February 20, 2008
GTD is for anyone, but those techies sure love it
While GTD's popularity seems to span across generations and professions...it's the techie groups that seem to be especially drawn to it. Perhaps it's due to the "open source" nature of GTD that allows people to engineer their own list manager. We don't tell you what tool or program you need to use. If you understand what builds a great system, there's tremendous freedom in what that looks like to make GTD work.
NPR explored this topic yesterday in a feature about GTD and it's appeal to the technology world. Running time 4 minutes.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19105832
Posted by Kelly at 08:58 AM | Comments (1)
September 14, 2007
Becoming Master & Commander of your Inbox
While GTD can apply to nearly any tool you use to manage email, I wrote an article addressed for you BlackBerry(R) users out there. It's about how to become Master & Commander of your Inbox. It gives some good tips & strategies for getting email under control again and a few different ways to do that, GTD style.
Posted by Kelly at 01:02 PM | Comments (0)
September 04, 2007
Beaming your business card
Years ago, when I did my e-newsletter & web site called Palm Mastery (which some of you may remember) I used to share tips & tricks for using Palm handhelds. I've been using one since the early "Pilot" models and use a Treo 650 these days. While some has changed, much of the OS has not, and there are a few tips & tricks I still share with people that still make it a fun and useful device. Here's one:
1) Create yourself as a contact in your address book with whatever information you would share publicly.
2) Then choose Menu>Select Business Card. Your Palm will ask:
"Make this name your business card?"
3) Tap OK
A business card icon will show up at the top of your record:
What that means is that your record will be deemed your electronic business card. That is the record that will be beamed to another Palm user when you select Menu>Beam Business Card or hold down the Contact button (if you have one.)
Funny story around this. A good friend of mine did this beaming trick, but forgot he had put his key information like his ATM pin# in the "note" field of his own contact record. He was at a Comdex show happily beaming his business card to people not realizing he was also beaming this information in the note field as well. Whoops.
Posted by Kelly at 04:05 PM | Comments (0)
Chatting about the Tablet PC
I did a podcast with my tech buddy Eric Mack about the new Tablet PC. Eric's been using one for a while and was showing me some of the cool features. Will be Interesting to see if more laptops take a swing in that direction. Give it a listen if you're interested.
Posted by Kelly at 03:53 PM | Comments (0)
July 13, 2007
Jott as a capture tool
I've been playing around with Jott as a mobile capture tool for my GTD system. If you're not familiar with Jott, it's a free voice to text service. This is bound to strike a chord with some of you given how many people raise their hands in my seminars when I ask, "How many of you leave yourself voice mails as reminders of things you need to do?"
Here's the scenario:
I'm driving in my car, which is a place I often do my best thinking. I pick up my Treo and press the shortcut key on the side to activate Voice Dial (I'm using VoiceSignal for Palm).
Phone: "Say a Command"
Me: "Call Jott"
Phone: "Jott...Connecting"
Jott: "Who do you want to Jott?"
Me: "Myself"
Jott: "Jott to self"
Me: "Check iTunes for that Fergie song"
Jott: "Got it"
Hang up and you're done. Usually by the time I get back to my computer, Jott has sent me my voice message as a transcribed text message that I can easily edit, copy and paste into my Action list.
A thing I wish worked a little better is the speed that the messages come back to my email Inbox. There seems to be a delay. I wish that were in a matter of seconds, but sometimes it seems to be up to several hours, at least with my initial testing.
I played around with doing a GTD Mindsweep (random collection of ideas and thoughts) into Jott. I loved it. Each time I paused it assumed I was done and prompted to create a new Jott. Each one came into my Inbox as a separate message.
I was initially thinking it would be great to build some scripts to have Jott messages automatically go to my To Do list if I'm dictating a clear action step, but I sometimes need to correct what Jott transcribes so I'm not going that route yet, but that would be a great addition. Reminds me of the parsing technology Actioneer created a few years ago.
You can also delegate Jott messages to other people. I have spared my husband of that one so far.
