Tag Archives: gtd

Getting Away From it All – Mentally Declutter

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Bamburgh castleI have spent the past week on holiday with my family in Northumberland.

I lead a very busy life and there is nothing I enjoy more than taking my family away for a great holiday. What amazed me about this break was the simplicity of it and the fact that a lack of a fast Internet connection made me focus on other areas, for the better!

I am blessed with a great wife and four great children. They can all sometimes suffer with my busy schedule that often involves time way from home working away.

Northumberland is a county on the North East coast of the UK, just above Newcastle. Northumberland is one of the border counties between England and Scotland and because of this there is an amazing array of castles such as Bamburgh Castle (In the picture), Lindisfarne Castle, and my childhood favorite Warkworth Castle.

I spent many great holidays in Northumberland when I was a child. The beaches are great and it is a great place for a proper family holiday.

We have been to Northumberland for the past three years but we normally go in March when the weather is somewhat cooler. This year we decided to go last week in June and I am glad we did.

Taking time away from my busy schedule is quite hard as I do spend a lot of time online and involved in my business.

Time take out to ensure you have a mental declutter!

I did take my MacBook Air with me and of course my iPhone. I have a Vodafone 3G USB modem which got me a rather unusable connection speed of 20 Kbps. My iPhone was not much better but I could receive email so I could keep in touch with work to ensure I could catch up with and answer any issues that needed my attention.

With such bad connectivity I wondered how I was going to survive a week away from high speed Internet and my various daily tools such as Twitter!

My 42″ HD TV had been replaced with a 14″ portable with only terrestrial channels! No Nintendo, no PS3, no Blu-Ray, how was I going to manage?

The strange thing is that I found it extremely refreshing to be totally disconnected for a week. I took a couple of Moleskine notebooks with me and the down time made me think about different things that enabled me to plan a few projects I had been working on and come up with some great ideas that I may not have had in my usual jam packed day.

I managed to collect about 80 new tasks whilst offline. All of these were recorded in my Moleskine. I never make the time to think so having the opportunity to relax and think made me focus on getting things off my mind and onto paper, a great mental declutter!

My children are aged from 3 to 9. They had a fantastic time. We were a minutes walk from the beach and they were happy enjoying the simple things in life for the week. No mention was made of a Nintendo or Playstation and they were very happy taking it easy and playing on the beach and sand dunes.

I have now been back from my holiday for three days and I am already back into the thick of things but luckily the time spent away was very beneficial and I have updated OmniFocus with a lot of great new projects and tasks.

Only three weeks and then I am on my main holiday in Italy for two weeks!

Productivity, Motivation, and Personal Development Links – 5th July 2009

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I am now back from what has been a totally fantastic holiday with my family in Northumberland.

I was virtually disconnected for the whole week with only 2G on my iPhone and an unusable 20Kbps through my 3G modem on my MacBook Air. It was actually quite refreshing, especially for somebody like me is spends most of their time awake online in some form or another.

I will stop my thoughts here about my holiday as I really want to try to get these down in a blog post tomorrow if time permits.

I am writing this on my kitchen table as I still have to get my new home office sorted. I aim to get to Ikea at the start of this week to get my desk and chair sorted then I am hunting for a good filing cabinet.

Here are my collection of links for this week.

  • My first link for this week is a great blog post about GTD Hacks from Annie Anderson. In this post Annie presents a few hacks that she implements as part of her own system for getting things done. Great reading and I am happy these hacks are working for Annie and making her more productive.
  • My second link is a link to a post about coping with information overload from Mark Wilson. This is an adapted list from the 2005 issue of Management Today that Mark found after returning from a family holiday. A nice little list of pointers for getting through a work overload.
  • My third link is a link to a blog post titled Rely on Your Inner Strength from Raymond Blanc. This is more of a psychology link than a motivational link but it is a post that I enjoyed so I thought I would share it.
  • My fourth link is a link to a part one of a great series of tips about the Mac GTD Application, OmniFocus. These tips are aimed at the advanced user of OmniFocus and I have liked reading all of these as I would not class myself as a novice user. I will present links to the other parts in this series in future weeks or you can just work them out from the initial post.
  • My fifth and last link is a link to a blog authors top ten iPhone apps. I have not done one of these for a while and with the launch of the iPhone 3G S I thought I would as most of these apps are productivity related. I had never seen SugarSync and I am just checking that out now.

