implement GTD

I’ve slipped on this something major. I still follow some of the tenets, but I don’t maintain my system. I use my system heavily for some projects, but will avoid it altogether for the next. I have plenty of open loops in my brain, and that general sense of stress and dread that comes from allowing things to get disorganized.

I bought a fresh new Moleskine Pocket Reporter(plain) notebook today. It’s slated to replace the same notebook that’s been in my back left pocket for more than a year now!

At some point, I came across the Pig Pog PDA which is a nice Moleskine hack. I took a few good ideas from that page and ran with them, including it in my GTD system (such as it is). The “Pig Pog PDA”, at its most basic, is a very simple template (a side and bottom column) and use of one or more bookmarks via sticky tabs for rapid access to collection points, lists, and/or last-processed areas in the notebook.

I’ve used it as a decent little system. When I’m out and about, it collects information: checks I’ve written, doctors appointments, interesting furniture or other notes, etc. If I’ve collected anything, I usually enter it into the computer that day: checks go into Quicken, appointments go into iCal, actions and other notes may get put somewhere else.

I also use it to gather lists together for shopping (grocery lists, pet store, office supplies, etc). It’s been quite effective.

But most importantly: it seems that the pocket reporter Moleskine is much better suited to back pockets than regular pocket moleskine. I started carrying this notebook around in September 2005, and only now in November 2006 is when the spine seems to be going. It’s only about 2/3 or 3/4 full. I don’t use it too heavily. But the fact it lasted over a year in my pocket is impressive, as the traditional pocket moleskine I once carried in my back pocket lost its spinal footing after only five or six months.

I thought of getting a Cahier notebook for carrying in my back pocket, which is much thinner and more flexible (cardboard cover instead of the harder moleskine cover). I’ve seen some clever and simple tricks for using Cahier’s as weekly planners.

However, one of the big advantages of the Pocket Reporter notebook is that it’s easy to write in while standing, walking, sitting on a train, etc. The traditional setup of the regular Moleskine and Cahiers, even the pocket ones, are often great for writing more prosaically. But for on-the-go note taking and list making, the reporter style is perfect. Even at work, I prefer the long-form flip-over style of a simple A4 Steno Pad over a regular notebook: it’s easier to have in meetings, it’s easier to have on your desk (takes up half the space of a full notebook), and its easier to focus on for lists.

I’m starting to feel overwhelmed again. Work has been non-stop, and while the GTD techniques have helped me keep afloat in the large project we’ve been working on for months, I haven’t been doing so well in the home/studio.

Yesterday (Saturday), I came home from the Farmer’s Market at about 11:30 and had the whole weekend open. And for two hours I just fidgeted. I knew there were a lot of things that I needed to do, and a lot of things that I could do in that context, but I felt uneasy about all of them. I think that I knew that I really needed to do a mind sweep and dump everything out again. There were some unfiled pieces of paper on the desk that were (and still are) making me feel claustrophobic. To top everything off, I was feeling physically exhausted after an active morning in the summer heat. So I napped.

So here it is, a day later, the dog’s been walked and I’ve slept more than plenty in the last 24 hours (probably 12-14 hours sleep since yesterday afternoon). I’ve got a crazy month of work ahead of me, and a lot to do around the house and involving the dog. I’m feeling that super-stress again in my shoulders when I know that there’s so much that could / should be done but I can’t choose on any one thing to start. Erk. Isn’t that what GTD is all about?

I think a lot of that tension is coming from uncaptured / unprocessed open loops. It’s my fault for not keeping up with any kind of weekly review (still my achilles heel), thinking “I’ll add that to my system and process it later,” or just neglecting a couple of items that have been in my action list for two months or more (bad bad bad bad bad me).

One of the things I like most about the GTD system is that it requires constant review. It doesn’t sell itself as a “do this once, and you’ll never feel stressed out again” system. It’s only as good as we maintain it. I haven’t been doing a good job with that maintenance, and I’m feeling the effects of everything slipping.

I’ve been neglecting an overdue house-cleaning for a couple of weeks now, due to long days at work and other excuses. No more! Today is cleaning day, in which I’ll start the Collection (GTD Chapter 5) process again.

