Getting Things Done GTD with Personal Development and Motivation for Success

There are some great videos coming out after the GTD Summit.

I will try to get as many of these on the site as I can so I will start with this one that was recorded before the summit and features an interview with David Allen about his new book, Making it All Work.

I have just returned from a great four day break in the English Lake District with my wife. We were lucky to get babysitter for our children and we escaped for three great nights in the Lakes.

On Friday we did an 8 mile walk of Loughrigg Fell. Taking in Loughrigg Tarn, Grasmere, and Rydal Water. On Saturday we walked three of the Langdale Pikes, Pavey Ark, Harrison Stickle and Pike Of Stickle.

Had a great relaxing weekend away from the usual stresses and strains. I manged to eventually start reading “The Creative Habit” by Twyla Tharp. I bought this book around Christmas and I am enjoying reading it. Full review to follow.

Quite a big GTD week this week with the GTD Summit taking place in San Francisco. No doubt there will be loads of news to follow.

Here are my collection of links for this week.

• My first link for this week is a post about Email Zero! – We have all heard of Inbox Zero, well how about Email Zero!. This is a post that outlines what an MIT Professor has done to only read his email once every three months.
• My second link is a link to a 7 Step Program of Stress Management. We all have stress and we all handle it in different ways. I do not tend to show stress but that can be the worse way to handle it as it is there building up inside of you. This is a neat little post with 7 steps on how to handle your stress.
• My third link is a link originally from Twitter about the way one user uses OmniFocus. I love OmniFocus and I love reading about how other people use it in their lives.
• My fourth link is a link to a new GTD application called Getting Things Gnome. Getting Things Gnome, or GTG is the first true GTD application for the Linux GUI, Gnome. This is a great step forward for any Linux GTD’ers and I will be trying this app out in the coming weeks on one of my Linux laptops.
• My fifth and last link is another application. This is Pocket Informant, and the fact that it is coming soon to the Apple iPhone. I used to use Pocket Informant way before GTD when I had my old Windows Mobile iPaq. Great little app and I will love to see how it shapes up on the iPhone.

Wishing you all a productive week, as always!

Andrew..

The fantastic note taking application Evernote has released a major update to the Mac client version.

Evernote is available as a Microsoft Windows or Apple Mac desktop application as well as having a Web Based Application and apps for various phones including the Apple iPhone.

One main improvement with version 1.3 is the new clipper for Safari 3 and 4. This button installs on the toolbar and allows you to clip the current page directly into Evernote. You can select text and click and this copies the text to evernote, just click and the whole page is copied to evernote or shift click and the page is sent to Evernote as a PDF with all the formatting preserved.

Here are the details about the version 1.3 release for the Mac.

Version 1.3.0 (03/09/2009) build 44809

• Evernote for Mac can now install a native Safari plugin, which makes it easy to clip directly into Evernote while browsing the web using Safari. Includes:
• Clipping a selected portion of a web page
• Clipping the entire web page
• Clipping a PDF snapshot of a full webpage, rendered exactly as it appears in the browser. Shortcut: Shift+click on the Safari Clipper
• A ‘Merge Notes’ command is now availble in the edit menu and the note list context-menu. This command will merge the contents of selected notes into a new note.
• Promotions display at the bottom of the left-hand nav.
• Support for Growl notifications.
• Fixed a bug where removing *all* tags from a note would not get synced up to the server.
• Improved performance and stability when syncing several thousand tags from the server.
• “Show/Hide Info” is now called “More/Less Info”, and new note editor windows are opened with the state set by the user.
• Fixed an issue where file attachment information would not display correctly inside a note when running on a case-sensitive file system.
• Fixed Safari 4 Beta compatibility issues. This includes the note search field sporadically selecting all of its text.
• Fixed a bug in the Evernote AppleScript dictionary, which made scripts that accessed a note’s ‘source url’ property fail to compile.
• Fixed a bug that caused some images to fail to make it into the note when clipping HTML from a file.
• Fixed a bug that caused some hyperlinks to get stripped from the note when clipping HTML from a file.
• Fixed a bug in the thumbnail viewer which would cause the app to crash or stop responding to mouse clicks.

These are all great new additions to what is already an awesome application! Below is a nice video showing the web clipper with Quicknote.

Well, it is the 2009 GTD Summit this week in San Francisco.

Just thought I would share the intro from David Allen about the conference.

I really wish I could go, San Francisco is too far from the UK and I am busy with work 🙁 I hope some great resources come out of the 2009 GTD Summit.

Are you going? If so, would love to hear from you before and also after the event so please leave a comment.

Action Tracker is a simple yet effective take on the productivity model advocated by David Allen in his “Getting Things Done” system.

