Just read a great article over at the Cranking Widgets Blog that provides a Roadmap for GTD Failure.
The post is not too long and a great read for anybody involved in Getting Things Done.
Read the post, and then see how many of these items on the list you are guilty of!
Be sure to check out and sign up for WebWithout.com.
WebWithout is a new free service that has just gone beta that provides safe Internet browsing. I have kids and I have configured this on their computers so that I can assured that what they are searching for in Google, is verified and filtered to take the nasties out. There is nothing to set up apart from making a change to your DNS servers which can be done manually or their is a Windows application that does it for you.
I am also using this on my desktop right now and find it a great way to reduce the distractions so I can focus on getting things done.
WebWithout offers
Since this is free, seems a no brainer really so go ahead and give it a go.
I have just enabled iPhone support on the Did I Get Things Done? blog.
So, for those of you fortunate to own an iPhone, you can now browse this blog in Safari on the phone and it is perfectly formed for your iPhone.
To do this, I enabled the iPhone Plugin from Content Robot.
Works a treat and even though the browser support in iPhone is awesome, this little plugin works a treat and really improves the user experience.
Found this rather good video on YouTube that is an interview with David Allen and a great intro to GTD. Ever been asked what GTD is? Show them this video and all will be explained!
Well, Summer is over, even though the weather here in the UK is actually much better than the shocking Summer we had. The UK summer was the wettest Summer on record. With floods and an endless supply of rain. At least we avoided the usual Summer hosepipe ban!
I have been rather lacking in my posts. This is due to me being away on holiday twice, and also busy launching and settling into my new business and new premises for the business.
I am back now and the regular updating of this site will resume.
A little bit about my summer first. Spent two weeks in an absolutely fantastic place called Union Lido, in Northern Italy.
This is one of the best camping villages in the whole of Europe. Spend two great weeks enjoying the sunshine and the local food and drink. Next is was off to Chapel Stile in the English Lake District for a week. Enjoyed lot’s of walking and the weather was fantastic for the English Lakes.
So, over three weeks of the six spent away from my usual GTD system! How did I cope!
Summer Holidays are a great time for me to take time out of my usual busy schedule, and to relax. I always find that I have some great inspirational thoughts whilst I am on holiday. I think the absence of technology puts me in a position where my thoughts flow freely. Often, I will have ideas, and thoughts of actions that I need to do. Now, being GTD’ers, we know the importance of collecting these ideas in our trusted system so that we do not suffer the “now what was that I thought of?” syndrome. As this is the longest I have been away from my GTD system since I started with GTD, I was curious to see how I would fair. I must admit that I was tempted to take my laptop. I have a 17″ MacBook Pro and although it is a powerhouse, it is not the most portable of devices and the thought of taking it to the campsite, full of sand did not really appeal. So, I decided upon a more manual method.
Well, the trusty Moleskine came to the rescue. I decided that I would utilize my pocket ruled Moleskine to collect the tasks which I thought of and ideas I had whilst away. I know this is just a notebook, but I have found the constant carrying of this little notebook a revelation since I begrudgingly started carrying it around 4 months ago. I am never far from a Moleskine. The pocket book goes with me when I can and the Moleskine Cahier when I cannot fit the pocket notebook into what I am wearing.
I kept the Moleskine and assortment of pens handy. Whenever a thought popped into my head, it went straight into the Moleskine, in my newly created “Ideas and Thoughts” section. The art of taking notes is not new, however, when lying in the sun, relaxing, it does take willpower to prise yourself off the sunbed and into your room to record the note in the notebook. At the end of the day, GTD is about Getting Things Done, and we all have our own systems. I have found in this instance that it is more the implementation of the system that matters, rather than the system itself. I could have had any method of collecting my thoughts, but unless I stuck to them, they are pointless. This is pretty much true of life. You have to, as Nike would say, “Just Do It”. Too many times we don’t, and we forget or procrastinate.
Anyway, work is calling, till next time…..
Just read a great little post over at Lifehacker. I am a real fan of Quicksilver on my Mac and use it every day. Since the iGTD integration with Quicksilver it has become one of my most frequently used tools on my Mac.
The mouse is just so slow in comparison to using Quicksilver for application launching as well as adding next actions to my iGTD set up.
Anyway, the original post is over at LifeClever so be sure to check it out but I will provide a snapshot of what it is about.
The post is about de-cluttering your desktop to just use 5 folders that all your desktop “stuff” is placed into. You prefix these folder names with a number. You can then use Quicksilver to quickly access your five folders by simply pressing the number of the folder and it automatically opens, no matter where you are on your Mac.
Read the full post and I am sure you will agree it is pretty neat.
Just found a great article via 43Folders.com that covers David Allen and the Getting Things Done methodology.
I have ready many articles about GTD but this one is one of the best. If you need to explain GTD to somebody, or want to instill your GTD methodology onto somebody then I recommend sending them the link to this article in order to get them to understand what GTD is all about.