I’ve been trying to leave work for the past hour, but I look at my next actions list and think “I can finish that tonight, why wait for tomorrow?”

Of course, some of the actions have turned out to be more work than thought.

There’s a spate of actions that I’m actually tempted to do tonight – “shouldn’t take but a few more minutes to do, really” – but I really should leave. Sometimes that’s the problem with thinking things out enough so that tomorrow I’ll be ready to go: the path is so obvious that it’s hard not to get suckered into just following it now. :)

I need to learn to take more comfort in letting go when the day is done and have confidence in my system such that tomorrow I really will be able to dive right into what I’ve thought through tonight.

I recently ordered David Allen’s other book, “Ready for Anything.” I’d glanced at it before, and wasn’t sure what to make of it. A feeling I came away with after my first glances and after looking at some comments on the web was that Ready for Anything provides a lot of good short reference “ra ra!” essays.

The chapter titles make me laugh – they seem similar to the neo-zen talk of The Sphinx in the movie Mystery Men: “To learn my teachings, I must first teach you how to learn” (Mystery Men quote) – “Getting to where you’re going requires knowing where you are” (Ready for Anything essay/chapter title). But in reality, each chapter is really quite good, short, zen-like almost.

This is a good post-read for Getting Things Done. I’m finding it to be helpful in applying some of the concepts that I’d forgotten in my year-long on-again/off-again trip through reading GTD. It’s also helpful to see some of these elements in a new light, in something that can be read in a couple of minutes. The technical details and deeper explanations of Getting Things Done are absent here. Instead, the book is divided into four main parts, with a smaller fifth part providing some helpers (the Processing and Organizing workflow diagram, a weekly review checklist, etc). The four parts focus on:

• Clearing your head, making space for creativity
• Focusing
• Creating working structures
• Taking action

Each part has ten or more 2-3 page chapters, and each chapter ends with a small checklist of potentially thought provoking items. In this book, it’s likely that you can turn to any of these chapters for help or thoughts in areas you might be struggling in. Forget about the exact number of folders you’d need to implement a Tickler and instead think about that project or to-do you’ve been avoiding and why. There may be answers in here for those who get through GTD and still find themselves overwhelmed by their lists and wonder if they’re not doing something right, or still feel stressed and like they’re not quite getting something. In this book you might find an essay that spells out, nicely, a better way to approach your system so you can comfortably focus and not worry about everything. Or that yes – it actually requires focus and work to empty your inbox, but the mental payoff is huge (my email inbox was slowly starting to become a ‘not-quite-dealt-with-yet’ bin. It was generally empty, but it still had those nine things sitting there… Today I made time to focus on it and clear it out, and I suddenly feel much better again).

I think it’s been over a year since I started reading Getting Things Done. I’ve done three major bursts through it. First I started reading it and tried to immediately apply the bits that leapt out at me while ignoring some of the details. This worked, sortof. It helped me through an apartment move and a few other things last summer, but wasn’t applied in full.

Last November, I resumed reading again. I think I was at the start of the second part of the book which goes into the details of each part of the workflow (collecting, processing, organizing, etc) and made an effort to actually read whole chapters before starting on anything. This time I was able to empty my head, clean my desk, and really start using a more complete system for managing projects, actions, contexts, etc. Then I stalled out when I got into the third part which focuses more on the benefits of the GTD principals.

When I noticed myself actually saying “so what’s the next action here?” in a meeting recently, I decided it was time to finish the book and understand some of the more subtle aspects of GTD. Now I know more about what “next action” really means, why it’s been significant that I’m actually asking the question in meetings, why I’m asking it of myself, etc.

I’ve noticed that it helps tremendously to bring our big amorphous cloud meetings to some resolutions by asking “what’s the next action,” or just stating “OK. The next actions I’m putting down for myself are …, does that sound good?” Since our engineering meetings can cover a lot of speculative ground, I find I’ve been more productive when I can come away with an action list or basic structure for an action list. It was common to leave one of these meetings with a head full of vague concepts prior to this. While I love solving problems, I’ve noticed that I flounder (and get extremely frustrated) when I cannot find a starting point.