Posted by Kelly at 04:27 PM | Comments (11)
October 03, 2006
BlackBerry questions
I have a few questions for you BlackBerry users out there please:
1/ Will all recent models of BlackBerry's allow filing an email on the BB?
2/ Are email folders only created on the desktop and then sync down to the BB?
3/ Are there any limits to the number of folders the BB will show?
4/ Do emails filed in an Outlook personal folder show up on the BB?
Whatever you know and can contribute here I'd appreciate it. I've been running a BB Simulator and have scoured the BB website, but haven't been able to figure these ones out. I'm suspecting it makes a difference in model and server, but I'd love some input on this.
Thanks!
Kelly
Posted by Kelly at 11:56 AM | Comments (4)
January 15, 2006
More on Groove
I was intrigued by some of Groove Networks collaboration features. The client I worked with last week in Jamaica uses Outlook for email and Groove to share documents, send instant messages and have discussion threads. This is what Lotus Notes does so well and it's no surprise that Groove has some overlap in functionality given Groove was created by some ex-Lotus Notes minds, most notably Ray Ozzie.
Microsoft obviously saw potential in Groove too and bought the company back in April. Or, as one Microsoft employee told me when I asked him what became of Groove, "we ate them."
More than anything, I think Groove fills the void so many Outlook users I work with seem to deal with: sharing documents. What I typically hear from Outlook users is that they key documents are buried in individual users email folders. Everyone is keeping the same copies for fear they won't have the latest. This of course contributes to email file sizes exploding and IT people mandating quotas. With Groove, documents are managed from one central location instead of on individual PC's.
I'll be curious to see what Microsoft does with Groove. Will it stay as a stand-alone product or will its features eventually be folded into Outlook? We shall see.
Posted by Kelly at 09:11 AM | Comments (1)
December 14, 2005
Fun Collection Gear
For a while now, I've been using the Levenger letter-size Circa notepad as my primary paper collection tool for meeting notes, random thoughts, brainstorming etc. I love the design with its ability to both easily remove and refill the pages.
I recently found the same style from Ultimate Office, including a pocket-size one called the Mini Jotz. I bought a couple of these for my travel bag for times when the larger pad is too cumbersome (aka an "evening module" as David Allen calls it.)
Posted by Kelly at 07:10 PM | Comments (3)
November 03, 2005
Shower Gear
Some of my best ideas come when I least expect them--like the shower. I was going to get some waterproof crayons or markers to leave in the shower, for those times when ideas pop in my head that I don't want to lose. Then I saw that this month's issue of Business 2.0 had the same idea but with a totally cool suggestion for good ideas in the shower: the DiveSlate. For $10, you can have a clean and a clear head with a waterproof tablet and pen made for scuba divers.
Posted by Kelly at 09:32 AM | Comments (1)
October 27, 2005
Treo dimming
Any Treo users out there know why my Treo keeps going into a dimmed backlight view? I swear it wasn't doing this until a week ago, but it seems to go into a power-save lighting mode or something after about a minute. I can't find the setting for this anywhere. Anyone have any ideas on this? Thanks...Kelly
Posted by Kelly at 12:04 PM | Comments (2)
October 21, 2005
Great handheld application
A GTD'er turned me on to a great handheld app called City ID. It automatically displays the city and state for incoming or outgoing calls on your phone. Works with Palm Treo, Pocket PC, Windows Smartphones and Symbian devices. Very handy when getting calls and the person is not in my address book. City ID automatically tells me where they are calling from so I can make a better guess about who it might be (and whether or not to take the call!)
Posted by Kelly at 11:45 AM | Comments (1)
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 12:26 PM | Comments (2)
July 11, 2005
What's on my Palm
Nothing passes the time on a long plane ride or waiting for meetings to start like some good games on the Palm. Here are my favorites:
Backgammon by Stand Alone
Scrabble by Handmark
Bejeweled by Astraware
Golf by Jeff Jetton
I get most of my Palm gear from either PalmOne or PalmGear.
Any other good Palm games out there?
Posted by Kelly at 02:51 PM | Comments (4)
