THE PROACTIME METHOD 1

Every day confronts us, like an assembly line, with a series of tasks to accomplish. They can be vital, for example fulfilling our physiological needs or accomplishing successfully our professional tasks. Others are dedicated to our community, to our image or to self-actualization.

We can just leave the assembly line in automatic mode and accomplish the tasks it presents as well as we can or apply a method which enables us to program our assembly line in order to make the best use of our potential and the opportunities we meet in our lives.

Using PROACTIME, PIM and GTD software, means to select such a method to improve one's use of time. It consists of ten steps to apply gradually as we get familiar with it:

1. Distinguish productive and non productive phases

PROACTIME recommends, above all, distinguishing the productive and non productive activities. Non productive activities are those dedicated to the entry of tasks, their organization, their preparation and planning. They also include routine things we need to do: checking emails, checking accounts, taking care of little things. PROACTIME tracks in real-time these activities and displays them in the time use statistics.

Why is it important to distinguish these two phases ?

We are, like all living beings and in contrast to machines, subject to daily physiological and social rhythms.

Our "internal biological clock" pilots our biological rhythms which govern our sleep, our physical and mental activities. Our internal states and our energy levels vary in the course of the day.

Our motivation, our creativity and ability to memorize are also subject to hourly fluctuations. An efficient use of our time respects these variations.

We also have to take into account social constraints. We cannot meet our partners anytime. We have to accept working hours decided by our employers. We have to be flexible and to conciliate our rhythms with those of our partners.

Hence our days do not resemble highways with low traffic where we can maintain the same speed all the time. We pilot non productive activities at normal speed. Our mind remains attentive to what is going on outside and accepts interruptions and disturbances. At execution time, however, we are working at high speed. The road must be clear. We isolate ourselves. It is the flow* phase when we are totally absorbed by what we are producing.

PROACTIME enables us to enter our personal rhythms as energy cycles in menu SETTINGS. They will be displayed as color codes on the Dashboard and on the first window which pops up at its launch. They will help us to plan our activities according to their difficulty and the skills needed to accomplish them.

With PROACTIME tasks are either in the non productive phase when they are prepared and organized or in the productive phase when they are execute. Tasks are not completed but accomplished in one breath. Hence it is advisable to proceed by small production cycles. Our brains, like our muscles, get tired when they are involved in a great effort. We need phases to recover and dedicate them to non productive activities. With time and training, we can extend our production cycles. The Dashboard of PROACTIME enables us to accomplish tasks in real-time. By the help of the clock we compete against ourselves. It is a means to improve our productivity.

* Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. (Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, Wikipedia).