Physical vs Digital and/or both in terms of your system?

[ivanjay205]

Hi everyone! I use OmniFocus today and have been loyal to GTD for quite some time. I am 100% digital and I like that for many reasons! However, I am re-reading 7 habits of highly successful people and picking up some tidbits of information plus doing my own "soul searching" with the New Year to improve my productivity.

I have experimented with paper planners.... During the work week I love them, I prefer not having technology in meetings for focus reasons. I enjoy having my calendar, and tasks, and notes in my face to keep me centered on my obligations for the day. I find that in my digital world I get sucked into what I am doing and lose sight of a meeting I have because my calendar is not in view, etc. Omnifocus does not show my calendar items so with my calendar out of sight out of mind I have to bounce around to know what is on my agenda for the day. However, at night and on weekends I really want to stay digital. I am realistic, and I am not carrying around a planner. I need to record and capture things all the time. I also do not enjoy re-writing in a planner constantly.

I have used the full focus planner in the past and like it as it adopts a lot of GTD systems but not entirely.

I am curious if anyone uses a hybrid approach or physical planner for GTD and how they feel about it? I cannot imagine maintaining my lists and projects in a physical planner as I have lots and lots and lots in my role! However, I could see maybe keeping my bigger system digital and taking a one week chunk and allocating work into my physical planner each week. But I guess that goes a bit against GTD constructs.

Any thoughts on how you do it?

 

[Gardener]

My only GTD-related use of paper is for capture/brainstorming--writing by hand seems to help me generate thoughts. (Usually in a spiral-bound Rhodia notebook with detachable pages.) Later, I'll add some of the thoughts to my GTD system, to writing projects, etc. Sometimes I'll work from one of the paper lists, if it's related to a very short-term project. Eventually I tear out and trash the pages.

 

[bishblaize]

My GTD system is entirely digital these days, including note-taking. I do occasionally experiment with certain paper based elements in my system, but I struggle when the volume of work amps up.

However, I still write a paper journal, which I use to reflect on various things going on in my life, and that can sometimes generate Projects, or could be seen as a being part of my review of higher horizons.

 

[michaelriegert]

Hey there,

cool topic - maybe I can share my perspective:

I am transforming from 100% digital to an hybrid but anlog-focused system at this very moment - to understand GTD in a very deep level.

@John Forrister hostet an interesting webinar on that topic that really inspired me (https://gtdconnect.com/video.php?titleid=1225&trackid=1875) and the recorded webinars especially with @anamaria and John as a Team and their perspectives - helped me to get to that decision...it somehow clicked for me. I knew that I had to go analog. Maybe not forever, but certainly until I am sure that I understand it.

I might post some stuff of my journey, because It was somehow frightening but really delightful to rework everything.

My personal opinion: after all it's just words and letters on paper or in a digital format. The real value lies in what GTD can provide for you.

(My first post in this forum...hope I didn't screw it up)

Cheers, Michael

 

[mcogilvie]

I haven’t used a paper planner since I discovered GTD, but used a Franklin planner before that. It did not work well for me because the models on which it was based were flawed. As digital technology has improved, my use of paper has become very limited in all aspects of my life.

 

[ivanjay205]

Yea sounds like I am chasing something that doesnt work well. I have tried paper and already return back to digital. It is hard to combat the fact that the entire system is structured in my iPhone with me at all times.

 

[dtj]

It's all about perspective, with only a slight GTD pun intended. With digital vs analog, I view it as "Strategic" vs "Tactical". OmniFocus is my strategic reservoir for Getting Shit Done. I use paper for "Tactical" actions. This week, today, or this errands trip gets a piece of paper that gets stuff crossed off and eventually thrown away, after possibly getting ticked off in the digital system. That allows for focus, in that I have exactly like the 12 things in front of me, rather than the 2000+ entries in OF. I like the tactile feel of paper, crossing stuff off with wide black markers, and eventually throwing away the paper. It smells like... victory... or progress...

