What's the next action

My setup for GTD

05 12 04 - 21:19 - Bookmark this post

I want to give you a glimpse of the setup I have on my laptop to use the GTD system.

Next Actions
The center of the GTD universe is my Outlook XP with the GTD add-in toolbar (popup). You can try the GTD toolbar for 30 days with the full features before you buy it. I think it’s worth it’s money, but if you want, you can build the features in the toolbar yourself. But I don’t have the knowledge to do that, so I use the toolbar. The toolbar gives you a quick way to empty your Inbox and delegate, defer, file your mail or give them a Next Action. With the add in you receive a PDF with all features explained. The toolbar is not strict in its usage. Meaning, you can make your own actions, projects and tweak it to your own situation. I am still working on that. Especially the relationship between filing mail and reroute it to the right project. The other problem I am facing is working both on- and offline with my laptop. The toolbar makes two XML files with settings (online and offline, see this popup) and for some reason I can’t get it synchronized properly when I change projectnames or add/modify tasknames. I get a settings error and have to manually update the task actions. It would be nice if the add-in could automatically detect the changed names, but I feel it has something to do with the Exchange server we are on at work.
In Outlook, I also use the excellent Lookout search addin. It gives me unprecedented power to search not only in my own Outlook folders, but also our serverside Exchange folders and filefolders. It is a great tool and if you are a email poweruser like I am, I can recommend this tool!

RSS
For my RSS feed I use Newzcrawler. For me it is a great newsreader. I have tried numerous others and all have their own advantages and strange behaviours. Newzcrawler for me makes a great program because of the use of the keyboard. Since I read a lot of newsfeeds offline while commuting, I don’t have a mouse with me. Using the keypad on a laptop is not my favorite device, so I like to use the keyboard. I can navigate quick and esasy through the feeds and individual posts.
I have tried Newsgator" in Outlook. It’s features are about the same as Newzcrawler, but the use of the keyboard in Outlook is dramatic. Every time I switch from one map to the other, Outlook completely loses focus and I have to use the keypad to select the right map or post. Very inefficient and time consuming. To bad, since I use my RSS feed a lot to find interesting articles to post, get new thoughts and ideas I can incorporate in my work. To have that directly in Outlook (with the GTD addin) would be a great help.

Notes
I am evaluating Evernote as my notetaker on the laptop. I use it to copy and paste newitems from Newzcrawler that can be of use. I am not sure if I keep using it. It would be nice to have some sort of direct link to the Tasks in Outlook, but I hate the switching and direct deciding what to do with individual Tasks. As you can see in this screenshot, I keep Newzcrawler and Evernote side by side so I can drag and drop selections of text into Evernote. When I am done, I can categorize articles and decide what to do with them. Evernote also gives me additional features as template notes (to do lists, shopping lists) but I find myself not using that very often.

Extensions
I use Firefox. Period. I only use Internet Explorer to read my webmail (Outlook Exchange) but for all the rest, I use Firefox. So I can also have a wide choice of extensions. I have two favourite extensions: EasyGestures and Slogger. The first gives you ease of navigation with mouse gestures. It requires some tweaking of the default settings and some training but it’s worth it! Slogger creates a complete backup of your browsing history and is very, very customizable. How do I use it? When I see a webpage I would like to read in detail (a long post, productinformation, features, a forum) I click on a button and Slogger makes a backup on my laptop. In the Slogger options, I made a RSS feed of the saved pages. I read the RSS feed in my newsreader. Since it is a habit to read my newsfeeds, I don’t have to remind myself to read the saved pages in any other way. It may sound strange, but hey! It works for me!

Other tools
I have two other tools. One is a small notebook and a pen I keep in my coat. When I am walking outside or not in the situation to grab my laptop, I just write the thoughts and (try!) to process them once a day. And I do mean try because I forget it a lot of times. I need to remind myself more often to process these notes.
Another tool I have is a read/reviw folder to keep in my bag. It has multiple tabs so I can keep eveything that is “to read” in the front and process it accordingly. I have a tab for “delete”, “unsubscribe”, “file” and some special tabs like “material to write about”, “presentation material” and “to discuss” with my colleagues.

At home
This is still unfound territory :-) At my home PC I don’t have Outlook but Thunderbird so I can’t use the GTD addin. I still have to find good software I can use at home and have some sort of transparant sync-mode with my laptop. I will look into this after my vacation, so that is a project for 2005. And I would like to implement the GTD system here together with my girlfriend. She is reading the book now, so within a couple of weeks we have a perfectly running household! :-)

I’m using Evernote too, and i think it has great potential..

Since the different notes are just templates in (shiver) ASP, you can write your own. A few are available already, but it’ll be easier to make more once they release some documentation as the Evernote people get closer to 1.0.
Bob - 09 12 04 - 23:43

If you’re still unsure about Evernote, you might try ContentSaver.

http://www.macropool.com/en/index.html

-Rick
Rick Cecil - 02 01 05 - 02:31