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Tuesday, August 19, 2008
backpack
I've been fussing around with Backpack some more lately, trying to decide if I want to switch from a free account to a paid one. I think I could get some utility out of having more than 5 available pages to play with. I'm thinking about taking some notes that I have on my old Palm, plus some stuff that I have in OneNote on my PC and/or DevonThink on my Mac, and copying it all up into Backpack. The fact that there's still no obvious way to sync these notes to my iPod Touch is probably the only thing keeping me from doing that. I can think of some workarounds, but they're not perfect.
I started playing with the journal feature in Backpack last night. It's pretty cool, but as I discovered by digging through the forums, there's a 100 item limit on what you can store in the journal. Past that, stuff just falls off into oblivion. This limit doesn't seem to be documented anywhere. I wouldn't have known about this if I didn't go looking for it. That's one of the things that's frustrating about some of the 37 Signals stuff. They often seem to impose weird limits on things, then fail to document them. I've also noticed, for instance, that stuff in the journal doesn't show up in search results, if you use the search box on the main page.
This stuff makes the Journal a good bit less useful than it could be. I was thinking about using the Journal as a kind of log for some key activities that I might want to come back to later, and see when I started them, when I completed them, or when I last did a certain thing. With the 100-item limit, I'm really not going to be able to use the Journal that way, except for short-term stuff. I had been thinking it might be cool to create a Journal entry every time I had work done on the car, for instance. Then, I could get a full service history on my car by just searching on "car" in the Journal. I can still do that, of course, but the history won't go back that far, depending on how much other stuff I use the Journal for. I guess I could copy and paste old stuff from the Journal into a regular Backpack page once in a while, but that seems like a kludge.
I started playing with the journal feature in Backpack last night. It's pretty cool, but as I discovered by digging through the forums, there's a 100 item limit on what you can store in the journal. Past that, stuff just falls off into oblivion. This limit doesn't seem to be documented anywhere. I wouldn't have known about this if I didn't go looking for it. That's one of the things that's frustrating about some of the 37 Signals stuff. They often seem to impose weird limits on things, then fail to document them. I've also noticed, for instance, that stuff in the journal doesn't show up in search results, if you use the search box on the main page.
This stuff makes the Journal a good bit less useful than it could be. I was thinking about using the Journal as a kind of log for some key activities that I might want to come back to later, and see when I started them, when I completed them, or when I last did a certain thing. With the 100-item limit, I'm really not going to be able to use the Journal that way, except for short-term stuff. I had been thinking it might be cool to create a Journal entry every time I had work done on the car, for instance. Then, I could get a full service history on my car by just searching on "car" in the Journal. I can still do that, of course, but the history won't go back that far, depending on how much other stuff I use the Journal for. I guess I could copy and paste old stuff from the Journal into a regular Backpack page once in a while, but that seems like a kludge.
Labels: GTD
Thursday, June 05, 2008
NY Times: GTD article
Organize: It’s Your Civic Duty: this is a fun little article from the NY Times. It doesn't really say anything new or useful about GTD, but it's pretty funny.
Labels: GTD
Monday, February 18, 2008
inbox zero again
I got my inbox back to zero again today. This is probably because a lot of people took today off, so it was pretty quiet at work. I managed to go through a bunch of unprocessed stuff and sort some of it out into projects & actions. The roads were nice and clear today too, and the parking lot was fairly empty. Overall, a nice day for getting things done.
Labels: GTD
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
GTD after a move
I haven't posted anything about GTD in a while. I fell behind in my general filing & organizational stuff back in November, when we were preparing for our big move at work. I've gradually gotten things back into some kind of order now, but I'm still behind in some ways. I've got about 80 messages in my inbox, for instance, that I haven't gone through and filed. And I haven't done a proper weekly review yet in 2008, really. But my desk (and general work area) is pretty well organized now. I know where all the important stuff is. My files are alphabetized and in my drawers. All the books are on the bookshelves. The whiteboard is up on the wall. I have a fair number of random papers on my desk, but not in a big undifferentiated pile, or anything like that.
