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[Whitepaper, haha] My System for GTD
GrahamC | Sep 20 2006
Below i'll outline how i do my thing to get through the day and to "GTD" - at the bottom i'll note problems i have with the system. FYI, I'm an engineering manager in charge of 11 engineers in a number of disciplines My layout is nowhere near as pretty as Patrick Rhones whitepaper, it's a little more stream of consciousness - so apologies if your eyes bleed. I've included in brackets the keys i use to invoke actions in case people care. I use [="Blue"]Microsoft Outlook[/] for [="Red"]Calendar[/] and [="Red"]email[/] ? my folder structure looks like this: Outlook Today The Archives are broken up by year because otherwise my archive folder was too slow with 13,000 emails in it. I have [="Blue"]3 macro?s[/] set up for my email Alt+1 (moves email to archive), Alt+2 (moves email to personal), Alt+3 (moves email to Respond/Action). All notifications of new emails have been been removed and more often than not i completely close Outlook when I'm not actively working with email. I use [="Blue"]Copernic Desktop Search 2[/] (Alt+W) to search for any emails or files on my pc. I?ve tried a few options but Copernic gives me the best view of search results so that I can easily pick out any info I want. This allows me to have a common dump of emails in the archive folder without any tagging or bumpf. The Calendar portion of Outlook only holds meetings that I am to attend. It?s set to view one day. Every Monday I print out a snapshot of the working week to come. This weekly snapshot I bulldog clip to the inside cover of my [="Red"]ubiquitous capture tool[/] ? [="Blue"]a day to a page A4 diary[/]. This allows me to write to it and view it at a glance. The diary I do not normally use as a diary, but it allows me to automatically see when I've entered notes. I use one of those 4 colours in a single pen jobs to write into my diary. (http://www.epinions.com/content_97060687492) At a convenient time, I review those actions that I?ve dumped into my MLO inbox and sort them into my appropriate contexts/projects and perhaps do a little more thinking on them. MyLife Organized allows me to filter my actions to see all relevant types and is set up to throw [="Red"]reminders [/]at me for things such as peoples birthdays and any of my engineers going on holiday in the next week. ( I use MLO rather than outlook for these because I can set up lead times rather than getting caught out on my fianc?s birthday ) I used one of the standard templates in MLO to set up my work because it can simply regenerate groups of daily tasks like check voicemail and paper inbox. I use a bog-standard [="Red"]in-tray[/] for any mail or paper work to go into before I process it. Any physical documents I want to keep go into the [="Red"]A-Z hanging file[/] behind me. When I?m working at my pc and I find an interesting titbit like a quote or something I just drop it into [="Blue"]Evernote[/] (Cntrl+Alt+v) for future reference. The fact that it remembers the web address it was copied from is a great help. My [="Red"]desktop [/]I?ve copied from lifeclever.com, all I have on it are 6 icons: And a text bar which is my input for [="Blue"]Slickrun [/](Alt+Q). A little genius of a tool which enables me to keep my desktop so clean and tidy. I use [="Blue"]Netvibes [/]to hold a number of shortcuts and RSS feeds for my personal browsing habits, a dashboard of stuff that I ?need? to review, all at once. I?ve a new toy/aide that I?m learning to play with right now; I just recently bought an ?[="Blue"]Invisible Clock II[/]?. It has 12 alarms can be set in vibrate mode ? useful for mental triggers to do things like ?drink water @ every alarm? ? also has a useful meeting timer for pacing meetings. Problems
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Nice! A few thoughts...Submitted by DStaub11 on September 24, 2006 - 5:14pm.
GrahamC;5980 wrote:
Nice! A few thoughts about your problems list: That's the problem right there. I think this is what "Waiting For" is for. I look at mine several times a day and formally during Weekly Review, and find it does help me keep track of these. Quote:
[*]I have a large number of items that don't deserve to be called projects, but aren't single step items. How do i handle those. If they have more than one step, they are projects. Quote:
[*]I procastinate like hell still. Well, this is getting a little better for me! Fixing it has been about processing anxiety stuff rather than about how I handle the lists. But the more I take care of things I've been procrastinating on, the more confident I feel and the less I procrastinate. Thanks for sharing! Do Mi » POSTED IN:
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