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November 27, 2006
A bird's view
I spent last week in Utah, near the amazing Zion National Park. On Thanksgiving Day we took a hike up to one of the peaks where I got a chance to look down on the valley. We climbed about 1,000 feet for this hike. If you look closely you can see the tiny dots of cars down below.
I was also off email for 6 days--always a great experience for me to disconnect from the world that way. Sure enough, despite hundreds of emails upon my return, nothing was so urgent it couldn't wait or be covered by someone else. When I'm in busy mode it can be hard to convince myself sometimes it's OK to unplug. But I don't think there's ever been a time where I've regretted when I have gone off-line and given my brain some breathing room from the day to day grind.
Posted by Kelly at 02:44 PM | Comments (5)
November 20, 2006
Now what?
I got this great letter that I wanted to share. For those of you who are wondering how to bring GTD to others, especially your kids, I thought it was a wonderful demonstration of the power of asking, "What's the next action?"
Kelly, I was in your Getting Things Done class. I found it very useful and inspiring - I actually did get my email Inbox from 378 down to 4 the next day! But later in the week, I used it at home in a rather unexpected way. My daughter, who is a Senior in high school this year, was feeling pretty overwhelmed with projects due, college applications due, frustration with a difficult friendship, the ACT approaching, etc. It had all washed over her, and she was in tears, asking me what she should do. I thought about "next steps," and, as it was getting late and she owed someone a phone call, I told her she had to do that right away. She did that, and came back. I asked her what homework she had, and found that one thing was just part of a worksheet for Spanish, so I said, "Go and finish that." She did, then came back and said, "Now what?" We kept that up until I went to bed (not being a teenager myself, I tend to go to bed earlier than my kids these days). It really helped her, taking just one step at a time, and it gave me a good practical example of how this can work. She was much calmer the next day. And I hope she remembers this in college! (We'll practice it some more at home, I'm sure.) Thank you so much for your inspiration in class! Susan
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Posted by Kelly at 08:26 AM | Comments (0)
November 15, 2006
GTD and Google Tools
I've been playing around recently with ways of setting up a GTD system with Google tools. I thought it would be useful to pass along since there is some interesting application here. I'm also a big Google fan, so I like finding ways to make their tools even more useful for people.
I setup a sample Google Personalized Home page with 6 key tabs:
Here's what I've put under each tab:
Actions - I added 6 Google "Gadgets" for To-Do's. If you do a search in the Google Gadget Library, the one I like best is the one called "To-Do List" by Matt McCarthy. I chose this one because it seemed the easiest to add and complete tasks.
Mail - A gadget for Google mail goes under here.
Projects and Someday - I also used the To-Do List gadget to track Project and Someday/Maybe lists.
Notebook - A gadget for the Google Notebook. A great place for project notes, meeting notes, checklists and key reference.
Agendas - I found the "Sticky Note" gadget by Sophia B. useful for setting up Agenda lists for key people. You could also certainly use the To-Do List one for these or the Sticky Notes one for Actions, depending on which one you like better.
Calendar - a gadget for the Google Calendar.
I've also played around with using Google Spreadsheet to also track Projects and Actions. Some people find that tool more useful and like the collaboration and sharing features. If you try this option, I would suggest making a separate worksheet tab for each of the context lists.
For Google Mail, I've been testing out a pretty straightforward approach. I created two key pending lables:
@Actions and @Waiting For
....then a label for each current project. When processing mail, if something is actionable or waiting, it gets either the @Action or @Waiting label as well as the Project label if it's related to a current project. Every email gets archived after it gets labeled to maintain zero in the Inbox (because it takes less effort to work from a place of zero in the Inbox than to keep anything in the Inbox as your only reminder.) For non-actionable stuff that needs to be saved, it simply gets archived.
I know Google search is excellent. And for that reason, some may find the Project label an unnecessary extra step for them and searching through Archive is suffice. This is probably one of those personal preference things. I'm one of those people that likes being able to see emails by topic at the click of a button. Also, I have found that any search tool is only as good as the keyword I'm searching on and it's possible the word I'm searching on is not in any email, so for that reason I find that Project labels are handy for current projects.
Curious to hear from Google users on what's worked for you.