I just spent some time thinking about GTD Connect, and whether or not I should drop out of it. I've decided to keep up with in for a few more months, at least. The forums, podcasts, e-mails, etc, do seem to be helping out a bit.
I just spent some time thinking about GTD Connect, and whether or not I should drop out of it. I've decided to keep up with in for a few more months, at least. The forums, podcasts, e-mails, etc, do seem to be helping out a bit.
Labels: GTD
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Wired - David Allen
Wired has an article about David Allen in this month's issue. I thought it was interesting and reasonably well-written. David Allen himself takes issue with a few things in the article, though. And the Lifehacker post on the article has a few interesting comments.
Labels: GTD
Friday, September 07, 2007
post 1001 - inbox zero
When I left work today, I'd gotten down to about 10 messages in my Notes inbox. Everything else was filed away into appropriate folders. I decided to pull up Notes on my iBook just now, and clear out the rest of my stuff. I have now achieved an empty inbox, for probably the first time since 1997, when we first installed a Notes server. Yay!
I did a pretty good weekly review today too. Probably closer to an ideal weekly review than I've done before, but still not quite what I should be doing.
On an unrelated topic, I picked up the Heroes season one DVD set today at Target. I was trying to resist it, since I already have all the episodes on my computer via iTunes, but Target had a special edition set with four notecards illustrated by Tim Sale, and I'm a sucker for Tim Sale stuff.
I did a pretty good weekly review today too. Probably closer to an ideal weekly review than I've done before, but still not quite what I should be doing.
On an unrelated topic, I picked up the Heroes season one DVD set today at Target. I was trying to resist it, since I already have all the episodes on my computer via iTunes, but Target had a special edition set with four notecards illustrated by Tim Sale, and I'm a sucker for Tim Sale stuff.
Sunday, September 02, 2007
GTD Connect
I'm almost embarrassed to admit this, but I signed up for GTD Connect this week. GTD Connect is David Allen's subscription service for GTD aficionados. It costs $48 per month, which is a good deal more than I'm accustomed to spending on a web-based service of any kind. I'm planning on trying it out until the end of the year, then re-evaluating it and making a decision on whether or not it's worth sticking with.
For anyone else out there who might be considering it, I thought I might put together a write-up on what you get through the service. I did a bit of web searching before I signed up, and found a bunch of blog posts on the service back when it just started up, but I haven't seen much mention of it anywhere recently, so I wasn't sure how it was shaping up. It looks like it launched about a year ago (August 2006), so now is probably a good time to take a look at it and try to see what it delivered in its first year.
Here's my take on the service as it exists right now, with the caveat that I've only been playing with it for a few days.
While the service is primarily web-based, there is a monthly mailing that goes out to members. The original intention was to do eight audio interview CDs a year and four issues of GTD Quarterly (a newsletter on GTD), so each month, you'd get one or the other. There have only been two issues of the newsletter so far, but there have been some extra CDs sent out, so there's been something mailed out each month either way. All the past mailing material is out on the web site so new members can download any of the older stuff in MP3 or PDF format.
I downloaded the two newsletters. The first is 16 pages and the second is 20. There's some good material in there; maybe a little fluff, but overall good stuff. Many of the articles are similar in length and tone to the essays in "Ready for Anything", for those who have read that book. Some of the articles are less philosophical and more practical.
There's a podcast feed with all the past audio material, both the interview CDs, and a bunch of other material. If you subscribe to the feed in iTunes, and pull down everything on it, you'll get about 700 MB worth of audio and video (mostly audio). The videos are just short 2 minute segments with David talking about a single topic. There's about 30 hours worth of audio out there. (There are some longer videos up on the site that aren't in the podcast feed.)
