What's the next action

A note when on vacation...

Just a reminder if you’re going on a holiday and you think you don’t need a thing like a little notebook. Please buy one! We are roadtripping in New Zealand for 5 days now and I’m getting sick of myself of not having a little notebook for URL’s, mailadresses and phone numbers. So I’m going to buy one tomorrow :-)
Just wanted to let you know!

17 12 04 - 07:12 - Permanent link - one comment

I'm going on a holiday

It was only a short introduction from me to my new visitors o this weblog. But I am leaving on a 3 week holiday to New Zealand tomorrow. So I will not be updating this weblog for that period. Ofcourse GTD helped me quite a lot during the preparation of the travel and now it is time to leave!
I will be back on this weblog after January 10th. Hope to see you all then!

11 12 04 - 17:32 - Permanent link - No comments yet

Using Slogger as a webfeed-builder

I got a question how I configured Slogger to make RSS-feeds (we call them webfeeds in the Netherlands, but oh well). When I wrote the mail, I thought to myself: Why not share it with everyone? So if you use Slogger and would like to make RSS feeds of your saved pages wo you can read them in your feedreader. Check this little tutorial with pictures!

08 12 04 - 18:56 - Permanent link - one comment

This is cool!

OK, one non-GTD link for today :) I just saw this weblog is mentioned on the del.icio.us/popular list. Woehaa! that’s cool! I made a screenshot in case it’s gone tomorrow ;)

As Adam Curry would say in his podcasts: booooiiiiinnnnnggggg!!!

06 12 04 - 12:09 - Permanent link - two comments

Advanced Workflow Diagram

Tip of the day: You might want to check out this Advanced Workflow Diagram (PDF) for the GTD system if you are a visual learner! you’ll still need the book for all the nuts and bolts. You can order it at Amazon! Yes, that is a Amazon Allianced partner link…

05 12 04 - 22:30 - Permanent link - two comments

My setup for GTD

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! :-)

05 12 04 - 21:19 - Permanent link - two comments

A small victory

Just to let you know how GTD can help you also in little pieces: The last couple of days, I had this task to complete for a project. Really simple, processing notes into a new project description. But because it was so small and I have a lot of other projects waiting, I kept procrastinating the task. The task kept lingering on my desk, waiting to be completed. This evening I was cleaning out my desk and bumped into it again. Since I was waiting for my ride home I thought “You know what, if i just check what has to be done exactly, I can do it tomorrow”. So I looked at the notes and thought to myself “This is not hard, it’s really easy!” So within ten minutes I had the notes processed in a new project description, emailed the client for approval and made a “Waiting for” task for the answer. All in 15 minutes! Just by really picking up the notes and thinking about it.
The feeling was great!

01 12 04 - 23:56 - Permanent link - two comments

What IS Getting Things Done?

Since this weblog is dedicated to the noble art of Getting Things Done, I think it’s a good idea to first talk about what GTD actually is.
GTD can be best described as a disciplined process to manage your work, information and time more effectively and easy. The main thought around the process to have a “mind like water”. Because you have a trusted system with GTD where all you to do’s and actions are stored, you can have clear thoughts on your projects, your work and your life.
The system is based around a 5 word mantra:

• Collect
• Process
• Organize
• Review
• Do

First, you collect all open ends in a consistent way and in a trusted place, your “Inbox” This may be a virtual and/or a real Inbox. The collecting process makes you go through literally everything in your personal and professional life that has to be done. To give an example. After just 10 minutes of sitting down and writing my to do’s down, I made a list of about 75 items which were just hanging in my head. Keep in mind that this is just collecting. There is no need to actually do something with it.

Processing makes you ask one of the most important questions for every item in your Inbox: “What is it?”. Take the time to understand the essence of each item in your Inbox and decide the outcome that this information should lead to and the next step towards that outcome.
If you answers determine into which bucket the item goes. In the chart below you will find 8 buckets.

First up: If the next action takes less than two minutes to finish, do it immediately. Otherwise, the item goes into one of the following buckets:

• Project List: If there’s more than one action needed
• Projectplan: A list of the actions needed to finish a project
• Delegate: If the next action has to be done by someone else, you let him/her know and put a “waiting for” tracker in you system
• Defer: If the next action has to be done on a particular day or time, it goes on you calendar
• Next action: Otherwise it goes into you Next Actions List which is organized by context (at home, office, online, offline etc)
  For stuff that doesn’t directly need a Next Action we have three extra buckets:
• File: for information that might be usefull in the future
• Tickler File: for items that you like to do someday or items you might need on a particular day
• Trash: items you don;t need at all

So now you’ve got all your collected stuff organized in the appropriate bucket. Next up is Reviewing on a timely beasis, best is the Weekly Review to actually go through all the stuff on your lists and check to see what needs to be done. Allen suggests reviewing your calendar each morning, and the other buckets (plus any “stuff” you haven’t got around to processing, to clear your mind again) early each Friday afternoon, moving next actions between buckets as appropriate. Then whenever you have openings in your calendar, you select from the next actions based on (a) context (are you in the right place with the right tools to do this), (b) time available (be able to finish what you start), (c) energy available (right frame of mind) and (d) priority (relative importance). Then just do it.
Last but not least is actually doing your work. Because that’s why we started this right? To be able to just do your work and be in the knowledge that all the other stuff that needs to be done is in a trusted system.

There’s more to the system and the book than I just described here. He also talks about the phases of projectplanning, how to setup your system and how to use it effectively. If you are interested, please check out the book at Amazon. Next up I will talk about my setup and what software I use to implement GTD.

01 12 04 - 18:49 - Permanent link - two comments