Alef Arendsen

I’ve been using my current TODO system for exactly one year now and I’m really happy to conclude that it works fabulously!

I’ve read all the books from The Seven Habits to Getting Things Done and took some advice from each and every one of those books, but never really adopted one specific TODO system. Getting Things Done, although supposedly quite light weight, is still too complex for me. I’ve also tried to use the Pomodoro technique for a little while a few months ago, but that also didn’t really prove very helpful.

What I’ve been doing in the last year is keep all my TODO in a moleskine booklet (or whatever you call that). On the right hand side, I keep my TODO items. The left pages are for notes and that’s also where I keep a bit of a diary (not every day, only occasionally). Drawings and notes that I don’t think are important go in the back of the book, so basically everything that’s not in the back of the book is important. Every page fits 19 TODO items and in addition to the TODO item itself, I keep track of when I started on a new page and when I finished that particular page (meaning all TODO items are done). I don’t keep dates for my TODO items and the only prioritisation I do occasionally is putting a little exclamation mark next to a particular item, meaning it’s a bit more important than the other ones. On top of that there’s two rules that I try to stick to:

• Never keep more than three pages with open TODO
• When a page has three TODOs that are not finished yet, I can move them to the next page, causing the previous page to be ‘done’

These two little rules keeps the amount of TODOs limited and also helps me get rid of some of the stuff that I don’t want to do. Today for example I had to call up somebody I hadn’t spoken to for ages and I was really stalling it. But I also had to write down a few new TODOs. These TODOs however would cause the third page with TODOs to fill up, meaning I had over three pages. I quickly made the phone call, moved the three left-over TODO items from page one to the next empty page and done I was.

Keeping my TODOs in a little notebook also gives me the ability to glance over what I’ve been doing in the past few weeks or months, which gives me a little bit of satisfaction (assuming I’ve done a lot).

The notes I keep on the left hand side are relatively limited. In meetings, I usually tend not too many notes. Only the important stuff goes in the book and if I need to take action, I immediately create a TODO item out of it. Last but not least, all my TODOs are in the notebook, not just work items, but also personal ones.

It’s taken me a while to settle on a particular system, but this one has really helped me focus and stay on track.

Current status: 15 things left to do

I was checking out the wind this morning. It is promising to be a great week. Although I typically don’t like easterly winds (it forces me to kiteboard out on the lakes instead of the sea, and I don’t like that), but then again, it usually offers some nice room for tricks. Anyway, I was checking out the winds and came across this actual:

A bit weird huh, to have gusts that are lower than the actual wind .

I typically use a few sites for forecasting. For the long and mid-term forecasts, I typically use Windfinder.com, offering a 7-day forecast that roughly gives you an outlook where the wind is going to be. They also offer a 3-day Super Forecast, which is a lot more accurate than the 7-day forecast. Last season the Super Forecast was really accurate, but somehow this season that has changed a bit. With winds from the Westerly direction (NW-W-SW), the forecast is quite accurate, although a bit on the low side, but when winds are from the East, the forecasts gets worse.

I double check things sometimes with Windguru, another world-wide wind forecast site. Forecasts are typically quite accurate here as well and they offer quite a variety of forecast using different techniques and models.

For the Dutch sailors / kiteboarders / windsurfers there’s Vliegerweer.nl which offers a nice Google map with a layover… Quite a nice site too, although I don’t use it a lot.

For the intra-day forecast, I use the KNMI (Dutch Weather Institute) forecast for the small aviation (KNMI Weerulletin Kleine Luchtvaart). This forecast is really accurate and also offer an insight into which weather systems are passing through. It’s quite important o know about those, as was proven last weekend, with a big system passing through, with unexpected gusts of more than 50 knots. During these gusts, a guy died at Strand Horst.

Last but not least, I use a site called Actuelewaterdata for actuals on the same day. They only have actuals for a few places out on the North Sea (wind speed, direction), but this is good enough.

Combining all of the above offers me enough data to see whether or not I should go out and where… So far I haven’t had a lot of days that I went in vain…

If you have more sites that provide good info, please leave a comment!

In 2002, I got involved with HigherLevel, a Dutch initiative to help entrepreneurs with all kinds of things, ranging from advise about fiscal matters to helping through a bankruptcy. A while ago, somebody started a thread asking people on the forum 5 questions about their company and ideas about innovation.

Today I found out I got the honor to answer these questions as well. My answers are in Dutch and can be found here.

p.s. thanks mom, for the Antoine de Saint-Exupery quote!

Yesterday I was at De Dodenherdenking. On the 4th of May in The Netherlands we commemorate the sacrifices (both in the armed forces and of civilians) during war-time. The ceremony takes place throughout all of Holland, but the biggest ceremony is held on Dam Square in the centre of Amsterdam, where one can find the National Monument, a white statue, erectedin 1956 to remember the fallen soldiers during World War II.

Like many families in the Netherlands, my family has a lot of links with World War II. My great-grandfather (Barend Arendsen) was a trader in wood and quite a prominent figure in the village of Harderwijk. Together with several others in his family and other members of the Harderwijk community he participated in the local resistance. His sons were named Hendrik Arendsen (my grandfather) and Alef Arendsen.

During or shortly after Easter, the German forces captured my Barend Arendsen and Alef Arendsen and took them to a camp somewhere further East. On April 12th, just two days before the allied forces reached Apeldoorn, they were executed in the woods.

This event has played a large role in my family’s history. I believe my grandfather was 26 (his wife had given birth to two children during the war) when he lost his father and brother and was left running a sawmill with several employees to take care of. My grandfather died last year after having lived a long life full.

For a long time, my grandfather received invitations to the Dodenherdenking at the Dam. Sometimes he went himself, sometimes somebody else in the family went. After him passing away, my mum applied for invitations. Due to my having the same name as one of the victims of the April 12 killings, the National Committee for 4 & 5 May is sending me invitations now as well.

Yesterday I took my Italian friend G. to Amsterdam to give him a bit of insight into this Dutch’ish event. It was good to be there.