 

[ivanjay205]

It's all about perspective, with only a slight GTD pun intended. With digital vs analog, I view it as "Strategic" vs "Tactical". OmniFocus is my strategic reservoir for Getting Shit Done. I use paper for "Tactical" actions. This week, today, or this errands trip gets a piece of paper that gets stuff crossed off and eventually thrown away, after possibly getting ticked off in the digital system. That allows for focus, in that I have exactly like the 12 things in front of me, rather than the 2000+ entries in OF. I like the tactile feel of paper, crossing stuff off with wide black markers, and eventually throwing away the paper. It smells like... victory... or progress...

lol well said and I can understand this. Any particular planner you use? I think the biggest thing for me is the focus that the planner gives you vs the huge view that OF gives you. I think there is something interesting about during a weekly review looking at next week and setting a few major objectives vs taking the entire catalogue of things available to do.

Plus as someone that travels and has a lot of meetings I would like an overview of my calendar over next 6 months let's say where I know Mon, Tues Office in NY, Wed-Fri Chicago for example. That gives me good overview to know not to travel early the following week and give myself a buffer.

on the flip-side in my daily notebook the place to have my daily meetings written out so I am laser focused on when they are and with whom

 

[dtj]

No planner, just index cards or I have a simple printed out half sheet for my weekly sched. I actually have two sizes of index cards, one of "daily" and one for errands. I also use the index cards for things like holiday goals (ie. "read one book, empty shredder, UX class").

 

[Matt_M]

Great question! I recall reading/hearing that for complete beginners the recommendation for starting out a GTD system was to use a paper based approach. I do not know if that is still the official recommendation or even a common recommendation from the overall GTD community at large. I believe the primary reason was to keep things simple and less "play with the new shiny tool". However, I think the same effect can achieved through a digital medium by just having folks use common programs they are already familiar with: a text editor, word processor, spreadsheet maker, or their email application suite (e.g. Outlook or G-Suite).

I also recall hearing David discus the pro's and con's of a paper based system versus a digital one as well as a story about how we would do his weekly reviews with his paper based planner on a plane for example. I'd love to see some of David's first paper based implementations of his GTD system(s) (providing he still has any of them in storage somewhere).

Personally, I have never tried implementing a paper based GTD system (nor would I recommend doing so) for a few reasons, even when I first looked into GTD:

• Everything is done digitally (shopping, banking, communicating, entertainment, working, writing, etc.). Companies even prefer to not use paper based solutions for both employees and customers.
• Writing is very much slower than typing (incl. readability issues, editing/copy+paste, needing to find a working pen/clean paper, not lose track of/damage the papers, etc.).
• Paper based systems cannot have referential capabilities (incl. self-reference and just referring to or linking to other resources like emails, websites, files, chats, applications, etc.).
• Paper based systems are not very sort, group, filter, etc. friendly (i.e. lots of re-writing would be required).
• Paper based systems are not mobile friendly (lugging around a folder/planner is frustrating at best) or resilient (i.e. hard to have multiple backups/see history of changes).
• Paper based anything is very bad for the environment.

As my first reason points out, everything is digital today and paper is just a relic of bygone era. Even for brainstorming and note taking, it's being phased out in favor tablets and the extensive doodling/drawing support they have (incl. OCR), being able to type/take pictures of physical media on them, markup formalized materials (i.e. PDF's, images, etc.), etc. It is very hard to justify paper anymore especially when the world is digital.

Paper will be what horses and carriages are to automobiles and transportation: ceremonial and largely symbolic of the last century.

Those are my thoughts at least, for some folks, paper may be the ideal solution.

 

[ivanjay205]

Great question! I recall reading/hearing that for complete beginners the recommendation for starting out a GTD system was to use a paper based approach. I do not know if that is still the official recommendation or even a common recommendation from the overall GTD community at large. I believe the primary reason was to keep things simple and less "play with the new shiny tool". However, I think the same effect can achieved through a digital medium by just having folks use common programs they are already familiar with: a text editor, word process, spreadsheet maker, or their email application suite (e.g. Outlook or G-Suite).

I also recall hearing David discus the pro's and con's of a paper based system versus a digital one as well as a story about how we would do his weekly reviews with his paper based planner on a plane for example. I'd love to see some of David's first paper based implementations of his GTD system(s) (providing he still has any of them in storage somewhere).

