Aug 15
This is an open invitation to all of my readers (and visitors) to pose any question you might have about GTD, or Productivity in general.
It doesn’t matter if you are a beginner or an expert, if your question is about a specific GTD tool or about setting higher goals, simply fire away!
Of course, I will do my best to answer your question myself, but I also call upon my readers to help each other out here. I may even use your question as the subject of one of my next posts (don’t pass up on this opportunity to influence the content of this blog! 
).
Even questions about my own GTD system, my blog/site or the way I have organized my life in general are welcome!
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Related Posts
Cool topic.
GTD has a lot of good ideas, and I think the importance of an empty inbox, collection, and a project list are all very practical and valuable tools. It’s fairly clear how to do these things . Want a clean inbox–> Sort your email into reference, projects, someday/maybe etc until it’s empty and and keep it that way. However some GTD ideas lack good implementation directions. There’s 2 areas where I’ve struggled to figure out a good implementation:
1) Calendar items.
I can glance at my project list and get a good understanding of what’s going on. It’s a great thing to get stuff out of your head and on paper. This is why I hate my calender so much. I don’t have a lot of meetings in my current job, but whenever I have to remember them I feel them nagging at me no matter where I write them down. I guess I haven’t found a calender system that lets me get things out of my head and let me see the “lay of the land” on a daily, weekly, monthly scale. What works for you?
2) Ideal Outcomes
When, where and how do you think about ideal outcomes? Has anyone found a practical way of making this a standard practice? Trying to add this to my project list didn’t work for me, but I’m interesting in hearing if anyone else does anything to write down ideal outcomes.
Thanks!
@Jim P:
I think David Allen is being vague about GTD implementation details on purpose. Every GTD implementation is very personal and you should always find your own way to do things. The most important part is to focus on the GTD mindset, habits and core principles that David talks about.
That being said, I love to hear about other people’s GTD implementation because it invariably gives me inspiration for my own system. In that spirit, I can hopefully give you some inspiration for your system by telling you how I deal with calendar items and successful outcomes.
1. Calendar items
I use a Pocket Moleskine Diary to keep track of my appointments (and also in Outlook which I use for my work). To really get these calendar items out of my mind and stop them from nagging at me, I do these 2 things:
a. Write down appointments immediately and then extract associated projects and next actions from them to process & organize into my GTD system. If you write down a vague meeting appointment and in the back of your mind you have no idea why the meeting is being held, what the successful outcome of the meeting is for you and what kind of preparation (projects, next actions, waiting for) is required from you, then the calendar item will keep nagging at you. It’s still an open loop!
b. As part of your daily mini-review (if any) and especially your weekly review, always look back at least 1 week in your calendar and 1 or 2 weeks ahead. To me this provides the big picture I need of the hard landscape. If you know that every past appointment has been followed up correctly and that every project/action/etc for upcoming appointments has been dealt with, it will definitely give you peace of mind.
2. Successful outcomes
I have physical (and sometimes additional digital) folders for every important project on my projects list. As soon as a potential project pops up on my “radar” and it’s more than a couple of simple steps, I quickly brainstorm (in a few minutes) on a piece of paper what the successful outcome of the project is for me, which actions I can immediately identify (and which one the real next action is) and also what resources (time, money, people, energy, etc) are required to successfully accomplish this project. This may seem like a lot of work, but for most projects it’s a quick note made in 1 or 2 minutes on any piece of paper I can find which is then put immediately into the corresponding project folder. The point is to capture the output of your thinking so you don’t have to do it again later. You can elaborate on your notes whenever you review the corresponding project folder.
If it requires more time (for a bigger project) I simply create an action “Brainstorm about Project X” on my Next Action list.
Let me know if this helps!
I am currently working on improving my system using a Hipster and the DIY Planner templates, but I have recently started a new job which requires use of Outlook for calendaring and a good deal of communication, including project management. Would you recommend David Allen’s whitepaper on using vanilla Outlook for GTD (I don’t believe I have the option of using any add-ons).
@David:
I have no real experience with using Outlook for GTD. Perhaps another reader could help you with that specific aspect.
However, I want to add the following. I also (have to) use Outlook at the office (mainly for appointments and e-mails). I don’t use Outlook for anything else and definitely not when I don’t have to. Appointments are synced immediately to my Moleskine Pocket Diary (or vice versa) and e-mails either get archived electronically, or - if they contain important information - get printed and processed like all the other incoming stuff –> I extract actions, waiting fors, someday/maybes, projects, and so on. E-mails wind up in my physical reference system more often than not. In other words, out of necessity I have incorporated Outlook into my GTD system but it is definitely not necessary to completely switch to Outlook just because you have to use it at work.
Considering the fact that you are using an hPDA and DIY templates, I think it would be safe to say that you seem to be a GTDer with a paperbased system, and a preference for that as well. It doesn’t make sense to start using Outlook as your GTD system, except in the hybrid way that I just described above.
Perhaps somebody else can give their 2 cents about this?
I agree. Outlook is good for a hybrid system, as I too am a P&P GTDer. All of the work stuff is sync’d with my DIY organizer that I made custom calendar pages for. The organizer also contains my lists of NAs, Waiting Fors and assorted Project notes.
My organizer is described in detail here - http://hdbizblog.com/blog/2007/07/31/building-my-diy-planner/
Leave a Reply