GTD prowl
I’m totally on the GTD prowl right now. I hath fully fallen from the vaunted GTD wagon in recent days and it is taking a toll on me. Unread emails: 146 from as far back as three weeks ago; an unknown number of dropped commitments given verbally; projects that have stalled or never started; a mind that is the opposite of water, whatever that its. You get the idea. It’s not pretty and I’m not happy.
So, in desperation, I have been prowling for a new tool to motivate me. I’ve checked out iGTD. Very nice, very robust. Entourage continues to have an appeal with the built-in project functionality. The problem I run into is that I need a ubiquitous capture tool. My Powerbook is so awesome and it goes a lot of places with me, but it simply doesn’t go everywhere. I don’t like being the laptop guy in meetings, for instance. I usually get through meetings with a stack of blank printer paper, but I always seem to misplace the notes and they never get processed.
I’ve always loved the idea of a good paper/pen based tool, but then I struggle with getting the stuff I wrote down back in to my computer-based tracking system (whatever that is at the moment). But paper really is the ubiquitous tool. In my life at least, it’s always available. The big beef I have with paper is that it’s not easily searchable, which kind of sucks right now, but maybe somebody will solve that for us in the future. And I mean literally, not those funky paper pads that lay on top of a magnet or something with a weird pen that “record” your writing. I just want paper to be paper, but for it to be searchable. Maybe I just need a personal assistant… :-)
Then there’s the PDA option. I rock a Treo 700p and I love it. I’m a huge fan of Palm apps, but I’ve tried just about everything that’s GTD-ish or “planner-ish” and nothing allows me to get my notes/actions firmly sync’d with my Powerbook (at least not in a way that doesn’t require me to use some other third party app. Even a plain text system would be palatable. Maybe I’m just not smart enough…readers, feel free to mock me with your simple solutions). Email is easy. Calendar is easy. Everything else is hard.
So today, despite the unsearchableness of paper, I figured I’d try one of the Moleskine GTD hacks. I knew what I needed, so I scored a fresh new unlined Moleskine and some of those tab things (you’ll see them on the following links). Then I needed a refresher on setting it up. I looked at Jerry’s again. I looked at PigPog’s. I looked at Eston’s. Nothing quite resonated, though. I just need a frickin’ organized place to capture ideas and burn through next action lists. Everything else can be on the laptop. So I finally sucked it up and tried to think for myself. (I know!) I just seperated the back third of the Moleskine with two tabs. One says “Follow up” and one says “Notes.” I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to use those parts yet. I expect they’ll probably change. The front two thirds is what I expect to use for next action lists. At some point I’ll probably start dividing that part up with tabs, too. But for now I’m just going to wing it and see how it goes. Frankly, I’m looking up at the bottom of the GTD barrel at this point, so anything will help. I hope.
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POSTED IN: creativity, gtd, productivity, tips and tricks
14 opinions for GTD prowl
Robert 'Groby' Blum
Apr 18, 2007 at 7:46 pm
Give Jott a spin. Call the Jott number on your cell, they transcribe your message and send it as e-mail. I’ve pretty much eliminated paper since I’m using it - it’s awesome.
Dubber
Apr 18, 2007 at 11:30 pm
I’ve just devised a GTD subsystem that has completely revolutionised my working week. Timetabling the big stuff to specific hours never works for me. I often end up letting things slide because I feel like I under-estimated the amount of time needed and can’t quite fit it all in.
More interesting things come up and before long, email inboxes fill and you end up back where you started.
But as long as I get the main things done, I can fill the gaps with the little stuff. It’s the Covey ‘big rocks’ thing. Put them in first, and the little rocks, sand and water can all fill in between the cracks.
Rather than block specific times out for working on projects, I have instead divided my days into quadrants. I have a morning block, two afternoon blocks and an evening block. Or, as I like to call them: blocks A, B, C and D.
The boundaries of each of those blocks shift, but they are essentially just large chunks of time I can devote to a specific project. But they’re a period of time of a couple of hours — give or take — that happen before lunch, after lunch, later that afternoon, and sometime between dinner and bed.
Weekend days only have two blocks. I don’t mind slacking off if I’m getting a couple of things done on the weekend.
So — to plan my week, I figure out how many blocks I’m going to spend on each project (article to write, essays to mark, new projects to brainstorm, that sort of thing). And then I just write each project into that many squares that week.
Fixed appointments (classes, meetings…) tend to fall into one or another of those blocks — so that’s what gets written into that block.
It’s a bit of a juggle sometimes — but it gives a realistic picture of how much energy I’m going to give to each project. And if I only spend an hour within that block on that one project, and I’ve got an hour or two to kill before the next block rolls around, I can check emails & rss feeds, make calls and go through the various inboxes.
All I need now is an Ajax-based calendar system that divides weekdays into four quadrants and weekends into two segments.
For everything else, I use http://tracks.tra.in — which rocks.
Jeroen Sangers
Apr 18, 2007 at 11:51 pm
After falling off the GTD wagon, the most important thing is to get your habbits in place again; the tool is only a secondary issue. I always suggest starting with the simplest tools possible (pen & paper) and keep those until you have developed the right habbits. I n my opinion your Moliskine set-up falls in that category. Good luck!
Chris
Apr 19, 2007 at 8:26 am
I second the recommendation for Jott. It is now my mobile capture device for my inbox. I use Vitalist for my GTD and Jott can send the transcription directly to my Vitalist inbox via email. Vitalist also presents a mobile-friendly view, so I always have my GTD with me via my phone. Less stuff to cary around = awesome!
