June 20, 2009

The Nuances of Inbox Zero

I had an "ah-ha" moment yesterday, I think. The GTD workflow diagram, walks through a few key questions. The very first one is "What is it?" Before you even get to asking if it's actionable (yes or no) and then what you're going to about it (delete/do/delegate/defer), you need to figure out what it even is. Sounds simple and obvious enough, but I think skipping over that one question is what has so many people fusterclupped (my technical term for being confused and stuck) about getting In to zero. They skip that step, leave the email in the Inbox assuming there's some kind of action, but in reality, they haven't even given themselves time to assess the nature of the input, much less decide what to do about it.

That "What is it?" question is the assessment before the decision. That's the time where I'm giving myself the time to actually give some careful thought and consideration to what I'm dealing with, such as:
- What is this email asking me to do?
- Is this even part of my job?
- Am I in the To: field or CC:?

People ask me all of the time how I get my Inboxes to zero every day (or nearly every day.) Here's what works for me:
- I give myself enough processing time
- I've gotten really fast at the "assessment" step
- I have a simple clear model to know what to do with something after I assess what it is
- I'm really clear about my current 20,000 areas of focus to know whether something is my job or not
- I'm really current with my projects & actions to know if I can/should say no or yes

I'm going to do a webinar this summer on GTD Connect showing real examples of this with my email. In the meantime, I hope this helps to bring light to some of the nuances with processing.

Posted by Kelly at 09:44 AM | Comments (3)

May 04, 2009

Building a GTD House

There was a great discussion on GTD Connect about how to setup a new GTD system. I offered some tips on what I would consider when building a system.

I look at a GTD system as being like a house. You need 5 basic rooms in that house for your Projects and Actions (10k and runway). For most people, their Calendar already lives somewhere. If that works for you, keep it there. If not, find somewhere else for it that does work for a complete personal/professional view of calendar stuff. For the other 4 rooms, you just need something that will allow you to create lists that can sort by context/category, allow due date (but not force it) and allow a field to capture additional notes on the entry (when needed). So that house might look like:

Ground floor (where you'll spend most of your time):
Next Actions list(s) (these are context lists tracking your next actions)
Calendar
Waiting For list(s)

Second floor (good overview, looking down on the ground floor):
Projects list(s)

Attic (place to keep the 'seasonal', not yet needed stuff):
Someday/Maybe list(s)

You want this house to live somewhere that is:
- a place you like (don't underestimate this one)
- a place you can access the information easily (too slow will fustrate you)
- somewhere you feel free putting things into (not everyone wants "get legs waxed" on their work computer)
- portable, if needed (printing works, if not handheld sync)
- something you would feel like maintaining if you were sick in bed (don't get sucked into complicated is better)
- it is scalable for your personal and professional work (give yourself room to capture it all and continue to grow)

Out in the backyard, in a tool shed you can get to easily, you'll also want a place for your non-actionable stuff (checklists, reference lists and reference files.) And, please, get a good filing cabinet!

By the way, this is not in the GTD book--just my way of explaining this after years of doing seminars and looking for the easiest way to demystify "lists" for people.

Hope it helps.

Posted by Kelly at 02:28 PM | Comments (4)

March 09, 2009

More on GTD & iPhone

Well, my previous GTD & iPhone post was by far the most popular post in the history of my blog. What...my previous 4 years of crafting pithy posts, witty GTDisms and David Allen inner-circle wisdoms didn't do it for ya?? It was the iPhone that pulled you out of your caves to share. Thank you. Nice to hear from so many of you!

Overwhelmingly, OmniFocus by OmniGroup leads the pack for Mac users as the most popular application. It deserves to. It's a solid application, with a smart team behind it that has worked hard to make it true to the GTD logic.

Things by Cultured Code, for the Mac, also seemed to be a fan favorite. It seems to have the core components to make it work as a GTD list manager.

For those of you who favor web-based applications, RememberTheMilk.com and Nozbe are your top choices.

And for Outlook users, whose choices are few and far between, KeyTasks by Chapuraand Toodledo are in the lead for Outlook integration. There don't seem to be many developers clamoring to figure out the iPhone to Outlook sync, from what I could find.

Since that post, I have moved my entire system out of Outlook and into Lotus Notes. I was using KeyTasks synching to Outlook 2007. But given that my David Allen Company email and dozens of collaborative databases live in Lotus Notes, and the KeyTasks synching server was MIA for a period of time, I decided to jump ship and move my entire system over to Lotus Notes. Eric Mack's eProductivity template finally made Notes To Do's functional for me. As for iPhone synching, that's now a new project to figure out. I have a couple of leads, but nothing synching yet. So I am relegated to printing my lists for the short term.

Posted by Kelly at 08:43 PM | Comments (15)

February 02, 2009

More on GTD & BlackBerry

I'm curious to hear from BlackBerry users out there, who are familiar with the GTD processing & organizing logic, how you are handling actionable emails on your handheld device?

Every time I think I have a solution nailed down for this, I come across another client setting where the syncing is different than the last and putting out guidelines of GTD and BlackBerry would not hit everyone's configurations. For example, some of the inconsistencies I've seen include:

- Some people read mail on the BlackBerry and it shows up as a read email on the desktop. For others it stays unread on the desktop Inbox (this one particular irks me because it forces people to double-process. What are companies thinking?? Their employees don't have enough input as it is?!)

- Some people can file emails into folders on the device that sync to the desktop, others cannot and everything has to stay in the Inbox.

- Some have Tasks syncing to the handheld, others do not.

You know I am not a fan of just leaving it in the Inbox, especially if new mail continues to pour in. If anything, I tell my BlackBerry clients who can file into folders on the BlackBerry to create one called "@Desktop" and file it in there. That at least corrals it into one place to process to completion back at their computer. And/or, if filing on the handheld is enabled, file the email just like you would on the desktop and go over to the Tasks application and manually add a Task.

If you've got a trusted solution that works for you, like I asked back in 2006, please share it here.

Posted by Kelly at 04:36 PM | Comments (19)

November 25, 2008

Plowing through email

My email Inbox is at zero at least once a day. It takes me about 60-90 minutes of processing time each day to plow through it.

When I tell people that, they run a few critical assumptions on me:

- She doesn't work at my company
- That must be ALL she does all day long
- She can't really be reading any of it
- She must get a lot of spam
- She must not get a lot of email
- She must not be very busy

Of course, I'm not in your world, your job, your Inbox. But how about considering this instead: I have a seamless process for handling it with the least amount of effort as possible. I've written about that process in a couple of previous articles, if you're interested:

Becoming the master of your email Inbox
Digging out from an email landfill

It doesn't matter if you get 10 emails a day or 800. I've coached people on both ends of the spectrum, and I'll tell you, stress can show up however many you get. You'll never plow through to the Holy Grail of Inbox Zero unless you give yourself a clear process (the GTD 4D's works wonders) and the time (most people need about an hour a day just for their own processing time.)

Posted by Kelly at 08:12 AM | Comments (8)

October 22, 2008

Best & Worst Practices of Collect

Merriam-Webster defines Collect as: to bring together into one body or place. In GTD terms, it's the point of entry where all of your "stuff" lands in your trusted Inboxes, to be processed.