The web site includes a couple of interesting features. First, you can set up a weekly e-mail reminder about your weekly review. That's pretty simple; you just pick the day of the week you want to receive the reminder. The e-mail you get will have a few encouraging words from David, so it's a bit more than just a simple reminder. Second, there's something called the "Intention Journal" which is basically an open-ended e-mail reminder system that you can use for anything you want. It has a bunch of GTD-related categories, and suggestions about the kind of things you should use them for, but you can really use it in any way you like. The whole e-mail reminder thing is something you could likely do just as well (and a lot cheaper) with Backpack or Remember the Milk. It's nice to have a GTD-focused system, though, so you've got a framework for figuring out the kinds of things you want to get reminders on.
There are also members-only forums on the Connect site. That's all done through the same system as the public forums at www.davidco.com/forum/, so if you've seen those, you'll know what to expect. Given the $48/month buy-in, there's a better signal-to-noise ratio on these forums than probably anywhere else on the internet. You really don't get trolls or spammers, for obvious reasons. It's really refreshing to go through the forum messages, and see a bunch of on-topic posts written largely by people who know how to write, and spell, and think.
There are a few other things going on with Connect, but I think that covers the main stuff. Is it worth $48/month? I'm not sure yet. If it was $10/month, I'd say yes, definitely. I can easily wrap my head around the idea of paying around $100 a year for something like this. But paying more like $500 a year is a hard sell.
For anyone else out there who might be considering it, I thought I might put together a write-up on what you get through the service. I did a bit of web searching before I signed up, and found a bunch of blog posts on the service back when it just started up, but I haven't seen much mention of it anywhere recently, so I wasn't sure how it was shaping up. It looks like it launched about a year ago (August 2006), so now is probably a good time to take a look at it and try to see what it delivered in its first year.
Here's my take on the service as it exists right now, with the caveat that I've only been playing with it for a few days.
While the service is primarily web-based, there is a monthly mailing that goes out to members. The original intention was to do eight audio interview CDs a year and four issues of GTD Quarterly (a newsletter on GTD), so each month, you'd get one or the other. There have only been two issues of the newsletter so far, but there have been some extra CDs sent out, so there's been something mailed out each month either way. All the past mailing material is out on the web site so new members can download any of the older stuff in MP3 or PDF format.
I downloaded the two newsletters. The first is 16 pages and the second is 20. There's some good material in there; maybe a little fluff, but overall good stuff. Many of the articles are similar in length and tone to the essays in "Ready for Anything", for those who have read that book. Some of the articles are less philosophical and more practical.
There's a podcast feed with all the past audio material, both the interview CDs, and a bunch of other material. If you subscribe to the feed in iTunes, and pull down everything on it, you'll get about 700 MB worth of audio and video (mostly audio). The videos are just short 2 minute segments with David talking about a single topic. There's about 30 hours worth of audio out there. (There are some longer videos up on the site that aren't in the podcast feed.)
The web site includes a couple of interesting features. First, you can set up a weekly e-mail reminder about your weekly review. That's pretty simple; you just pick the day of the week you want to receive the reminder. The e-mail you get will have a few encouraging words from David, so it's a bit more than just a simple reminder. Second, there's something called the "Intention Journal" which is basically an open-ended e-mail reminder system that you can use for anything you want. It has a bunch of GTD-related categories, and suggestions about the kind of things you should use them for, but you can really use it in any way you like. The whole e-mail reminder thing is something you could likely do just as well (and a lot cheaper) with Backpack or Remember the Milk. It's nice to have a GTD-focused system, though, so you've got a framework for figuring out the kinds of things you want to get reminders on.
There are also members-only forums on the Connect site. That's all done through the same system as the public forums at www.davidco.com/forum/, so if you've seen those, you'll know what to expect. Given the $48/month buy-in, there's a better signal-to-noise ratio on these forums than probably anywhere else on the internet. You really don't get trolls or spammers, for obvious reasons. It's really refreshing to go through the forum messages, and see a bunch of on-topic posts written largely by people who know how to write, and spell, and think.
