Excellent Kelly. You have such an ability to keep GTD always fresh. I read your entries with great enthusiasm and interest.
By the way, is it appropriate to ask you how the iPhone is working with GTD compared with the Palm that you previously used for some years? Just as good or better?

Kelly,

Thank you for another terrific post. This is a very timely subject as I have tried (and periodically struggle) to keep my lists fresh. A couple of tactical questions:

1) USE OF EMAIL "ACTION" FOLDER AND NEXT ACTION LISTS: When you get an email that contains a next action (e.g., the email has an attachment that requires you to review and respond back to the sender) do you normally put the email into your "Action" folder AND create a Next Action on your list? Or do you just put the email in your Action folder, knowing that you will get to it later over the next day or two? My preference is to minimize "double entry" and if I know I will get to the Action folder soon, I don't add a Next Action to my list. The downside risk is that if I don't update my list and get real busy, I might not remember that email unless I look at the Action folder in my email. I am curious to see what your thoughts are.

2) UPDATING NEXT ACTION LISTS WHEN EVENTS OCCUR IN RAPID SUCCESSION: Are there times when you don't bother to update the Next Action list if you know that you will likely get another Next Action within very short period of time? For example, if your next action is "Call loan officer for status of refinance" but you get his voice mail. After leaving a message, technically, you should change your next action to "Waiting For loan officer re: refinance status." Do you recommend updating your list right away or do you assume that the person will get back to you soon, at which point you can cross off the Next Action? If they call back within the next 10 minutes, maybe you learn there is another Next Action such as "Fax loan officer copy of pay stub." In this example scenario, the Next Actions appear in rapid succession after each other. I sometimes feel that updating my list "real time" gets a little tedious...but I also realize that the risk of NOT updating my list right away is that if I get interrupted or if there is a lag / delay, my list is no longer fresh. My intellect says that the right thing is to keep my list up to date as real time as possible...but how do you overcome the feeling of tedium (at least in the short term)? Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks again!
David

Love this. Thanks for keeping us motivated to stay current.

thanks Kelly. It truly is the repelling of my lists that has kept GTD from sticking for me for the past few years. One of these days I'll hopefully find a system which works and isn't so cumbersome for me.

Hi Steve,

Thank you for your kind words. I thoroughly enjoy doing my blog, and am so glad to hear people get value from it.

My Palm to iPhone and Palm Desktop to Lotus Notes migration has been an adventure. Educating and frustrating at the same time, due to lack of secure and well-designed synching options between iPhone and Lotus Notes. Until someone (Lotus?) creates a good solution to sync iPhone to Notes, I just brought back my Centro for synching. I still adore my iPhone as an entertainment device (personal email, Twitter etc.), but it has yet to replace the productivity functions that my Palm did so well.

Kelly

Hi David,

Q: do you normally put the email into your "Action" folder AND create a Next Action on your list?
A: I do, but you could just put it into the @Actions folder IF you have the discipline to go there AND your Task lists to see your actions. Most people, in my experience, stop looking at one or the other. And just dropping it into the @Actions folder has the huge risk of moving it there without clarifying the next action. Then all you've done is just move it out of In. Putting it onto a Task list forces me to clarify the next action.

Q: Are there times when you don't bother to update the Next Action list if you know that you will likely get another Next Action within very short period of time?
A: Of course. Lots of times I wait until my next mini-review or big weekly review to sync it all up.

Q: I sometimes feel that updating my list "real time" gets a little tedious...
A: Absolutely. It's a fine line and no real black/white rule here with GTD. There's a science of tracking, but an art of knowing and trusting your own intuition and finesse with all this. Technically, buying a stamp could be a 12 step process from the thought, to standing in line, to putting it on the envelope, etc. I try not to go overkill with it. The bottom line is to trust the question, on whether to track it or not, "Will I have my attention on this?" If I think there is any part of me that will still have my attention on whether I have tracked the next microscopic step (or not), or updated the call to a waiting for (or not), or whatever the thing is, I always lean on the side of tracking to get it off my mind.

Thanks to all of you for your comments!

Kelly

This is a really great point. I am trying to figure out the things I get really excited about doing and focus on doing those things. I then go "Yeah! What's next that I can do?" because I want to do the things on my list :)