I have a dialema. I've just finished my first weekly review. I feel pretty good and its true what they say about feeling so energetic afterwards. So whats the dialema?
I've found that I've been creating and tracking projects in two places. I kinda new I was doing it but I did it so that after the weekly review I could make an informed descision about which one was better. Thing is...I still dont know. I do know that I really need to track in one place but I can't decide which. I either have the PDA in my hand or am sitting at my laptop, so whichever one I choose it needs to be digital.
I'm using Outlook 2007 along with the GTD add-in and must say I like it. I like its framework which it keeps you within when dealing with things. It keeps me doing it the GTD way rather than making up my own and running the risk that I'll get lost down another seemingly brighter more interesting road of gadgets and tools.
The other tool I use is OneNote 2007 and after reading the posts and the blogs about this I like it even more. It uses the concept of Notebooks, Folders and paper within those folders which I seem to connect with.
I've created Notebooks for Projects, Contexts, Reference, Areas of Focus, Checklists and there's an IN. Each of my projects and contexts have their own folder, much like I'd set up with a paper system. My PDA has OneNote Mobile installed on it and although its not great it at least syncs with OneNote and gets it into the OneNote IN.
OneNote allows you to tag items very quickly. So I go through each project and tag an item as the Next Action. I do this for all my projects. Then with the click of a button OneNote goes through all of my projects and puts together a nice little list of next actions. I can then decide what contexts are associated with each. Next I need to decide when to do these NA's and that's when I switch back to Outlook.
As for Outlook well there are all my Actions, Projects and Waiting For's from email and RSS feeds I receive and obviously there's another IN. As I'm only applying GTD to the personal aspect of my life currently, there's not much coming through into IN within Outlook. The biggest contributors into my IN's are really inputs from my personal life and my brain which incidently doesn't seem to be slowing down with having ideas.
I guess what I'm asking for is a little help from some people that have tried both. This is beginning to niggle me a lot and I want to deal with this now rather than struggling through.
What I'd like to know is, for those people using PDA's as your collection tool, how are you sync'ing them into your system? How are you sync'ing them directly with Outlook? What is the process from jotting down the note/task to getting it into Outlook, defined as a project and then to identifying the NA's associated with this and scheduling these in?
I'd also like to know if people chose OneNote over Outlook+GTD Add-in and if so why? The same for those that chose Outlook over Onenote.
Grateful for any light and advice you can give.
Thanks
Jas
I've found that I've been creating and tracking projects in two places. I kinda new I was doing it but I did it so that after the weekly review I could make an informed descision about which one was better. Thing is...I still dont know. I do know that I really need to track in one place but I can't decide which. I either have the PDA in my hand or am sitting at my laptop, so whichever one I choose it needs to be digital.
I'm using Outlook 2007 along with the GTD add-in and must say I like it. I like its framework which it keeps you within when dealing with things. It keeps me doing it the GTD way rather than making up my own and running the risk that I'll get lost down another seemingly brighter more interesting road of gadgets and tools.
The other tool I use is OneNote 2007 and after reading the posts and the blogs about this I like it even more. It uses the concept of Notebooks, Folders and paper within those folders which I seem to connect with.
I've created Notebooks for Projects, Contexts, Reference, Areas of Focus, Checklists and there's an IN. Each of my projects and contexts have their own folder, much like I'd set up with a paper system. My PDA has OneNote Mobile installed on it and although its not great it at least syncs with OneNote and gets it into the OneNote IN.
OneNote allows you to tag items very quickly. So I go through each project and tag an item as the Next Action. I do this for all my projects. Then with the click of a button OneNote goes through all of my projects and puts together a nice little list of next actions. I can then decide what contexts are associated with each. Next I need to decide when to do these NA's and that's when I switch back to Outlook.
As for Outlook well there are all my Actions, Projects and Waiting For's from email and RSS feeds I receive and obviously there's another IN. As I'm only applying GTD to the personal aspect of my life currently, there's not much coming through into IN within Outlook. The biggest contributors into my IN's are really inputs from my personal life and my brain which incidently doesn't seem to be slowing down with having ideas.
I guess what I'm asking for is a little help from some people that have tried both. This is beginning to niggle me a lot and I want to deal with this now rather than struggling through.
What I'd like to know is, for those people using PDA's as your collection tool, how are you sync'ing them into your system? How are you sync'ing them directly with Outlook? What is the process from jotting down the note/task to getting it into Outlook, defined as a project and then to identifying the NA's associated with this and scheduling these in?
I'd also like to know if people chose OneNote over Outlook+GTD Add-in and if so why? The same for those that chose Outlook over Onenote.
Grateful for any light and advice you can give.
Thanks
Jas