There are a few other things going on with Connect, but I think that covers the main stuff. Is it worth $48/month? I'm not sure yet. If it was $10/month, I'd say yes, definitely. I can easily wrap my head around the idea of paying around $100 a year for something like this. But paying more like $500 a year is a hard sell.
Labels: GTD
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
inbox (not quite) zero
The last time I blogged about GTD, I was down to 632 messages in my inbox. I got that down to 92 today, probably the first time it's been under 100 in a long while. (It's back *over* 100 now, of course, but hopefully I'll get it cleaned up a bit more tomorrow.) Meanwhile, I've been using the To-Do section of my mail file to track my projects and next actions and whatnot. That's working out OK, but it's not the most flexible system I could have. I may go back to the GTD for Lotus Notes database, and give that another try.
And I watched Merlin Mann's Inbox Zero video this week. There's not much new there, really, for anyone who's already well-versed in GTD, but it's interesting. I'd recommend watching it, if your inbox is a bit out of control and you're looking for some help.
And I watched Merlin Mann's Inbox Zero video this week. There's not much new there, really, for anyone who's already well-versed in GTD, but it's interesting. I'd recommend watching it, if your inbox is a bit out of control and you're looking for some help.
Labels: GTD
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Inbox to zero?
I'm down to 632 messages left in my Lotus Notes inbox! I think I'm doing a pretty good job of categorizing things (for reference), getting rid of unnecessary stuff, and culling out the actionable items. It's taken me a while though; I guess I started working through my inbox about a month ago.
Labels: GTD
Saturday, June 23, 2007
more GTD
There's a good new article on GTD over at money.cnn.com.
I like the think I'm doing OK with GTD at work, but I'm definitely NOT stress-free. I think I'm managing my time better, and getting more stuff done, but there's just so much chaos around me that it's really hard to get that "mind like water" thing going.
I like the think I'm doing OK with GTD at work, but I'm definitely NOT stress-free. I think I'm managing my time better, and getting more stuff done, but there's just so much chaos around me that it's really hard to get that "mind like water" thing going.
Labels: GTD
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Jott
I signed up for a Jott account today. Jott is a service that lets you send e-mail to yourself (or others) by calling a toll-free number from your cell phone. The email gets run through a speech-to-text translator, so you read it, or click a link in the e-mail to listen to it.
I stumbled across this service today while I was looking for something else. It might come in handy. Part of the whole GTD idea is to have a way to capture thoughts pretty much wherever you are. Jott could be useful for that, if I've got my cell phone on me, but no pen & paper.
And I'm hoping Jott doesn't sell my cell phone number to anyone for marketing purposes. (I'm pretty sure they won't; they do seem to be a legit company with a reasonable privacy policy.)
I stumbled across this service today while I was looking for something else. It might come in handy. Part of the whole GTD idea is to have a way to capture thoughts pretty much wherever you are. Jott could be useful for that, if I've got my cell phone on me, but no pen & paper.
And I'm hoping Jott doesn't sell my cell phone number to anyone for marketing purposes. (I'm pretty sure they won't; they do seem to be a legit company with a reasonable privacy policy.)
Labels: GTD
Friday, June 01, 2007
GTD at work - week 2
So today was basically the end of week 2 of trying out GTD at work. My desk is pretty clean now, and my files are labelled and organized. I'm keeping track of my projects and action items in Notes, in the To-Do section, per the GTD and Lotus Notes doc from DavidCo.
I'm still a long way from cleaning up my Lotus Notes e-mail inbox, though. In the past, I've basically used a system where I flag any actionable items using Notes follow-up flags, and just leave everything in my inbox. What I'm trying to do now is go through my inbox for 2007 (2006 is archived in a separate database) and either move messages to a reference folder, delete them, or put them in an "action" folder. My plan is to continue using the Notes follow-up flags (to indicate priority, at least), but to try and get a functional folder system going so that I can get that inbox to empty. I'm not terribly worried about getting to empty real soon, since I've already got myself well-trained to either (1) act on a message immediately or (2) mark it for follow-up. I've been doing that for a couple of years now, so it's not like there are a bunch of actionable items hidden amongst the 5000 messages in my inbox. Anything that's actionable is already flagged.
