Entries Tagged 'GTD' ↓

I’ve just started reading Dave Allen’s Getting Things Done. It looks a great way to stay organised, however from the book I cannot see how to integrate email in with other tasks (eg if my todo list says “Reply to X” it would be good to link directly to that email).

Now, many people practicing GTD use Microsoft Outlook, a program I’ve never used (and because I have version 2000 and it’s Microsoft, don’t want to use). Thinking around the problem, I came up with the idea of shortcuts to individual emails - so I can drag an email onto my task list and it creates a link like @C:\path\to\emailclient.exe “”@ which when clicked opens that particular message.

I don’t know if this is the best approach of if there’s other tools available.

Like “punkey”:http://www.punkey.com/pivot/entry.php?id=1644, I have the idea that software cures all and I will test many different programs, twiddle and tweak the software until it suits me - which of course is a way to procrastinate instead of getting on with things I really need to do (Guess what: I didn’t realise that until I read his post)!

In the same way, I’ve been reading a few pages of the book and then surfing the net for ideas. As punkey so neatly puts it:

bq. Instead of _just doing things_ and getting it to work for myself, I surfed the net for tips and tricks. Of course that is not a bad thing, but it stopped me from really really implementing the system in my life and work. I kept seeing tips and thinking:”yeah I can do that, good idea!” and instead of implementing that idea, I made a note of it, dropped it and never looked back at it. Bad bad bad…

So first move, I’m cutting out reading as much as I can about GTD, surfing sites to find software that works, and concentrating on reading the book and doing the difficult bit (stopping procrastinating). To help me in this (findin a successful method to manage my tasks), what method have you found works best for GTD? Being a student and freelance web developer, personal and work life are mixed, and I’ll need to keep track of tasks while out at University. I’m thinking a paper solution while out, transferred to the computer when I get back, but I don’t know about email and other digital resources.

Update: There’s a post on “using Thunderbird for GTD”:http://entropicprincipal.blogspot.com/2005/09/using-thunderbird-to-get-things-done.html. Maybe I have to have two todo lists - one for email and one for everything else. That’s a pain for projects (where a client’s requests need dealing with along with project tasks I have identified)