Hi everyone,
Although I've been researching & testing GTD for awhile now, I've not found a system (paper based or electronic) that works completely for me. I am a government admin assistant and am completely behind and overwhelmed due to our office recently going through a restructuring and taking on 2 large capital projects with no additional staff or resources. Although my boss is the primary on these projects, I must ensure that info on these projects is scheduled, recorded and archived and most of this info comes through my e-mail inbox. I also get multiple tasks thrown at me and deal with constant interruptions, so capture devices/solutions must be quick and easy. My main goal is to get myself back on track, but with an inbox filled with over 600 msgs, I need something quick and I don't know where to begin.
I have read David Allen's books (need to read them again) and one of the systems I found that seemed to work best was collecting all my next actions on small post it notes that I would number and stick on coverstock that was placed where I could view & access it easily. Each number would have a corresponding manilla folder where the paperwork for that action/task was kept.
This kept my desk clear and everything easily accessible. However as the workload increased, this system (and me) fell apart quickly.
To try and figure out whether paper or electronic would be better, I've done some researching on the net and believe that the efficiency of paper would be the best. I have an iphone, but due to securities/policy, cannot sync info from/to work and don't have the time to re-record it elsewhere. However I can easily print this info. I have played a bit with Jello and also tried using tasks in Outlook 2007, but since I'm taking stabs at a solution and not fully implementing anything it's obviously not working.
I posted this here opposed to the 'system' forum because I know I need help with everything and hope there is someone out there that has gone through a similar situation who can help.
Sorry for the long post and thank you in advance.
Although I've been researching & testing GTD for awhile now, I've not found a system (paper based or electronic) that works completely for me. I am a government admin assistant and am completely behind and overwhelmed due to our office recently going through a restructuring and taking on 2 large capital projects with no additional staff or resources. Although my boss is the primary on these projects, I must ensure that info on these projects is scheduled, recorded and archived and most of this info comes through my e-mail inbox. I also get multiple tasks thrown at me and deal with constant interruptions, so capture devices/solutions must be quick and easy. My main goal is to get myself back on track, but with an inbox filled with over 600 msgs, I need something quick and I don't know where to begin.
I have read David Allen's books (need to read them again) and one of the systems I found that seemed to work best was collecting all my next actions on small post it notes that I would number and stick on coverstock that was placed where I could view & access it easily. Each number would have a corresponding manilla folder where the paperwork for that action/task was kept.
This kept my desk clear and everything easily accessible. However as the workload increased, this system (and me) fell apart quickly.
To try and figure out whether paper or electronic would be better, I've done some researching on the net and believe that the efficiency of paper would be the best. I have an iphone, but due to securities/policy, cannot sync info from/to work and don't have the time to re-record it elsewhere. However I can easily print this info. I have played a bit with Jello and also tried using tasks in Outlook 2007, but since I'm taking stabs at a solution and not fully implementing anything it's obviously not working.
I posted this here opposed to the 'system' forum because I know I need help with everything and hope there is someone out there that has gone through a similar situation who can help.
Sorry for the long post and thank you in advance.
Now you’ve got “landing spots” as Meg Edwards calls them for everything coming at you. Now print a copy of the GTD Workflow Diagram and start processing.