Mark Jantzen
Apr 19, 2007 at 8:56 am
I would love to have my GTD system Mac-based but so far I can’t find anything as complete and portable as Outlook with the Net Centrics Add-In synchronized to my Treo 650 via Chapura’s Key Suite.
A lot of options start to go in the right direction but often fall short in some way. The portable aspect is a big one for me. Key Suite is just rock-solid.
But the way things are going with Parallels, etc. the choice of operating system may become less and less of an issue. For now I’m using a Mac and a PC with the “sharp knife” attitude. Use each for its strengths.
As I do better and better with GTD methods the system becomes less and less visible. But that happens not only because of GTD but also because I know how to use the tools really well and they have the capabilities to be complete.
Another thing for me is “tear-off” paper-based capture. I’ve tried spiral notebooks, Circas and Moleskines but single pages that get processed then filed or tossed just worked best for me.
Keep at it!
Mark
Brent
Apr 19, 2007 at 12:34 pm
You really should consider using a spreadsheet (Open Office or Excel for example). I tried the all-paper-all-the-time route and had the same frustrations. A spreadsheet sorts, filters and prints so easily. To start try these columns. Role(Work or Personal); Type (NA, Project, Someday); TAG (used to group by parent project or context); and Description (this main task or project)
I don’t bother with marking an item complete I just delete it.
I still use paper as my collection-thought tool but then I dump it to the spreadsheet during processing.
Nathan
Apr 19, 2007 at 1:56 pm
For me, the critical success factor has been to separate “capture” from “processing”. I primarily use a spirex notebook to capture in meetings (and sometimes laptop). I asterix and circle or initials and circle action items. I recap at the end of the meeting what I think the action items were, and who I think is responsible for them. If appropriate, I may then email that list out (it proves an electronic reference for me and an easy way to follow up with/remind others).
I can then look back through the notebook for circles. They are the only important bit of the notebook (the rest is content). This makes it easy and quick to process = more likely to be done.
But the biggest GTD improvement I have made in the last year is consolidating all my actions to one todo list. I used to have 2-3 — 1 in the todo list, 1 in email and 1 in calendar (less so). Now, all my emails are filed into “action (time sensitive)”, “action (non-urgent)”, “aWaiting” or “later” (some other folders used for reference/projects). As messages are moved out of my inbox, they are added to my todo list with a priority and a context. I sort by priority and when I’m being especially good (or more likely, when something is stuck!), I add a “next action”.
This is proving much more effective for me than having a folder of “action” messages in email that aren’t also listed in my todo, so that either my todo or my email isn’t being effectively and jointly prioritised.
The only failure point for my current system is (a) when I get too many emails and don’t make the time to move them from the inbox or (b) when I don’t do a daily review (which I need to do at least once every two days to make sure some of the things prioritised as lower get escalated as their due date gets nearer).
Jeffh
Apr 20, 2007 at 6:09 am
Capture Tool: @Computer: GyroQ — @Out: Moleskine
GTD Tool: ThinkingRock
SIMPLE.
Cheers.
Gaz
Apr 20, 2007 at 6:46 am
I’ve documented my complete Moleskine GTD system at Azazil, which represents my mashup of several other people’s systems. There’s a bunch of links at the bottom of that post to my other GTD and Moleskine articles you might enjoy too.
One thing that I should probably add to the original article is that it isn’t supposed to be a rigid system for you to copy, rather a demonstration of how anyone can pick and choose the parts the like of other systems, and roll something that works for them.
What do you think?
-Gaz
Bren
Apr 20, 2007 at 8:45 am
Thanks for all the good tips, everyone! (and here’s hoping that the comments are fixed…)
Scott
Apr 20, 2007 at 6:11 pm
Paper is actually very searchable within reason. Instead of trying to capture everything, just take a different coloured pen (red) and mark your action items (box), research items (?), and important items (*) and then get those transcribed.
Once that is done (I try to do this as soon as possible after the meeting and only transcribe as much as I need as quickly as possible) file the paper in a logical place (say alphabetically by client/project in a filing cabinet). If you file inside the file in chronological order (put a date on each piece of paper as a page number if it matters) you can easily hunt back to “those notes”.
It really isn’t that hard to do and people got by that way for a LONG time before computers.
Anyway, best of luck!
Micah
Apr 23, 2007 at 6:45 am
I have actually settled on using Yojimbo and Quicksilver for my GTD system, combined w/ a Moleskine.
I set up a special “Note” that I use Quicksilver to fire notes off into, that I can then process later, keeps it very concise and I don’t have to think about creating new notes on the fly.
I then created a set of tags that I apply some combination of to each new Note/Bookmark/Whatever. “Status=Active” “Status=Reference” “Status=Archive”, etc. I handle projects for multiple customers, so I also attach a customer tag. Each project gets a master “Note” that I update by prepending. (Latest update at the top, including next action) Updates stay in black, next actions in red.
As I work on a project, I will reference new data capture in the main note, specifying the title of the new Note/Bookmark, etc.
When in meetings, I capture everything in a Moleskine, dedicating a new page (or more) to each day. I then fold it all back into Yojimbo after the meeting.
Works for me…
/mpb
Jerry
Apr 23, 2007 at 1:59 pm
Or you can do a radical 180 degrees. There’s this approach, at http://www.fourhourworkweek.com, that espouses limiting checking emails to a few times a day among others. Anyways, it seems like a drastic and radical approach for the emails that are still unopened in your inbox. It’s a thought.
Catharine
Apr 27, 2007 at 4:13 pm
The part I find most fascinating is the whole “falling off the wagon” phase which inevitably happens… Our so very human need to NOT GTD for a bit to balance out…I find the N-GTD phase hard to accept but necessary…