My GTD Productivity System Using Evernote

First of all, congratulations on your 14 wives. Impressive :)

However, I have mixed feelings about the GTD-ness of your solution. I'm not criticizing it. If it works for you, fine.

However, the solution: next / soon / etc. reminds me of the one from Secret Weapon. Allen would rather see a calendar and due dates here, but fine.

However, the context zone is very ephemeral here. There's no energy or time at all. And I consider this a serious shortcoming in light of the GTD methodology.

Ultimately, the goal of GTD is to focus on one thing at a time among many options. If you have 10 projects on your list, you can still manage that, but with a larger number of tasks, the ability to filter out what can and can't be done at a given moment is invaluable.

I also use the Evernote approach. I followed Allen's official Evernote instructions and decided to use contexts as notebooks (tags are an alternative). I tag time, energy, priorities, and a few other things, such as personal/professional.

This way, I can actually tell Allen what to do on Wednesday at 3:22 PM.
 
Tom_Hagen said:
First of all, congratulations on your 14 wives. Impressive :)

However, I have mixed feelings about the GTD-ness of your solution. I'm not criticizing it. If it works for you, fine.

However, the solution: next / soon / etc. reminds me of the one from Secret Weapon. Allen would rather see a calendar and due dates here, but fine.

However, the context zone is very ephemeral here. There's no energy or time at all. And I consider this a serious shortcoming in light of the GTD methodology.

Ultimately, the goal of GTD is to focus on one thing at a time among many options. If you have 10 projects on your list, you can still manage that, but with a larger number of tasks, the ability to filter out what can and can't be done at a given moment is invaluable.

I also use the Evernote approach. I followed Allen's official Evernote instructions and decided to use contexts as notebooks (tags are an alternative). I tag time, energy, priorities, and a few other things, such as personal/professional.

This way, I can actually tell Allen what to do on Wednesday at 3:22 PM.
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@Tom_Hagen

Many ongoing Projects at a 'time' with only [focusing on] one task/Next Action at time ?
 
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gtdstudente said:
@Tom_Hagen

Sorry . . . meaning focusing on . . . only one task/Next Action at time

Thank you very GTD much
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Most of my projects are sequential, like reading a book or writing a program. They can also be "parallel," like "Getting Ready for Christmas," where tasks like "Buy a gift for N.N." might also include "Plant a Christmas tree seed." ;)
 
Tom_Hagen said:
What do you mean by one task in a project?
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Tom_Hagen said:
First of all, congratulations on your 14 wives. Impressive :)

However, I have mixed feelings about the GTD-ness of your solution. I'm not criticizing it. If it works for you, fine.

However, the solution: next / soon / etc. reminds me of the one from Secret Weapon. Allen would rather see a calendar and due dates here, but fine.

However, the context zone is very ephemeral here. There's no energy or time at all. And I consider this a serious shortcoming in light of the GTD methodology.

Ultimately, the goal of GTD is to focus on one thing at a time among many options. If you have 10 projects on your list, you can still manage that, but with a larger number of tasks, the ability to filter out what can and can't be done at a given moment is invaluable.

I also use the Evernote approach. I followed Allen's official Evernote instructions and decided to use contexts as notebooks (tags are an alternative). I tag time, energy, priorities, and a few other things, such as personal/professional.

This way, I can actually tell Allen what to do on Wednesday at 3:22 PM.
Click to expand...
Hi Tom. I'm also considering moving to an Evernote-based system using notebooks as contexts. This is in part a way of compatting my very bad habit of assigning 'false' due dates to next actions when they're not needed. thus taking the fast route to a buold-up to unfinished/overdue NA's in my to do list. this has been a constant battle (and mostly failure) of mine through the years, and i continue to recognise the need to stop it.

Using Evernote will effectively take away the temptation to assign due dates - unless you use the Evernote tasks system, which I have no intention of doing. Evernote makes it infernally difficult to assign due dates by any other means. If I really need to I can add a tag #today to any tasks I want to 'pull out' in to daily list - although given my weakness I'm loath to set off down that road.
 
david_popely said:
Hi Tom. I'm also considering moving to an Evernote-based system using notebooks as contexts. [...]
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Good luck with Evernote. It's flexible enough that you're sure to find your way. Using tasks doesn't necessarily require you to set deadlines (tasks can be open-ended). I use them to keep track of roughly how many "steps" I have accumulated.

Evernote's strength lies in tags. Properly designed, they can be very helpful. You can also build complex filters (I use the Professional plan), which you save as views. This way, I've created frequently used queries like: Most Important - Personal, Pleasant, or Low Energy, etc.

Besides the saved filters, I can easily filter out activities that require less than 30 minutes, or low energy when I'm in the office.
 
I also have the Pro plan. I'm wary of overcomplicating things (simple works best for me).

I do like the idea of a 'low energy' tag though :) I can see that being used quite often.....
 
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