My wife and I have just returned from our most recent Walt Disney World trip, but this is the first once since I've really been up-and-running with GTD, and what a difference!
I thought I'd share some of the ways I used GTD (primarily the capture/process stages) to really take alot of pressure off my mind.
We park our car in the downtown lot I use for work (to avoid paying to park at the airport) and take a taxi to the airport. As soon as we got out of the car, I entered an untimed entry on my CLIE for the date of our return "Parking Level G". (No worries about trying to remember where the car's parked).
Each day when we arrived at the parks, I made a similar entry for the section of the parking lot we parked in (i.e. Goofy 31). The last thing we want to do at the end of a long day is walk around that huge lot looking for our car.
I have Pocket Quicken on my CLIE, so every expenditure was captured immediately. (No need to carry the checkbook or keep unnecessary receipts).
We purchased a number of items that we had shipped directly home. As soon as we exited the store, an entry went onto my Waiting For list, with an attached note listing the date of purchase, the items purchased, the shipping number, and the store phone number. I still kept the receipts until the items arrive, but now I know I have all the info at hand whenever/wherever I need it.
Of course, any of those "When we get home I need to . . . " ideas went right into the CLIE and right off of my mind.
We go to Disney alot, so I started a project called "Plan next Disney Trip" and stored on the attached notes any ideas, tips or reminders that I want to have for the next time (i.e. approximately how much to expect to spend on food, best times/days to attend the parks, etc).
Finally, as we're awaiting the arrival of twins, I got some great nursery decorating ideas down there. They went into the attached note for a project called "Plan Nursery".
These are each little things, but combined they took a tremendous amount of "stuff" off of my mind and allowed us to enjoy our vacation.
I thought I'd share some of the ways I used GTD (primarily the capture/process stages) to really take alot of pressure off my mind.
We park our car in the downtown lot I use for work (to avoid paying to park at the airport) and take a taxi to the airport. As soon as we got out of the car, I entered an untimed entry on my CLIE for the date of our return "Parking Level G". (No worries about trying to remember where the car's parked).
Each day when we arrived at the parks, I made a similar entry for the section of the parking lot we parked in (i.e. Goofy 31). The last thing we want to do at the end of a long day is walk around that huge lot looking for our car.
I have Pocket Quicken on my CLIE, so every expenditure was captured immediately. (No need to carry the checkbook or keep unnecessary receipts).
We purchased a number of items that we had shipped directly home. As soon as we exited the store, an entry went onto my Waiting For list, with an attached note listing the date of purchase, the items purchased, the shipping number, and the store phone number. I still kept the receipts until the items arrive, but now I know I have all the info at hand whenever/wherever I need it.
Of course, any of those "When we get home I need to . . . " ideas went right into the CLIE and right off of my mind.
We go to Disney alot, so I started a project called "Plan next Disney Trip" and stored on the attached notes any ideas, tips or reminders that I want to have for the next time (i.e. approximately how much to expect to spend on food, best times/days to attend the parks, etc).
Finally, as we're awaiting the arrival of twins, I got some great nursery decorating ideas down there. They went into the attached note for a project called "Plan Nursery".
These are each little things, but combined they took a tremendous amount of "stuff" off of my mind and allowed us to enjoy our vacation.