The article covers some history about David Allen and where he got the inspiration from in order to start the GTD system. I have been studying GTD for quite a few months, and I have read a lot of GTD articles and I learned a lot from reading this one.
David Allen sits in his small office in a cottage behind his house in Ojai, Calif., talking business with a visitor. Suddenly he stops. “That reminds me,” he says. He scribbles the words “bird feed” on a piece of blank notebook paper and tosses it into his inbox.
It’s an ordinary moment in an ordinary day. But for Allen and his legion of followers, it holds the key to salvation. He has emptied his mind of a nagging task, placed it into a trusted system for processing, and casually returned to his conversation. That’s GTD, short for “Getting Things Done,” the prosaic title of his best-selling book.
So, read the article and also use this to pass onto people to show them what the GTD process is all about!
After a six months wait, the Apple iPhone is now available. The iPhone has probably had one of the biggest launches from a PR perspective of any consumer device.
Being in the UK, we have not yet been able to see the iPhone in person as we have to wait until the end of this year for the UK launch. Not a bad thing I guess as hopefully a couple of software problems that may get identified will be ironed out. The big issue so far seems to be the lack of multiple email deletion. This is a problem when you use a POP3 email account and receive lots of Spam. I currently use a Blackberry Pearl and this also causes me a problem.
Anyway, with such a powerful machine acting as a phone, combined with a real slick user interface I am guessing that it is only a matter of time before some GTD application is launched specifically for the iPhone.
Apple have initially locked down the OS on the iPhone so that developers cannot develop third party applications that install to the iPhone. Now this was not what the development community were wanting to hear but it does probably make sense as it does not open the iPhone up to problems with Viruses and other forms of Malware that such a prolific release as this is bound to attract.
If you do not know, I am a real advocate of Mind Mapping. I map everything, and I mean everything!
I also run a Mind Mapping blog, MindCert.com, aimed at Computer Certifications such as the CISSP, CEH, and Cisco Certifications.
I have previously posted about MindMeister, a rather cool Web2.0 Mind Mapping application that is free. Well MindMeister has been out of Private Beta for a while now and I have to say that I am extremely impressed with it.
On my Mac, I favor MindManager from MindJet. I am still on version 6 but will upgrade to version 7 as soon as I get the promised upgrade voucher for beta testing version 7.
I have recently started another business venture, that is a service that performs online vulnerability assessment and management, called RandomStorm. This has been a pretty large project to plan and build and has taken a lot of my time over the past few weeks. One issue that I had with this is the way to share ideas and thoughts between my staff. We have several staff, from sales and account managers to a team of developers. I needed a way to get my ideas across and track the tasks of all my team working on various development tasks. My team are remote and not located in a single office so we had to put technology to the best use. I did look at quite a few online tools such as basecamp and backpack but I really do prefer the simplicity of Mind Mapping and found MindMeister to be the number one choice.
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I know this has been written about a lot in the GTD community, and kind of the reason why I had to buy one. Well, I recently bought my first Moleskine!
So, for those who do not know, a Moleskine is a notebook. An Italian notebook to be precise that was used by the likes of Hemmingway, Picasso, and Van Gogh. Kind of a good creed you could say.
I think I had become allergic to paper. My handwriting sure has deteriorated and I would avoid writing at all costs. Now I find myself carrying one of my little black notebooks with me wherever I go.
I started off carrying paper when I got into the GTD Methodology around six months ago. I loved the concept of the Hipster PDA and as soon as I saw PagePacker on the Mac, it was an instant hit with me. I always had a PagePacker hPDA in my back pocket wherever I went. Having access to note paper at all times is really empowering. We all have those light bulb moments where we remember something that must be done. I know we have all tried to remember these but implementing a tool like the hPDA with the GTD Methodology, especially the weekly reviews really has helped me capture more of my stuff into in, and it has reduced the number of Open Loops in my life. I get a satisfaction out of knowing that my thoughts are captured, into a system that I trust, that weekly makes its way onto one of my lists of next actions. All great stuff.
I was intrigued by the Moleskine. It is after all a little black book, so why do so many people make a fuss about them? It is easy to see once you buy one. I think if you are into Mac’s, and get the whole Mac thing, then the Moleskine works on you. It is elegant, simple, and oozes quality. At the end of the day, it is a notebook, but a very nice notebook at that. The quality of the paper is great, the ink just flows and it has got some admiring looks from the many meetings I now take it into.
I started with a pocket lined notebook, then I got the large lined notebook. Both of these are great and the sort of size you can fit in your jacket pocket. I found the Moleskine Cahiers and bought a pack of three. These are little Moleskine notebooks that fit into your back pocket. Not too expensive either and less pages so less of a risk if you happen to misplace one.
So, my advice to you all is to try one of these magic little books. I know that are not the cheapest little books, but get one and see if you like it. Personally, I enjoy having one and it makes me want to carry it with me wherever I go. All helps towards making out lives easier!