As with all of the five phases of GTD: Mastering Workflow (Collect>Process>Organize>Review>Do), Collect has best practices and worst practices:

Best practices: out of your head, into leak-proof locations, clean edges between collect and organize
Worst practices: in your head, spread all around, blended with reference and what's already been decided (collect is not organize!)

Tips & tricks for Collect:
- Create a trusted Inbox for your desk to capture hard copy stuff. Even if you think you're paperless, you're not.
- Create an "In" folder for when you're on the go between home and office, away from your desk in meetings, traveling, etc.
- If people try to hand you something, redirect them to the Inbox (your chair is not an Inbox!)
- Keep your Inboxes reserved for new incoming stuff only--it's too easy to go numb to your Inboxes when it's an amorphous blend of new stuff, reference, waiting for's and next actions items.
- Use your Inbox yourself. It can be a fantastic way to bookmark your own brain when you get interrupted.
- Have as few Inboxes as you can get by with, but as many as you need
- Get an Inbox for each person in your house (creates clean edges for who owns what and handles the mundane "business" of personal workflow)
- Get an Inbox for each person on your team, in your department....in your company
- Walk around with a collection tool wherever you go, so that when something pops into your head that has your attention, you've got a way to collect it other than in your head

Believe it or not, Collect is often where people have the biggest improvement opportunity. In my experience, people often don't even have a trusted Inbox, or if they do have an Inbox, they never process it. Or, people collect in so many places, it's like a scavenger hunt to find where they left it and process becomes a daunting task, leading people to handle latest and loudest instead because it's often simply easier to find. Or, one of the most common ones I see is blending collection with the stuff they've already processed and organized. If people really got how much time that wastes, because it causes them to re-look at what they've already decided, they would never blend them again.

Next up...best & worst practices of Process.

Posted by Kelly at 08:40 AM | Comments (9)

October 18, 2008

Using GTD with Palm Desktop

For the past 12 years, I have used Palm Desktop for my GTD system. It's one of those bullet-proof, no-brainer kind of software programs that just works for me. It comes free with Palm handhelds. It is also available for download from Palm's website. By the way, the Mac and Windows versions are entirely different, and my experience in coaching people on the Mac version is that it's not nearly as intuitive and easy to use as the Windows one. I've always used the PC versions and synched them to whatever version of Palm I'm using at the time.

Palm Desktop is where I store all of my Calendar, Contacts, Action & Memo lists. Per Tim's request, I am happy to share how I use it in more detail.

Calendar: this is my master personal and work calendar. We have a shared company calendar on Lotus Notes, but that is primarily for other people to know only major details of where I am (like which city I'm presenting a class or major client meetings.)

Contacts: my entire personal address book. All professional contacts are stored in a database in Lotus Notes.

Tasks: This stores all of my GTD lists: Projects, Actions and Waiting For. I use the category function as list names and Palm allows 15 of these.

Memos: This is where I keep all non-actionable reference lists, including Someday/Maybe and Checklists etc.

All four of these sections all sync to my Palm Centro. I do not do email on my Palm, even though I could. Palm Desktop is one of the first applications I open each morning and I am scanning my Calendar and Action lists throughout the day, as often as I can. If my laptop is closed, I can get to my lists on my Palm in about 5 seconds.

Palm Desktop is not for everyone. Because my email lives in Lotus Notes, I lose the ability to link an email to a task. That's a deal-breaker for some. I also have some double-entry from our shared group calendar into my Palm calendar. If that ever becomes unwieldy or too time-consuming, I would likely switch to Notes for my lists so it's all in one place.

Are there sexier and more feature-rich list managers out there? Absolutely. But the fact that I don't have to "think" about my system anymore far outweighs any of that, for now.

Posted by Kelly at 10:23 AM | Comments (14)

August 04, 2008

Collecting directly into a handheld

A GTD'er wrote to me and asked:
How do you capture ideas, projects, and NAs with your Treo? Do you enter them into the Treo directly as you think of them? Or do you write them down and enter them into the Treo later? If I enter into a PDA directly, I subconsciously resist capturing the idea because of the multiple steps it takes to enter something. If I capture on paper, then it seems inelegant to carry around both a Treo and a notebook.

My response:
Yes, I do sometimes capture actions directly on my handheld if I know exactly where I want to put it--meaning I'm collecting/processing/organizing directly into my lists if all the thinking required is done and it's easy enough to put it directly on the list. If it's just simply collecting something that I still need to process & organize, I usually capturing/collecting on paper first. I almost always have a notepad with me as well as my handheld.

Here's the bottom line here folks: Decide before you organize. If you are putting things on lists that still need thinking than you're no further along in having your attention be freed up from it. If you haven't figured out what your next action is, it doesn't belong on a next actions list yet. If you really want to capture directly on a handheld, just create a category called "mind sweep" or leave it uncategorized in Tasks until you process it. Here's an easy way to think of the flow of your work:

Collect = the first entry point where stuff comes in for you
Process = the step where you are deciding your outcome and next action with what you've collected
Organize = you're putting what you've made decisions about in a place you trust

Posted by Kelly at 10:22 AM | Comments (4)

August 01, 2008

GTD & Outlook 2007

For those of you working with Outlook 2007, you might want to get the new GTD & Outlook 2007 whitepaper. We overhauled the previous Outlook document with new tips, tricks and strategies for maximizing Outlook for your GTD system. You'll also find new instructions for setting up categories in 07 (although customizing your tasks view has stayed exactly the same.)

Note: If you have the GTD Outlook Add-in for 2007, the Tasks setup is done automatically when you install the software, so you don't need to buy the whitepaper for that purpose.

Posted by Kelly at 10:48 AM

July 14, 2008

GTD & Google Spreadsheet

Easy accessibility to your GTD lists is key. If your brain thinks it will take longer to get something onto a list than to hold on to it in psychic ram, it will have no incentive to let go of it.

For those of you who are fans of Google spreadsheet as a GTD list manager, a quick way to get actions on to your lists is to create a "form" for new entries. What a form will do is give you a few simple fields to capture next actions. What you enter will automatically get filed onto your spreadsheet (setup as GTD lists) in the proper format. No need to even navigate to your spreadsheet.

Here's how to set that up:
1. Once you've created a Google spreadsheet, open up your spreadsheet on your desktop
2. Go to the sheet you are using for next actions (will be easier if all next actions are in one sheet)
3. Click on the Form tab
4. Click on Create a form
5. All of the columns in your current worksheet are captured as a form and will open in a new window
6. Once in your new form, hover over the Categories question, select Edit, and create it as a drop-down list instead creating options for each of your contexts (quick fill on the first letter of the list name will work if you don't use the @ at the beginning.)
7. Change the Next Actions question to the format of Paragraph text for more space to type
8. When you are done making changes, click Save, then Next, choose recipients. You don't actually have to send it to anyone. Just create a bookmark for the unique URL you see there. I added it as a button on my Firefox toolbar called "Add Actions."

What this gives you is a simple web page that includes all of the fields you need for capturing a next action on the fly:

For those of you with web access on your phones, this could make getting things onto your lists much faster and easier. If you primarily work from your desktop, keep an open window for this form when you start your day so that you can easily toggle over to it.