I started doing this before I read the chapter (in part 3) about the power of “next action” and the impact it can have in an organization. So even though it’s taken a while for me to finish the book, I think I did each part at the right time.

An area that I need to revisit for myself is the higher level views and goals. I don’t know if it’d be good to start re-reading GTD right now, if I should pick up Ready for Anything, or if I should look at some other reading material. My social life has all but disappeared over the past few years, and my art projects still aren’t moving at the pace I’d like them to. Those draw on personality and mood as much as commitment and planning, and… well, I’ve been struggling there lately.

I still don’t think I’ve ever quite gotten myself to a full 100% GTD implementation, and maybe I never will. I’m thinking that this weekend might be a good time to re-read the book, or just to finish it. I’ve never gotten through the last couple of chapters.

Anyways, I’ve changed some of my system around again, going back to using Kinkless GTD instead of Tinderbox to actually manage my projects and next actions. The latest release (0.83) fixed a lot of the issues that drove me away from earlier versions. Tinderbox is still an excellent tool for writing, planning, thinking, and perhaps filing. But OmniOutliner is faster, smoother, and I can get a lot more relevant information in my actions view. The ability to set start dates on actions acts as a sort-of tickler so I can put down the action to call the cable company back on Monday if I haven’t heard about the status of my installation by this weekend.

Using .Mac and iDisk synchronization is still the best way that I’ve found to keep a single system working between work and home life. This is even more important right now as I’ve recently moved and have been having problems getting internet connectivity in at my new home. So now I use my laptop every day. When I get to work in the morning, I connect to the ‘net and synchronize my iDisk from the laptop. Then I synchronize my work machine and can work from it throughout the day, keeping the trusted system close to where I’m doing most of my work at the moment. At the end of the day, I synchronize both systems and take the laptop home.

A small issue with this system right now, since I don’t have internet at home, is that I tend not to take out the laptop in the evening. I’ve been working late, and then getting home, walking the dog, figuring out dinner, etc, doesn’t always leave me with time to keep up on my actions. When internet is connected at home and the desktop system there can synchronize all of this information, I think it will be a bit easier.

Things I still have problems with.

Weekly Review. I tend to review my system when it’s starting to become chaotic, or when I notice that my Inbox is no longer at zero. But since my reviews are done randomly, they’re done poorly. I still need to get in the habit of doing this. I did OK for a while, but it slipped.

Two Minute Actions. This is a concept of GTD that goes right over my head. I do a lot of engineering work so some actions can turn into long research times, and certain solutions found during these sessions of course need immediate actions that don’t necessarily need to go into the system. I have noticed, however, that this has caused some important things to go undone (or to get pushed off for a couple of days). I don’t know if this is a good or bad thing. A recent example of this is my dealings with the cable company in regards to my new home. For various reasons, mostly due to my new place being in a recently converted warehouse, there’s been a lot of red tape and time involved with trying to establish the connection and get residential rates. But part of the delay, I’m sure, has been me. There is so much to do at work that I’ll forget to call. It’s an action in my ‘calls’ context that often feels like it can get bumped by everything else in the ‘office’ context, especially with the size of the project I’m working on. I don’t know how to better manage these items though. Dealing with customer service and the landlord and back and forth is too big of a context switch for me to want to interrupt the flow of everything else that needs to get done that day. I can’t remember if this is a reason for the Two Minute Action concept or not. This is where I really need to re-review the book.

I did just download the Weekly Review and Workflow Chart PDF’s from DavidCo. I’m going to print out a couple of copies to keep for quick reference at home and work and see if that will help.

Things that are working.

Actions, Projects. I’ve actually started asking questions in meetings like “what are the next actions from this?” Those actually tend to turn into projects in my own system as I come back to my office and work on the next project-action and turn it into the steps that I need to take to complete it. I’ve also become better at using the “Deferred” section of Kinkless GTD to push actions that used to be high priority out of the way when priorities change. While I’m not always great at the weekly review, I am better at keeping my Projects section under a fairly close review. It keeps my Actions lists short and more contextual. I do feel like I’m staying on top of things fairly well.

