After several years having just a splash screen, the Pensegi site is finally beginning to take its form.
It is currently under construction, but new areas are added every day. Check it out! :-)

Hello again, it has been a couple of weeks since I updated this blog, so I thought it was about time I gave you productivity tip number four!

This is a further note about prioritizing your tasks.

We have already discussed the importance on writing your tasks down on paper or any other media you feel comfortable with. As you may recall I use an electronic device: my phone.

What I wanted to share with you today was a simple way to decide what to focus on when you have a lot of things on your mind. This trick is very simple, yet highly effective:

Take a paper, or any other media where you can draw a horizontal line and then a vertical line, dividing it in four equally large parts. The horizontal line representing urgency, left being most urgent and right being least. The vertical line representing importance, top of the paper being most important and bottom being the least.

Now you can start writing your ongoing tasks into the four sections of the paper according to urgency and importance.
By doing this you can very easily see that some things could be temporarily put aside, something which is not always easy when being right in the middle of it.

So this is what you need to do:

1. urgent tasks that are important to get in place you put in the top left section, and these you are to do first.

2. urgent tasks that are less important you take next.

3. less urgent tasks that are important you can schedule, to have them done before they do get urgent. :-)

4. Not urgent tasks that are also not important you simply do when you have the time. These are your someday tasks, to .

Signing off for tonight!

There,
the changes are done and the book is available to the public again in its revised format. So far it is just available from my store at the publisher's site, but in some days it will also be added on Amazon.com again.

Link to my CreateSpace store. Click here.

1. The games have been made slightly larger.
2. The instructions have been changed completely to be Sudoku 10 specific.

And yeah, almost forgot: The price is lowered from $9.95 to $7.95!

It has come to my attention that the rules section of the Sudoku 10 book was a bit too fuzzy. I therefore decided to put the book on hold for some days, meaning that it is not currently available on Amazon.com. It will be available again soon. Within some days or a week.

The illustrations have now been updated and will be more Sudoku 10 specific instead of showing how to solve the game looking at the individual games and using general sudoku rules and tips. I think this should avoid any confusion in reading the instructions, and make them easier to understand also for players new to sudoku in general.

In the next volume in the Sudoku 10 series (volume 2, due end of february) also the game board will be modified a bit to make the individual 3 by 3 sections stand out a bit more, using a slightly thickened line. The board has also been made larger (approx. 20 mm) in height, given the constraints of the book's size.

Sudoku 10, Volume 1, will be available again in a couple of days, thanks to print-on-demand! :-)

When you are talking about making something happen it is often just an idea being expressed, but as soon as you schedule it; this is the begining of a plan!

One of my favourit spare time interrests is reading. Not fiction. Unfortunately I feel that I usually do not have time for fiction with so many other interesting things to learn more about. I read non-fiction. Anything which helps me improve myself really, usually in the areas of personal development, finance or business.

One thing most authors I've read stress is the importance of setting goals. They also talk about setting the time aside to achieve these goals. Today I will not dive deep into goal setting techniques (that is a later topic). Today I'd rather share with you a small habit that I picked up from an author named David Allen. One book he has written has really made an impact on me and the things I do. The book is called "Getting things done".

I am talking about getting into the habit of using a calendar.

Mainly what Mr. Allen suggest is that you should divide tasks into different groups: 2-minute tasks, need-to-do tasks and someday tasks.

2-minute tasks are those tasks you know that you need to do, and you know that actually doing them and getting them out of the way would take only a couple of minutes.. Suggestion here: do them immediately, or at least do them as soon as you get some spare time over. Not doing them immediately, they usually pile up on stacks until there are so many minor task that it looks as if they were big tasks. Save yourself from the bad feelings following by you knowing you should/ought to/need to/must do the tasks soon, sometimes even yesterday, or they'll come and haunt you. Do them now instead!

Then there are the need-to-do tasks which are those which require some more planning, simply because they need more time. Suggestion: schedule them! Take you calendar and if it has to be done on a certain day and time then fine, schedule that day and time in your calendar. If it doesn't need to be done on a certain day, then schedule it anyway. This way you'll make sure to put away some time for it. Schedule and stick to it. If the task is to big for your calendar, such as an ongoing project, then do this: identify what would be the next thing that you need to do in order to get the project going? It may be a phone call, buying some tools or perhaps scheduling a meeting. Once you know the next thing to do; then schedule it!

Someday tasks are any other task that would be nice to do, but perhaps not now. There is no time limit on these, or else you would have scheduled them, right? ;-)

Mr.Allen also tells in his book that you should write down ALL tasks, no matter if they are small or big. No matter if they are about some huge project or just a regular day-to-day task such as shopping bread and butter for your next breakfast. By putting the tasks in writing, you may relax more and think about other things You do not need to stuff your mind with these things to do. You know that you will not forget because they are in your calendar and you now have a habit of looking in it regularly. Even if you do not get into the habit at looking through the calendar at specific times or when at certain places, then you have to open it at least for scheduling new tasks and by this be reminded about the other tasks.

By using an electronic calendar, such as a PDA or an organizer, or as in my case a smartphone, you can even attach an alarm to the tasks and scheduled events. That way you will not even need to remember to look in the calendar, it will do this for you and remind you when due.
(I personally store my calendar also on a separate server through scheduled back ups. This way all is still there even if I lost my precious phone. I would simply retreive the calendar to my new phone and continue with my tasks as if I didn't loose anything. This possibility is not available for paper calendars... At least not yet. ;-) )

One thing that I picked up from my boss at my daytime work, in regards to scheduling, was to set off time in my calendar for myself. It could be time for work, when I do not want to be disturbed or it could be to set aside a day every now and then for education, just to read a book on a topic which in useful in my work or at home.