Posted by Kelly at 01:46 PM | Comments (8)

June 27, 2008

Going Numb to Reminders

A smoke detector works because you drop everything when it goes off in case of emergency. Your door bell works because you answer the door when it rings knowing it means someone is there. A reminder on your calendar works because it gets you to focus on something timely--or does it?

Feel like you've gone numb to the Reminder windows that pop up on your Calendar? (Hint: answer yes if you find yourself clicking snooze or dismiss most of the time when you see that window.) Don't feel bad. Most programs are built to help you to go numb to those Reminder because they set them on everything that is timed.

I'm not saying don't use reminders--just use them sparingly so that when they go off, they actually mean something.

Outlook is famous for putting reminders on everything by default. To turn them off by default go to Tools>Options>Calendar options and uncheck the reminders box:

When you really do want to be reminded of something timely, just manually check off the Reminders box within the entry:

In Lotus Notes, the same setting is under Tools>Preferences>Calendar & To Do>Alarms:

And the place to manually set the ones you do want in Notes is in the top right-hand corner of any entry:

In Google Calendar, check under Settings>Notifications.

I've never found I've needed reminders all that much, as long as I scan my Calendar often enough throughout the day. When I start my day, I typically open--and keep open--3 things:

My Calendar
My Inbox
My Action lists

Hope this helps!

Posted by Kelly at 03:08 PM | Comments (6)

April 15, 2008

A short list of a few good GTD list managers

Choosing a GTD list manager is much like walking onto a car lot and choosing what kind of car you like. Good chance you're going to be attracted to something completely different than the person next to you.

Good news is that, like a car, if the one you choose has the core components we recommend, it'll get you where you need to go.

A good GTD list manager should give you a bullet-proof, rock solid, trusted place to track your projects and actions. A starter set of lists David Allen recommends to store in that system would include:

Projects
Someday/Maybe
@Agendas
@Anywhere
@Calls
@Computer
@Errands
@Home
@Office
@Waiting For

A few questions to get started:

1. Are you a paper or electronic list person? There is a big difference and it's not only based on how technical you are. Some people prefer the touch and feel of paper. Some prefer electronic. It's usually personal preference and both work well with GTD. If you went to jot down a quick reminder to yourself right now, what would you reach for, your computer or pad of paper on your desk? That might give you a clue.

2. Do you want your lists to sync to a handheld (Palm, BlackBerry or Windows Mobile?) If so, you'll need an electronic list manager to make that happen.

3. Will other people need to see your data? Such as an admin or family member? Electronic may be easier for that than paper.

4. Are you away from your computer most of the time and don't have a handheld? If so, then you'll want to be able to print your electronic lists to work with them when you're on the go or use a paper planner.

5. Any security issues to consider? Some companies, for good reasons, don't want their employees putting company data, like the kind of stuff that would go on lists, on a web-based tool outside of the secure network.

6. Where is your calendar now? Many people will put their lists in the same program as their calendar, to have a central dashboard.

Here's my short list of list managers that I have either personally use or have used, am familiar enough with it because I have coached others on it, or I've heard enough good things about from other GTD'ers to know it works.

PAPER PLANNERS--->
Nearly any paper planner, including a 3-ring binder you can go grab from your supply closet, can work if you like the ring style, paper size etc. My first few years doing GTD were entirely on a paper planner. Just don't hold yourself to the rigid forms they'll include with the planner. Choose the binder style and tabs you like, then use simple lined paper for your lists.

DESKTOP-BASED LIST MANAGERS--->
Palm Desktop (PC or Mac)
Outlook Tasks (PC only)
Outlook Tasks with GTD Add-In (PC only)
Lotus Notes To Do (PC or Mac)
Excel Spreadsheet or Word Document (PC or Mac)
MindManager (PC or Mac)
Entourage (Mac only)
OmniFocus (Mac only)
OmniOutliner (Mac only)
Kinkless (Mac only)

WEB-BASED LIST MANAGERS--->
Google Spreadsheets or Documents
Google Notebook
Remember the Milk
Toodledo

No endorsement implied here from me or David Allen Company, just some direction for you all on your list manager quest. Good luck!

[KF 4/27: You'll will find comments below from people who are suggesting and promoting other products than what I've listed in my post. Please know, since it may not be obvious in their post, some of these comments are posted by the seller of that software with the direct intention of getting you to buy that product. Since I don't have the time or inclination to test everything people are suggesting, nor do I want to block comments on my blog, please just use your common sense when checking out software people are recommending through my blog. Thanks! Kelly

Posted by Kelly at 11:32 AM | Comments (13)

April 14, 2008

Easy interruptions to eliminate

While you can't necessarily stop your colleagues from interrupting you, you can tell your tools not to. Start with email notifiers. It's nearly impossible for people to not notice email notifiers when they appear on your screen or make a sound. I created a 30 second video demo to show you how to turn off email notifiers in Outlook, which are set to alert you by default. DON'T WORRY -- email will still pour into your Inbox. It just means you won't get notified by Outlook every time a new email lands.

Watch Outlook Demo

Nearly every email program has some kind of notify feature you can turn off. In Lotus Notes, it's under Tools>Preferences>User Preferences>Mail. Look for the When New Mail Arrives area to uncheck all of the ways it wants to notify you.

Posted by Kelly at 02:16 PM | Comments (7)

April 10, 2008

What makes a good GTD list manager?

Having a total life reminder system is a key to GTD and a trusted list manager to track projects and actions is one of the first choices for people to make when implementing the system.

Unfortunately, some of the programs out there that are trying to be "GTD list managers" miss the mark not by what they didn't include, but by what they did include. Some of them build in too many convoluted features, that in GTD terms make the whole thing more complex than it needs to be. Not saying you can't get value from some of those programs, but you'll be watering down the simplicity and elegance of GTD if you force yourself into using every feature that some of them include. If you get what the core components should be, you can usually get creative at customizing or ignoring what will end up being a drag for you down the road. So what makes a good GTD list manager?

Key features to look for:
* Sorting lists by context - many programs have a "category" feature that will easily support this.
* Ability to assign a due date - not forcing it on all of them, but allowing it for those that need it.
* Portable for on the go access - can be synched to a handheld or printed.
* Easily accessible - less than 60 seconds to get something in/out.
* More attractive to you than repelling - you've got to like the system you're entrusting your brain to.
* Doesn't force priority codes - if you know GTD, you know that forcing priority codes is old news and rarely accurate anyway.
* Place to capture additional notes - attached to an item to capture relevant info related to the item.
* Ability to search and sort in various ways.
* Robust enough to handle all of your stuff.

Is there a perfect GTD list manager out there? Probably not. But lots of them will work just great if you keep it simple and stick to the core features that work, without you thinking about how to make it work. It becomes seamless and like second nature to you.

Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.
- Charles Mingus

[KF 4/27: You'll will find comments below from people who are suggesting and promoting software products to do GTD. Please know, since it may not be obvious in their post, some of these comments are posted by the seller of that software with the direct intention of getting you to buy that product. Since I don't have the time or inclination to test everything people are suggesting, nor do I want to block comments on my blog, please just use your common sense when checking out software people are recommending through my blog. Thanks! Kelly

Posted by Kelly at 04:29 PM | Comments (25)

November 27, 2007

Digging out from an email landfill

I just got back from a week of being on vacation and had 1,155 new emails waiting for me. I told my sister this and she gasped and said, "If I got to work and had that many emails I would just turn around and go back home!"

I am one of those people that takes every vacation day offered to me (about 5 weeks per year). I fully believe in unhooking completely now and again to get some perspective and freedom from the daily grind. I've had to get really good with my systems to make that work so that time off doesn't feel like digging out of the bottom of an endless landfill when I come back.

It took me about 3 hours to bring those 1,100+ down to zero. Here's what I did:

First, I knew the morning I got back to work I'd have about 6x more input than normal, so I blocked that extra time on my calendar to give myself the time I would need to get it processed. I think this is essential. There is no way a week of email can be processed in the same time I normally allow. I need a cushion of extra time that first morning back.

Then, I followed the 4D's:

1. I looked for the ones to DELETE. Those are easy. I scanned by sender and subject line. A huge number of them were spam or close to it. Amazing how sheer volume like 1,100+ emails also changes my standards on "nice to reads" now being deletes instead. Another day some of those might have gotten my attention, but not with this kind of volume.

2. I looked for the ones I could DO in less than two minutes and handled those. Many of those were quick read and delete/file or quick replies. Subject lines are usually a good indication of whether something can be done in less than 2 minutes. A good chunk got handled through this cut.

3. Next I looked for anything I could DELEGATE. That took more careful reading and considering. Anything I handed off to someone or someone else got filed and then tracked on either a Waiting For list or Agenda list.

4. What I was left with were about 50 emails that made it past Delete, Do & Delegate, which meant they needed to be DEFERRED. I scanned those subject lines, grouped some of the threads together to see the latest, opened up a few of them if I needed to get more information, and took a further cut at ones I knew I would not be taking action on right away. I moved those deferred emails to the best project, topic or Actions email folder and captured my next action on a list. I was then left with about another 20 that I planned on doing right then, but would take me longer than 2 minutes to finish. One or two I ended up changing my mind on and moving over to a list after all to be done later, but I did get lots of good work done in that time. By noon, my Inbox was down to zero.

My best advice is to give yourself the gift of time to get everything back in control again. Whether that's after a vacation, after the weekend or after a long meeting--a little time with yourself and your systems can do wonders.

Posted by Kelly at 11:30 AM | Comments (10)

November 08, 2007

Action versus Waiting For

A key distinction with your pending work is what you can take action on versus what you are waiting on. Those are two very different buckets. When you can take action, it's an Action item. When you are waiting, on someone or something, it's a Waiting For item.

For those of you in the habit of using your email Inbox as the catch all To Do list for both things you need to do and track other people are doing, try this: create two email folders called @Action and @Waiting For and move your emails into either of those two folders. When you're looking for something to do, all of your actionable emails are already in the @Action folder. When you need to look for what you're waiting on, pop over to the @Waiting For folder. Easy! If you're feeling particularly inspired, take time and move out all of the trash, reference and backlog from your Inbox too. Yes, it's OK to have an empty Inbox. In fact, you just might find yourself bouncing off the walls with excitement and freed up mental energy not having to recycle over your choices when it's sitting as an amorphous blob in the Inbox.

One of my favorite tips & tricks to share with people is to create an email rule to copy emails you send, where you need to track a response, and have them automatically go to the Waiting For email folder. I've written out instructions on how to do that for some of the key programs I work with:

Outlook
Gmail
Yahoo!

Posted by Kelly at 12:39 PM | Comments (3)

October 22, 2007

Matching Brain Toast

One of the temptations when starting with GTD is to over-engineer it. I see it all of the time. The more creative people are, the more they want to create a sophisticated system for their lists with lots of bells, whistles, cross-referencing, categorization, color-coding, flagging systems, ad nauseam. Believe me, I can go shoulder to shoulder with anyone about all of the cool implementations for GTD. But if you saw my system, most of you would be amazed how simple it is. It's really just a simple set of lists that I can easily get stuff in and out of. That's my primary criteria. The categories are sorted by the primary tools, people and places I need to get stuff done. I don't use reminders, follow-up flags or priority codes. I'm not saying any of that stuff can't work, but often those things slow me down because they make me think more about my stuff than I need to. My guideline is that it should take about 30 seconds or less to get something onto a list. More than that, and my brain starts convincing me it's easier to hold in my head than do the "work" it takes to get it on a list.

One of our coaches, Ana Maria, has a great tip for setting up a system: create it based on what would you feel like maintaining if you were sick in bed with the flu. Start there. Think about it. If you create your system based on always being in your "zone" and having the energy and attention span required to use a complex system for your stuff, then you've got a challenge on your hands when you're not in that place. Think of all of the times when your brain is toast and what you felt like doing--as little as possible. That's how my system is setup--to meet me at brain toast, not brain complex.

I do lots of GTD classes for high-tech companies. I had an engineer come up to me at the end of my class recently who said he'd been playing around with GTD for 2 years, got lots of good tips out of the class, but was still struggling trying to find the "perfect" software program for managing his lists. He was convinced he would need to build it. My advice is to keep it simple. In my experience, many of the programs out there trying to automate GTD make it too complex and miss the point. A simple system can be profoundly efficient.

Progress means simplifying, not complicating.
- Bruno Munari

Posted by Kelly at 09:19 AM | Comments (9)

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

August 17, 2007

Eliminating the speed bumps

How many times have you had something that belongs on your lists, but you didn't capture it because it was too many clicks or key strokes to get it there?

Here's one of those tips that I have found to be essential for making my system work: have your lists be as easily accessible as possible.

Each morning, I open up 3 separate windows when I start my system:

* my Email
* my Calendar
* my Action lists

They stay open ALL DAY. If all of those windows are in the same application, Ctrl+Tab on Windows and Apple+Tab on Mac lets you fluidly navigate between them. If they are spread across different applications, use Alt+Tab.

If you are using Outlook, go to the left panel of your screen and right click on each of your Outlook bars for Mail, Calendar & Tasks and choose "Open in a New Window." If you are on Lotus Notes, open up each one as workspace tab. If you are using something like Gmail, open up each one (Mail, Calendar, Actions) as a New or Window or Tab in Firefox or IE.

It typically takes me less than 5 seconds to add something to my lists when they are open and accessible like this. You can't argue "It takes too long to maintain the lists" with speed like that.

Posted by Kelly at 10:06 AM | Comments (10)

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)

July 03, 2007

Undercommit and overdeliver

Thought I'd pass along this great piece of advice from David Allen on getting started with GTD:

"My suggestion is to get at least a small "cockpit of control" set up as physical work space, and clean at least the desktop; and start from there. One step at a time. Take one pile at a time. One project at a time. Use the framework from the book, but don't overwhelm yourself with the idea of doing it all at once."
- David Allen

It can get overwhelming to think you need to do GTD all at once. Start small. Undercommit and overdeliver (as one of my favorite mentors once taught me) with tackling your implementation and mastery of this. You'll get benefit from any piece of GTD you implement, so I suggest start where you can experience a win for yourself. Then expand out from there.