Inbox to Zero. Well, I’m not at 100% on this one right now. Being without internet access at home has caught down on a lot of personal correspondence. Since my home is also my studio for various art and music projects, it’s not just personal correspondence that’s going to that account. So, that one is filling up… A little bit. There are only six items in all of my email inboxes right now, one of which has actually been dealt with. So.. Five! But still, I don’t like having those five. Some just have to wait though. Other than that, I have been pretty good at processing my inboxes. The only other Inbox that is having issues right now due to the internet problems at home (which will hopefully be resolved by early next week) are bills, since I manage my financial accounts in Quicken on my currently-disconnected home desktop machine and would also pay the bills online from that station. The main problem right now is that I’m not in that context as much as I’d normally be, so that Inbox does not get processed as much nor as easily as it used to be.

Combination Computer / Paper System. Kinkless GTD has proven itself to be simple and flexible and generally good enough for my main needs. It’s fast, it’s flexible, it’s easy to re-order or change items or remove them completely. It’s easy to plan. It’s easy to defer things and keep them close. It’s not quite as overwhelming as my Tinderbox GTD system was becoming (too many windows, not quite enough data presented in the actions list, too big of a structure to navigate through sometimes), so I feel more comfortable using it. I use other outline documents, Tinderbox, paper, etc, to work on more complex plans. I’ve learned that no single tool can nor should be all things. So KGTD has been working great, so far, since I’ve returned to it as of the 0.83 release.

I still combine this with a lightweight PigPogPDA type system in a Moleskine Pocket Reporter Notebook. The pocket reporter has proven to be more durable for back pocket use than the traditional pocket moleskine, and the ‘PigPog’ method as I’ve applied it adds just enough metadata / structure to make it usable as a sidekick. Using a couple of colored sticky tabs, I have quick access to current information. It could be an action list (usually a grocery / errand list) or it could be data that needs to be processed at home or work (a check that I need to enter in Quicken, a doctor’s appointment I need to put in the calendar) or data I need when I’m out (measurements of an area that could benefit from a small rolling cart). It’s not a complete system, but it’s an excellent sidekick to the KGTD system.

I’m not sure why, but I’m not feeling quite the same level of focus and harmony with my system that I was a couple of months ago. I think that the holidays messed a lot of things up – hard to do certain errands (banking, pharmacy) due to strange holiday hours; people in and out of town; ski days; partial work weeks; parties; and so on.

So here it is a few days into the new year and I realize that I’ve been feeling out of sorts for a week or so now, and now I can finally spend some time focusing. I remembered an item I saw in the GTD document template I’m using in Tinderbox: RedoubledGTD: Overwhelmed? – get back on the GTD horse – conduct Weekly Review.

I noticed that there were things (namely personal objectives) that I was completely ignoring. I noticed that only a few of my contexts had any items under them, and that many had never been used. One particular bugger was “Home” versus “Home Office”. It seemed like a good split at the time, but in a large studio loft, there’s not that much difference. The office-specific tasks are really the “Recording Studio” context items anyways, and that one is used quite heavily.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, remember that the reviews are a chance to review your system as well. If you’re finding things aren’t working, toss them! If you have too many contexts or too many inboxes, use this time to simplify. If you find you look at your 43Things page more than you look at your “Personal Objectives” list, move your objectives into 43Things!

I used to feel stressed about making decisions like this. But I’m starting to get more comfortable with the notion that I can try something different and if it doesn’t work, I can amend it in a couple of weeks.

My lists are starting to get back under control. I feel a lot less freaked out about what I need to get done this weekend than I did when I got up this morning. It’s also nice to have a couple less contexts to place items in.

I’m doing a bit of an overdue weekly review tonight, and noticed that my larger personal objectives were getting buried and forgotten. I’m moving them into 43Things. I’m trying not to have a huge goal list here, I just think it’ll be easier to consult my 43Things page when I’m stuck with the question “hmmmm, nothing to do… what should I be doing?” I can go “Oh, painting more!”

