we'd like to improve things. It doesn't matter where you do this. Use index cards, a word processor, spreadsheet, mind map, whatever suits the problem. Now we lift the action points we've raised that we want to act on, and put them in to our to do list. Then we store that documented process somewhere logical where you can find it again (the [[Info store]]). I'll add a note in my calendar for a months time to check the original document and see if I've made any progress. That's the [[Audit]] set up.

Product is a weird concept in ISO9001 at the best of times. It works great if you have a product based company. It becomes a bit of a mess if you're in a service or design industry. What I'm trying to do is apply it to living which is even weirder!\nSo the end product is once again in the tradition of ISOLifeHack what you make it. To make that a tad more useful, it's what you define at the end of the process you're trying to improve. Taking the examples from [[Determine]] again:\n*Paying the bills - The product is many things:\n**Developing an [[Info store]] and having the right [[Resources]] to handle bills\n**Systematically reviewing bill payments on any criteria, ecological grounds, pure financial grounds, whatever you set as your yardstick in the [[Determine]] procedure\n**Reducing the time needed to review your billing profile in the future\n*Maintaining the house\n**Having a better maintained home with greater sale value\n**Stopping the significant other from nagging you every weekend\n**Developing records of good contractors in an easily referenced [[Info store]] or,\n**Building an easily referenced library or online resource for doing the work yourself\nThe product seems nebulous, and really it's as far as you take your aims in the [[Determine]] process with some time saving spin off's in the future. In reality the end product is you dealing with the issues you wanted to deal with and feeling better about life because you have.

So where has all this happy meandering through wiki world got us? Hopefully with some structured concepts about how to sort things out. Lets take it in baby steps. First, sit down and let your mind babble a bit about all the stuff it would like to deal with, then:\n#[[Management]] - If this is your first stab, do the wide scale thinking first.\n##List the results somewhere and add them to the [[Info store]].\n##Add a calendar item to [[Audit]] your management goals at some time in the future.\n#[[Identify]] - Choose one nagging thing that you believe you have a good chance of making a difference with.\n#[[Determine]] - Now go through the steps involved in processing that item. List them out on whatever media you like and start with the very basic points. Add detail and comments until you have a good feel for the issue.\n#[[Resources]] - Check that you have the appopriate resources available, and if not add them to the to do list.\n#[[Info store]] - Shift the results in to useable places.\n##File the [[Processes]] notes somewhere in the [[Info store]] for reference at [[Audit]]\n##Store the resulting to do items in your preferred system.\n##Make an [[Audit]] appointment on your preferred calendar to check you have made progress and how well it went at some time in the future.\n##Prepare your [[Info store]] with whatever filing / spreadsheets / internet resources / documents / books that you'll need to progress the item further.\n#Do it\n##Remember to check off items and add a record of how and when it happened.\n##Keep updating the [[Info store]] as appropriate.\n#[[Audit]] - When the calendar item pops up be ruthless.\n##Check you how well you've progressed. Check the [[Processes]] note. ("Show me what you've done")\n##Review your [[Determine]] information. ("Show me how you knew what to do")\n##If it fell apart, deal with the [[Corrective action]]\n##Feed the results back in to the to do list\n##Add the next [[Audit]] date to the calendar\n##Update the [[Info store]] with any results / observations from the [[Audit]]\nIt's pretty basic stuff that intentionally doesn't dictate your methods of storing information, category systems, context issues, software requirements or life style. That's intentional because it leaves you no excuse for not __just getting on with it__. You could get by with a paper diary and a box of paper and still have a framework for improving things. I'm trying to reverse the equation here with the most basic system I can put forward. Learning a system really isn't that important. What is important is that you make a difference in an area of life that's been bugging you. Life's short. Make improvements where, when and how you can and enjoy the benefits as soon as you can.

Or time to let the inner consumer out to play.\nResources in this context refer to the tools you use to organise and retrieve the information you need for each process. For example: PDA's, index cards, filing cabinets, ring binders, plastic pockets, 43 folder files, expanding files, label machines, pens, computers, internet connections, software, scanners, that stack of letters you haven't opened...\nI'm not advocating any in particular, and I like the idea that you don't need to be tied to one solution for all processes. Obviously life is easier if you manage to get all of your information from two or three places, but it's not the end of the world if you can't. It's better to assess the needs of each new process as you go through the [[Determine]] & [[Identify]] stages and plan accordingly.\nThis of course links directly to the [[Info store]] system.