Wishing you all a very productive week ahead. I am looking forward to getting my head stuck back into work as I am working on some rather cool projects right now!

Productivity, Motivation, and Personal Development Links – 21st June 2009

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Today has been Fathers Day here in the UK and I have had a great day with my family. I awoke to my favorite breakfast, Smoked Haddock and Poached Eggs and the day has been great ever since.

I have had another busy week that I cannot believe is over already. This week I visited Wokingham in the UK to perform an onsite test for a client. This is the last test I have for a good few weeks as I have a lot of work to do in the office now to catch up.

Here are my collection of links for this week.

  • My first link for this week is a great blog post from the Happy Topics Blog about How to Learn a Little Every Day. I know that I always try to learn something new every day and the amount of information at our fingertips makes this more realistic than ever!
  • My second link is a link to a post titled The Art of Single tasking. This post looks at the common usage of multi tasking and how single tasking is a better process for productivity.
  • My third link is a link to a great post titled 10 Steps for Turning Gmail into a Productivity Center. I have posted quite a few links for GMail productivity and although I do not use it myself I know these are always well received.
  • My fourth link is a link to a post about How much does GTD cost?. Cost is always an issue and maybe more in today’s economic climate. This post looks at the cost of implementing GTD on a budget. For me this posts misses one key point and that is the money you save from being more productive. That should be more than even the most elaborate GTD implementation!
  • My fifth and last link is a link to Stripped GTD: 3 Habits That Make You More Productive. This posts provides a quick no-nonsense overview of three quick tips for improving your productivity.

Wishing you all a great and productive week!

iPhone 3.0 Update Improves GTD Productivity Applications

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The much publicized Apple iPhone 3.0 update was released around 1000 PDT yesterday.

I started my update as soon as I could and installed the latest version of the iPhone OS eagerly waiting to test out some of the new features. All very well and good.

Today, my two killer iPhone Apps, OmniFocus and Evernote both got upgraded to take advantage of the iPhone 3.0 features.

OmniFocus

OmniFocus version 1.5 for the iPhone has been released.

The main feature in this upgrade include integration of cut, copy, and paste features as well as utilizing the integrated maps.

OmniFocus iPhone

The full blog post for this latest version can be found at the OmniGroup Blog. The OmniFocus for iPhone product page is also worth checking out.

Evernote

Evernote version 3.0 for the iPhone brings some great new features all that are outlined at this Evernote Blog Post.

These improvements include better synchronization, no “Pending” Tab, Instant Groups, Advanced Searching, Way Better Audio, Landscape View and many bug fixes.

The great guys over at Evernote have made a nice little video of the latest features of 3.0.

This is a great time to own an iPhone if you are into productivity!

Thoughts, as usual are welcomed..

Productivity, Motivation, and Personal Development Links – 14th June 2009

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I am writing this post on Saturday as I am taking my wife away tomorrow for our wedding anniversary which is on Monday the 15th of June. We are staying in a nice hotel and spa to celebrate our 13 years of marriage!

I started to clear out my office and I am dedicating more time to it next week. I want to get it decorated in the next week so that I can start to plan the layout and get the new office furniture ordered. I am really looking forward to improving my home office.

Here are my collection of links for this week.

  • My first link for this week is a link to a post about How to implement GTD (Getting Things Done) on the Road. I am frequently on the road living out of a suitcase so this post provided some good ideas.
  • My second link is a link to a little post and video about how to Get More Organized with Evernote. I love Evernote and I am looking forward to getting my new scanner and going totally paperless using Evernote!
  • My third link is a link to a great post titled Three Quick Tips for Getting Ahead in Life. All three tips are simple but very thought provoking and I am sure that you, as I can take something from these three tips.
  • My fourth link is a link to a post about Making OmniFocus look good with themes. I have mentioned before that I love the functionality of OmniFocus but the visual appeal of Things and The Hit List do draw me to their apps. This post shows you how you can make OmniFocus look much better by applying themes.
  • My fifth and last link is a link to a post about GTD.NET, which is a Microsoft .NET GTD Application for Windows desktop clients as well as Windows Mobile Devices. Not one for me but looks great for Windows users. I will download it to one of my Windows VMs to check it out.

