Weekly Review Challenge (March 2015)

Barb said:
I have had the same setup for years now. Early this week, however, my OF database somehow became problematic and was "frozen" for over 35 hours. I got little help from Omni Support, which shocked me. They ended up pretty much telling me "oh well" and that their app is "problematic" with older Apple products. Umm...my iPad mini is 1-1/2 years old. Oh and they did tell me I could buy a Mac and then maybe they could help me further. So I am forced now to make a change...and not on my timetable. Hope you'll think about how you go forward with Omnifocus.
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Interesting. I have never had a problem but then again I do have a mac and archive data onto it all the time.

What was the problem?
 
WR #4

I got through my lists at least, which felt good. But I have a lot of backlog in my inbox that has not yet been processed. That's what being out of the office for a week will do. Too much to do, but none of it can be someday/maybe. On the plus side, I have a new staff member starting this week. So I will be able to delegate everything I took on when the position was vacant.... at least eventually. Lots of new projects, of course, around orientation and training etc. But definitely a great thing.

Personally, things are changing with the seasons. I'm not so seasonally dependant as someone like Oogie, but there are definitely projects that move off my active lists and new ones that come on. Open the cottage, plan cottage projects, bicycle maintenance, golf etc. I will try this weekend to get a good purge of my personal someday/maybe and see what needs to be added or moved around.

In my attempt to get through my overwhelming inboxes this morning, I tried using my tea-timer to mini-batch processing. So I flipped it and started going through my papers - looking up file numbers and project coordinators, delegating and writing instructions, setting aside work that I would have to do. After 5 minutes I got up and delivered the papers either to the inbox of the person responsible or to the files. After a few of these, my inbox was almost empty, but the nice thing was the papers were removed from my site as I went so I felt like I was making progress even though I wasn't done.

Then of course my day was ripped off its schedule as I had to respond to an article in the newspaper. That taken care of, back to the grind. I am going to try to get a few high priority tasks complete and get through my inbox by the end of the day.
 
Barb said:
Heather, my issue isn't related to the size of the database. Support pretty much just shrugged and said "Oh well" and that they don't know and have a nice day. So I have moved to Evernote. There will be advantages too, like reference and system all in the same place. I'm sure there will be things I don't like too but I'll get over it. I am NOT one to change from system to system looking for Nirvana. :)
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Barb - wow! I'll keep a look out for the little gremlins then. Agree on not changing systems often - my reference is in OneNote.

Heather
 
WR # 4 for March (#12 for 2015)

Completed a thorough review today and was able to clear out a lot of actions and waiting for's that had occurred during the course of the week. I've been making some progress on my personal system as well as I've setup a work space rather than working on the couch :)

Now I will just finish a few more items today before leaving work with NOTHING pressing for the weekend! What a nice feeling for a change!
 
Oogiem said:
Interesting. I have never had a problem but then again I do have a mac and archive data onto it all the time.

What was the problem?
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Oogie, I could enter new items into the inbox but the app would freeze when I tried assigning it a context or project. Omni support referred to it as "lag", but 30+ hours frozen is worse than lag to me. And it happened on all 3 devices I tested it on: iPad mini, iPad 2 and iPhone. Troubleshooting or helping me further was of no interest to client support so I now walk away happily.
 
Barb said:
the app would freeze when I tried assigning it a context or project. Omni support referred to it as "lag", but 30+ hours frozen is worse than lag to me.
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Intersting. Based on what I saw on the twitter feed I suspect it was the Omni Server causing the problems. There were a lot of reported issues about that for a while last week. Surprised that support didn't know though, I kept getting messages about it from twitter. Symptoms were exactly as you describe.
 
Oogiem said:
Intersting. Based on what I saw on the twitter feed I suspect it was the Omni Server causing the problems. There were a lot of reported issues about that for a while last week. Surprised that support didn't know though, I kept getting messages about it from twitter. Symptoms were exactly as you describe.
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That is very interesting, Oogie. This is also not the first time I have had the problem--it's the 3rd. The other two times the issue resolved within minutes/hours.

All that being said, I enjoyed my Omnifocus system for a long time but failing that "trusted system" test makes it a no-go for me forever.
 
Weekly Review #4 for March

Blowing up your system and starting from scratch has its plus side, folks. My system is now in Evernote, I'm clean and current, and feeling much better. I would have preferred to pick my timing, but unlike so many others I really hate changing my system! There are a few things about Evernote I'm still not sure what I want to do with (tags, reminders) but so far so good!

I also got "emergency" telecoaching from Meg yesterday and have another session scheduled. I cannot say enough about how helpful telecoaching is--I'm so much calmer now and I have a plan!!

Meg also reminded me of Kelly's Evernote webinar in the archives--must.look.at.archives more often! Meg, if you're reading this---you just absolutely rock, woman!!!!!
 