David has said it can take 2 years to become "Black Belt" with GTD. Might as well enjoy the road along the way!

Posted by Kelly at 11:15 AM | Comments (4)

June 05, 2007

Handling Waiting For items in Yahoo!

Hey there Yahoo! mail fans. Some of you might have discovered this, but there's an easy way to use the GTD Waiting For concept in Yahoo! mail.

1. Create an email folder called Waiting For

2. Go to Options>Mail Options>Filters

3. Name the filter something like Waiting For

4. Add a new filter with these characteristics:
- your email address in the From header field
- a unique keyword in Body contains field, such as *wf

5. Select Move message to the: Waiting For folder

Try it out by sending a test message to yourself and typing *wf in the body of the email somewhere, such as under your signature file. It should send a copy of the email to your Waiting for folder.

What this rule does is eliminate the step of having to CC: yourself or dig through your Sent file to find emails that you are waiting for a response. Very handy for delegated items.

Here's the equivalent of that for Gmail and Outlook.

For Lotus Notes users, you've got it even easier. If you create a Waiting For email folder (use a dash before the folder name to make it show up right under the Inbox), you can use the "Send and File" button in Notes email to file emails into Waiting For as soon as you send it.

I figure any quick tips like this to help speed the admin of workflow are worth checking out. The less time I can spend on organizing the more time I can spend actually doing.

Posted by Kelly at 02:49 PM | Comments (2)

May 04, 2007

Tip for organizing foreign currency

For years I'd come back from a trip, take the extra currency from that trip (usually coins) and toss it all into a small bag for foreign money. That worked fine until the bag grew larger. Then when it would come time to take another trip to that place, I'd have to search through that big mound of coins to find the right ones. And what seemed obvious when I was in the country and handling the money will be a mystery a year later. Is this a coin for Jamaica or Canada? Ugh.

So here's my new system. Not rocket science, but useful nonetheless:

All of the coins & bills are separated by small plastic bags. Then I can take out the coins just for that particular country without that needless task of fishing through all of it each time. Much more likely to be used again with a whole lot less effort.

Posted by Kelly at 11:44 AM | Comments (5)

March 20, 2007

Handling Waiting For items in Gmail

Here is a fun trick for those of you on Gmail who are looking for a way to easily handle emails that you need track a response.

1. Create a label called @Waiting For if you don't have one already
2. Go to Settings (top right corner), click on Filters tab
3. Click Create a New Filter
4. Add your email address to the From field
5. Add a unique keyword, such as *wf, in the Has the Words field
6. Click Next step
7. Check off Skip the Inbox" and "Apply the Label: @Waiting For"
8. Click Create Filter

Test it out by sending yourself a test message and put your unique code somewhere in the body of the message. What this will do is save you from having to cc: yourself (and then process it again out of In) or dig through Sent mail to get the stuff that you're waiting on from someone else. A copy of your email will automatically get filed under your @Waiting For label.

Posted by Kelly at 04:42 PM | Comments (8)

March 01, 2007

Hey, why are you late?

I'm going to save you some future snafus with your calendar entries by pointing you to my buddy Eric Mack's blog entry about the Daylight Savings issue. I was trying to ignore this as some thing that I'm sure wasn't affecting any of MY systems, until I realized that all of my calendar entries in March were wrong.

It's worth a quick glance at Eric's summary to see if you need to do anything about this. It looks like I need to download a patch for my Treo.

Hey, the good news is that for at least 3 weeks in March we can blame the daylight savings issue as the reason we're late.

Posted by Kelly at 09:46 AM | Comments (1)

December 20, 2006

Make your lists portable

I can't tell you how many times in seminars people ask me, "If I'm putting all of these lists on my work computer what do I do when I'm not near my computer?" My response is always the same: make your lists portable. A handheld device (Palm, BlackBerry etc.) is a great choice, especially if your IT dept. will support it. If a handheld is not your thing then print your lists. I know lots of people these days who choose a hybrid system of digital and paper. They print their lists to keep with their note pad as they bounce around between meetings, work, home etc.

I was listening to one of David Allen's podcasts with Merlin Mann where David emphasizes the need to portabalize your lists. If you create your GTD lists but then don't have those lists at a place or time when you can take action, then the information on your lists will eventually crawl back into your brain. If your brain also knows that what you put on those lists won't be with you when you can do something about it, you'll create an unconscious resistance to using those lists. If you're a GTD fan, you've heard the drill by now:

Your brain is a great place to have ideas, it's a terrible place to manage them.

Pretty much any electronic system will give you a printing option for the Calendar and Tasks. Outlook gives extra options under print setup for printing to specific paper devices, like a Franklin Planner.

I sync all of my lists to my Treo. I love that I can have my entire system in the Palm of my hand and get some things added and knocked off my lists at the oddest times. Did you ever have a time where you unexpectedly had to wait and could have tackled some simple things like phone calls? With your lists with you, those weird windows of time will be well spent. If nothing else, get a quick review done while you're waiting in those endless holiday shopping lines.

Posted by Kelly at 09:14 AM | Comments (10)

December 09, 2006

Walk in the door and drop it

OK, so this may seem like a really no-brainer tip but it's one that I've found to be a key system for our home organization. Two key things usually come home with me when I walk in the door: keys and receipts. So I put up a hook tucked into a nook right near where I walk in the door. We never have to do a hunt and gather for our keys as a result. Next to it is a simple shoebox size plastic bin labeled "Receipts 2006." John and I throw all of our personal receipts into that bin for nearly anything we spend money on. When the new year comes, I'll put that bin on a storage shelf and create a new one for 2007. I keep old receipts bins for about 2 years then toss them. I actually have had to look back through some old receipts bins at times when something broke, to lookup a store, price we paid etc., so I've found it useful to hang on to them. And I really don't bother to worry about what goes in there either. I just throw it all in for any kind of personal purchase (online shopping, groceries, gas, whatever.)

The only receipts that don't go in there are the ones I think I'll need for taxes, such as deductions, donations etc. There are far less of those, so they just go into a manilla folder in our files called "Taxes 2006." Easy when tax time comes to have that ready to go.

Posted by Kelly at 06:56 PM | Comments (3)

December 04, 2006

GTD email tips for BlackBerry users

The team at RIM who writes their BlackBerry Connection newsletter recently interviewed me about GTD for their users. Check it out:

Empty that Inbox! Manage your messages with a system

Posted by Kelly at 01:49 PM

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)

October 10, 2006

Handling completed calendar entries

A client asked us recently about handling completed calendar items on her Treo. There are some tips here that can apply to whatever system you use, but for you Treo users in particular, option #4 may be handy.

1. Do nothing. If it's within the same day, it may be obvious to you what has been completed on a review of the day's events. This is what I do.

2. Delete completed items. Downside of that is that there will then be no record of the entry.

3. Put the word DONE next to the entry which will still preserve it as an event in the Calendar.

4. Change the category on the Treo to Completed (a new category you can create). On the Treo, you can assign categories to Calendar entries so that a small colored circle appears next to the entry.

