I’m a GTD newbie who’s trying to get through the GTD book as fast as possible so I can start implementing his ideas. I’m so excited that this GTD philosophy might finally be the right one for me… I’ve been frustrated with others but feel good about this one. I love reading your posts – especially since I have many of the same questions that you are asking each other. So helpful!
I’d like to ask for some advice from those who follow the GTD philosophy – but first a little background. My husband and I are both classical freelance musicians (read: crazy schedule) who play for weddings and a few different orchestras as well as teach private students, etc. I also work a 9-5 corporate job. I manage my corporate work tasks separately and will continue to do so. We have a 6 year old son and are contemplating giving him a sibling. :shock: We used to use Franklin planners (going way back) and now use Pocket PCs and Outlook to manage our schedules. We have an Access database for all of our wedding clients (125+ each year) and we upload wedding gigs into Outlook and sync often so we always know each other’s schedule. That part works really well but I can’t say the same for our task management process (or lack of). We have dozens (100+?) tasks to be completed (some short term, some long term) and in most cases the task can be done by either my husband or myself. We tried using “Tasks” in Outlook (and on the Pocket PCs) but it just didn’t work for us. I’m reading about “NA”s in the GTD book and what I’m wondering is… how do you coordinate NAs between 2 people? I’d like to take advantage of the fact that we can sync data between the Pocket PC and Outlook, but both of us prefer to write our tasks… which means that we are forever comparing (and re-writing) NA lists which feels like a huge waste of time. I think we could manage our own NA list fairly well but we’re not sure how to manage the NAs that we share.
Maybe this is addressed later in the book…so I’ll keep reading. Just wondering if any of you have any gems of wisdom for me.
Thanks so much!!
I’d like to ask for some advice from those who follow the GTD philosophy – but first a little background. My husband and I are both classical freelance musicians (read: crazy schedule) who play for weddings and a few different orchestras as well as teach private students, etc. I also work a 9-5 corporate job. I manage my corporate work tasks separately and will continue to do so. We have a 6 year old son and are contemplating giving him a sibling. :shock: We used to use Franklin planners (going way back) and now use Pocket PCs and Outlook to manage our schedules. We have an Access database for all of our wedding clients (125+ each year) and we upload wedding gigs into Outlook and sync often so we always know each other’s schedule. That part works really well but I can’t say the same for our task management process (or lack of). We have dozens (100+?) tasks to be completed (some short term, some long term) and in most cases the task can be done by either my husband or myself. We tried using “Tasks” in Outlook (and on the Pocket PCs) but it just didn’t work for us. I’m reading about “NA”s in the GTD book and what I’m wondering is… how do you coordinate NAs between 2 people? I’d like to take advantage of the fact that we can sync data between the Pocket PC and Outlook, but both of us prefer to write our tasks… which means that we are forever comparing (and re-writing) NA lists which feels like a huge waste of time. I think we could manage our own NA list fairly well but we’re not sure how to manage the NAs that we share.
Maybe this is addressed later in the book…so I’ll keep reading. Just wondering if any of you have any gems of wisdom for me.
Thanks so much!!