My Nerdie Bookshelf - "Getting things done - The art of stress-free productivity" by David Allen

I don't remember exactly how I heard about this book but it immediately caught my attention when I heard that it suggests productivity tricks based on the use of to-do lists. I was and still am a great fan of lists: they really helped me to untangle the huge mass of tasks and problems I have dealt with in the last ten years. I'm using lists for almost everything, including when I'm preparing the luggage for a trip.

I must admit that the author's method is quite interesting and effective. To say that it is simply based on lists is a huge understatement. David Allen proposes a process to deal with everyday's activities in which for every task that must be faced a "next action" is defined. Lists and calendars serve for keeping the mind free, instead of trying to maintain schedules, appointments, deadlines, notes and things to do all in one's memory.

Most of the advices proposed in Getting things done are purely based on common sense, but they are strangely often forgotten or dismissed, especially in work environments.
I've learnt some interesting few tricks from this book. Three are worth mentioning here, that is: the 2 minutes rule (if you need less than 2 minutes to do something don't defer it and do it now), the importance of always identifying a next action for each task and defining in meetings a clear purpose at the beginning and a list of actions (and responsibilities) at the end.

The book has been initially published in 2001 and there isn't much emphasis on the exploitation of technology (besides some random mentions of PDAs - that was way before smartphones! - and personal productivity features of desktop softwares like Outlook or Lotus Notes). This should not be considered detrimental of the book: its value is in the process, not in the suggested (low tech) implementation.

Despite these good things there are also some annoying facts about Getting things done. To start with, its messianic style, the constantly repeated mantra that your life can deeply change if you follow the advices of this book. Moreover while the method can really apply to everyone (and, to say the truth, this is often repeated throughout the pages) the examples in Getting things done refer always to a vip audience. All this gives the impression that David Allen is constantly promoting his activity as a consultant: this is legit of course, but it is sincerely annoying to get this feeling in a book you've bought.

Finally, despite the book is not very long, often concepts are repeated over and over again. You could actually get the same value from it even if it had 40% less pages.

Despite these flaws I deeply suggest the reading of Getting things done to those who feel in trouble to keep the pace of business and personal events. I honestly learnt some useful strategies here, which at the end is the only thing that matters in a book like this.

Getting things done - The art of stress-free productivity, David Allen, Penguin Books 2001

Source Wikipedia

Any good Project Accounting software to recommend?

I urgently need a Project Management software with a good and effective accounting feature. Basically I need to:

• define a project in terms of tasks/work-packages (WP)
• provide an estimation for each of these WP
• allow personnel to insert the hours worked on each WP
• a decent (and extensible) reporting module.

I need to track project costs/progresses on a 360° basis, so not all the WP will be directly related to the production of software: e.g. I'd like to keep track also of the hours spent in managing the project, in the contacts with the customer, for installing and configuring the hardware and the software I need to develop on, etc.

It occurs to me that a huge number of companies are using for this job a software built in-house or tailored made (like it was the case with Ksolutions, the company I've been worked with for 15 years). The fine guys of Hyperborea are now, apparently happily, using Teamwork, a project management software that, amongst many others functionalities, seems to have also a decent project accounting feature.

Teamwork seems an OK product, only a bit too "one size fits all" kind of software for project management: in fact it sports a remarkable number of features to cover all main aspects of PM. Its cost is quite reasonable anyway: also the company behind it (Open Lab) is Italian too (it is based in Florence) which undoubtedly helps.

Anyway I'm more than open to suggestions. Please let me know, commenting here or via Twitter (my account is "lucadex") any opinion that you might have on the topic, including software suggestions or experiences with Teamwork.

TIA!

Maven free e-book

For those who are going to use Maven, just for the hype surrounding this project or for real need: the Definitive Guide book, published by the great guys of O'Reilly, is also available on line free of charge at the Sonatype web site.

If you are interested, go and visit the Maven: The Definitive Guide page and download the PDF edition or directly browse the on-line version.

UPDATE: The Definitive Guide is not available anymore but on the Sonatype web site there are two other free books on Maven, Maven by Example and Maven: The Complete Reference.