The program is based on the FileMaker Pro software and uses this basis to create a clean, functional and fairly minimalist design for users to sort and manage their tasks through.

The official home of Action Tracker is at Macproductive.com but it appears that the site is no longer registered or the company has let is lapse out of error. The application can be still downloaded from various Mac Download sites for free.

Visuals with Action Tracker are fairly average but ultimately succeed in the essential goal of encouraging easy navigation and access to the extensive feature set provided by the platform.

Those already acquainted with FileMaker Pro should find a certain level of familiarity in the aesthetics presented here. Action Tracker possesses the same level of Mac sheen that most of the OS’ first-party programs host — a factor which ultimately works to make it into a clear and graphically sound choice for a productivity software foundation.

Action Tracker’s strongest suit is undoubtedly the number of features made available by the program. The aforementioned FileMaker Pro platform has enabled Action Tracker’s designers to offer a wide variety of options and customization for users to take advantage of.

All of the GTD staples devotees have come to expect in software (to-do lists with contexts, reminders, status and so forth) are in place with Action Tracker. Each element of sorting and organizing has been paid good attention as well and the detail provided in sorting is fantastic.

Users are able to micro-manage each item through the attachment of external documents (including Excel, PowerPoint, and Word file extensions aside the support for photo, video and PDF formats) while also enjoying the ability to link work with web and email addresses through a simple, clickable interface.

List items can also be linked together for easy reference across the system, a touch which aids in ensuring smooth navigation and speedy movement from project to project.

Action Tracker could have benefited from the inclusion of mobile application support but it’s clear that Denny Henke, designer of the system, is working on a limited budget so far.

The system makes up for this shortcoming with the presence of a feature which prepares selected lists for note card printing, a low-tech but ultimately effective method of addressing portability for serious, regular users.

If there is a major flaw in the Action Tracker system it can be attributed to the previously mentioned strengths in feature creation. Although the FileMaker Pro foundation allows for a fantastic level of customization and depth to the software, the uninitiated may have a fairly difficult time figuring out how to get started with their work.

The program isn’t overly complicated but learning its intricacies is somewhat daunting for those who are being exposed to FileMaker Pro for the first time via Action Tracker.

A greater level of community involvement could have gone a long way toward addressing the issues with Action Tracker’s learning curve. While users are still able to seek out guides, tutorials and forums through external sources, the main project homepage lacks in any real aid for those just taking the system for a spin.

The creation of a hosted message board or tutorial would go a long way toward helping out novices with getting the most from the system and will hopefully see an appearance in the future.

Ultimately Action Tracker is a solid choice for GTD adherents who are enticed (rather than put off) by the idea of a productivity platform which requires a good amount of invested time to warrant proper results.

Their may be an issue with the ongoing support and development for the application as it would appear that the domain is no longer being used by the team behind Action Tracker.

The fairly no-nonsense approach to Action Tracker’s core features combine with the depth and customization possible within them to create a difficult but rewarding productivity system.

Had a great day yesterday at ThinkVisibility which was a one day social media, SEO, and blogging conference that was held in my home town of Leeds. Great speakers and I left the day feeling inspired!

Here are a collection of links for this week.

• My first link for this week is a great post on GTDTimes from David Pierce explaining why the Web Works for GTD. David is a reader of this blog and regular commenter and it is great to see him turn his hand to writing, well done and great post!
• My second link is a link to a post that reviews Things for the iPhone. I briefly tried Things but I am still firmly routed to my GTD App of choice, OmniFocus.
• My third link is a link to a Helpful Guide on how to Reduce Stress. Nice little post where the author identifies Procrastination as the largest issue. Worth a read or listen as they have the facility to play the blog post via a podcast.
• My fourth link is a nice list of Top iPhone Apps from the Molanphy Blog. I am posting this link as I read the short review of Ambience and then went ahead and bought it.
• My fifth and last link for this week is a link to a competition on the Nozbe Blog to win a free pass to the GTD Summit in San Francisco. This is a free gift with a $2295 value and if you are around the bay area a great prize to win! You have to comment on the post at the Nozbe blog in order to stand a chance of winning.

Wishing you all a productive week, as always!

Andrew..

A few weeks ago I blogged about Spotify and I released a Motivational Songs Spotify playlist.

Well, Kieron from UK Offer Media has taken a collection of Spotify Playlists and created a site where users can share them.

My Motivational Songs Spotify playlist is on the site and has been receiving great rankings.

So, if you use Spotify take a look at the ShareMyPlaylist.com site and if you are note yet a Spotify user, now is the time to check it out!

Michael Deutch is the Chief Evangelist for Mindjet and a fellow and also a fellow follower of David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) Methodology.

Michael is running a Webinar on March the 24th from 1000 to 1100 PDT that is going to show you how Michael has incorporated Mind Mapping into his GTD system using MindManager from MindJet.