Wishing you all a great week!

Creating a Productive Home Office

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Messy Home OfficeI am happy to say that I am eventually upgrading my home office and this is something I am really looking forward to.

My current office layout is now nearly 8 years old and a lot has changed since then. Time for a change and time for me to start with a blank canvas and plan an ideal and productive home office.

My home office 9 foot x 7 foot, so a pretty good size for just me and all the techie gadgets I can fit into it!

I am trying to get quite a minimal layout within my office whilst building a great working environment. My current office is rather cluttered and does become a dumping ground for a lot of things.

So, the essentials I need as far as I can see are a chair, desk, filing cabinet, inbox trays, and some cabinet to hold my printer.

I am totally clearing my office and buying everything new. I am going to take down my wall units and get the office painted and new carpet.

I currently have a desk with two drawers down each side. One is a drawer and filing cabinet and the other is three drawers. The filing cabinet is bad as it is hard to get my files in and out due to the layout of the drawer and the fact that it does not fully open. I currently have quite a cheap fake leather chair. My printer is on the top of a nice Ikea wooden cupboard.

For my new office I want a big, curved desk to hold my MacBook Pro and 30″ Monitor. I have seen one in Ikea from the Galant range. I want to do away with pedestal drawers as I just seem to fill these with junk, as most drawers are in most offices.

I am looking for a nice premium but trendy chair. Not really started looking but one in Costco does take my eye although it is quite expensive at £250.

I currently do not have a great filing capability and I must have a good filing cabinet in my new office. I want at least two drawers with the ability to utilize my manila folders and A to Z system.

I do not implement the Tickler File so no need for the 43 folders!

I have a laser printer that I do use quite a lot when I need to print anything out. It is only a small footprint but I still need some cabinet to keep it in, ideally out of view.

I am also really fancying a scanner to go totally paperless. I currently have a HP OfficeJet All In One but this has a large footprint and takes an absolute age to scan from.

I therefore will purchase a Fujitsu ScanSnap. The models I am looking at are the S300M or the S510M. These are not cheap scanners but the ability to duplex scan as well as use the ability to load the document tray with up to 20 sheets makes these a very attractive proposition.

I love Evernote and the ability to scan from the ScanSnap scanners straight to Evernote looks amazing, and one of my main drivers for trying a totally paperless office.

If I implement a paperless office I am going to need a good shredder. I currently have a bin shredder but it is quite lightweight so I may look at the cost of updating to something more heavy duty as I plan to shred everything I can.

I will take photos and keep you all updated of my new workspace.

Also, the photo at the top of this post is NOT my current home office 🙂

I would love to hear any recommendations anybody has about building the ideal home office or the choice of equipment to place in the office to make it as productive as possible.

Productivity, Motivation, and Personal Development Links – 7th June 2009

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It has been my twins birthdays today. They are three. How time flies!

Had a good day at a toddler theme park in the UK. Got wet, as usual, but had a great time.

Here are my collection of links for this week.

  • My first link for this week is a link to a great SlideShare presentation on Time Management for Getting More Done with Getting Things Done. Intriguing title and well worth a look. I feel a post about SlideShare coming as some awesome resources are now on SlideShare.
  • My second link is a link to a list of 5 Great GTD Applications for Linux. It is probably fair to say that pure Linux users are in their minority but they do still exist. I know from this blog stats that I have many followers who are Linux based so this list of Linux GTD apps will be well received.
  • My third link is a link to a nice GTD intro post titled Going from Failing to Straight A’s with OmniFocus & GTD from Colin Wheeler. This is a nice post about how GTD helped one student vastly increase their grades.
  • My fourth link is a link to a great post from Web Worker Daily titled Not a GTD Disciple? Don’t Worry About It. Good post that covers general productivity.
  • My fifth and last link is a link to a post that raised quite a lot of interest when I tweeted about it. The post is Why GTD Sucks from Darkling Wood. Interesting post that I do not fully agree with. I am not the type of person who pushes pure GTD down peoples throats but I do believe in improvement and having the willingness to develop. What I love about GTD is the loose methodology that can bring so much to people. Love to hear your thought son this post.