Posted by Kelly at 12:14 PM | Comments (10)
November 14, 2006
Sharing GTD with key people in your life
Many of you who have been through my seminar have heard me talk about how GTD works in my relationship with my husband John. I'm lucky in that John embraces this stuff as much as I do and many of the systems in our house and lives are GTD based. A couple of things that we do include:
Inboxes at home - an indispensable tool for handling the back-and-forth mundane stuff that doesn't need a conversation
Agenda lists - to track what's going on for us right now (I have one for him, he has one for me)
Great filing system which we both use and trust for our personal home files
It's a treat for me when John is able to come with me on a work trip. Last week he came along for my Seattle>Vancouver trip:
I know it's not always easy to get someone to do GTD. They've got to see value in it for themselves. For us, the value is that the mundane and daily grind of life is handled by simple systems so our lives can be as fun and free as possible.
If you've been able to get your spouse/partner/family on any GTD systems, how did you do that? I'm sure others would love to hear what worked.
Posted by Kelly at 07:27 AM | Comments (0)
Using time wisely
Here's a great story I wanted to share from a GTD'er who goes by the pen name Cynical Geek:
Using My Time WiselyAfter you work for 20 attorneys, no matter how much you believed the standard before, you realize that time really is money. You begin to think about your own life and what your own time is worth. While I'm not able to bill for my time (I'm a salaried employee) I do think about my time in a different manner now. Since I began reading "Getting Things Done" by David Allen, my work habits have changed along with my life habits. I sat at the tire store yesterday waiting on four tires to be put on my car and I was actually being productive instead of watching the soap operas that were playing on the TV or thumbing through the crappy selection of magazines available for customers. I sat, with my see-thru document file (loaded with my folders for Read/Review, Action Support, To Home, To Office, and Data Entry) in my lap and spent 15 minutes being productive. You'd be amazed what you can do in 15 minutes when you take your work with you. Sure, I looked like a stuck up executive in a tire store, but if that's what it takes to get the job done then it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you look like, because I know that I'm just a person like everybody else, and most people that get to know me understand that I'm not pretentious.
So I move on with the GTD methodology at work and at home. It keeps me sane, and I feel more proactive than I have in years. I'm getting ready to have 40 more devices (Dictaphone no longer sells analog dictation devices, they're all digital) and a production server to manage/route those devices. Prior to GTD I would have freaked out, semi-contemplated quitting my job, asking for another full-time support person and complained to myself a lot. Now that I have discovered GTD, I just create another GTD Project in Microsoft Outlook and schedule some reminders. The use of technology is only going to increase at my job, and I'm ready.
Posted by Kelly at 07:24 AM | Comments (0)
November 10, 2006
GTD and Lotus Notes Doc is here!
The long awaited GTD and Lotus Notes implementation guide is here. Thanks to all of my awesome beta testers who provided feedback on this many months ago. Our staff has been working hard to make the document as complete as possible in how to get the most out of Lotus Notes with the GTD methodology. If you are a Notes user, you'll find some great tricks and tips for the Calendar, Email, Personal Journal, To Do's and much more.
Check it out:
http://www.davidco.com/store/catalog/GTD-and-Lotus-Notes-p-16276.php
Cheers,
Kelly
Posted by Kelly at 07:42 AM | Comments (3)
November 02, 2006
Tracking the when....then items
One of the primary action lists we suggest is a Waiting For list. This list tracks anything I'm waiting on from someone or something else. Obvious uses would be orders placed, voice mails I've left, emails I've sent or verbal conversations I've had where I'm tracking that someone owes me something. I typically track waiting for items by listing the person I'm waiting on, what I'm waiting on, the date I started waiting and any applicable due date. Such as:
Wayne - get back to me about suggestion for Atlanta hotel - 10/31
Another way I often use my Waiting For list is to track the "When I do this...then I can do this" type items as well, so nothing falls through the cracks. For example, I just had someone (I'll call Joe) email me asking me to call them about an upcoming meeting. I'm waiting for one of my colleagues to handle another thing, related to this upcoming meeting, before I want to make this phone call back to Joe. This call to Joe doesn't belong on my Calls list yet because I can't take the action. So my waiting for list is tracking that I need to call Joe back after the other thing that is dependent on my colleague happens first. Such as:
Anne - talk to Fred about the budget so I can call Joe back about the meeting - 11/1 - due 11/9
My Weekly Review is a great way to loop back on the Waiting For list, if it doesn't happen sooner than that. With so many moving parts in my life, the Waiting For list is extraordinary helpful to track this kind of weird thing that is still a critical item, but not something I can do now.
Posted by Kelly at 03:21 PM | Comments (3)
