Productivity programs like Getting Things Done obviously have been developed around the needs of managers, sales people, and entrepreneurs. This makes sense given that those are largely the people who are buying the books, listening to the CDs, and attending the seminars (or certainly represent the largest market share of potential customers).

But, one of my main goals with this site was to discuss the way that productivity plans and methods designed for the business world can be reframed in a context that's useful for developers, programmers, and garden-variety geeks. This is not to say that geeks don't fill many or all of these managerial roles in their work, but they also tend to have work styles, deliverables, and skillsets that are markedly different from the average, notional GTD user.

The prime example: "@computer." Man, geeks don't just use a computer for occasional work or to "look something up on 'The Interweb.'" They live on their laptop and take it anywhere they'd bring their wallet. They eat wireless like potato chips and crank out code for a living. They have an IM window and an IRC channel running all day. They're streaming conferences in and live-blogging conferences out. In short, if they follow the stock GTD setup, they will have a very, very long "@computer" list.

So I wanted to start a conversation about how geeks handle their lists, their projects, and their agendas--not so much in terms of the tool they use to store the information, although that's fair game--as with how they segment the information and decide when to break it into pieces. I'll start by providing the setup used by a San Francisco web developer who spends a lot of time on his PowerBook: me.

(Please note: since I'd love to see a lot of discussion about this, please post your response on your own site and just send a single trackback ping to this post (hit: http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/1128456). Comments below are ok for short responses or for posting links to your non-tracback-able site, but please try to limit yourself to a paragraph or so. Thanks.)

Gank away.

Using Gmail as your GTD mail implementation

It’s Saturday night and time to clear out my inbox. Here’s a hodgepodge of little tips, tricks, hacks, and unsolicited advice.

Just mentioned in a comment here, but worth repeating since a couple people had asked about the “skin” on Safari shown in my screen shots.

It’s actually not a skin but a “chrome-less” version of Safari, courtesy of a great little app called Safari Enhancer. It lets you—among many things—remove the aluminum/chrome look from Safari. It also lets you hack up things like link style and colors, deactivate the cache, and import bookmarks from a bunch of different browsers. Most importantly perhaps, it can enable a debugging menu under which a wealth of fantastic features await you. (How about “Open this page in Firefox” and “Change my user agent to ‘IE 5’”? Great stuff.)

As long as we’re off on a Safari day, I’ll also mention the other Safari tools I swear by.

Access bookmarks in your Safari Bookmarks Bar with CMD-1 through CMD-9.

Tip posted on Haughey's PVRBlog

A photo, a burger, and a short story about patronizing the neighborhood.

Shawn Medero suggested the subject of using OSX labels to get organized.

Here’s a quick tip: think of labels less as ornamentation or overly-specific vertical tags. Think of your labels as a system of functional markers that complement your existing organizational system—that provide information you might want during a search, backup, or time-based script events and reviews as an example.

I often end up using my Desktop as a parking lot for current files. Not exactly an inbox, but given how easy it is to hit CMD-D in a dialog box, it’s where a lot of tmp files, exported jpgs, and assorted stuff naturally ends up. Still, I find it distratcting when too much stuff accumulates there, so I also keep a “Junk” folder on the desktop.

I love using Gmail, but until it works with my über IMAP acount, I wouldn't seriously consider switching over.

Still, Gmail's made me see the value of having very few actual folders for storing new and archived mail. It makes it much easier to track and organize your mail on the fly, plus Google's search and labeling tools let you confidently shunt items out of your inbox constantly without fear of having stuff disappear. So I decided to try a little experiment.

I’ll be talking a lot here in coming weeks about Getting Things Done, a book by David Allen whose apt subtitle is “The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.” You’ve probably heard about it around the Global Interweb or have been buttonholed by somebody in your office who swears by GTD. (It probably takes a backseat only to the Atkins Diet in terms of the number of enthusiastic evangelists: sorry about that.)

Like I did the other day with Quicksilver, I wanted to provide a gentle, geek-centric introduction to Getting Things Done, so that you can think about whether it might be right for you. It also gives you time to pick up your own copy of the book and get a feel for how David’s system works. (You can support 43 Folders by buying the book from Amazon, but it’s also up at ISBN.nu and, of course, on shelves at your local bookstore). You’ll also eventually want to grab some of the other GTD essentials, like a ton of manila folders, a good label maker, and a big-ass garbage can. It’s time to get your act together, hoss.

KitzKikz: Sogudi

Sogudi is a plug-in for Safari that lets you search your favorite sites from the location bar. This means that instead of having to visit a given site, you can just type a keyword into the location bar, pop in your search terms, and jump immediately to the results.

Hint: If you're going to be following along on our Quicksilver series, I recommend installing Sogudi and acquainting yourself with it; we'll be using it a lot.

Most sites requiring registration ask you to choose a “secret question” to which only you supposedly know the answer. Of course, in the age of Google, the city where you were born and your mother’s maiden name may no longer be the best kept secrets in the world.

So, next time you register for a site and it asks for your response to a challenge question, choose something that’s completely insane, but really memorable to you.

A couple people had asked.

If you’re kind enough to revisit here in the future, you’ll be hearing about a program called Quicksilver that’s become an important part of how I work with my Mac. I figure since I’ll be talking about it so much, it’s probably beneficial to give you a little lead time in case you’re interested in following along. So here’s a quickish introduction as well as some information and links on getting you started with the home version.

URLinfo beta || Fagan Finder

I’ve linked to Fagan Finder’s URLinfo Bookmarklet before (via del.icio.us), but I can’t resist sharing it again here.

Like most cool stuff, it’s easier to use than to explain, but in a nutshell, when visiting a site, you click the bookmarklet and it gives you instant access to a bunch of popular, very useful web-based tools. Virtually any kind of information you might want about a site or a domain is presented in a well-structured, easy-to-navigate frameset using some smart javascript. Some of the highlights include:

Tinderbox Wiki: GettingThingsDone

I haven’t kept up much with its recent development, but I know Tinderbox has been a terrific, versatile application that’s just about perfect for GTD implementation in many ways. Bit of a steep learning curve, but a lot of folks says it’s worth it. I’ve certainly enjoyed tinkering with it in the past, and I still find it very satisfying as a mind-mapping tool and occasional IA app.

Link to a cool PDF illustrating an advanced workflow for Getting Things Done.

Free up space in Safari's bookmark bar with cool little icons.

Quicksilver makes it easy to add new lines to a txt file without even opening an application. Here’s an example of how you might add “coffee” to your “groceries.txt” list.

Use Safari and TextEdit to print or PDF just a portion of a page.

Recently, I got sick of lugging my Palm V around, so I developed a vastly superior, greatly simplified device for capturing and sharing information. I call it “The Hipster PDA.”

NextBus provides real-time, per-stop predictions for several public transit systems across the U.S. (view all); we San Franciscans who rely on MUNI are fortunate enough to get accurate arrival times for any stop on the light rail line (F, J, K, L, M, N or S) as well as all stops along the mighty, ambling, urine-soaked 22-Fillmore line (don’t laugh: it stops a couple of blocks from Bottom of the Hill).

Unlike the speculative “schedules” that MUNI publishes, NextBus “uses satellite technology and advanced computer modeling to track vehicles on their routes.” So no guessing, standing in the rain, or watching as the last streetcar of the night pulls out of the station without you in it. As someone who lives 1/2 a block from a stop, I can tell you this actually, really works. And, inexplicably, hardly anyone I know seems to know about and use it.