The last couple of days I had the luxury of using a car to drive to work (I normally commute by train) and I decided that was some nice time alne to rethink the GTD-strategy I was following. Especially al the hints I got from my previous posts made me think I really needed to refresh my GTD-memory. But…in a car you can’t read, so I bought the audiobooks over at Audible.com and burned them on CD. I have to say, all the material was not new, but what an eye-opener it was (again)! All the little nuances, details in mastering your workflow and getting that black-belt feel is very well captured in the audiobook. If you travel a lot and have an MP3-player or portable CD-player, I highly recommend you get the GTD-audiobook at Audible.com. It runs just over 2 hours, it doesn’t have all the details the book has, but just enough to get you going again.
And if you are a first time customer, you get the audio for just $9,95. That’s a bargain!
I have a MP3-player, but I couldn’t connect it to the Audible-manager to convert and transfer the file. Make sure you have a CD burner, since the proprietairy .aa-files of audible.com don’t convert very well to MP3 using freeware or simple tools…You’d better burn it on CD and rip that CD back to MP3 again.
15 02 05 - 22:54 - Permanent link -
In a previous post, I referred to The Big Project which makes me really uncomfortable about doing all the other little things that keep coming in. Mike Sale has some excellent remarks on that topic and I would like to extend the conversation a bit about this subject. Because it is true. Even the Biggest of Biggest Projects start with a small, controllable Next Action. Isolating can be a good option, but the Project is suffering from “progressive insight” meaning we face new challenges as we go along. New user scenario’s, changed features, uncertainties about new features. These should have been faced before we started but right now, we are facing this and nothing can change that. Ofcourse it is a good lesson for a next project. So what does this have to do with isolating? I can isolate like hell, but when I plug in again, there are changes in the (voice) mail and people on my desk asking for assistance because of changing point-of-views.
You might say this is a projectmanagement-problem which cannot be solved by GTD and I agree. This has more to do with the way Projectmanagement was handled and I am the first to admit that. But with that as a given, I am looking how I can make the best of it with the techniques at hand.
“Breakdown” might be a good alternative and I will try that out coming days.
Corie also has an excellent remark about making a little list. But if you read the above, you will find that this list can be of no use just one hour after the start of the day ;-)
I do feel Katherine also touched a nerve. I am not familiar with Covey’s techniques but heard a lot about it. I will look into this some more in the future
I sure hope to find the time to read some pages in David’s book again. I think it will get me kickstarted again.
Did you have similar experiences? Please let me know and tell me how you faced them. Maybe they will help me!
13 02 05 - 20:24 - Permanent link -
Hey what’s that? I finally have this saturdaynight where I can check out some of the forumposts over at the David Allen website. But when I click throught the RSS-feed all I get is this stripped down Technorati site? Check this screenshot. Does anybody else have this as well?
Update: Everything works fine again. Must have been some hickup in cyberspace?
12 02 05 - 23:44 - Permanent link -
The last couple of weeks have been extremely hectic and have given me ample time to really update my GTD principles. But step by step I am getting more organized again. But my Next Action list just keeps growing. The biggest issue I am facing right now is how to divide my time between little jobs that have to be done (a phonecall, email, letter) and balancing my time in actually not doing all these little things because my big project I am working on gets less attention. It’s the Long Tail thought in some way is it not? If I do everything right now that takes less than two minutes, it will take me 2 hours to do it. But! In these two hours, urgent email rushes in, phones ring because a server went down, my co-workers need to be updated on the project, have questions and oh yeah, I have an appointment waiting. And I don;t get the things done for the Big Project
I know, this is the classic case where GTD can be of help. But really, what is the signal, the red flag that tells you to stop doing these little things and get on with it? Even though these little are equally important? How do you handle with it? I find the book very vague about this.
PS: I can’t tell you or show you anything on The Big Project, since it is for a client. But I will let you know as soon as I can in public
10 02 05 - 21:37 - Permanent link -
As I mentioned in a previous article, I had some trouble in Outlook with the toolbars. Thanks to the solution provided by Robert and John, everything is working fine now. Thanks guys!
08 02 05 - 09:11 - Permanent link -
This is a really funny animation about all the procratination you can think of when you try to get your stuff done. Nice distraction when you’re working ;-)
(via Frankwatching.com)
06 02 05 - 09:10 - Permanent link -
OK, this is buggin’ me (hehehe) for quite some time now. I have the GTD Outlook Add in installed on Outlook 2003. I also have the normal Outlook bars (standard, formatting) and the Lookout Searchbar (worth an evaluation! It’s free!)
When I open a new Task, i would like my toolbars to stay in a specific position. But no matter what I try or what I do, the positions of the toolbars al-ways change. This is so annoying! Toolbars switch positions, slide al the way to the right, position themselves in three (3!!) rows. Does anyone have a solution for this?
And yes, I have to use Outlook at work, so switching to Thunderbird is not a valid option, sorry…
02 02 05 - 15:21 - Permanent link -
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