GTD: My Implementation part 2: How I process
Onward and upward! Or something.
For those that know GTD, you know what process means: take something, put it where it belongs, and leave an intelligently (and quickly!) filed reminder in a list system that I trust. Folks use lotsa things for lists... but for me, this seems to work really well. First, the lists.
Lists are of a few types in GTD. First, you've got your "next action" lists. This is stuff that you're able to actually do (meaning it's a single activity, physical, envisionable, etc.) when you're in the right context. These lists are kept by context (like "At Phone" is the list of the phone calls you could make), and (to me) ideally cross referenced by date IF something has to be done on that day from that list. Still, many of these to-dos might not have dates. The scenario this list is used? You've gotten everything done you "need" to do today by checking your calendar and dated next actions... and you feel like a-workin' ahead or on something that needs to be done, but doesn't have to be done today. So you whip out your context list.
Here's my context next action list and how I use it.
@ - My GTD next action reminders. This is a cheat - I put some fake tasks in here that remind me of how to DO stuff. Cuz, no joke, I sometimes forget. Here's those tasks, actually:
@Brainstorming - Stuff I could do anywhere. And do! If I'm catching a quiet dinner by myself, I might pull out one of these. Then again, I might just have a quiet dinner.
@Email - Emails! It's all lumped together, my work and personal, since I'm doing it from the same place. I've had these split (the way phone is currently split) into work and personal... but I found that since my minutes are charged differently, I like to be intentional about separating my personal and work calls.
@Home - Stuff around the house. This might be "vacuum & mop the floors" on the weekend (which it is today, for example) or "take a look into the attic" referring to our house's attic project.
@Meeting - Agendas. Each agenda starts with the person's name, like "Cal: Talk about heterosexism and racism training day for PANC for ideas."
@OfflineCPU -Things to do when I'm, gasp, offline.
@OnlineCPU - Things I need a net connection for.
@Phone-Personal - Duh! I make most of these calls on weekends or after 9. Cha-Ching.
@Phone-Work - Usually make these during the day when I'm in the car. I know that's naughty... but I find I need less emotional energy when I'm talking work. Or I just do it when I park the car someplace I get early.
@Reading - Stuff I've actually committed to reading
@Running Errands - A great list. I get in my car, I check it. I go in a store, I check it. It might have "Durham: Thrift Shop: Get a crappy bag with a nice zipper" so I can put it on my yoga bag. So I'll be in Durham, getting in my car (or planning my day), and realize "oh, I've got a few Durham errands, lemme tack that on here and here...
@SAS - My UNC internship is at SAS, and I'm religious about not bringing work home. I'm only going to do these things at my desk there, whether emails, calls, research on eldercare, sorting, etc.
And two ESSENTIAL categories that relate..
Suspended - tasks with a date set for them to be active. They do NOT show up on my lists daily, but will pop up on the day I need them on either my outlook today or my nice PDA today screen.
Waiting For - again, dated. If I send an email to someone, while it's sending (2 seconds or so?) I use the hotkeys for a new waiting for task and put a date on it. Literally, takes about 2-3 seconds. But that way, in a week if they haven't gotten back to me, I know to check in.
My projects list is also in this system. I've worked literally for years to try to find out how to best watch projects, and came up with this. Each of the "areas of responsibility" for my life is a category with projects under it.
_ Same as above - GTD project reminders for how to work the system
_Basic Personal Stuff - My eating
_Body Training - Specific Aikido, yoga, tai chi goals. Treating injuries, good eating, sleeping, this goes in here.
_Community Engagement - My active community projects. I don't know if it's good or bad that this is often my largest list.
_Community Radar - Community projects I'm not active on, but I want to keep on my mind.
_Education - Projects for each of my UNC classes, upcoming seminars, etc.
_Family - Folks on my mind, so I can keep track of what's going on with them.
_Friends - same thing - notes on folks I'm close to. This isn't ALL my friends - just the folks I want to stay more regularly connected with.
_Home - Home projects, like "Clean Attic" or "Beautiful Walkway to large tree"
_Magic - my magic training projects. Stuff like "think about transitions between this routine and this one..." And Josh's upcoming Magic show at Man Bites Dog, that I'll be a part of again...
