Anatomy of a System for Getting Things Done

I have followed the path of David Allan's Getting Things Done  for nearly a year now and, as disturbingly nerdy as it sounds, it has changed my life. I find myself handling more projects, gaining more free time, and reducing stress all at the same time. I can focus on the things that are important to me and eliminate the things that are not important.

Merlin Mann gave a quote on Leo Laporte's The Tech Guy show a couple of weeks ago that I liked a lot. It was along the lines of "Nerds like anything that makes them feel like a computer." That statement goes a long ways to identifying that strange behavior I see in a lot of guys for tweaking and screwing with technical things like cards, computers, golf clubs, and fountain pens.

In this regard I find myself with too much idle time gained by a streamlined GTD process and a sudden desire to tweak it.

For the past six months or so I have used a Franklin Covey 5x8 binder with some custom GTD-style loose leaf pages. A pocket Moleskine acted as my primary inbox or "Ubiquitous Capture Device", a far too complicated term for the place where you write in the random crap that hits your life almost faster than you can write it down.

The binder scaled very nicely and worked very well except for its large size. It is a hard thing to carry around. I had tried a single Moleskine-based GTD system in the past, using some of the experiences of other GTD geeks out in the interwebs. My attempts failed. Is there something easily changed that would make a pocket GTD system work?

"Anatomy of a System for Getting Things Done"
By Mike Shea

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Image: "Kafka & Kafe" by perceptmaker
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Comments

[Jennifer]

I've tried a billion different systems, and the best one so far is the Circa PDA. I love index cards, but I didn't like shuffling through them all the time. By binding them together using Circa (or Rollabind) rings, I've made myself a completely customizable planner that fits all my needs. And now that I've learned how to print index cards on my office printer, I can make perfect cards for every occasion - projects, calendars, lists, etc. So basically, I use Google Calendar, Google Documents, and my Circa PDA. I love Moleskines, but as you've said, they're terrible for lists.

[Scott Cheatham]

Mike,

I think if you're looking for a pocket alternative to your GTD malaise, you might find a system designed by a Japanese engineer to be to your liking...

http://gtd-r.blogspot.com/

The "GTD + R" system is one I've switched to recently and it ports over GTD to a pocket system perfectly. What I've done is use one of my modified mini calendar cases (You'll find a post for that here or on Notebookism - you have to take out the rings and pages and it converts to a nice little mini-zippered case). I then use my No. 11 Rhodia pad sheets as my inbox and then process the "cards" daily as per Kenji's site. (You'll see when you read it.) The only thing I take with me through the day is my "pocket" with my "today" cards (next actions to do today) and then, as I write new "inbox" items down, I put them in the "inbox" side of the pocket. (Again, all of this is described in detail at Kenji's site).

Each morning, I use the 'playing field' to sort my deck and in minutes, I have an action plan for the day. It all fits in my little zippered case and I feel a lot more at ease.

I still use my Moleskines for ideas, mind maps, and longer writing forms but I switched to Rhodia pads about a year or so ago because I liked their quality for the price. Especially for using them in this manner. I'm blessed to have a Rhodia dealer close by in Boulder, Colorado so each time I'm up there (I live in Denver), I pick up a few ten packs of my favorite pads and I'm set for a while!

Hope this helps!
Scott

[Ed Flores]

Mike,

You might want to checkout the book "To Do, Doing, Done!" by G. Lynn Snead. It offers a much more micro approach to time management than even GTD does. It relies more on the view of the day approach than the weekly view. They make the suggestion that you must have two pages per day. One page is a task list and the other page is a time schedule, in combination with learning how to prioritize it is an effective system. I use a combination of the two and have changed my prioritization list to mirror the 7 habits prioritization list. I find the 43 folders to be a bit cumbersome. If the task is burried in a folder then it is out of sight out of mind.
I was trying to get opinions on how to improve the systeem so I went into the Franklin/Covey store. I showed him my system (Franklin/Covey btw does not have a methodology for carryover items) and the time management black belt just shrugged his shoulders and walked away. Just remember, the method that you use is not as important as what results you generate and how productive you are. If you don't accomplish much because of your system, then your system is holding you back.

Good luck,

Ed

[Harold]

One thing I notice about all the GTDer's is that the problem is the same regardless of what system has been adopted. Simply, that doing something in a consistent way within a system is hard for us humans to do. Some do it better than others, owing in part to their personality makeup. I have the tools; I just don't use them consistently.

I know you don't want an iPhone but should Apple allow 3rd party development and someone actually does a good implementation of GTD on the iPhone there would be one major advantage; that being the ability to sync back and forth with your computer. The one thing about doing it digitally is that you always know where it is and it is searchable. The Moleskine is a good way to capture things when you're on the move but the computer really has the edge when you're trying to manage large amounts of stuff.

[Nate]

What kind of pen is that in the graphic? I love my pens, and I like the look of that one....