I might be at a tipping point for using TD with GTD today. I created a few rules for myself.
My new Waiting Rule:
If I am waiting on something, I must enter the amount of time which I'm willing to wait. Meaning, if I ask someone a question that I need an answer on, I must define when I'm going to follow up if I don't get an answer so that the item doesn't get lost (also known as dropping the ball). I don't want to drop the ball.
I realized that if I am waiting without a deadline, then I'm not really waiting, I'm wishing/dreaming/hoping and that's the realm of someday/maybe.
Other practices I picked up:
* Relying on the next time I touch a task to turn it into the next task in a sequence vs. making everything a project. Partially this is because creating a project and its tasks takes me going to several screens and tying it all together. To adhere strictly to GTD, this would be the action, but I'm going to say that:
'Review draft text >> Publish/return' will naturally lead me to publish the text or return it to the author instead of making it a two part project.
* Since I'm using searches to define Next Actions at the client (same as large project) level, I don't have a solid way to track items that are DUE. I don't want to use an external calendar (2 systems...), so I enabled reminders and tested them. They work well and I can even set when the reminder comes so I'll get them in a time and place where I can act on them. Nifty. We'll see how it pans out.
GTD with Toodledo 30 day project
Thursday, April 15, 2010
April - GTD and Toodledo #3: Official start of the 30 day challenge
So I'm going to do this - commit to using Toodledo for my task management - and I have a big initial problem. I have a bunch of current and semi-current tasks already in Toodledo that I have to contend with, none of the things I was planning to do TODAY are in there and I want to change the WAY I use it to a new simpler, Getting Things Done method.
Hmmm. These are the same challenges I always have and the very reasons that prompted doing a 30 day challenge in the first place, so I gotta deal with it.
GTD and Toodledo 30 Day Project
Hmmm. These are the same challenges I always have and the very reasons that prompted doing a 30 day challenge in the first place, so I gotta deal with it.
GTD and Toodledo 30 Day Project
April - GTD and Toodledo #6: Dammit's and other frustrations
The last week has included a lot of thinking about Toodledo and GTD, but not so much adherence to the plan. I think this helped. The awareness of the goal made me able to discern what was breaking:
- Things were added to my queue superfast; faster than I could open TD and add them properly
- I had so many things starred as next actions that the list was not something I could digest at a glance - when this happened, the tool lost its greatest asset, the ability to reduce mental overhead. If I really had to read this list over and over - where's the advantage?
Then, as I worked away from the list, I was actually completing things without ticking them off, creating deadwood in the list.
Also, despite the idealistic idea that I could put tasks of any category together, I lost the 'project list' effect from GTD - the ability to quickly get a reminder at the project level. I was literally forgetting entire projects for weeks because of mental overhead overload. The Proximo plan for GTD had no differentiation between categories of work - by client/type of work/etc.
So, while I have many different projects, and in some cases I'm committed to work for Client A on Monday (regardless of other projects), I wasn't able to see the Client A subset.
***
Learning #1:
I need to be able to separate work by clients. (YMMV, your 'client' might be something else)
> Given the TD framework, I decided to use tags to separate work by clients/sites/etc.
I need a way to also look across clients at type of work (meaning - if I'm a contractor, I need to see all the work at the smith house and all the painting work.)
> I'll create separate searches...
So to put this into effect, I started tagging actions and projects with "client-type of work" tags, where some are just "client" and some are just "type of work". As I'm doing this, I'm thinking these should not be hyphenated, just separate tags and it would be cooler (by far) if I had multiple tag fields (or, for that matter, multiple folder fields - as these are essentially exclusive tags) so I could sort this way instead of just use searches.
This led me to:
*****
Learning #2:
I was being too liberal with stars. Using stars at 'next action' items (and as a subset of Actions, identified by a folder) I had too many to comprehend.
While I was still fixing up the tags, I also realized:
*****
Learning #3:
The minute I break out of the system, it's broke and I'll have to do catch up administration to get back in.
This means that breaking the flow or the planned GTD/TD workflow, how ever you set it up, should only be done on purpose in the most extreme cases. Like if the President of the United States calls and asks for you to help out with something. If that happens, I'll shove everything off my desk but a clean piece of paper and a pen. Short of that - I'd better stay in the system.
>So, I'm on maybe my 10th lifetime restart of GTD, but obviously I have faith in the potential or I wouldn't come back to it. That, or I'm a fool. I'm not a fool.
Stay tuned.
GTD and Toodledo 30 Day Project
- Things were added to my queue superfast; faster than I could open TD and add them properly
- I had so many things starred as next actions that the list was not something I could digest at a glance - when this happened, the tool lost its greatest asset, the ability to reduce mental overhead. If I really had to read this list over and over - where's the advantage?
Then, as I worked away from the list, I was actually completing things without ticking them off, creating deadwood in the list.
Also, despite the idealistic idea that I could put tasks of any category together, I lost the 'project list' effect from GTD - the ability to quickly get a reminder at the project level. I was literally forgetting entire projects for weeks because of mental overhead overload. The Proximo plan for GTD had no differentiation between categories of work - by client/type of work/etc.
So, while I have many different projects, and in some cases I'm committed to work for Client A on Monday (regardless of other projects), I wasn't able to see the Client A subset.
***
Learning #1:
I need to be able to separate work by clients. (YMMV, your 'client' might be something else)
> Given the TD framework, I decided to use tags to separate work by clients/sites/etc.