_SAS Project - Again, big picture SAS stuff.
_Zen - Basically says "meditate." lol.
Lastly, my maybe someday list. Here's where stuff goes that I might get around to someday... and maybe I wont.
~ - Misc. I don't care about sorting these as much...lol.
~Blog Ideas - I've amassed about 200 things in this category. I've written 5. That's ok. lol.
~Community - Neato community project idears
~DurhamCET -
~Education - seminars, etc. I might like to go to.
~Friends - stuff I might do for friends if I have the time down the road.
~Fun - fun ways to play I can pull from whenever
~Home - hare-brained idears for the dojo house.
~Magic - Routines I might like to add, but won't commit to right now.
~Net-Browsing - go look at this neat thing when you have time... or not!
~Organizing - stuff that might be perfectionism... so by putting it here I give myself permission NOT to do it.
~Personal - eh, I might gt some black pants that wick...but I think I have enough clothes as it is. I'll leave it there for later or never.
~Relationships - folks not quite friends at this point, but if I've got time I'll reach out and send somebody a CD or something.
~Tech - again, doodads I probably don't need. Just get it off my mind already!
~Work - Brainstorms to increase consulting advertising, etc.
That's WHERE I process. Here's HOW I process.
I'm a techie. Not quite at heart, but in training. I've got this neato thing called AutoHotKey (google it!) that let's me create Outlook tasks in a heartbeat. Let's say I'm sending an email and need to create a waiting for.
I'd type
(win-t)wfMandy re: lunch(tab)wed(alt-s)
while the email's sending, and that would
And I'll do a view showin' soon!
For those that know GTD, you know what process means: take something, put it where it belongs, and leave an intelligently (and quickly!) filed reminder in a list system that I trust. Folks use lotsa things for lists... but for me, this seems to work really well. First, the lists.
Lists are of a few types in GTD. First, you've got your "next action" lists. This is stuff that you're able to actually do (meaning it's a single activity, physical, envisionable, etc.) when you're in the right context. These lists are kept by context (like "At Phone" is the list of the phone calls you could make), and (to me) ideally cross referenced by date IF something has to be done on that day from that list. Still, many of these to-dos might not have dates. The scenario this list is used? You've gotten everything done you "need" to do today by checking your calendar and dated next actions... and you feel like a-workin' ahead or on something that needs to be done, but doesn't have to be done today. So you whip out your context list.
Here's my context next action list and how I use it.
@ - My GTD next action reminders. This is a cheat - I put some fake tasks in here that remind me of how to DO stuff. Cuz, no joke, I sometimes forget. Here's those tasks, actually:
- GTD Workflow Mastery: Collect, Process, Organize, Review, Do
- GTD Choose Action: Context->Time->Energy->Priority
- GTD Daily Work: Do predefined, do as it shows up, defining it
- GTD Weekly Review (w/ notes so I can do my weekly review wherever - recurs Thu)
- GTD Monthly Review (same deal - recurs 1st sun of the month)
- GTD @: single, atomic, physical, seeable, context, committed, action verb
@Brainstorming - Stuff I could do anywhere. And do! If I'm catching a quiet dinner by myself, I might pull out one of these. Then again, I might just have a quiet dinner.
@Email - Emails! It's all lumped together, my work and personal, since I'm doing it from the same place. I've had these split (the way phone is currently split) into work and personal... but I found that since my minutes are charged differently, I like to be intentional about separating my personal and work calls.
@Home - Stuff around the house. This might be "vacuum & mop the floors" on the weekend (which it is today, for example) or "take a look into the attic" referring to our house's attic project.
@Meeting - Agendas. Each agenda starts with the person's name, like "Cal: Talk about heterosexism and racism training day for PANC for ideas."
@OfflineCPU -Things to do when I'm, gasp, offline.
@OnlineCPU - Things I need a net connection for.
@Phone-Personal - Duh! I make most of these calls on weekends or after 9. Cha-Ching.
@Phone-Work - Usually make these during the day when I'm in the car. I know that's naughty... but I find I need less emotional energy when I'm talking work. Or I just do it when I park the car someplace I get early.