Michael writes for the MindJet Blog and has done some great posts covering GTD and productivity.

Information for the free webinar can be found here. I am going to try to be on it live but if not will definitely catch it after the event.

Sounds like a great event from a great guy and a great company! Be sure to check it out..

The main event of this week was the arrival of my new shiny 17″ MacBook Pro.

To mark this event I thought I would take a break from the usual and provide five great links that help you when you come to upgrade your Mac and o not want to use the migration assistant.

Apologies in advance to Windows and Linux users as this is obviously a Mac specific post.

Even if you are not buying a new Mac, the bloated way Apple handles media may mean that you have to move your iTunes or iPhoto library to an external disk so these links contain gems of information.

Here are a collection of five links that I have found useful this week when migrating from my old MacBook Pro to my new MacBook Pro.

• My first link for this week is the Apple Page covering the Migration Assistant. This is an amazing tool that I have used before that allows you to copy all of your settings from your Old Mac to your New Mac over a Firewire cable. Makes upgrading a dream if you are happy with the build of your old machine.
• My second link is a link to a post from eHow about how to Migrate your Mac Email. The post shows you how to move your email as well as preserve your settings such as Smart Mailboxes and Mailbox Rules.
• My third link is a link to an olf post from Merlin Mann that covers Some Handy Mail.app Smart Mailboxes. I used this post to recreate these mailboxes that fit in with Merlin’s Inbox Zero methodology.
• My fourth link is a thread on the Apple Forums about how to move your iPhoto library. I copied the whole of my library to my new MacBook Pro and everything was preserved, just how it should be.
• My fifth and last link for this week is a post from the iLounge about how to move your ITunes library. My iTunes library is 40GB and I have it on my new MacBook Pro but I am thinking of moving it to an external storage device so I can share it through the house and also conserve space on my MacBook HDD.

Wishing you all a productive week, as always!

Andrew..

I have been quiet this week due to being very busy with work and also receiving my new 17″ MacBook Pro on Wednesday evening.

I am just about done with the migration and though I would share some of my findings for anybody wlse who is moving from an old Mac to a new one.

I could have used the Migration Assistant and sucked my old laptop to my new one. I used this when I rebuilt my old laptop and upgraded the hard drive and it worked amazingly. As my old laptop was three years old, and had been used to test a lot of software I decided to opt for the manual approach.

Being an organized person, my data was all organized under my Documents folder. This made it pretty easy to move my Documents to my NAS, and then to my new Mac preserving the same structure as I had before.

I did a bit of pruning before the copy and got rid of old information that I no longer needed. I also archived some of it off to DVDs to go into the Someday/Maybe drawer that I use to good effect.

The data was the easy part. I then had to migrate Mail and all my media such as my iPhoto Library, Aperture Library, and my iTunes Library.

Let’s start with the media. I did expect problems when moving my media due to the customizations that I have done to my media including tagging etc. Well, to my surpirse, I copied my Aperture and iPhoto libraries to my new machine and they all worked fine. I then deauthorized my old laptop from within iTunes, copied the iTunes folder to my new laptop and all went smooth.

I was using iLife ’09 on both my old and new Mac’s so everything was very easy to migrate. iPhoto and Aperture both use a Library. These are package files that contain all the other files and represent themselves as a single file within the Operating System. Sure does make copying easier!

Now onto Email migration. I have a few mailboxes that I use on the Mail.app client built into the Mac Operating System. My main mailboxes are IMAP through Google Apps so these were as easy as setting up the new mail accounts on the new laptop.

I have a few old POP accounts and for these I created the POP account on the new laptop and archived the old mail onto one of my USB disks for storage and the ability to search through this at a later date if needed.

All smooth so far. Now to re-install some of the applications I use. There are a few killer applications that I use and could not live without. These are my core apps that I installed and I decided that if I need any of ther other apps on my old laptop then I would install them as required.

My core apps are:

• iWork 09
• MS Office 2008
• Quicksilver
• OmniFocus
• Evernote
• TextMate
• Coda
• TextExpander
• RapidWeaver
• Speed Download
• VLC
• Scrivener
• Growl
• Adium

I downloaded the latest version of each app and used my serial numbers where applicable that I always store in Evernote. This is a great use of Evernote and I have been storing my software licenses in it since I got it.

So, all migrated and working good. The new laptop is amazing. So much faster than the old one and I cannot wait for the dual link DVI connector to arrive so I can hook it up to my 30″ Display.

Had a real busy week this week and my head has been all over the place. I have been doing some testing for customers and my home office currently looks like a junkyard from PC World. I hate it when my office is cluttered and I am finishing this post to go and declutter!

Hope you are all enjoying your weekend.