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When 90% of my emails contain my todos

Hi, I've been a fan of GTD and have been using/trying to apply it for over a year now. I have a problem but first let me explain what I do: I work as an International Sales Representative ie. Agent/Broker for some industrial products, that is, I'm a bridge (middle man) between buyers in my country and sellers from overseas (big factories). Some facts from within my job are:

  1. I work confirming orders, I probably handle over 40 at the same time.
  2. Each order has rutinary tasks, for example: it starts with an inquiry, then customer confirms, we give a number to it, we confirm to supplier, suppliers re-confirm, sends Proforma Invoice, customer makes advance payment, and from here every little task dealing with letters of credit, shipping lines, customs, etc.
  3. 90% of my email contain my tasks

Problems are several:

  1. I keep loosing track of pending projects (I don't like printed material around) and miss deadlines, not for project itself but for simple tasks related to them.
  2. Writing tasks down from every email is time-consuming and ends up being a really long todo list with everything to be done NOW!.
  3. I can't find a trustable system to store all this info from Purchase Orders. I also tried with a custom system but the time spent feeding it was longer than the time actually working on each order so I dumped it.
  4. I tried with pre-defined printed forms to follow-up orders but they soon pile up and turn difficult to handle.

To sum it up, I'm constantly getting behind with work, missing deadlines, neglecting important tasks from projects and hence, NOT getting things done.

Can anyone give me an idea on how can I start organizing this? It seems easy or reasonable at first but once started, it gets out of control.

Thanks.

kpower's picture

Use a good tagging system

hi,

If I were you I would use the gmail based tagging system as described on the official gtd web site:
http://www.davidco.com/coaches_corner/Kelly_Forrister/article78.html

Don't confuse this system with the other gtd gmail systems.

This one is the best, it has really helped me jump up a few notches.

 
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