Things and Pomodoro

Posted by admin on Aug 31, 2010 in Uncategorized

For the last two years, I’ve been a loose GTD-er, using Cultured Code’s “Things” to dump my brain and keep track of tasks to do. I never got into the “project” side of GTD–planning out every project and asking why… I’m sure it has value, but that was never the problem I was trying to solve with GTD.

I just wanted to keep up with all the stuff everyone wanted me to do and I was tired of having things so easily slip through the cracks.

Well, 2+ years later and I’ve gotten very used to capturing, scheduling, prioritizing and crossing off items from my master list that isn’t in my brain. Things has been great for this, if only for the “Today” feature. For those of you looking for a great GTD app, I’d still recommend Things even though it doesn’t have OTA sync yet and there are many performance issues. It’s a simple app that does a simple thing.

Now, though, I’ve discovered that I have a problem getting motivated to do items on my list. Motivation is always difficult, but I tend to be paralyzed when I’m not sure how I will complete something. It makes me fail to even get started. Enter the Pomodoro Technique. I read this over the weekend and it made a huge difference on the first day. If you struggle with motivation and procrastination, this is the technique for you.

I’ve got 2 years worth of data in “Things” and my Pomodoro Technique is pretty new, so my first big question was how to use them TOGETHER. While this is neither pure GTD nor pure Pomodoro, I think I already have a great way to use Things better than I ever have and to stay motivated. If you’d like to try it, read on.

A Ruby Scoping Gotcha?

Posted by admin on Aug 27, 2010 in Uncategorized

Let’s take this basic class:

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class TestClass
attr_accessor :one

def my_method(branch=true)
if branch
puts "Do nothing to modify `one`"
else
puts "Modify `one` but it's a local variable"
one = "test"
end

one # local variable
end

def my_non_modifying_method(branch=true)
if branch
puts "Do nothing to modify `one`"
else
puts "Do nothing to modify `one` either"
end

one #method call
end
end

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o = TestClass.new
o.one = "Value"

puts o.my_method
=> nil #might expect 'Value' if you're not paying attention
puts o.my_non_modifying_method #expects "Value"
=> "Value"
puts o.my_method(false)
=> "test"
puts o.my_non_modifying_method(false) #expects "Value"
=> "Value"

So remember, if you create any local variables anywhere in your method, even if they’re not called, they override the accessor methods and will give you results you’re not expecting. To get around it, make sure you always use self.accessor= to assign values when there is ambiguity.

Autoficiency

Things and Pomodoro

A Ruby Scoping Gotcha?

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