Select any Calendar entry on the Treo and tap the Details button.

Tap the drop-down menu next to Category, where it may say Unfiled.

I would suggest creating a new category called "Completed" under "Edit Categories."

When you complete an item, you can go back to this Details screen for the entry and change the Category to Completed. That way it will appear with that colored circle on the Treo for you. It's not a super obvious way of separating out Done items, but if may help.

A more obvious way to see what's done versus not done, may be to take it a step further, after changing the category to Completed, and filter your Palm daily calendar view to "Unfiled" instead of "All." This could work if you are only using the categories Unfiled (which is set by default for all calendar entries) and Completed (which you create). Then the Unfiled view will only show you what's left to be done for the day. You can filter your calendar in the top right corner of your screen by tapping on the word All and changing it to Unfiled.

There is no way on the Palm to select two categories at once (such as Urgent and Unfiled.) The only category that allows multiple categories is All.

Of course, many programs allow you to change the look of entries, to serve this same purpose as described in #4, if you want that functionality. In Outlook you could change the Label and in Lotus Notes you can go under Tools>Preferences>Colors and change the color for different calendar entries.

Hope this helps.

Kelly

Posted by Kelly at 06:55 PM | Comments (2)

August 07, 2006

Browsing shortcuts

Here are a few shortcuts for the Internet Explorer browser that I have found handy:

A fast way to type in new web addresses is to enter the domain name only and then press Ctrl + Enter. Those two keys will automatically fill in the http://www. and .com. Thanks to Eric Mack for this one.

If you find a link you want to open, but don't want to leave the current page to view it, right click on the link and choose Open in New Window.

For quick Web page bookmarking, try Alt + A + Enter.

Posted by Kelly at 10:30 AM | Comments (7)

July 05, 2006

Road Warrior Resources

Over the past few years I've collected a few tools and resources to make my travel easier. I thought I'd pass my collection along in case these are handy for some of you too.

Trip Advisor - I love this site because it gives great travel advice from other travelers. I tend to use it when I'm going somewhere new and need some input on where to stay. Much more objective than the hotel's website.

Seat Guru - Great info on airplane seating, airport amenities and the like. If you're picky about where you sit on the plane (as I am) you'll want to check out this site to see exactly what you're getting on a particular plane.

World Clock - When booking meetings with international clients, this site is a great resource for me. Gives times for a ton of locations across the world. Includes a meeting planner feature to make sure your times are sync when connecting abroad. (Maybe I should point my mother to this site, who after 14 years of me living in California still asks me, "What time is it there?")

Google Maps - The best maps and directions website I've found. So easy and intuitive.

Athletic Minded Traveler - For $20 a year I get a wealth of information about local health clubs, healthy eating, neighborhood runs and more. A great site to support staying healthy on the road.

Electricity Around the World - Got any international plugs hanging around but you don't know what they go to? Check out this site for info about connecting anywhere in the world, including photos of which adapters you'll need. My summer project is labeling my adapters to match the countries.

Currency Converter - What makes this site unique is that you can convert while figuring in credit card rates. Much more accurate about real costs than typical conversion.

Safe travels....Kelly

Posted by Kelly at 05:06 PM | Comments (1)

June 26, 2006

Palm Launcher

If you are a Palm user, you've likely got a few dozen applications to choose from. I learned a tip from my tech buddy Eric for making it easier to get to the ones you choose most often by creating a home page for your favorite applications. Here's how I did this on a Treo 650. If you're on a different version of the Palm OS, these steps might vary slightly, but the idea is the same.

- Go to your Applications screen (usually the house icon or button)
- Tap Menu, Category
- Tap on an application name that you use frequently, such as Calendar
- Choose Edit Categories
- Tap New
- Enter your first name as the new category name
- Tap OK twice
- Go go through a re-categorize the applications you use most often to your name as the category

- Tap Done when finished

What you end up with is a handy launcher screen for just the applications you use most often. I took it even a step further and eliminated all of the other categories, such as System and Utilities, and now only have the categories "Kelly", "Other" and "Unfiled".

I also re-assigned my hard email button to be my To Do list since I don't use my Treo for email (I know, the shock and horror....but I just don't want to be that available all of the time. I can also do a much better job of processing email on my laptop.) You can change your button assignments through Applications, Prefs, Buttons.

And, one other handy launcher to customize on the Treo is the Favorites Page accessible through your phone button. Each of the buttons on that screen can be assigned to an application or speed dial. Very handy as well.

Posted by Kelly at 09:19 AM | Comments (7)

June 09, 2006

Tips for reducing email

Bill Gates said in an article recently that many of us are getting 10 times as much email as we were back in 1997. The need for ways to effectively manage email is greater than ever. Even if you got it down to zero, wait a few hours and I bet some of you would have several dozen fill the void. GTD (especially the 4D's) will help a ton with the processing . There are also some simple things you can do to reduce the sources of your email volume so you don't get it in the first place.

1. I often see inboxes full of emails from online stores. Every time you place an order, that company is looking to keep you engaged. Automatically adding you to their email newsletters and special offers is an easy way for them to do that. During any order process, carefully look for the checkbox or privacy information allowing you to opt-out of future communications beyond the order. If you are already getting emails from a company you do business with, look for unsubscribe options at the bottom of the latest email.

Note: you probably know not to unsubscribe from suspected spam. It validates your email address and creates even bigger headaches.

2. Let people know you don't need to be copied on unnecessary emails. A friend of mine was sending me all of those "forward to 10 people or your cat will die" emails. I told her to please stop sending me random forwards, in the nicest way I could, and she did. This also extends to your team. If you are still being copied on emails that you don't feel are relevant to your job, current projects or focus, let those folks know. If you've got some vague sense that maybe you should be looking at those, or maybe people expect you to, maybe it's time to review your 20k foot Areas of Responsibilities to get clear on that.

3. Consider dropping reply emails with key team members for the purpose of saying "thanks", "got it", "ok! or whatever other one or two word responses get sent. An email to process is an email to process, whether it's got 1,000 words or two. We tend not to send the quick "thanks" and "got it" type emails as a staff. We just assume the person got it and is thankful. Now, with some companies and cultures, this may not fly. A client was telling me that it's actually in their employee handbook that they will acknowledge all emails received. They are a global company and in their international offices, not acknowledging an email is considered rude. So maybe try this one out with just your key local staff to help each other reduce your loads.

What have you done that works to reduce your incoming email?

Posted by Kelly at 03:11 PM | Comments (4)

May 24, 2006

Implementing GTD

One of the things I love about our approach is that we are system neutral. In seminars, I'll often demo Outlook or Lotus Notes because they are easy to project on screen, but GTD can really work with any system, tool, or planner as long as you work it. David says a good system is a "complete, current, total-life reminder system which you review regularly."

I encourage people to choose their system or tool like they would pick their car. Choose one that you like, you trust and that matches your style. Some people are more digital than others and really like everything streamlined and searchable electronically. I'm seeing lots of people these days choose a hybrid system of electronic and paper, where their main hub is on their computer, but they print out their calendar and tasks to carry around with them for on-the-fly changes. For years I used a Time/Design paper system and loved it. It was only when I became a Palm geek in the late 90's that I let it go. Otherwise, I loved the visual appeal of a paper system.

