Hi GTD'ers,

At work I've always a pen and a A4 notebook at hand or A4 sheets held together with a binder clip.

I also carry on me, in my shirt pocket, an A4 sheet folded down to A6 as a backup – I tend to use one per day and at the end of each day, it's unfolded and goes in the inbox. The pad is the main capture device, the folded sheet mainly a backup for the unexpected!

For personal/mobile capture I'm using an HTC TyTn II Windows Mobile Phone and I've created a Word document called “!inbox.doc”

This document is mapped to a hardware key on the device and shortcuts on screen too.

I simply turn the device on, press the hardware key to open the Word document and within a second it’s open and ready for capture. I tend to capture all items in this single document, as it's very easy to work through and process later a single document rather than a document for each capture.

It's real quick and doesn’t get in the way of capturing the idea or thought, it just opens up and you can type away.

Often when processing, these captured ideas etc can then be copied and pasted directly as next actions or kept within a project/next action note section. It avoids a lot of the re-entry from written paper notes that I used to do.

The device also gives me the option of recording voice notes and a digital camera too. All items are saved in a folder called “!inbox” on it’s integral MicroSD memory card.

When back at the PC, I can insert the MicroSD into the PC, open the “!inbox” folder and process the “!inbox” word document, any voice notes or digital pictures etc.

I’m also using DeveloperOne's AgendaOne, for GTD on this device, and have another shortcut that creates a new task item already set with the category of “!inbox”.

Again, a single shortcut will create and open a new task with !inbox as the category – I tend to use this for smaller/more specific capture and use the word document for more free flow/mind sweep capture.

The cool thing with the !inbox task method is that when you view items on the device or in Outlook on the PC - the !inbox items are visible at the top of the task list and it's clear you have items to process.

I’ve tried to avoid using a single specific piece of software such as Evernote etc – I’m preferring to simply use a folder structure (folder called !inbox) and save into that any items captured; voice notes, !inbox.doc and anything else that comes my way for capture; PDF’s, saved web pages, screenshots, text files etc.

This way I’m not dependant on a single piece of software to hold it all together and keeping items as separate files (rather than embedded within Evernote etc) I can process them on almost any PC or Mac – without any specific software being installed first.

Great thread by the way – makes very interesting reading.

Cheers,

Andy.