What's the next action

AutoHotkey and Thinking Rock - The flow from thought to action.

02 05 07 - 22:35 - Bookmark this post

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am using Thinking Rock as my nervecenter when it comes to my projects, actions and lists. It is based around the core GTD principles and it makes you go through several steps to really think about your projects and your actions. But I wanted some extra functionality in TR. i found myself not using it quite as much as I wanted because it misses a good method of entry for my personal needs. I am not a programmer, but I found a nice way to use Autohotkey and TR together to make a great flow from my thoughts to actual Next Actions. In this article I will explain the steps I took to make it all work together.
Remember, I am not a programmer so the code is rather sketchy and based on another script. But for a version 1.0, it will do.

What is Autohotkey?

AutoHotkey is a free, open-source key-assignment and macro program that works on recent versions of Windows. AutoHotkey (ahk) is not what most people would call “friendly”. Rather than provide the user with a graphical interface and easy-to-program macros, you have to learn its macro definition language. It comes with a very extensive documentation and after some searching, you can find some nice scripts to play around with. AHK is a very flexible and after some digging, gives you a large amount of control over your own windows-system

What is Thinkingrock?

Thinking Rock is a free software application for collecting and processing your thoughts following the GTD methodology. It is simple and easy to use. Thinking Rock (TR) allows you to collect your thoughts and process them into actions, projects, information or future possibilities. Actions can be done by you, delegated to someone else or scheduled for a particular date. Projects can be organised with ordered actions and sub-projects. You can review all of your actions, projects and other information quickly and easily to see what you need to do or to choose what you want to do at a particular time.

What’s the problem?

What I really miss in TR is the ability to fluently add new thoughts and ideas. The way my mind works is that it gives me ideas and new thoughts whenever and where ever. Most of the times I am reading something, working in Office, surfing the web, whatever. What I really hate is that have to get out of that flow and into TR to add a new thought. What I would like is a little window I can popup with a keystroke and where I can enter my thoughts. Press enter and it is saved.
Some similar applications come to mind like GyroQ or Activewords for Windows or Quicksilver/Actiontastic for the Mac. But GyroQ works only with Mindmanager and Activewords isn’t that flexible enough to really make a popupwindow and make it work the way I would want.

How did I solve it?

Since I found Autohotkey I only used it to make abbreviations for signatures and starting programs. But I found out I could also use it to make my own little application to write and add text to a file. I used an Autohotkeyscript from Slackermanager as the source of my tweaking and hacking. This script outputs a small window with an inputbox. Enter your thought and press enter. And the thought is saved in a textfile.
In TR there is also the possibility to “Import thoughts”. You can select a textfile with lines of text and these are one by one added as a thought which you can process and organize in lists. Add these ideas together and you get a nice idea where this is going.
I will explain the steps to make it work together with the AHK-script, preceding with a ;-sign. You can download the ahk-script here, you will need Autohotkey to make it work ofcourse. Please use right-click and save-as. You might have to rename the file to thoughtpad.ahk

ScratchFile = C:\MyFiles\thoughts.txt
;This makes a variable called Scratchfile which will make the textfile on your filesystem. You can change this to any place and any name ofcourse.

#/::
InputBox, OutputVar, Thinkpad, Type your thought,,375,135
if ErrorLevel = 1
return
if OutputVar =
OutputVar = clipboard
FileAppend, OutputVar`n, ScratchFile
return
;The above makes a script under the shortcut Winkey-/ which opens up a small inputbox where you can type in your text. Press enter or OK and it is saved in the Scratchfile

#j::
FileAppend, clipboard`n, ScratchFile
return
; this is an extra option. With the shortcut Winkey-j the contents of your clipboard is placed in the scratchfile #k:: Run, ScratchFile
; The shortcut Winkey-k opens the scratchfile in your default texteditor

#d::
MsgBox, 36,Deleting textfile…, Do you want to delete your thoughtsfile? (Press YES or NO)
IfMsgBox No
return
FileDelete, ScratchFile
exit
;The shortcut Winkey-d gives you the opportunity to delete the scratchfile. You can use this AFTER you have imported it into ThinkingRock. This way you wil not enter the same thought twice in TR.

How can you use it?

This script starts when I boot up so it’s always available. During the day I just enter thoughts into the list. Ranging from groceries to names of songs to ideas about some projects. At the end of the day I go into TR and go to File>Import>Thoughts and select the scratchfile C:\MyFiles\thoughts.txt. The thoughts are entered and I can process them accordingly. After that, I press Winkey-d (see above) to delete the original scratchfile and start with a new one.

What are next actions?

I can think of several next actions to make this script even better. For instance make the importing in TR also work from the AHK-script and delete the file automatically. I could add the topics where a thought belongs in the script so it enters more complete in TR.

Download Autohotkey
Download Thinkingrock
Download the script

A very cool idea. I fully agree that any time/task management system without a quick capture option is useless. If I can’t file it really fast, I will probably never file it. I’ve tried Thinkingrock in the past and gave up on it – partially because I had no way to quickly capture my items and partially because I didn’t quite like the interface.

BTW, Autohotkey truly rock – it has already saved me countless hours during various tedious tasks.
Marcin - 03 05 07 - 09:50

Now I’m in Linux as my main platform I quickly wrote my first python program to do it, it runs when I press the winkey+n, then goes away.

See http://voltlick.com/stuff/qadd.html for the code. The script should run on Windows as well as the others, if you have Python installed.
Luke Stanley - 11 05 07 - 06:54

Ping me when you have a moment, I want to talk to you off line about our scripting language and what you thinking about, and also to ask you a couple of questions.

Buzz
buzz@activewords.com
Buzz Bruggeman - 12 05 07 - 01:43

This script is great, however I use ThinkingRock on my Dell D620 (Windows) notebook at work and on my MacBook Pro at home. Do you (or anyone else) know of a comparable script for the Mac written in Applescript or Automator? I don’t have the scripting chops to put it together myself. :-(
Greg - 05 06 07 - 21:45

Python works fine on Mac’s, as far as I know! Look at my script and set it to a hotkey!
Luke Stanley - 05 06 07 - 22:30

I have a similiar script to Luke, but mine uses zenity (the standard in gnome) instead of python-tk.

It’s a few lines, but the key line is …

zenity —text-info —editable —width=500 —height=200 —title “Add to Inbox…”

which is then tied to a gnome hotkey
Scott Carlson - 10 04 08 - 22:09