So don't wait! Do a list of the things that you need to do, big and small, and make sure to schedule it. In my case this has made me more organized, less stressed and given me more time to think about other things. I am still struggling a bit to get into the habit of entering all my minor tasks into the calendar, but from experience I see that it actually works. When I do make the effort to do it, I get more relaxed, less stressed and more effective. :-)

Often when I come up with an idea or the solution to a problem, it is not while sitting at the desk but just when I am about to fall asleep at night or in the queue at the super market. I bet it is the same with you! We gather information about the things we are about to do while at the work space, but then as we relax and take a break, our minds continue to work on this information unconsiously. Suddenly we get that "eureka" feeling and it just seems so obvious to us.

In order to make the most of your ideas it is a good idea to have a notebook available at all time. A small notebook will most often do, and it would also be easier to fit into your pocket or purse. (Always keep a pen as well if it is paper based. ;-) )

Use this book (or which ever note taking device you prefer) to type down your ideas, thoughts, upcomming blog posts, quick drawing etc. to keep them fresh in mind when you have the possibility to act upon them.

A good thing about typing it down, you see, is that you can stop thinking about it consiously until you have the material needed available. This means that you get some extra time, otherwise spent on trying to remember the ideas. Spend this time on something else instead. Look at the surroundings, find more inspiration and type down more ideas. I used to make quick notes on post-it notes and spare paper originally, but they had a tendency to disappear. *smile* Using a book however, the notes are easily found again.

Another good thing about taking notes is that even if you don't know what to do with it now, there is a chance that you can use it later.

I myself have some projects that came to life this way. I was working on a strategical board game some years ago, so I had written down all the rules that would be fun to incorporate into the game. Once I was done taking notes and had built a prototype to try it out, I noticed that it was much easier to learn the game, yet still I thought it was fun, by removing some rules. I didn't remove the rules completely though. Just from the context. Later on I was looking through my notes for some ideas and realized that one of the rules that I had removed could actually be a complete game in itself! A game that I actually now enjoy a lot and which practically needs no space for storage. This means that I can carry it with me in a small bag out of fabric where ever I go. ;-)

Neither of these two games are available in the market yet, but they will eventually!

Regardless of what you want to accomplish or improve; your effectivity, productivity or perhaps creativity; it is always a good idea to set up an environment that supports this, and which helps you reach the goal.

In order for this environment to be the most efficient you should try to keep the tools and material that you use easily accessable; the optimal placement of tools and material is right where you are yourself, I mean: within an arm length distance. This means that you do not need to disrupt you works flow once you are in the middle of something, just to get a pencil, paper, calendar, paint brush, reference book, research material or whatever the thing you need. By keeping things near you, they are available at the moment when they are needed.

Setting up a productive environment also include the surroundings, meaning adding to your work space things that you like and which give you inspiration and help you relax. These things are highly individual and could for instance be loud music for someone, total silence for another and perhaps an aquarium or a pinball machine for someone else.

You need to find out what environments makes your mind work the best in different situations and set them up accordingly.

You may have one single environment that you use almost exclusively or you may have many different "work stations" depending on what you do. The basics are still the same though.

For me these two simple guide lines..

1) to keep my stuff where I need it, on an arm length distance, and
2) to surround myself with things that enforce my wanted state of mind. Simply things I like.

..mean slightly different things depending on what I want to accomplish but this is the base for work on own projects:

My home office desk is where I usually work the most on Pensegi matters. Sitting there I have my reference material in the bottom drawer on the left side, also note paper and tools like stapplers, tape and pens are on my left side in other drawers. On my right I keep ongoing project materials in the drawers for easy access. On my desk I keep the technical tools I use such as the laptop, scanner and phone. The printer is placed underneath the table. Research material is placed in magazine collectors, as is also my to-do things.

All I need is there just an arm length away. Once I sit down I do not need to get up until I want to have a rest.

Of course it is not always possible to keep everything at your desk, but as far as possible in these cases I do try to bring the books or other things needed before I sit down. Just to avoid having to stop what I do later.

When I want to be really productive I know that I must focus, and I know that listening to music on a moderately high volume helps me do this.

I usually listen to calm music, as for instance songs by "Enya" or some classical piece, when I have many things that need my attention at once.

Listening to calm music would not work in a problem solving situation though, as slow music makes my mind stay calm and problems usually demand more quick and "aggresive" turns of thought, at least for me, so for this purpose I usually listen to more aggresive music such as hard rock or cross-over. Usually this is music by "Linkin Park" or "Die Krupps".

When I want to be creative I listen to EBM, electronic body music, since this has a tendency to make my mind see new possibilities.

Music can have a radical effect on our minds. You most likely also have some music that you know will place you in a special emotional state. Use this to your advantage! Find your productivity music, your creativity music etc. and see to it that it is available when you want and need these emotional states.

I use headphones (large ones) both at home and at work. This way I do not interfere with other person's creative spaces, nor do they interrupt with mine. :-)

These are some simple basics that may seem obvious to some, but there is a difference in knowing and doing...

My productivity increased a lot when I stopped just knowing this and actually made an effort to set up the environment and start practicing what I knew. :-)