Personally, I have never tried implementing a paper based GTD system (nor would I recommend doing so) for a few reasons, even when I first looked into GTD:

• Everything is done digitally (shopping, banking, communicating, entertainment, working, writing, etc.). Companies even prefer to not use paper based solutions for both employees and customers.
• Writing is very much slower than typing (incl. readability issues, editing/copy+paste, needing to find a working pen/clean paper, not lose track of/damage the papers, etc.).
• Paper based systems cannot have referential capabilities (incl. self-reference and just referring to or linking to other resources like emails, websites, files, chats, applications, etc.).
• Paper based systems are not very sort, group, filter, etc. friendly (i.e. lots of re-writing would be required).
• Paper based systems are not mobile friendly (lugging around a folder/planner is frustrating at best) or resilient (i.e. hard to have multiple backups/see history of changes).
• Paper based anything is very bad for the environment.

As my first reason points out, everything is digital today and paper is just a relic of bygone era. Even for brainstorming and note taking, it's being phased out in favor tablets and the extensive doodling/drawing support they have (incl. OCR), being able to type/take pictures of physical media on them, markup formalized materials (i.e. PDF's, images, etc.), etc. It is very hard to justify paper anymore especially when the world is digital.

Paper will be what horses and carriages are to automobiles and transportation: ceremonial and largely symbolic of the last century.

Those are my thoughts at least, for some folks, paper may be the ideal solution.

Yea this is kind of what I am landing on. Even today I was in the store before work thinking about buying a planner so I can implement it during my weekly review. My first inclination is why am I doing this? I need to rewrite what I already have planned for in here and why? I think I am going to resist this a bit more. But I do struggle a bit not seeing my hard landscape inside of my Todo. To me those are not mutually exclusive.

 

[schmeggahead]

My first inclination is why am I doing this? I need to rewrite what I already have planned for in here and why?

I write a lot. Most of it goes into the shredder eventually, when I pull out the pieces that will help me complete something. I put key items where they go and sometimes, I'll just totally rewrite a project control sheet because it isn't helpful the way it is now. I put them in the shredder to see if I have any hesitation about keeping any part of the sheet.

My goal with most of the things I write down is to get it into my system and throw that piece of paper away, kind of like notes from webinars after I've incorporated key points into my PKM and GTD system documentation.

I liken components of my GTD system to software that needs to be repeatedly refactored; This is because what I'm doing with it now requires change because I know more about the problem & the practice than I did when I wrote it originally. I certainly can better see my world with my GTD system than I did even last year.

Clayton

To breakthrough to a new level, a beginner's mind needs to be cultivated because it is a key way to stop seeing only what you already know.

 

[Matt_M]

Yea this is kind of what I am landing on. Even today I was in the store before work thinking about buying a planner so I can implement it during my weekly review. My first inclination is why am I doing this? I need to rewrite what I already have planned for in here and why? I think I am going to resist this a bit more. But I do struggle a bit not seeing my hard landscape inside of my Todo. To me those are not mutually exclusive.

I think that is a great idea in many respects: asking yourself "Why am I doing this?", "What problem am I solving?", "What does doing/using X accomplish for me?", etc. I find those questions often stop me from going down rabbit holes or "yak shaving"/"gold plating" things. Often times, it is an indicator that I am solving a non-problem.

For your case, to me, it seems like if you're struggling seeing your hard landscape then perhaps you're organizing things incorrectly. If something is date and/or time sensitive then it should reside on your calendar. You should also, depending on your software of choice, have a filter or smart search that shows you any items with a date and/or time equal to that of today or earlier (i.e. Item Date <= Today). If you are putting items in your lists that should be on your calendar then you will certainly have that nagging feeling that "My calendar is not really correct and true". Same vice-verse as your calendar will start to have a lot of "It would be nice if I could get to X today" items on it, which invariably you never actually can get to doing that day for whatever reasons.

In essence, the places you're parking your reminders of your commitments may be slightly incorrect.