Tools to streamline living and working

ISOLifeHack

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{\n background: [[ColorPalette::PrimaryLight]];\n border: 1px solid [[ColorPalette::PrimaryMid]];\n}\n\n.popup hr {\n color: [[ColorPalette::PrimaryDark]];\n background: [[ColorPalette::PrimaryDark]];\n border-bottom: 1px;\n}\n\n.listBreak div{\n border-bottom: 1px solid [[ColorPalette::PrimaryDark]];\n}\n\n.popup li.disabled {\n color: [[ColorPalette::PrimaryMid]];\n}\n\n.popup li a, .popup li a:visited {\n color: [[ColorPalette::TertiaryPale]];\n border: none;\n}\n\n.popup li a:hover {\n background: [[ColorPalette::PrimaryDark]];\n color: [[ColorPalette::Background]];\n border: none;\n}\n\n.tiddler .defaultCommand {\n font-weight: bold;\n}\n\n.shadow .title {\n color: [[ColorPalette::TertiaryDark]];\n}\n\n.title {\n color: [[ColorPalette::SecondaryDark]];\n}\n\n.subtitle {\n color: [[ColorPalette::TertiaryDark]];\n}\n\n.toolbar {\n color: [[ColorPalette::PrimaryMid]];\n}\n\n.tagging, .tagged {\n border: 1px solid [[ColorPalette::TertiaryPale]];\n background-color: [[ColorPalette::TertiaryPale]];\n}\n\n.selected .tagging, .selected .tagged {\n background-color: [[ColorPalette::TertiaryLight]];\n border: 1px solid [[ColorPalette::TertiaryMid]];\n}\n\n.tagging .listTitle, .tagged .listTitle {\n color: [[ColorPalette::PrimaryDark]];\n}\n\n.tagging .button, .tagged .button {\n border: none;\n}\n\n.footer {\n color: [[ColorPalette::TertiaryLight]];\n}\n\n.selected .footer {\n color: [[ColorPalette::TertiaryMid]];\n}\n\n.sparkline {\n background: [[ColorPalette::PrimaryPale]];\n border: 0;\n}\n\n.sparktick {\n background: [[ColorPalette::PrimaryDark]];\n}\n\n.error, .errorButton {\n color: [[ColorPalette::Foreground]];\n background: [[ColorPalette::Error]];\n}\n\n.warning {\n color: [[ColorPalette::Foreground]];\n background: [[ColorPalette::SecondaryPale]];\n}\n\n.cascade {\n background: [[ColorPalette::TertiaryPale]];\n color: [[ColorPalette::TertiaryMid]];\n border: 1px solid [[ColorPalette::TertiaryMid]];\n}\n\n.imageLink, #displayArea .imageLink {\n background: transparent;\n}\n\n.viewer .listTitle {list-style-type: none; margin-left: -2em;}\n\n.viewer .button {\n border: 1px solid [[ColorPalette::SecondaryMid]];\n}\n\n.viewer blockquote {\n border-left: 3px solid [[ColorPalette::TertiaryDark]];\n}\n\n.viewer table {\n border: 2px solid [[ColorPalette::TertiaryDark]];\n}\n\n.viewer th, thead td {\n background: [[ColorPalette::SecondaryMid]];\n border: 1px solid [[ColorPalette::TertiaryDark]];\n color: [[ColorPalette::Background]];\n}\n\n.viewer td, .viewer tr {\n border: 1px solid [[ColorPalette::TertiaryDark]];\n}\n\n.viewer pre {\n border: 1px solid [[ColorPalette::SecondaryLight]];\n background: [[ColorPalette::SecondaryPale]];\n}\n\n.viewer code {\n color: [[ColorPalette::SecondaryDark]];\n}\n\n.viewer hr {\n border: 0;\n border-top: dashed 1px [[ColorPalette::TertiaryDark]];\n color: [[ColorPalette::TertiaryDark]];\n}\n\n.highlight, .marked {\n background: [[ColorPalette::SecondaryLight]];\n}\n\n.editor input {\n border: 1px solid [[ColorPalette::PrimaryMid]];\n}\n\n.editor textarea {\n border: 1px solid [[ColorPalette::PrimaryMid]];\n width: 100%;\n}\n\n.editorFooter {\n color: [[ColorPalette::TertiaryMid]];\n}\n\n/*}}}*/

This all came about from dabling with the GTD system for several months with only partial success. The basics of the GTD system work fine, but the reality of life prevented me getting a streamlined system that ran across both work and home projects. In fact the reality of the situation eliminated by previous organisation tool. The Palm.\nI suffer an otherwise great workplace that refuses to let me install and use Palm software on my work PC. I'm not going to go in to the politics of IT departments preventing staff being productive. It happens.\nAnyway, I struggled along for a while, then hit on the idea of adapting the ISO9001 business model to personal life and basically chucking GTD in the bin. Well not totally. It does have some very good points, but they don't all suit me, and the system is too rigid, and to my mind obsessive to let me get along with it well.\nHaving dug around a bit I've broadened the initial ISO9001 concept to include [[Kaizen]]. Though you might also want to check [[Deming]] for inspiration. It gives a nice MashUp of concepts and adds to the basic principle of take the bits you like and don't worry about the rest.\nSo what I'm giving away for free here, is not a "system" in the sense that you just follow the rules and you'll be productive beyond your wildest dreams. What I'm advocating is a system for developing your own system. Yeah. Sounds weird. But hang on in there... and have a click around...\nOh for and anyone that has daily contact with ISO9001, yes this is a hacked version. Some refinements in the original text are intentionally left behind, others I probably just missed.

You probably found this page through some other productivity link or just plain luck with google or something. Either way, you got here. Here is a framework that things like [[GTD|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GTD]] can hang off, but really don't have to. If you like the K.I.S.S. principle, this might be the right place. It's a framework that makes a few assumptions:\n#You're interested in increasing your personal productivity in some area\n#You know what issues you want to deal with even if you just know that you avoid them\n#Off the peg solutions like GTD, Covey or whatever else you've found on the web / library / bookstore, just don't fit you\n#Like the statistical majority of the world, you (like me) are not at the top of the tree. You just want to deal with some areas of your life better and don't want a library of self help books to let you do it.\nIt's not a snobby system and I'm not about to make you feel bad about how you organise things. Hell you survived this long already, you must be doing the basics somehow! It's a system that lets you just get on with organising and analysing the problems you define in a way that suits your lifestyle and resources. Because it's such a "you" based thing, it's short on providing answers, good at defining questions. With that in mind, please browse away and let [[me|DjDoIt]] know how it goes...\n----\nPageHistory