I took at shot at my second weekly review today, too, but it was a half-hearted effort. I've been fighing allergies for the last few days, and I'm just out of it. And I'm still way behind on a number of projects. I'm taking steps to try and get things moving, but there's still a lot to do.
Well, I suppose this post was more of a "personal journal" entry than a useful blog post that others might find interesting, but I felt I needed to write it, just to review this stuff myself, and get it out of my head.
I'm still a long way from cleaning up my Lotus Notes e-mail inbox, though. In the past, I've basically used a system where I flag any actionable items using Notes follow-up flags, and just leave everything in my inbox. What I'm trying to do now is go through my inbox for 2007 (2006 is archived in a separate database) and either move messages to a reference folder, delete them, or put them in an "action" folder. My plan is to continue using the Notes follow-up flags (to indicate priority, at least), but to try and get a functional folder system going so that I can get that inbox to empty. I'm not terribly worried about getting to empty real soon, since I've already got myself well-trained to either (1) act on a message immediately or (2) mark it for follow-up. I've been doing that for a couple of years now, so it's not like there are a bunch of actionable items hidden amongst the 5000 messages in my inbox. Anything that's actionable is already flagged.
I took at shot at my second weekly review today, too, but it was a half-hearted effort. I've been fighing allergies for the last few days, and I'm just out of it. And I'm still way behind on a number of projects. I'm taking steps to try and get things moving, but there's still a lot to do.
Well, I suppose this post was more of a "personal journal" entry than a useful blog post that others might find interesting, but I felt I needed to write it, just to review this stuff myself, and get it out of my head.
Labels: GTD
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
GTD
I finished reading the GTD book today. I picked up Ready for Anything last week, so I guess I can start reading that now. I'm doing well, I think, with implementing GTD at work. I have my files organized. I have a project list. I have a "next actions" list, organized by context. My Lotus Notes inbox is still a bit of a mess, and I wouldn't say that I have *all* my projects in the project list yet, but I'm off to a good start.
Labels: GTD
Friday, May 25, 2007
more GTD at home
Last night, I started trying to use Backpack for organizing some lists related to implementing GTD for personal stuff. Backpack seems like a good choice, since it's web-based, and hence available on my PC or Mac, and also at work if need be.
The first thing I figured out is that the to-do list functionality in Backpack is interesting, but mostly useless. It looks nice, but it's really missing a log of functionality. You can reorder lists, for instance, but you can't easily move an item from one list to another. (I could get Backpack to let me do this occasionally, but I couldn't figure out how to do it consistently.) Also, you can't move a list from one page to another. It's a lot easier to manage lists simply as part of the body text on a page, in either a plain old bulleted list or numbered list. You can move stuff around easily, just using good old cut & paste. You don't get the fancy checkboxes this way, but I can deal with that.
I've also considered something like GTDTiddlyWiki, or one of its variants. The idea there would be to stick the HTML file into my FolderShare directory. Then it would, in theory, get replicated between my desktop PC, iBook, and work PC, so I could access it from any machine. I've heard that all of the GTD wiki variants tend to bog down if you stick too much stuff in them, though.
The first thing I figured out is that the to-do list functionality in Backpack is interesting, but mostly useless. It looks nice, but it's really missing a log of functionality. You can reorder lists, for instance, but you can't easily move an item from one list to another. (I could get Backpack to let me do this occasionally, but I couldn't figure out how to do it consistently.) Also, you can't move a list from one page to another. It's a lot easier to manage lists simply as part of the body text on a page, in either a plain old bulleted list or numbered list. You can move stuff around easily, just using good old cut & paste. You don't get the fancy checkboxes this way, but I can deal with that.