WR #4 March (12 of 52)

WR done this past Saturday on a flight, just getting to post now. Have 702 next actions for 105 active projects for my personal system. When I get back mid-week, I'll need a few days to corral my work system, and see if I come up with any creative ideas on how to reduce its drag, or maybe come up with ideas on how to "fall in love" with Outlook tasks (lol). Have no clue how many work NAs are lurking in there - I've been scanning and doing a few little things here and there, but all in all I've done a good job of disconnecting these three weeks overseas on vaca :D:D:D !!!

Have a great week!
Heather
 
Barb said:
Weekly Review #4 for March

There are a few things about Evernote I'm still not sure what I want to do with (tags, reminders) but so far so good!
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Welcome to Evernote Barb! I've been using it for my personal GTD system for quite a while now and I love it. I've always got it with me on my iPad mini and I find it very easy to use. For what it's worth, I do not use reminders at all (I use my calendars) and I use very few tags. The only tags I use are for things I know I will want to keep and put in my Reference notebook. That way the reference does not become too large and unwieldy, but I think I only use about 5 tags in all.
 
WR#4 done

Dumped nearly everythign into Someday/maybe temporarily. We will be shearing sheep starting on Wednesday and I'll be flat out dealing with the shearing schedule until the 10th so the only things I left on my lists are my schoolwork and some sheep mineral and health care things that we also have to do this week.

All inboxes still overflowing. I can't process them fast enough.

Had some thoughts I'll go post on another thread about how different people deal with problems with their tools. May not get time to post but I also need toget it off my mind.
 
WR done yesterday, with focus on getting paper IN to zero (still not completely clear, but much better than it has been for the last 2 weeks!) I've been doing regular weekly reviews since about mid-Dec, and I was thinking this morning just how useful a process it has been to reflect each week on what is working and what isn't.

After about 90 days I find my system is really dragging again - my lists are repelling me - and this is about the time where I would typically throw it all out and start again in a new tool or on paper.

I've mentioned the 'sponge factor' before, and I think my compulsion for absorbing knowledge is under control for the moment. As I scan my project list I believe what is happening is that I'm not truly committed to all that is there - the 'must dos' and 'really want to dos' are happening, but the system is dragged down by the 'should dos' - and as a working mother of 2, I've got plenty of those! This week I plan to refresh my system by sitting down and honestly re-negotiating my commitments, moving the 'shoulds' to 'later', 'someday' or even DELETE if I dare... ;)
 
SiobhanBR said:
Welcome to Evernote Barb! I've been using it for my personal GTD system for quite a while now and I love it. I've always got it with me on my iPad mini and I find it very easy to use. For what it's worth, I do not use reminders at all (I use my calendars) and I use very few tags. The only tags I use are for things I know I will want to keep and put in my Reference notebook. That way the reference does not become too large and unwieldy, but I think I only use about 5 tags in all.
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Thanks, Siobhan! I started using reminders--don't like them. I've now created a "today" tag so I can pull up a list of things I want to get done today. I've never liked going through my lists multiple times a day so that's solved.

As for tags, I had a reference system kinda/sorta set up in Evernote--it was an unwieldy mess (mainly because of the tags). I have a project open now to fix that, but it's not a problem with the current system.

Would love any other tips you might have.
 
I ended up doing 3 weekly reviews in March - just didn't get back here to post about them.

Where is the drag in my system? - not always treating it like part of the hard landscape. I schedule the next review during the current review so I will continue that habit and decide to actually do the WR in the time allocated.

WR 8 & 9 March
I resisted doing this one and realised I had scheduled it into my diary and then didn't treat it as a proper appointment and did something else instead #GTDfail :) Took me 2 days to get through it all in bits and pieces.

WR15 March on plane - love doing a WR on the plane because there is NO way I can do any work (something I often find myself doing during a review - although I do like Meg's idea of noting the things I really want to do during the review & doing them immediately after - I'm much more efficient at my WR when I do this).

WR 22 March - with a friend
Really good to be away from my office using my laptop. Still noticed I did take a few actions. What is frustrating about being a Things user with Mac Mail is that the links from mail don't work on my laptop (because the emails are saved in folders 'on my mac'). So I can't always look back at something from the in box of Things to accurately process it if the email is not in the inbox (which of course it never is because I love the inbox zero feeling!)

On March 23 I was much more productive as a result of doing a good review the day before - I whizzed through my important tasks before heading out for a day with clients :)

On to April!
 
Congratulations to Oogie, a prodigious poster and the winner of the March Weekly Review Challenge. The prize is a signed copy of David's new 2015 revised version of Getting Things Done. I'll email you to get shipping details.
 
And the quarterly winner of the virtual workflow coaching is . . . Oogie! It was a close race, though, so everyone keep it up for the April-June quarter.
 
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