What is in my head

The article Time is Short talked about how some technologies can be counterproductive and just eat up our time. Especially for small businesses it is too easy to go too far with your internal IT systems, spend money waste time and be worse off then before.

This article goes back to that first best personal information manager - our brain - and how that should fit in with your personal information management strategy. There are some tasks at which no gadget or app will ever outperform it - so don't waste time trying. And then what to do with the info the brain is not so good at? We suggest some solutions.

Your Brain - still new and still improving for 2009.

Congratulations, you own the fastest, most efficient, most portable, and most user friendly software that has ever been invented. Yes this is the soft stuff between our ears. Technology has supplanted some of the uses we had for that thing but lets recap what it does best.

Why the brain is the best app.

• I can't lose it or ever leave it behind (though sometimes i try)
• It is the ultimate mashup technology - it takes in info in any media format, anything i see, hear, type, and stores it in a way that can be changed into anything else.
• don't need A/C, wireless, cables, adapters or nothin.
• it is disaster proof - in the event of total failure i have nothing to worry about.
• super-adaptability and specialization unlike anything in the digital world - this software gets better and more usable just by using it.
• storage efficiency - the brain tends to stores knowledge, and discards information, keeping what the important stuff most accessible and dropping the unimportant stuff all the time. I only wish my hard drive could do that.
• fast fast fast.

Now the cons:

• findability: our brains are like vast underground lakes of knowledge. Unfortunately we have to access it with a straw. once we get a few clues and cues we can remember all kinds of stuff - but findability is a challenge.
• brains are far better at storing patterns and relationships than raw data.
• fallibility - there exists a significant probability that stuff i put in there will disappear forever.
• searchability - most of the info in my head is reasonably well sorted but can't do wide scale searching. It is almost easier to say "name a red haired defenseman who played for the Edmonton Oilers" than "Name and NHL player that doesn't have a E in his name".

The bottom line is that once we delve into a topic and get focused, our brain's reservoir of knowledge rarely fails us. Our brains, via habits, metaphors, various mnemonics, compress info in a way cool way.

Once you have decided what you expect your brain to manage and what gets managed otherwise, share this plan (how to manage me) with your clients, co-workers, associates. The biggest part of keeping people happy is setting expectations right?

What to keep in your brain.

Occupational know-how for tasks i have mastered - it is pretty much the definition of mastery that the knowledge exists firmly in your head how to do stuff and once it is there you never lose it. This is also why that "company manual" never gets written. Should we surrender all our expertise to public knowledge? Should we waste our time writing it down? For most employees, the strategic and efficient answer is "no".

Short-term priorities and task lists For most people a todo or task manager does not exists (and i've looked hard) that completes efficiency-wise for intra-day and daily task management. The bottom line is that if you are going to use software to micromanage yourself, you will need at least 5 minutes out of every hour to do it. I prefer to use those 5-10 minutes of every hour actually doing work rather than logging and arranging and closing tasks. Services like Rememberthemilk come close but when it comes right down to it, the time spent on these things has to cost less than the occasional "oops". For most of us - it doesn't. Beyond the 1-2 day range however, the brain's downside of fallability overtakes the upside of its efficiency. Of course, the hidden advantage of using the brain is that yes you do forget sometimes and usually it was the least important todo. Plus, by default your reminders will be outsourced for free: if still matters you'll get a reminder from somewhere. My recommended step up from no list is the scrap paper or sticky note. (Sorry software guys, but this software guy doesn't buy it).

Simple project management Like the todo manager - the small project manager (like basecamp) is really neat but doesn't compete against the brain for small short duration projects and very small (up to 3) numbers of people. My rule of thumb is that unless you plan and budget for project management hours - you don't want to be using a project management tool - just stay in touch.

Payables - Debit and forget it for all recurring payments, as for the rest - well remembering that stuff is somebody else's problem isn't it.

Not wanted in my memory

Incoming requests and Todos - I try to avoid receiving todos in my brain whenever possible. e.g When someone asks something I prefer to say: "Can you email me that?" (for reasons of falliblility searchability, accountability)

Appointments All appointments must go into a scheduling tool that hopefully integrates well with your email - which means outlook for many or googlecal for me, or ye old fashioned daytimer (which scares the heck out of me because it is too darn looseable.)

Agreements If I happen to have an agreement in a face to face meeting or in phone meetings, this should be quickly committed to the email/wiki/scheduler. (mainly accountability)

Procedures, Requirements and Best Practices: These things which are group organizational knowledge, performance requirements or expectations must not be carried in one person's head. Put those in a wiki or company intranet.

Contact Information: Email is the fallback reservoir of all kinds of stuff and thanks to gmail? all the info therein is very findable. So findable that it reduced the need to maintain a separate pile of contact info. On my wishlist though are simpler methods to push contact info into phones (too many of the existing tools are information silos?.

Sales Leads: Too many to track, and future oriented - everybody needs an information management solution for lead and sales tracking.

Long term priorities: Wonderful as our brains are, they are highly subjective in remembering. Thus the need to push long term priorities out to somewhere. For example setting long term priorities and organizational goals in 43things.com can provide the steady occasional "ping" of these ideas in our consciousness.

Complex Project Management: For a robust project management, a Wiki? is surprisingly flexible and effective as a project management tool. When managing resources, time-lines and dependencies you need to step up to something more than that, try basecamp, copperproject.com or sharedplan.com.

Time-Tracking The bane of many consultants, tracking time on separate projects and clients as you hop through the day is a perennial pain. For me, the perfect solution was the use of Timesnapper which uses screenshots like a surveillance cam so i can wind back three months if need be and find out exactly what i was doing at 11:20 am on a Thursday. With all computer activity tracked the residual issues of tracking on-site appointments and expenses was minor.

Passwords and Logins Roboform has been a favorite for years because it is not browser specific, it is portable, easy to manage, can suck up a ton of passwords with minimal effort and is secure.

Receivables: Are handled capably by a good accounting programs.

Expenses: Do you have to track your expenses for reimbursement or tax purposes? Simple: don't use cash. By choosing to avoid paying cash whenever possible and downloading transactions it is much harder to forget expenses. Looking at a list of vendors and amounts, your brain will likely be able to fill in the blanks in your expense list.

Infrequent or Recurring Tasks: Should be consolidated with the scheduling tool - outlook, google calendar, or ye old daytimer - which last I heard does not support recurring appointments.