I've also considered something like GTDTiddlyWiki, or one of its variants. The idea there would be to stick the HTML file into my FolderShare directory. Then it would, in theory, get replicated between my desktop PC, iBook, and work PC, so I could access it from any machine. I've heard that all of the GTD wiki variants tend to bog down if you stick too much stuff in them, though.
Labels: GTD
GTD progress - weekly review
I spent some time today screwing around with different ways of doing GTD stuff in Lotus Notes. I tried the free GTD for Lotus Notes database created by Brett Philp. I also played around with Things To Do 2 by Chuck Connell. Both of these databases are well-done and interesting, but neither one quite worked for me.
I wound up going back to the method detailed in the GTD and Lotus Notes document available from DavidCo. The basic idea there is to use the to-do functionality built into the Notes mail template, with a few tweaks. That works pretty well, but there are still a few things I don't like. I'm going to try and ignore those things for now, since I'm the kind of person who can easily spend *way* too much time just messing with my "system", and never get any real work done.
Once I got a bunch of data into the Notes to-do screen, I did my first weekly review. It was definitely an incomplete review, since I really haven't gotten everything into the system yet, but it was kind of instructive. I really do have a lot of stuff on my plate right now. I'm somewhat intimidated by the prospect of getting everything into one system and really getting my head around it all. I definitely haven't experienced the "stress-free" part of GTD yet, though I think (and hope) that I'm on my way!
I wound up going back to the method detailed in the GTD and Lotus Notes document available from DavidCo. The basic idea there is to use the to-do functionality built into the Notes mail template, with a few tweaks. That works pretty well, but there are still a few things I don't like. I'm going to try and ignore those things for now, since I'm the kind of person who can easily spend *way* too much time just messing with my "system", and never get any real work done.
Once I got a bunch of data into the Notes to-do screen, I did my first weekly review. It was definitely an incomplete review, since I really haven't gotten everything into the system yet, but it was kind of instructive. I really do have a lot of stuff on my plate right now. I'm somewhat intimidated by the prospect of getting everything into one system and really getting my head around it all. I definitely haven't experienced the "stress-free" part of GTD yet, though I think (and hope) that I'm on my way!
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
GTD at home
I cleaned out the top drawer in my main file cabinet at home today. I labeled all my folders, nice and neat. I threw out a bunch of stuff I didn't need. I shredded a bunch of old credit card bills and other stuff like that. It took me about three hours to do all this; from around 8 to 11pm.
I don't think I'm going to go much beyond this in terms of organizing my "stuff" at home. I just don't think I really need to go nuts on the personal stuff. It's mostly the work stuff that's out of control.
I really need to get back to reading the GTD book. I just haven't had time to pick it up in the last few days. Well, I'm tired and I'm heading off to bed now. Remember, there's a three-day weekend to look forward to at the end of this week...
I don't think I'm going to go much beyond this in terms of organizing my "stuff" at home. I just don't think I really need to go nuts on the personal stuff. It's mostly the work stuff that's out of control.
I really need to get back to reading the GTD book. I just haven't had time to pick it up in the last few days. Well, I'm tired and I'm heading off to bed now. Remember, there's a three-day weekend to look forward to at the end of this week...
Labels: GTD
Monday, May 21, 2007
GTD progress report
I picked up a Brother PT-1950 labeler from Staples yesterday, then went into work and labeled and alphabetized all my files. I've got two file drawers in work with old reference material, so it's a bunch of stuff but not a ton. It took about two hours to work through. I also managed to throw away a couple of boxes full of stuff, and got some stuff off my desk and into folders. Sunday night might have been a weird time to do all this, but spare time during normal work hours is hard to come by. I haven't really gotten started yet with the whole inbox processing thing. Oh, and I'm about halfway through the book.