I just noticed the new 43Things “Remind” feature. Very nice. I’ve been liking Backpack’s reminders to remind me to do things like my weekly review. I think when using 43Things as your objectives list, you can look at the list and go “I’m real busy right now and for the next couple of weeks – but I think that in a month I’ll be able to spend more time focusing on blank” and use that as sortof an “objective tickler”

While working through your day and action lists, I sometimes come across something where I go “Oh crap! I need to do something about that,” but I don’t want to shift context from what I’m working on at the moment. I need to basically file this thing away to be processed later, with as few steps possible to get it filed away so that I can keep my focus on the task at hand.

A problem that I’ve had with Tinderbox as my GTD system of choice is that it’s not easy to add to without bringing it to the front. Tinderbox is great for managing my projects, actions, and context based action lists. But for managing an ‘inbox’ of unprocessed items, it doesn’t work so well for me. I had hoped to use the terrific Quicksilver tool which has become indispensable. I hoped that I could key up a quick AppleScript to create a new item at a specific point in my GTD Tinderbox document. But Tinderbox’s AppleScript support is surprisingly anemic – almost nonexistent. Compare this with OmniOutliner, whose AppleScript support makes KinklessGTD possible.

QuickSilver has a few actions available that make it useful to enter and file off information quickly without having to do a mental context switch. You can quickly append text to the end of a certain file (an option used by many people to track their actions) without having to open that file directly and switch to a different editor and then back to what you were doing. Or you can email right from QuickSilver without having to bring up the mail application.

Having to track another file that may contain action items didn’t appeal to me. Email did. Since I’m still managing to do a good job of keeping my email inboxes empty and processing incoming mail within a day of its arrival, I thought of emailing these little things to myself since mail is always there and I always see it. With a clean inbox, that action item is easily viewable until it’s processed and filed or deleted.

There were some minor issues with my first configurations for this. Since the email client saw mail from me coming right to me, it classified it as spam and junked it. I’m sure there’s a way around this, but it was annoying enough that I avoided dealing with the situation for a while.

Then I remembered Backpack. I’ve been using Backpack recently for reminders since the one thing I’m having problems with getting done these days is setting aside time for low-priority (or even medium-priority) errands. I’ve long had the nice Backpack Dashboard Widget installed which provides quick access to reminders, notes, lists. I remembered that Backpack has the option of adding content to pages via email including notes, todo items, and todo lists. Even with a free account (like mine) you can take advantage of this. At first, I made a separate “GTD Inbox” page, but then I decided to just use the Home Page as the Inbox, and put the home page in my bookmarks bar. At the bottom of backpack pages you can edit is an email address for that page. I added that address to my address book (which QuickSilver can access). Now when I’m working on something and my hands are focused on the keyboard like they are right now as I’m writing this, I can send something to that inbox with just a few actions:

1. Bring up Quicksilver (control-space for me)
2. Hit ’.’ to enter text mode. Enter “todo: get envelopes for rent” (the ‘todo:’ is a way to specify a single todo in the subject line).
3. Tab to the next quicksilver box (action), start typing “mail” and select the “Email To… (Send Directly)” action.
4. Tab to the third box it brings up. Start typing ‘back’ which matches the Backpack page. Hit return

And now the item is sent. I can keep on doing what I’m doing. Later I can visit my backpack page either in my browser or in the Dashboard widget and process anything I’ve sent to it. It may sound complicated, but I (and many others) have found Quicksilver so useful for doing common or quick actions and as you get used to it, it becomes a very fast tool.

Like the email inbox, this backpack page should be kept as clean as possible. For me, it’s just a “fire and forget for the moment” action that lets me keep my mind nearer to water as I’m working without worrying about having to enter or remember something that I noticed needs to be done. When I’ve put out the current fire, I can then process peacefully.

There is a Quicktime movie available that “shows how to use quicksilver to send todos and notes to a page”, and it shows how to separate the subject line from email body in quicksilver’s quick-mail actions.

Very cool.