I hope that helps! Best of luck

 

[dtj]

I think that is a great idea in many respects: asking yourself "Why am I doing this?", "What problem am I solving?", "What does doing/using X accomplish for me?", etc. I find those questions often stop me from going down rabbit holes or "yak shaving"/"gold plating" things. Often times, it is an indicator that I am solving a non-problem.

For your case, to me, it seems like if you're struggling seeing your hard landscape then perhaps you're organizing things incorrectly. If something is date and/or time sensitive then it should reside on your calendar. You should also, depending on your software of choice, have a filter or smart search that shows you any items with a date and/or time equal to that of today or earlier (i.e. Item Date <= Today). If you are putting items in your lists that should be on your calendar then you will certainly have that nagging feeling that "My calendar is not really correct and true". Same vice-verse as your calendar will start to have a lot of "It would be nice if I could get to X today" items on it, which invariably you never actually can get to doing that day for whatever reasons.

In essence, the places you're parking your reminders of your commitments may be slightly incorrect.

I hope that helps! Best of luck

Also, it’s easy to setup byzantine structures that represent the organic growth of your system. It’s easy to add something in the “fixes” a problem that arises. It then becomes a foundational brick of your organizational system, however ill suited or cock-eyed it may be. Sometimes its good to challenge the foundation piece from time to time. Like “can I do without this?” And give it a whirl. For instance, I got rid of many of the recurring tasks (ie. “Pay property taxes”) from my calendar and put it into OmniFocus, in order that it be carried forward as a task rather than calendar event. Definitely didn’t get rid of my calendar, but it just seemed better suited for my system.

 

[ivanjay205]

I think that is a great idea in many respects: asking yourself "Why am I doing this?", "What problem am I solving?", "What does doing/using X accomplish for me?", etc. I find those questions often stop me from going down rabbit holes or "yak shaving"/"gold plating" things. Often times, it is an indicator that I am solving a non-problem.

For your case, to me, it seems like if you're struggling seeing your hard landscape then perhaps you're organizing things incorrectly. If something is date and/or time sensitive then it should reside on your calendar. You should also, depending on your software of choice, have a filter or smart search that shows you any items with a date and/or time equal to that of today or earlier (i.e. Item Date <= Today). If you are putting items in your lists that should be on your calendar then you will certainly have that nagging feeling that "My calendar is not really correct and true". Same vice-verse as your calendar will start to have a lot of "It would be nice if I could get to X today" items on it, which invariably you never actually can get to doing that day for whatever reasons.

In essence, the places you're parking your reminders of your commitments may be slightly incorrect.

I hope that helps! Best of luck

Hi Matt,

thanks for the feedback. After lots of reflection on it the real issue is not a mix up of hard landscape due dates vs my task due dates. I am very diligent about not using due dates excessively in my task manager. It is more because they are two separate tools I get really deep into engage mode (in OmniFocus) and find myself almost forgetting to be mindful of my hard landscape calendar. So if I have a meeting at 2 PM for example and I am starting to work at 1:15 I might all of a sudden at 1:50 go oh no I have a meeting in 10 minutes and need to wrap this up. but perhaps just being better about using reminders in outlook for that purpose.

 

[Matt_M]

Hi Matt,

thanks for the feedback. After lots of reflection on it the real issue is not a mix up of hard landscape due dates vs my task due dates. I am very diligent about not using due dates excessively in my task manager. It is more because they are two separate tools I get really deep into engage mode (in OmniFocus) and find myself almost forgetting to be mindful of my hard landscape calendar. So if I have a meeting at 2 PM for example and I am starting to work at 1:15 I might all of a sudden at 1:50 go oh no I have a meeting in 10 minutes and need to wrap this up. but perhaps just being better about using reminders in outlook for that purpose.

Ah, that makes a bit more sense now. I think you're on the right track by relying more on Outlook's reminders to ensure you're not starting anything that may be interrupted by a meeting. Personally, I usually set my reminder time for all of my meetings to one hour before the meeting start time. I have found this to work very well for me over the years.

