HOWTO: Use ThinkingRock to organise your thoughts

Thinking Rock is software that really allows quick and structured planning of your tasks.

It is free, open source, and uses Java so it runs on Windows, Linux and Macs. It can be downloaded from http://thinkingrock.com.au/.

It is referred to sometimes as TR.

It has a very rapid thought gathering system, in which you can brain dump all the thoughts, project idea, and bookmarks into. You should always do this, and ensure that any task that is not the one at hand is not interrupted by other thoughts by dumping them here, and returning to them later.

Once you have captured them, at some point in time you can process a list of thoughts. They may become "tickled" to show up again on a later date if they are not immediately worth thinking about, they can be actioned and deleted if it is a 2 minute or less thing, they can be deleted if they are no longer relevant, they can be turned into information/reference only if they are not really tasks, turned into single tasks, added to an existing project or turned into a project.

Tasks can then be looked at, edited, and marked as completed.

I find that having a system where you can create a simple project, and then put tasks under it to organise them is handy.

Freeing yourself to do things later, in order of priority, or when you have the actual time to do it, and not having a mental backlog, and not trying to do them all at once in a chaotic jumble, means that you will do them more effectively, have less cluttered bookmarks or desktop, and be free to close down your computer when not in use, and sleep easily knowing that things are under control.

When turning a thought into a task, you are encouraged (though not required) to think first about if it is actionable, then if so, about the context (is it a work thing, home thing, where can you do it or what is it broadly related to), how soon it must be done, how much effort is needed to make it happen (mental, physical, time), and exactly what a successful outcome is.

This is all of course optional, but to think in these terms means you make simple, measurable, actionable and reachable tasks - SMART tasks. These are tasks you are more likely to actually complete over vague and ill defined ones.

As Thinking Rock says, if you do not have time to try this tool, you really need it.

When you have opened a number of browser tabs or windows, to close them all down may make you feel like you will miss out by not reading them.

Bookmarking them normally leaves a cluttered mess. My solution is this - if there are sites you commonly return to, for example utilities, mail, social networking, turn those into bookmarks.

If you have articles that you need to read when you get time, copy the link and add it into TR. This way you can prioritise reading them, and read them when you have free time. This frees you from the thought process like "I must read this, but not now, and if I bookmark it, it will be lost in my now unmanageable bookmark list...".

It can be downloaded from http://thinkingrock.com.au/, and is totally free.

ThinkingRock is distributed under an Open Source license known as the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL), so if you are lucky enough to have the skills and time to contribute, or just want to scratch an itch, fix a bug, then the code is available to do this.

When organising tasks, TR will ask you a number of questions to get you to think about a task and what's its goals are. But there are questions it does not ask, which will help you to fill in the fields, and find out what things are really important.

The questions you should be asking yourself about personal tasks all come down to different ways to probe yourself on what the goals are, and why you are doing this. It also helps to avoid Yak shaving.

• Will it benefit my social relationships? (things to help relatives, significant others or friends.


• Will it aid my career? Are you going to gain valuable experience, enhance your CV, or make it easier to get through interview tests?


• Will it make money?


• Will it save money?


• Is it dangerous to ignore?


• Will it be good fun?

This list is not exhaustive, and there may be more similar questions - but not that they are basically yes and no. If the answers are all no, perhaps the priority is very low, and perhaps it can be in the "tickled" until later category.

Even if you are not using ThinkingRock, you really should ask these kind of questions about your tasks so you know why you are doing them.

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