What a relief..
Like many others who have posted already, I have listened many, many times to Alan's interview. And I admit, while driving;as David notes in the intro - there is too much of value in this interview to do it justice by listening while driving. Having said that, I have taken many important messages from this interview - communication channels, saying no to meetings, the value of personal messages via phone vs. email (adding the 3-minute rule to the 2-minute rule) and the concept of the paper hybrid.
Over the last several years I have been morphing into the paper hybrid world and have been somewhat embarrassed to admit to the low-tech drift. I, too, started my tech foray with the original Palm and have embraced a variety of gadgets along the way, the most recent of which is the HTC S640 Smartphone. But my dirty little secret was that I was running a parallel paper system. My excuse initially was that it was a lovely leather binder that shouldn't sit idle. Most recently, I have reconciled my low-tech tendency with the fact that it is an important neurocognitive tool - writing helps to lay down new neural pathways and thus speeds the adoption of new behaviours.
My self-invented system is a 2-pages/day worksheet which is housed in that lovely leather binder. The first page is a daily journal/goals/meditation page. I start most mornings with a cup of tea and write for 15 minutes on this 'almost' blank page using the horizons of focus and my personal goals as a rough outline and answer the question - what I want and what success feels like in the chosen areas.
The second page starts with a box in which I answer the question:
"The strategic priority for today which will generate the most profit and success over the long term is:
under which I list my NAs for the day. To generate the NAs I use my task list from Outlook (I use the add-in) and scan to find the ones that I need to/should/want to address today. And then next to each NA I colour code with a square using a coloured highlighter according to 4 categories:
Strategic priority (hot pink)
Billable/client NAs (yellow)
Business development (blue)
Administrative, personal development, family (green)
and use the same colour schema in my calendar and NA list.
The purpose of the colour coding is to help me see at a glance where my time is going and whether it is in line with my goals etc. And, when I am really past a'humming and into buzzing, I also track my time on a print-out of the daily calendar from Outlook. Again - this helps with client billing and understanding where the heck the day went to.
So what I got from Alan's interview is not only is it OK to use paper and still be tech oriented, wildly successful people like Alan do so. The relief of being able to admit to the joy I get from writing out my NAs with my fountain pen (so retro) and then boldly striking them out when they are completed is palpable. And now justifies expanding my Levenger collection!
Thanks again Alan. I am reminded of the value of my GTD membership and of the community of sharing.
. On the one hand I like how easily I can create NAs from email in Outlook but on the other I like the idea of being able to strike out completed NAs on paper. I am printing out my NAs to carry around with me which I took as a sign that my Outlook NAs were repelling me . When I sit and work through the practicalities though the electronic way just comes out on top.