Labels: GTD
Friday, May 18, 2007
GTD and Lotus Notes
I downloaded the GTD and Lotus Notes guide from DavidCo today. I'm not quite sure if was worth $10 for a thirty-odd page PDF file, but the system it laid out made some sense. There's another system available here that might be better, and doesn't cost anything, though.
One hang-up I've always had with any kind of productivity system is that so much of my "stuff" lives in Lotus Notes e-mail. I've looked into ways to embed links to Notes documents into an external system, but I've never found a good way. Notes doclinks work great in Notes, but if you try to paste one into, for instance, OneNote, you just end up with a little block of XML. (I know that I can save the doclink to a file, then attach the file to another application, but it's not real useful for me if I need to go through that extra step.)
Well, I haven't gotten past chapter 3 in the GTD book yet anyway, so I probably shouldn't be worried about implementation details like this yet.
One hang-up I've always had with any kind of productivity system is that so much of my "stuff" lives in Lotus Notes e-mail. I've looked into ways to embed links to Notes documents into an external system, but I've never found a good way. Notes doclinks work great in Notes, but if you try to paste one into, for instance, OneNote, you just end up with a little block of XML. (I know that I can save the doclink to a file, then attach the file to another application, but it's not real useful for me if I need to go through that extra step.)
Well, I haven't gotten past chapter 3 in the GTD book yet anyway, so I probably shouldn't be worried about implementation details like this yet.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
GTD book
Well, I went out and bought the GTD book today. Let's see if I can finish reading it in a reasonable amount of time.
So far, it seems like a worthwhile read, not just some mushy new-age stuff, or patently obvious stuff, or completely impractical advice that would never work in the real world. It does seem to contain practical advice that might actually be useful in my day-to-day work.
I'm kind of curious about how I might get some of this to work with my existing software tools. I'm currently managing my priority list via my Lotus Notes inbox, using follow-up flags. That's not the best system possible, but it has the advantage of residing directly in the system where most of my to-do list items originate (i.e. e-mails from other people).
So far, it seems like a worthwhile read, not just some mushy new-age stuff, or patently obvious stuff, or completely impractical advice that would never work in the real world. It does seem to contain practical advice that might actually be useful in my day-to-day work.
I'm kind of curious about how I might get some of this to work with my existing software tools. I'm currently managing my priority list via my Lotus Notes inbox, using follow-up flags. That's not the best system possible, but it has the advantage of residing directly in the system where most of my to-do list items originate (i.e. e-mails from other people).
Labels: GTD
Monday, May 14, 2007
GTD
I'm usually not much for productivity systems of any kind. It all seems to me like it should just be common sense. Keep track of your to-do list, prioritize, and so on and so forth. I'm falling so far behind at work now, though, that I'm actually starting to look around to see if there's anything out there that could help. I know there's no magic wand I can wave that'll get four months worth of work done in a week, but maybe there's something out there that could help me whittle down the list a bit, and take some of the stress off me.
I've seen the "Getting Things Done" system mentioned a lot over the last couple of years, and I've been somewhat curious about it. I think I'm finally desperate enough to start looking into it. An excerpt from David Allen's book is available from Business Week. I read that, and it makes some sense to me. There's a page of links and stuff about GTD up at 43 Folders. There's a link there to a podcast series, interviewing David Allen, that might be interesting. I think I'll give that a listen, after I catch up on DNR.
I'm not sure if I'm ready to buy the book yet. Maybe.
I've seen the "Getting Things Done" system mentioned a lot over the last couple of years, and I've been somewhat curious about it. I think I'm finally desperate enough to start looking into it. An excerpt from David Allen's book is available from Business Week. I read that, and it makes some sense to me. There's a page of links and stuff about GTD up at 43 Folders. There's a link there to a podcast series, interviewing David Allen, that might be interesting. I think I'll give that a listen, after I catch up on DNR.
I'm not sure if I'm ready to buy the book yet. Maybe.
Labels: GTD
© 2008 Andrew Huey