There is an amazing wealth of materials out there about getting started with GTD. A few of them we've authored for specific tools our clients use and a few have come out of GTD champions who took it upon themselves to share their knowledge (thank you!):

David Allen Company whitepapers:
GTD and Outlook
GTD and Entourage
GTD and Lotus Notes (hopefully coming summer 2006)

GTD Community whitepapers:
Gary Stringer's whitepaper on GTD and BlackBerry
Bryan Murdaugh's how-to guide for GTD and Gmail

And certainly Merlin Mann's site, 43folders.com, is worth a visit.

Posted by Kelly at 09:55 AM | Comments (1)

May 08, 2006

Drawing your attention back to key email folders

David Speight wrote to us with a handy tip for showing the total number of items in an Outlook email folder. This is especially handy for the @Action and @Waiting For folders, if you are using those folders to store pending emails. Some people use those folders as their only reminder of the action, while others store the email in the folder but also capture the action on their Task list. I think David's tip is great if the folder is your only reminder and you risk out of sight...out of mind.

David writes:

"As my view pane is usually my Inbox, seeing the total number of items in '@Action' and '@Waiting For' in the navigation pane (in my Favourite Folders, after Inbox, so always at top), visually draws my attention and focus back to my priorities."

Here's how to do what David is suggesting if you are using @Action or @Waiting email folders:

1. Right click on each folder and select Properties
2. Select "show total number of items" instead of "show number of unread items"
3. Click OK

By the way, the @ before these two folders will make them appear at the top of your folders, versus being sorted into the alpha sort with all of your other email folders.

Posted by Kelly at 12:05 PM | Comments (3)

April 12, 2006

Send & File

One great feature I use in Lotus Notes is the "Send & File" option when sending email. It saves the extra step of having to cc: myself or dig through Sent mail to grab emails I want to file.

Outlook doesn't have a Send & File option but I just figured out another way to do this that may be easier and faster. This may be old news to some of you! Before sending an email, choose Ctrl+Shift+Y. This will bring up your folders list to select where to save a copy of the email you are about to send.

Posted by Kelly at 04:25 AM | Comments (10)

March 10, 2006

Navigating unread documents in Notes databases

Another Lotus Notes tip I recently discovered:

If you are in your main "Workspace" view of Lotus Notes where you are seeing all of your database tiles, press the TAB key on your keyboard. A little dialog box will appear showing you the first database with unread documents. You can choose to Skip This Database, View First Unread entry or Mark All Read in that database. Very handy for quickly scrolling through new entries.

I've heard that mNotes seems to be the best synching software for Notes to Palm these days.

Posted by Kelly at 01:06 PM

March 03, 2006

Working with All Day Events in Lotus Notes

One of the most powerful uses of the calendar is to remind me of actions that have to be done today, but can be done anytime today. These are not the kind of things I want to assign to a particular time because they really don't have one. They just need to be done sometime today when I can fit it in. Most calendar programs have some type of "All Day Event" entry for this purpose.

One of the things you may have learned if you are using the Lotus Notes calendar, is that "All Day Events" will mark your day as Busy. This means if you are sharing calendars and have created an All Day Event, such as "Remember to call Bill sometime today", then your entire day appears to be Busy when others view your calendar. Unfortunately, there is no way to change the Busy or Free time. You would instead need to enter the item as a different type of entry on your calendar.

Here is what Lotus Notes does with Free and Busy time with each particular type of entry:

Appointments - Busy, and you need to assign a start and end time
Anniversary - Free, and no time is assigned
Reminder - Free, and you need to assign a start time
All Day Event - Busy, and no time is assigned

A workaround I've been suggesting to our clients on Notes who share calendars is to use the "Anniversary" entry for All Day Events. If it's just a one-day event, then uncheck the "Repeats" box. If it does repeat over more than one day, then click on the Repeats box and change the recurrence to Daily. Anniversaries will not block your day as Busy, so those entries will still appear at the top of your your calendar but not affect your group scheduling availability.

If you are on Notes but don't share calendars with others on your team, then in the words of Gilda Radner, "Nevermind."

By the way, another handy Notes shortcut is Ctrl+M for creating a new e-mail message from anywhere in Notes.

Posted by Kelly at 09:31 AM | Comments (1)

February 20, 2006

Sync often

This may seem obvious, but I have found that synching my Palm handheld frequently builds trust with my system. Frequent can be different for everyone depending on how often the data is being changed on either the handheld or desktop. But I want to know that wherever I look the information is current and complete. Letting one or the other become stale means my system is only partially useful to me. So usually at least once a day I'm doing a full sync so that my calendar, contacts, to do's and memos are current.

Frequent synching also has the benefit of creating a current backup should one or the other go down. Have you ever known someone who had their Palm crash? The agony of this happening isn't so much that the device crashed--since Palms will often come back to life with a hard reset--but it's that they had not done a sync in a while and just lost the latest version of their life.

There is also a joy that comes forward for me in synching when the items I marked done get updated in both places. What a great sense of completion.

Posted by Kelly at 05:43 PM | Comments (7)

February 06, 2006

Consequences of messy desks

USA Today printed an interesting article recently about messy desks. Julie Ireland, one of our coaches in the trenches with many people and their offices, passed it along:

Consequences of messy desks

The gist of the article is that if you think your messy office isn't affecting your productivity, think again.

Posted by Kelly at 04:21 PM | Comments (3)

January 30, 2006

Cell phone noise

I was reminded this weekend to share a tip I have for silencing cell phones. I was in a quiet place where we needed to turn cell phones off completely (not even on vibrate). Immediately after the announcements, a symphony of cell phone shut down tones went off across the room. So here's my tip: turn your phone to vibrate mode THEN turn it off, that way it won't play the phone shut off tone if it has one. Or, some phones even have a silencer even when it's in vibrate mode and on some others you can eliminate the shut down tone all together.

Posted by Kelly at 01:40 PM

January 24, 2006

Easier travel

There are a couple of things that help me out when I travel that I'll pass along.

1. I have a plastic, durable file folder called Travel Support that holds itineraries, boarding passes, maps, confirmation letters etc. Whatever I may need for travel logistics in hard copy will always be in that folder in my briefcase.

2. I always check-in for my flight online at home, whether I'm checking bags or not. That way I have a printed boarding pass and it's one less step at the airport. When I'm not checking a bag it also means I go right to the gate.

3. For cold weather travel, I have the gear I'll need as soon as I land in that city in an outer pocket of my suitcase so I can get it quickly. For example, right now I'm in Wisconsin (about 40 degrees cooler than LA where I left this morning) so I packed my winter gloves in the outer pocket of my suitcase. Same for umbrellas if I know it's raining where I'm going.

4. One of the biggest things that has helped me streamline my travel is to stick with the same companies as much as possible: United, Hertz and Hilton. Not only do I know the routines, but those points eventually add up and can make experience in the air, car and hotel just that much nicer.

Happy travels.

Posted by Kelly at 04:55 PM | Comments (2)

January 05, 2006

Google Tip

I am a huge Google fan. One of the fun little tricks I've been using lately is weather search. Since I often need to know the weather before I head out on a trip, I'll use Google search to do that.