I need a way to also look across clients at type of work (meaning - if I'm a contractor, I need to see all the work at the smith house and all the painting work.)
> I'll create separate searches...
So to put this into effect, I started tagging actions and projects with "client-type of work" tags, where some are just "client" and some are just "type of work". As I'm doing this, I'm thinking these should not be hyphenated, just separate tags and it would be cooler (by far) if I had multiple tag fields (or, for that matter, multiple folder fields - as these are essentially exclusive tags) so I could sort this way instead of just use searches.
This led me to:
*****
Learning #2:
I was being too liberal with stars. Using stars at 'next action' items (and as a subset of Actions, identified by a folder) I had too many to comprehend.
While I was still fixing up the tags, I also realized:
*****
Learning #3:
The minute I break out of the system, it's broke and I'll have to do catch up administration to get back in.
This means that breaking the flow or the planned GTD/TD workflow, how ever you set it up, should only be done on purpose in the most extreme cases. Like if the President of the United States calls and asks for you to help out with something. If that happens, I'll shove everything off my desk but a clean piece of paper and a pen. Short of that - I'd better stay in the system.
>So, I'm on maybe my 10th lifetime restart of GTD, but obviously I have faith in the potential or I wouldn't come back to it. That, or I'm a fool. I'm not a fool.
Stay tuned.
GTD and Toodledo 30 Day Project
Thursday, April 8, 2010
April - GTD and Toodledo #5: Initial challenges
So far, the summary of this project is that I've put all my current stuff in, worked off the list briefly and then worked on fires and interruptions. At the time, it all seemed like very rational decisions to focus on the items at hand, but really, I acknowledged that each time was a tiny little cop out. I did know better and did it anyway - this isn't so much learning a new tool as it is changing personal habits.
Also noticed:
Some things popped up that weren't caught in the big sweep, or initial capture. These hit me like grenades of unhandled obligation and caused mini-panic.
So, after skipping 6 days of proper entries, I'm going to hit the reset button again, the only difference between this time and many times before is that I'm logging it now. This makes it harder to ignore the realities and forces 20-20 hindsight. That hindsight is currently aware that there was no real, hard outside barrier to making this change, and all the reasons for doing it remain, standing patiently.
Round two...
GTD and Toodledo 30 day project
Also noticed:
Some things popped up that weren't caught in the big sweep, or initial capture. These hit me like grenades of unhandled obligation and caused mini-panic.
So, after skipping 6 days of proper entries, I'm going to hit the reset button again, the only difference between this time and many times before is that I'm logging it now. This makes it harder to ignore the realities and forces 20-20 hindsight. That hindsight is currently aware that there was no real, hard outside barrier to making this change, and all the reasons for doing it remain, standing patiently.
Round two...
GTD and Toodledo 30 day project
Friday, April 2, 2010
April - GTD and Toodledo #4: Setting up the GTD system of a fellow TD user
I'm going to model my system after Toodledo User Proximo. Here's his thread on how:
Getting things done with Toodledo.
My steps:
Since I have existing folders, I simply added all the new folders with a period in front. When I migrate my stuff over, I'll delete the old ones. This is a big deal to just delete the old stuff - I'm a little nervous.
Following the guide from above, I:
1. Printed guide
2. Added folders
3. Added contexts (with periods)
Immediately I see tasks that are overdue and I panic a little bit. (This is the anxiety David Allen talks about in Getting Things Done when you don't have your system in place. It's true.)
This is tedious.
I started by just going through tasks and updating everything and the mountain was too high psychologically so I did context first, using search and multi edit.
Now I'm going through a folder at a time and in proper GTD style, I'm applying a modified 2 minute rule, more like the 2 second rule, and deleting old tasks when they're clearly old.
As I move things to Someday/Maybe, I sense relief because I know these are being pushed off my mind but not forgotten...
Wow. This is tedious & difficult but I am getting it done and it 'feels' like it's going to work.
Ok - They're all in and I am now using a custom search to show only Next Actions. even this wasn't enough for me to truly narrow things down, so I populated length of time for each task and sorted by easiest! Trying that now.
This worked. I have spend a few hours working very effectively. For me, a few hours without interruption is great, and I got things done that had been lingering a while. The structure is awesome.
GTD and Toodledo 30 day project
Getting things done with Toodledo.
My steps:
Since I have existing folders, I simply added all the new folders with a period in front. When I migrate my stuff over, I'll delete the old ones. This is a big deal to just delete the old stuff - I'm a little nervous.
Following the guide from above, I:
1. Printed guide
2. Added folders
3. Added contexts (with periods)
Immediately I see tasks that are overdue and I panic a little bit. (This is the anxiety David Allen talks about in Getting Things Done when you don't have your system in place. It's true.)
This is tedious.
I started by just going through tasks and updating everything and the mountain was too high psychologically so I did context first, using search and multi edit.
Now I'm going through a folder at a time and in proper GTD style, I'm applying a modified 2 minute rule, more like the 2 second rule, and deleting old tasks when they're clearly old.
As I move things to Someday/Maybe, I sense relief because I know these are being pushed off my mind but not forgotten...
Wow. This is tedious & difficult but I am getting it done and it 'feels' like it's going to work.
Ok - They're all in and I am now using a custom search to show only Next Actions. even this wasn't enough for me to truly narrow things down, so I populated length of time for each task and sorted by easiest! Trying that now.
This worked. I have spend a few hours working very effectively. For me, a few hours without interruption is great, and I got things done that had been lingering a while. The structure is awesome.
GTD and Toodledo 30 day project
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