Thursday, June 6

 

 

I slep with the window open, and had more interesting dreams; and when I woke up the weather had heated up again. I cycled to work in a t-shirt and shorts.

Yesterday evening I looked at a new task management system that I had read about called Amazing Marvin. It costs $100 a year but I agreed with the poster in the forum where I saw it: if it really makes me more productive and less stressed then I will decide to pay. On the way to work I continued my investigations.

Amazing Marvin has no iPad version and the web version works quite poorly on the iPad. That made it unlikely that I would consider using it. What made it impossible though lay in what I had heard extolled as its advantages. I had imported my Todoist tasks and they had more or less imported correctly. However, the interface contained so many configuration options that I had to put to one side.

David Allen once suggested that “a to-do system should always be as simple as possible” because, if you have to spend time playing with the system, then trhe system itself will prevent you from doing things. Todoist works just like that for me: it offers me just enough options to organise myself, but not so many that I find myself wondering if I could do it differently.

I got to Arcada and deleted my Amazing Marvin account. My free thirty day trial had lasted approximately twenty four hours and served to convince me that Todoist and I fit together perfectly.

I spent much of the morning writing a paper for the meeting tomorrow, for the group currently known as The Only Way Is Up; and by lunchtime I had it ready to email. So I did.

I spent the afternoon working through a long list of tasks on Todist and by 16:20 I had completed them all. I left and got a bus to Sörnäinen and a metro to Kulosaari.

I got to the Indian Embassy at about 17:00 and joined Irma, Sheffali, Ashu and others preparing the lawn for the 70th anniversary party of the Finnish-Indian Association. I attach balloons to poles, and move things from her to there.

Ten minutes before the party opens I find myself inside looking out as Ashu walks past the hanging sarees and into the sun. Outi stands to one side, still blowing up balloons with a little machine that someone has brought.

The party will go smoothly. I will spend time talking with the head of Iskcon in Finland, an ayurvedic doctor, a yoga teacher, and (briefly) the ambassador. Sanal and I will talk about the recent elections and the possibility of me attending his conference in Cambridge in July.

After tidying up, we will get back home about 21:00, ready to slump in a corner and fall asleep.

I will read for awhile and go to bed with the windows open.