what gets in the way
As I was setting things up for the week I wondered what gets in the way of getting GTD 'right'. I came to the conclusion that there was very little but what did get in the way had a major impact. The main failings for me are:
- not writing things down - not having a single place I can feel confident has everything. I have the place but forget to actually commit the write it down. If I don't write it down I have to rely on memory (uh oh not a good idea at my age), rely on some subconscious trigger or worst of all wait until someone asks me if I have done such and such. That's the worst I feel such a prat , letting people down, I feel, I the worst feeling in the world- if only I'd etc etc....so the pocket book goes everywhere, I always have a pen and if it's in the book it gets looked at..now there's the next problem
- not getting things done that are on the list(s); procrastination happens, well not really I let it happen. There's always something else to do (that's life) but in reality I've made a choice I decided to do x over y. Is that a problem? well only if I've put something off that I could have done and it's going to have a major impact by not being done..for example I have had "check out hotels in Paris for family break" for a week - if I don't get it done this week I'm a dead man! - so what I love about things being on the list is that I choose and I live with the consequences - actually that is quite liberating - what I found this week is that I did things that I would normally put off - "phone the garage about the car.." - don't want to because it will cost money..but it will cost a lot more if I leave it another week...
- not finding what I need to do the action; this was a great feature of GTD the book as a tip but my procrastination was at Olympic heights, "can't do that now can't find the number", "oh that'll have to wait the file's in the other room"....I knew all the excuses, still do :) - but now I have less excuse (thank you Mr Allen I owe you) now I question my next action every time "Where is the support for the action..." If I know I need a phone number may rather radically write it down, make a ref note to the project file..I have now started a week file (photo to follow) which has a section for Mon, Tues, Wed, Thur, Fri (all the support materials for these days meetings go in this section) this includes to do type actions where a specific day has been scheduled; materials for calls to in the @calls section, specific hard copies of waiting fors go in the @waiting for section with the name of the person owing me the action; @file ..waiting to put away (note to self need to get this sorted..too big ) - this is my version of a micro tickler file just for the coming week. If the weekly review works (gulp guilt trip coming up) then the file is set for the week, if not then chaos tends to ensure on Monday and every day after this, but when it works everything for the day is at hand.
Anyone else have any failings and tips for overcoming?
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Pocket book
pocket book with lists by context
Flickr
This is a test post from
, a fancy photo sharing thing.
The books, the journals how the all work (or not!)
OK so this is how the journals are supposed to work:
- small pocket moleskin pocketbook, labelled "Stuff" has all the lists in by context. I use snopake dividers to divide the book into - Next Actions, Projects, Someday, reference and notes. The little pocket at the back carries a tube map, £10 note, train timetable. All items go on lists irrespective of where they came from. Some are duplicated with the context on outlook where the action has been triggered by email - but I can live with this . The advantage of the paper apporach is that I am more likely to immediately write something down, the issue I had with digital was I would think I'll put that in the pocketpc later - needless to say later became never on many occasions.
- GTD addin - living with the inevitable volume of email I get the addin is invaluable in capturing actions triggered by emails, creating the diary entry related to an email and filing the emails for later use.
- I have three main areas with separate books
- one for our in-house management team meetings which are weekly operational and monthly strategy
-one for Finance activity covering meetings and activity around my finance role, our funding, management accounts, finance team meeting etc
- one for projects (which is then divided into each project area) - since I also am responsible for co-ordinating the delivery of our project portfolio
These books capture the notes in mindmap form - any actions or waitings fors etc are entered onto the lists every day and the books are kept with the relevant project files.
Photos to follow...
My work space
My office workspace
My office work space
My office work space - laptop, blackberry, labeller etc.
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Yikes so much for daily blogs!
Where's the time gone...all good intentons went to pot from Monday. But some good lesson came out from the last two days. The trial of a notebook per major project - about 4 major areas - and a general notes seems to work well. It's useful to be able to review the diary each morning on the commute and plan each meeting - whether I'm running or not - I tend to outline in minmap form each meeting in terms of:- desired outcomes
- information I need to find out from the meeting
- information I am brining to the meeting
I then capture what happens and process as quickly as I can post the meeting - my backstop is processing on the commute home. This results in updated lists of next actions or where possible actioning via call or email.
For example two of my Monday meetings resulted in multiple actions for me and others - actions were emailed immedialtely post the meeting - my actions get on my NA list and the others get on the Waiting for list . I then print off a copy of the email for the project file to be picked up when preparing for the next meeting. Writting it sounds complex but it just seems to happen as a routine and works for me!
Now I have worked out how to email photos via my phone into the blog so that will be trialled later today - hopefully
My set up
The set up- still in trial and tribulation mode - is as follows:- Laptop - IBM X31 MS office plus Outlook (heavy outlook use for email, diaries etc etc)
- David Allen GTD add-in - used for mainly sorting emails into actionable buckets e.g. agenda for things to talk to people about, filing, defering into the calender for specific day reference or meetings or to do', use the delegate feature alot to keep track of emails sent out to people where response or action is required from someone else.
- Blackberry for email processing when out and about - this is great for the "2-min" email actions and keeps the inbox manageable - however really not useful for lists, next actions etc. Iget about 150-200 emails a day - all work related :(
- Occasionally use my Smartphone - Orange SPV E200 - great for lists I use powertasks for smartphone from Developerone http://www.developerone.com
- Pocket moleskin journal for lists; journal is divided into sections for Action lists, projects, someday and notes - based on hacks on 43 folders, http://www.43folders.com,
- Plastic box in the office which stores everything else that is captured during the day for processing into its respective action - well nearly always :)
- Dymo letra tag labeller plus stock of plain A4 folders
- Plus a generous stock of snopake movable page markerks which are great for highlighting documents since you can write on them and move them around or just marking up documents etc.
I am currently trialling using moleskin cahier journals for specific projects or standing regular meetings to keep all the handwrittne notes in - upside is everything for specific projects is in one place the down side is lots of journals - haven't worked this one through yet - but hey it's fun trying!!
The next stage is to get the photos working and to share what it all looks like...
GTD the blog starts here!
OK the blog starts here, my first time blogging. It took me a while to get going but I got there - having been an avid voyeur on the David Allen forums http://www.davico.com - I thought I'd share my GTD experiences the good, the bad and down right irrelevant. Having spent many years fiddling with every piece of technology from Atari portfolios, HP100, Psions, Olivetti Quaderno (bet many people don't remember those!), Palm pilots, Philips Velo and every other incarnation of the PocketPC PLUS paper planners of every variety - Filofax, Covey -etc etc -probably means I need to be committed to some addicts home for a 12 step detox.All I wanted to do was be more organised, be more productive at work and not worry about work when I'm not at work. So my online journey on GTD begins here, I will share my set ups, my tools, my processes, my successes. my failures and other stuff. Feel free to comment and if relevant share your experiences. Tomorrow's post will share my set up and include photos , if I can get that feature to work :)Oh yeah and talking of addictions yes I do have a Blackberry..and I love it for email.
