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August 01, 2005
Choosing your Tool
I often get asked what system or tool works best with Getting Things Done. I think any tool can work, with GTD as the overlay, as long as you like and trust it. I've used a Palm for about 8 years now and like its compactness, portability and reliability. For many years before that I used a paper planner and think paper systems can be fantastic for providing a visual overview that the Palm often lacks. But it was tedious to update my lists in a paper planner and I found myself spending lots of time rewriting.
I think the key is that you are attracted to whatever you choose as a tool, enough that you are motivated to review it regularly. It can become your greatest asset for having mind like water, so make it something that's easy to use, quick to update and trustworthy enough to allow your mind to let it go.
Posted by Kelly at August 1, 2005 12:26 PM
Comments
How are you using your Palm?
I'd be very interested to hear an "insider's" strategy for this particular aspect: If you use the Tasks app for your action lists, how do you "connect" those to your Projects (perhaps tracked as separate notes in the Memo app?) so that nothing falls through the cracks?
Us over at the GTD_Palm list are using many different, plain vanilla (standard Palm PIW apps) as well as 3rd-party apps (such as Life Balance and Bonsai).
Regards,
JanGB
Posted by: Jan Gundtofte-Bruun at October 2, 2007 01:16 PM
Hi Jan,
Good question. The easiest way I do it is by being descriptive with my keywords when I track the action. That way, when I do my daily and weekly reviews, scanning down the lists I can tell very quickly which project the action relates to. Find will help facilitate this too, and I know there are 3rd party apps that help link projects to actions in an outline type format. I've never found I've ever needed anything more than just having good descriptions so that my lists are so overly obvious about how things relate.
Kelly
Posted by: Kelly at October 5, 2007 12:12 PM
