Interesting David Allen's remark about GTD applications.

[furashgf]

I've played with tons of the tools, and many of them are very nice (lifebalance, pocketthinker, that mind map thing, the outlook plug in, etc.). And at first they all work very well, then I end up spending a lot of time fiddling with the tool and not really doing the basic GTD steps - which is what i need to focus on. So, I always end up back with vanilla outlook (tasks, calendar, notes) along with VimOutliner for project brainstorming (which saves the notes inside the task as plain text).

G

 

[jrdouce]

Is the screen of a Pocket PC too small? I use what's called "transcriber mode" on mine to input data. Its a pretty good and pretty fast handwriting recognition input mode.

Hi Tom, I haven't used a PPC, but I have been using a Palm for years. The only free form writing tool of which I am aware is the note pad, which doesn't hold much and doesn't recognize small writing. I carry a letter sized note pad around the office, so I'm intrigued by the idea of an electronic notebook sized capture tool. I remember that about 10 years ago, a coworker having a CrossPad. It had some OCR issues, but it worked. I'd probably go ahead and make the investment except for the fact that I don't see anyone else using one - and I wonder why?

 

[Tom Shannon]

Hi Tom, I haven't used a PPC, but I have been using a Palm for years. The only free form writing tool of which I am aware is the note pad, which doesn't hold much and doesn't recognize small writing. I carry a letter sized note pad around the office, so I'm intrigued by the idea of an electronic notebook sized capture tool. I remember that about 10 years ago, a coworker having a CrossPad. It had some OCR issues, but it worked. I'd probably go ahead and make the investment except for the fact that I don't see anyone else using one - and I wonder why?

Well, I took a look at the website. I couldn't find anything that indicated a price, so that's an issue. In addition, I noticed that the data is save in two file formats, neither of which I'm familiar with. I couldn't find anything about exporting the data as, for instance, a tiff file.

Tom S.

 

[kewms]

In spite of the fact that I was more successful with GTD on paper, I could not go back. In the mid 90's I could keep it all in a TimeDesign book. Today the bulk of my tasks and communications arrive electronically it's just not feasible to copy it all to a paper system.

Then don't.

I'm a happy paper user, and have found that the idea that I had to "copy it all to a paper system" was a major misconception. Say I get an email with lots of details about a project, several attachments, and a specific action item. So the action item--one sentence--goes on the appropriate paper context list, and everything else goes in the electronic file for that project. Done. Using a paper system does NOT mean that you can't continue to use a computer for things that computers are good at, like storing and searching huge piles of information. It just means that the very basics of your system--NA and project lists--are captured on paper, with all the simplicity that implies.

I think a similar misconception may explain the overwhelming complexity of many GTD-oriented software tools, too. They attempt to, as another poster pointed out, become complete project management solutions, combining the reference, planning, and tracking functions all in one tool. Which is fine if that's what you need, but is a whole lot more difficult (and expensive) to implement or use than plain old NA lists and project lists. It may be counter productive, too, since simply dragging that massive email I mentioned above to my "Tasks" folder doesn't mean that I've actually *processed* it. In an electronic system, it's very easy to just shift files around without really going through the GTD workflow. Yeah, your Inbox may be empty, but you're still overwhelmed by stuff.

Katherine

 

[Mark Jantzen]

Then don't.

I think this comment hits on one of the toughest aspects of GTD. There is no one right way to implement David's suggested methodology.

I wish there was.

Time/Design, Treo, Outlook, Blackberry, Filofax, Moleskine, 3-ring binder, Entourage, Circa, etc. all work.

My mind sees so many potential directions with strengths and weaknesses but the key for me is picking one and sticking with it.

Until I change of course.

Mark

 

[Tom Shannon]

I think this comment hits on one of the toughest aspects of GTD. There is no one right way to implement David's suggested methodology.

Yeah, I think we all know that there's no right answer to this question. It depends upon how you get your information and work with it. For someone like me who spends a great deal of time receiving and answering emails and working on electronic documents, paper would be ridiculous. For others, its a totally different story, I'm sure.

Tom S.

 

[unstuffed]

My mind sees so many potential directions with strengths and weaknesses but the key for me is picking one and sticking with it.

Mark, I am completely with you on this. There's such a plethora of systems, subsystems, neat hacks, variations, hybrids of GTD with some other clever system, and so on, that my brain reels. I think that I've now disciplined myself sufficiently, though, so I no longer leap from one to another: I've found something that mostly works, and the most I do now is tweak it occasionally.

 

[unstuffed]

Yeah, I think we all know that there's no right answer to this question. It depends upon how you get your information and work with it. For someone like me who spends a great deal of time receiving and answering emails and working on electronic documents, paper would be ridiculous. For others, its a totally different story, I'm sure.

Very true. I think a large part of my decision to stay with paper, despite trying a few apps, was that I'm getting old and cranky. In my last job (as a geek) I had to test drive and compare bunches of apps from time to time, and I think that used up all my store of patience. Now I just want something that's immediately obvious that I don't have to think about. Yes, lazy, I know.

It might also have something to do with the fact that, in that job, planning, brainstorming, and organising, always happened on a whiteboard. We'd sit in our office, tossing ideas back and forth, writing stuff down and drawing arrows and boxes and whatnots, and eventually come up with the bones of the software that we were going to build. So I guess, now that I think about it, I'm much more accustomed to doing those steps in writing, and since GTD has many of the same aspects as a software development project, I gravitated to paper for my GTD system.

I hadn't thought of that until I started typing this post, Tom. Thanks, you've given me an insight.

 

[Paul Comeaux]

NextAction

The best software that I've found to use with GTD is NextAction--which, interestingly, removes from, rather than adds to, the, native BlackBerry built-in Task Manager app. In other words, the point of the program (for me, anyway), is that it "declutters" the Task Manager app by allowing me to hide categories that are inapplicable to my GTD system. For example, I hide categories like "Christmas list" "Clients" "Family" that are used in the address book, and all I see are the GTD categories. It's amazing how little NextAction does, and yet how useful it is.

Now, version 2.0 has added the ability to tie NAs not just to categories, but also to projects. Great idea--but I'm trying to determine if its worth using this feature or whether it just complicates things too much.

 

[mochant]

Mark, I am completely with you on this. There's such a plethora of systems, subsystems, neat hacks, variations, hybrids of GTD with some other clever system, and so on, that my brain reels. I think that I've now disciplined myself sufficiently, though, so I no longer leap from one to another: I've found something that mostly works, and the most I do now is tweak it occasionally.

unstuffed: I am 100% with you. It's taken me a long time (and quite a few $$) to reach this point but I have a system that is simple, that works, and that does not distract me from the "doing" with the all-too seductive distraction of "tweaking". When I get into a chat with someone still in heavy experimentation and tweaking mode and they start challenging some of what my system doesn't do, I just smile a Mona Lisa smile, shrug my shoulders, and say something along the lines of, "I've concluded that is not really that important to my success".

 

[jtdickson]

TODOIST works very well for "next actions"

The "next action" approach has really made a difference for me. I feel much less overwhelmed. I'm always looking for a better "to-do list" application and the other day I found one that really pumped enthusiasm back into my next action process. I was adding gadgets to my Google page and ran across TODOIST. It's an extremely efficient and intuitive way to write and organize next actions. TODOIST is basically free and does a better job of organizing my thoughts than applications that cost big bucks.
http://todoist.com/