I have been using a single Excel worksheet as a PIM at work for over one year, and I don't think that I could function without it. I recently read GTD for the first time and I have found that many of Excel's built-in features facilitate the GTD structure.

How I use it:

Each item , thought, next action ,waiting, general reference, etc is entered on one line. An Excel worksheet gives you 65,000 lines and I have used about 3,500 lines the first year.

I like to keep the format simple. Left column= date second column = status such as waiting, next action, someday, ... third column= description or headline of the item. this is text and is written to include keywords that can be searched later. this text can be the complete thought or factiod or item , copied text from email or website, or a descriptive reference to a paper document, website, whatever.

Column 4 = reference index this can be a hyperlink to file on harddrive, website,etc or index to a paper file in my file cabinet. I simply label each paper document with a pre-numbered mailing label (document 1,document 2, etc) and date it, stick in the file. I let Excel do the sorting for me.

I have found that Excel has a good text searching function but a very clumsy search interface. As a result I developed two search macros that really make this system work.

1) MessageBox search- enter a keyword (string) , hit go, and the first hit will be displayed in a message box . the way excel works this will display the entire contents of the cell containing the keyword. COOL! If this is what I am looking for, I can stop there. done.I Found it. ha. If not I hit go again and the next occurence is displayed. and on and on . This process works from the bottom up so the most recent items are displayed first.

2) ad-hoc report created in a new worksheet. Enter a keyword, hit go, and each ROW containing the keyword will be pasted onto the report sheet complete with formating and hyperlinks. A search engine type message is included like "124 results for Robert, 1 second" Now this report can be used as the source for another search : the next report will read "4 results for Smith, 0 seconds within 124 results for Robert, 1 second".

So I have nested reports.

This could easily be used by anybody that has ever used Excel at all. it requires zero programming knowledge to use, and I employ my 11 year old daughter as my beta tester when I add a new feature. If she can use it , its good for me.

Tom