Type the keyword weather into Google Search, followed by the name of the city or zip code. Sometimes it seems to need the U.S. state code as well and occasionally I enter a place that it doesn't know, but most of the time it is spot on and so quick.

I'm heading to Key West this weekend on my way for some work in Jamaica next week, so I typed:

weather "key west, fl"

Google should show the weather for the next 4 days at the top of the page. There are quite a few little gems like this on Google if you know about them, including calculator, spell check and movie listings.

Posted by Kelly at 09:07 AM | Comments (2)

December 29, 2005

Great Outlook Rule for Waiting For emails

Here is how to create a very handy rule in Outlook for filing sent emails directly into a Waiting For email folder. These directions will work in any version of Outlook.

1. Create a new email folder (Ctrl+Shift+E) and name it @Waiting For. The @ symbol will make it appear under your Inbox.
2. Click on Tools > Rules and Alerts.
3. Click the New Rule button.
4. At the top of the next box, select Start from a blank rule.
5. Highlight Check messages after sending, then click Next.
6. Check off With specific words in the body. Then click on where specific words is underlined and choose a unique keyword for your rule, such as *wf*. Click Add, then OK, then Next.
7. Check off Move a copy to the specified folder. Then click on the where specific Folder is underlined and choose the @Waiting For folder.
8. Click Finish.

Try it out by sending a test message to yourself and typing *wf* in the body of the email somewhere, such as under your signature file. It should send a copy of the email to your @Waiting for folder.

What this rule does is eliminate the step of having to CC: yourself or dig through your Sent file to find emails that you are waiting for a response.

Posted by Kelly at 11:11 AM | Comments (15)

November 10, 2005

To save or not to save

Not sure whether or not to save something in your paper or digital files? Here are a couple of key questions to ask:

- How hard would it be to get the information again if I needed to?

- When's the last time I looked at this? You'll have your own measure for this, and there are always exceptions, but if I haven't even looked at something in over a year there's a good chance I don't need it anymore.

Take advantage of some of the quieter time in the office around the holidays to tackle some of those Reference files that need purging. If you've got any files starting to prairie dog out of your drawers because they are overstuffed, or you aren't quite sure what's in there anymore, it's time to get in there to see what can get tossed. If doing it all in one sitting seems daunting or unrealistic, I'd suggest starting with a couple of letters at a time (A-C, D-F etc.)

Posted by Kelly at 06:11 PM | Comments (1)

October 14, 2005

Creating Windows Shortcuts

I learned a fun trick yesterday for creating Windows Shortcuts. I created one for sending email from anywhere in Windows, which can be handy since usually shortcuts require I be in the program. Here's what to do:

* Right click on your desktop
* Click New, Shortcut
* In the box that says "Type the location for the item" enter mailto: (be sure to add the colon at the end of mailto)
* Click Next
* Type a name for the shortcut, such as "New Email"
* Click Finish

You should now see an icon for your mail program on your desktop, named New Email, or whatever name you chose. Drag that to your Quick Launch bar so it's easily accessible. Try out your new shortcut by clicking on it. A new blank email should automatically open for you.

Posted by Kelly at 09:24 AM | Comments (6)

October 11, 2005

Palm Security

If you're planning on synching ANY sensitive data to your Palm handheld, then I would suggest marking it as private, in case your Palm ever falls into curious hands.

I'm on a Treo 650, so getting to this might be slightly different for you, but here's the general idea:

- Go to Applications (the home button)

- Tap on Security (for older Palms, this might be under Prefs/Security)

- Assign a password. As someone suggested to me, don't make it too guessable (don't use your home street, birthday, your name followed by a "1" etc.) But given you'll be entering this on your Palm fairly often, don't make it too hard to enter either.

- Under current privacy, select Show Records, Mask Records or Hide Records. Show Records means whether a record is marked private or not, it will show up in the list for anyone to view. Mask Records (the one I keep it on) means a bar will appear through the subject line so I know something is there, but I need to enter the password I assigned to view the text. Hide Records means you won't even know the record is there unless you change the preference for all records back to Show or Mask.

For records to be affected by security, you need to check them as Private. If you open any Contact, Calendar Entry, Task or Memo, you will find the Private checkbox under Details.

You can open individual items marked Private, enter your password, and view just that record. Once you close that item it will return back to the previous security. Or, you can change the security for all records by going back to Applications, Security and changing it for all records. If you change it to Show Records, just remember to change it back to Hide or Mask, since it won't do this automatically if you've changed it for all records.

I've tried the Turn Off and Lock feature you'll see under Security, but found it so cumbersome to have to enter a password every time I turned my Palm on.

I hope this helps.

Posted by Kelly at 04:19 PM | Comments (2)

September 27, 2005

Simplifying expenses

After just finishing the motherload of all expense reports (4 clients, 17 days, 5 cities, 3 currencies) I have a few tips on simplifying expenses, which work well for me:

1. I carry an envelope in my briefcase to collect the receipts as I get them, so that I don't have to go on a scavenger hunt to find them at the end of the trip.

2. I try to write what the receipt is for, as soon I get it or soon after, while it's still fresh in my mind. This one has saved me, particularly since some cash receipts don't list the merchant.

3. I start working on my expense report (an Excel doc for our accounting dept.) while still on the trip or on the plane ride home.

These tips have streamlined my time when I'm home, so that my recharge time between trips is less about admin and more about relaxation.

Posted by Kelly at 06:00 PM

June 24, 2005

Windows of Time

I'm often presented with unexpected windows of time when I'm looking for something to do. Since I'm on planes so much (14 this month) I get chunks time where I don't have access to my computer or phone. This week I was on a little prop plane from Dulles to White Plains, sitting on the tarmac for 2 hours since the state of New York was apparently closed due to thunderstorms. I was happy to have my "Read/FYI" folder with me, as we suggest in Getting Things Done. I pulled it out and was able to read some stuff that had been in there for a while. This is a folder for all of my nice to read kind of stuff that never makes it on to an Action list.

Here are all of the plastic file folders I travel with:

1. Action Support (holds single action items not related to a project)
2. Waiting For (support materials for items on my Waiting For list)
3. Inbox (collects receipts, notes and anything to be processed)
4. Read/FYI (nice to read--not critical reads which would be in the Action Support folder)
5. Travel Support (holds itineraries, maps, confirmations etc.)

Having these with me (all together about 3" thick) means I can choose to be productive anywhere I am. And then of course there are those times when I find myself looking through the SkyMall catalog yet again...

Posted by Kelly at 08:51 AM

June 12, 2005

Limiting Input

One of the best things I've done to limit junk input coming to our house was to get us on the Do Not Call List and off the Direct Marketing List. The Do Not Call List reduced our telemarketer calls down from about 10 a week to nearly none. For the few that still trickled in--who were legally allowed to because we were a current customer--I requested to be put on their Do Not Contact lists by contacting their customer service departments directly. Getting off the Direct Marketing Lists eliminated nearly ALL credit card offers and junk mail from companies I don't do business with. Now we get mail we actually want.

Posted by Kelly at 03:08 PM | Comments (1)