Other ideas, depending on your situation, could be to limit access to your calendar by others. This can be helpful to prevent people putting anything on it that may be unexpected or unwanted. You might even want to have a working agreement with the folks that do commonly put appointments on your calendar that they do not put anything on your calendar for the current day and very next business day (i.e. a rolling 36 hour appointment freeze). This way you can be much more relaxed when you look at your calendar and see what blocks of free time you do have, knowing that they really are free. Obviously, if there is an exceptional circumstance then folks should directly contact you to address the need for immediate availability.

Another good idea that I learned from a former colleague is to put large swaths of time as blocked off "busy" time so that nobody schedules anything during those times. This solved a few issues: people ignoring that prior working agreement, not having large uninterrupted blocks of times for more intense work, and not having a work-life balance. Meeting fatigue is a huge problem for many professionals who can often have a lot of their time "stolen" from them unintentionally with too many meetings.

A personal habit of mine is to check my calendar (for next 2 days) at night (usually around dinner time or mid evening) to see what my schedule looks like so I know if I need to go to bed a bit earlier or a bit later. It also just mentally prepares me for some of the conversations and so forth for the next day. I then check my calendar again in the morning shortly after 9:00 AM to see if there have been any last minute changes or issues that may need me to shift things around. I then do a final check just before lunch to see if there have been any changes or cancellations for any afternoon meetings I have.

I also take regular 5 ~ 10 minute breaks every hour or hour and a half to get a bit of light walking exercise, a cup of coffee, relax my brain/hands, bio-break, etc. It certainly helps avoid cases where time just slips away (for good or bad) and keeps me more refreshed throughout the day.

 

[ivanjay205]

Ah, that makes a bit more sense now. I think you're on the right track by relying more on Outlook's reminders to ensure you're not starting anything that may be interrupted by a meeting. Personally, I usually set my reminder time for all of my meetings to one hour before the meeting start time. I have found this to work very well for me over the years.

Other ideas, depending on your situation, could be to limit access to your calendar by others. This can be helpful to prevent people putting anything on it that may be unexpected or unwanted. You might even want to have a working agreement with the folks that do commonly put appointments on your calendar that they do not put anything on your calendar for the current day and very next business day (i.e. a rolling 36 hour appointment freeze). This way you can be much more relaxed when you look at your calendar and see what blocks of free time you do have, knowing that they really are free. Obviously, if there is an exceptional circumstance then folks should directly contact you to address the need for immediate availability.

Another good idea that I learned from a former colleague is to put large swaths of time as blocked off "busy" time so that nobody schedules anything during those times. This solved a few issues: people ignoring that prior working agreement, not having large uninterrupted blocks of times for more intense work, and not having a work-life balance. Meeting fatigue is a huge problem for many professionals who can often have a lot of their time "stolen" from them unintentionally with too many meetings.

A personal habit of mine is to check my calendar (for next 2 days) at night (usually around dinner time or mid evening) to see what my schedule looks like so I know if I need to go to bed a bit earlier or a bit later. It also just mentally prepares me for some of the conversations and so forth for the next day. I then check my calendar again in the morning shortly after 9:00 AM to see if there have been any last minute changes or issues that may need me to shift things around. I then do a final check just before lunch to see if there have been any changes or cancellations for any afternoon meetings I have.

I also take regular 5 ~ 10 minute breaks every hour or hour and a half to get a bit of light walking exercise, a cup of coffee, relax my brain/hands, bio-break, etc. It certainly helps avoid cases where time just slips away (for good or bad) and keeps me more refreshed throughout the day.

The good news is I already do a lot of these!

Part of my weekday shutdown routine is to look at tomorrows calendar but I do often forget the details the next morning. I of course do check it again. I also block off 2 hours every morning for focus time which has worked out great. That is a new addition in the last 2 months for me. About a year ago I implemented a no same day meeting policy unless "the building is burning down." In the beginning my team thought I was nuts until I got religious about the reject button. So now they are well trained.

I think it is just more me tweaking with reminders and being a bit more aware.

 

[dtj]

In the beginning my team thought I was nuts until I got religious about the reject button. So now they are well trained.

You teach people how to treat you, and they don't always like the terms.

 

[ivanjay205]

You teach people how to treat you, and they don't always like the terms.

Very true but now I work hard on establishing this as an organizational culture across the board. Moderate success and those that buy in see big improvements