I promise you all that I will write a couple more posts this week as I have some good ideas for the week.

Wishing you all a great week!

Things Apple Mac GTD App Review

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I have eventually got around to taking a better look at the Mac GTD app, Things, and adding to a review that I did a while ago.

I currently use OmniFocus but Things and The Hit List are grabbing my attention. Anyway, here is my review and thoughts about Things.

Things GTD

Things is a blandly named but ultimately excellent organizational application designed for use through a variety of mediums.

The visual approach taken by Things is simple enough to keep everything easily accessible while still maintaining an impressive level of flare. Designers have given the software a certain level of sheen although the layout will look immediately familiar to users who are accustomed to the aesthetic of Mac-developed programs.

The most useful features are well-labeled and located in a well-organized and convenient manner. Icons are all colorful and easy to locate as well and this is something which helps in navigating them against the otherwise grey and white interface.

The program provides users with a solid level of productivity access through a great list of truly useful features. Among the laundry list of options are GTD staple categories such as Today, Next, Someday and Postpone sorting categories with appropriate sub-lists available within each parent grouping.

Things GTD App

Perhaps most useful is an included HUD option, something which is a truly fantastic feature and allows for quick, no-nonsense inputting of any upcoming task on the user’s mind.

Things also does a great job of keeping the main window clutter-free by way of a feature which removes columns and instead opts to display only relevant information for upcoming tasks.

Mobile access is set up and ready to go through a few different platforms including the ever popular support for both the iPhone and iPod Touch Apps. While it seems that smartphone access may initially be limited to the two aforementioned devices Things does do a little bit to extend remote usage by programming a built-in collaboration feature which promises to link any user’s work with any desired colleague.

As of now an exhaustive wiki accompanies a regular blog and burgeoning forum to provide quite a bit of promise for those users who hope to find other Things devotees to discuss the program with. If this element of the project is kept up with then it would seem that peer support and company interaction won’t be an issue upon release.

Things is impressive with a clean interface, excellent user support and great list of features could make Things one of the few productivity programs worthy of plunking down any real money for. It’s definitely worth the time necessary to check out to decide for yourself.

I am sticking with OmniFocus for now. But Things has officially got my attention!

Well, over to you, my readers. How many of you use Things and how many use OmniFocus or another app to get things done?

Productivity, Motivation, and Personal Development Links – 31st May 2009

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Had another great but very busy week. I was in the Forest of Dean for two days this week and then took a long weekend to go camping with my family on the East coast of the UK.

We stayed in a traditional North American Tipi and had a great time. The weather was very kind to use, which is always a bonus in the UK!

Here are my collection of links for this week.

I have still got quite a lot to do before my work week starts tomorrow so I will leave you all here.

Wishing you all have a fantastic week!

Productivity, Motivation, and Personal Development Links – 24th May 2009

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Had a great day out today with my family. Sun was shining and it was great to spend some quality time with my wife and children.

I have had another productive week. All my project work was completed on time and my trip to Dover was a great success. Next week I am at the Forest of Dean which is an area I have never been to so I am looking forward to that.

Here are my collection of links for this week.

  • My first link for this week is a link to a collection of 55 ways to boost productivity from the productivity pro blog. This is a great list that may just get your thought patterns buzzing!
  • My second link is a link to a review of how somebody handles the dreaded GTD review. We all know that the weekly review is quite hard to stick to and even David Allen, the creator of the GTD Methodology states that this is the biggest problem people seem to have. So, nice to read how somebody is getting their reviews done.
  • My third link is a link to the 10 Ways to Get Started in GTD from the great GTD Blog GTD Times. I have introduced a lot of people to the GTD methodology so this list is great to point new or inquisitive people to.
  • My fourth link is a link to an offbeat post titled 5 Productivity Tips from the Stand-Up Comedy World. I always love these posts that take lessons from one discipline and relate them to something new. Interesting stuff.
  • My fifth and last link is a link to a nice little post explaining GTD and Productivity with Gmail. The author uses the fantastic GTDInbox for implementing GTD within GMail and then he goes on to explain how he has set his system up. Good reading!

A nice warm bath calls so I will leave you here.

Wishing you all have a fantastic week!