@Reading - Stuff I've actually committed to reading
@Running Errands - A great list. I get in my car, I check it. I go in a store, I check it. It might have "Durham: Thrift Shop: Get a crappy bag with a nice zipper" so I can put it on my yoga bag. So I'll be in Durham, getting in my car (or planning my day), and realize "oh, I've got a few Durham errands, lemme tack that on here and here...
@SAS - My UNC internship is at SAS, and I'm religious about not bringing work home. I'm only going to do these things at my desk there, whether emails, calls, research on eldercare, sorting, etc.
And two ESSENTIAL categories that relate..
Suspended - tasks with a date set for them to be active. They do NOT show up on my lists daily, but will pop up on the day I need them on either my outlook today or my nice PDA today screen.
Waiting For - again, dated. If I send an email to someone, while it's sending (2 seconds or so?) I use the hotkeys for a new waiting for task and put a date on it. Literally, takes about 2-3 seconds. But that way, in a week if they haven't gotten back to me, I know to check in.
My projects list is also in this system. I've worked literally for years to try to find out how to best watch projects, and came up with this. Each of the "areas of responsibility" for my life is a category with projects under it.
_ Same as above - GTD project reminders for how to work the system
- GTD Natural Planning: 1.Principles 2.Vision 3. Brainstorm 4. Organize 5. Next Action
- GTD Priorities / Reviews
_Basic Personal Stuff - My eating
_Body Training - Specific Aikido, yoga, tai chi goals. Treating injuries, good eating, sleeping, this goes in here.
_Community Engagement - My active community projects. I don't know if it's good or bad that this is often my largest list.
_Community Radar - Community projects I'm not active on, but I want to keep on my mind.
_Education - Projects for each of my UNC classes, upcoming seminars, etc.
_Family - Folks on my mind, so I can keep track of what's going on with them.
_Friends - same thing - notes on folks I'm close to. This isn't ALL my friends - just the folks I want to stay more regularly connected with.
_Home - Home projects, like "Clean Attic" or "Beautiful Walkway to large tree"
_Magic - my magic training projects. Stuff like "think about transitions between this routine and this one..." And Josh's upcoming Magic show at Man Bites Dog, that I'll be a part of again...
_SAS Project - Again, big picture SAS stuff.
_Zen - Basically says "meditate." lol.
Lastly, my maybe someday list. Here's where stuff goes that I might get around to someday... and maybe I wont.
~ - Misc. I don't care about sorting these as much...lol.
~Blog Ideas - I've amassed about 200 things in this category. I've written 5. That's ok. lol.
~Community - Neato community project idears
~DurhamCET -
~Education - seminars, etc. I might like to go to.
~Friends - stuff I might do for friends if I have the time down the road.
~Fun - fun ways to play I can pull from whenever
~Home - hare-brained idears for the dojo house.
~Magic - Routines I might like to add, but won't commit to right now.
~Net-Browsing - go look at this neat thing when you have time... or not!
~Organizing - stuff that might be perfectionism... so by putting it here I give myself permission NOT to do it.
~Personal - eh, I might gt some black pants that wick...but I think I have enough clothes as it is. I'll leave it there for later or never.
~Relationships - folks not quite friends at this point, but if I've got time I'll reach out and send somebody a CD or something.
~Tech - again, doodads I probably don't need. Just get it off my mind already!
~Work - Brainstorms to increase consulting advertising, etc.
That's WHERE I process. Here's HOW I process.
I'm a techie. Not quite at heart, but in training. I've got this neato thing called AutoHotKey (google it!) that let's me create Outlook tasks in a heartbeat. Let's say I'm sending an email and need to create a waiting for.
I'd type
(win-t)wfMandy re: lunch(tab)wed(alt-s)
while the email's sending, and that would
- (win-t) : open up a new task window for outlook (no matter what I'm using at the time).
- wf : deletes "wf" text, types the short-cuts for the categories list (alt-g) and selects waiting for, then gets me back to the subject
- Mandy email re: lunch : who I'm waiting on and for what
- (tab) wed : drops me to the due date and gives me the next wed.
- (alt-s) : saves and closes my new task. It'll then show up in my few task views, my PDA, and my today screens.
And I'll do a view showin' soon!
posted by Mike Dolan Fliss at
12/15/2007 08:14:00 PM
1 Comments
