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GyroQ lets you work through your interruptions (contest included!)

25 11 06 - 20:01 - Bookmark this post

If you are a true GTD follower, you might already know that 43folders.com is running an excellent serie of interviews with The Dave. Merlin Mann, creator of 43folders.com made some short interviews (approx. 10 minutes) covering different areas of the GTD space.

One of the podcast covered the fine art of interruptions. We’ve all been there. You arrive at work, all fresh and tinteling, ready to do make some serious miles at your desk on that one project. But after 20 minutes, three collegae’s, 10 emails an phonecall later, you know your day will be different than you thought. I find interruptions, well, highly interruptive. It takes you out of a flow, a piece you’re reading or writing. Studies show that interruptions account for 28% of a typical workday, and on average it takes 23 minutes to return to the original task from a diversion. So how to deal with it? Well…make sure you save those pieces of information on a secure place.

I would like to introduce a beautiful piece of add-on software for MindJet’s MindManager . It is called GyroQ from the company Gyronix. GyroQ is a low cost, simple piece of software for Mindjet MindManager 6 (or X5) that captures ideas in a few seconds. You do not need to have MindManager running to use GyroQ. You just press a hot key, type a few words and hit Enter. Your ideas are added to a queue (the “Q” in “GyroQ”) and saved to disk. Once or twice a day, you send the Queue to a MindManager map, turning your queued-up ideas into topics that you can reorganise and plan.

How will GyroQ help me manage interruptions?

GyroQ lets you actively manage interruptions and flashes of inspiration by making them wait for your full attention. An extra side-effect is that you will also start having more and better ideas; once you have a trusted system for capturing ideas when they happen, your brain no longer needs to work hard to hold on to a thought while you finish something else. Sounds familiair doesn’t it?
I am very enthousiastic about GyroQ. It is one of the best pieces of software I have seen in a long time. It is highly flexible with it’s own programming language (tweaks for the geeks!) and as the say themselves, it is not interruptive but really helps me manage those thoughts and pieces of information you get during the day.

How long will it take to get productive with GyroQ?

About five minutes.

1. If you haven’t downloaded GyroQ yet, download from www.gyronix.com/go.php?56 and save the file to your Windows Desktop.
2. Double-click on the downloaded file to install GyroQ. The installer will launch it on completion.
3. When GyroQ starts, you can watch a short video to see it in action.
4. Press Ctrl+Q, type in an idea or action, then press Enter.
5. Press the Esc key when you are finished with the GyroQ window.

Once you have collected a few ideas:

1. Press Ctrl+Q and click the Send Queue button.
2. GyroQ will open your Daily Capture Map and add your ideas and actions to it. You can now start organising, deciding and planning.

That’s how simple this is. And one of the best parts is the flexibility of the application. You can make your own Tags with which you can create your own configurable Daily Capture map. Out of the box it sorts the input by date. But if you have just a few projectmaps, you could configure it to add to specific maps directly. If you make tags, you can share these with other GyroQ users. through email or just as a textfile. For instance, check out ActivityOwner, a poweruser of GyroQ and with some very good ideas on how to use this application.

Win free GyroQ licenses!

Well, it’s time for a new contest! This time, I can give away 5 licenses for GyroQ Developer Edition (value $49,95) with thanks to the kind folks at Gyronix. Together with Nick Duffil, cofounder of Gyronix, we figured out a new contest, which is slightly in the same manner as our last contest. Send me your daily to-do mindmap and tell me how you use it. Do you have some sort of structure? Do you have tricks to process and organize? Tell us and we will share your story and map here on this blog. And ofcourse, you can be one of five winners of GyroQ.

Entries are closed on December 2nd 7 PM (that’s 1 PM Eastern and 10 AM Pacific) I will draw five winners from the entries and make sure you get the licenses. So don’t forget to include your name and emailadress! Good luck and have fun!

Need to know more about Gyronix? Check the webinar!
Gyronix also makes a Mindmanager dashboard called Resultmanager. I haven’t tried it yet, but you can check it out live at a free webinar on november 28th. Click here for details

Since I have been too late the last time you gave out keys I tent be on time now. So my list wil start with…. place reminder in backpack.
Martijn - 26 11 06 - 12:48