I’m still amazed at how well my current GTD system is working for me. I’ve made a few minor tweaks but essentially I’ve been using the same system for over 6 months now!
It also never ceases to amaze me how well the entire GTD concept fits into my personal and professional life. I can’t really imagine how to be productive, effective and organized without it anymore! So, it seems my search for the “perfect” GTD system is finally over and I can safely conclude that GTD has become an important foundation for structuring my life.
You may have noticed that I’ve been busy over the past couple of months. I’ve been busy at work and with my family, but I’ve also spent quite some time catching up on my reading and learning more and more about productivity, personal development, NLP, life purpose, achieving goals, coaching, success and financial freedom. More on that later, I’ve got some things brewing!
For now, I would like to share 3 quick-and-dirty productivity tips with you. These tips have proved to be useful in combination with GTD to help me keep organized and decluttered.
3 Quick-and-dirty productivity tips
1. Less than 1% of a magazine’s content is useful information… toss the rest!
I’m a real packrat when it comes to magazines. For years I’ve been collecting stacks and stacks of magazines. My thougts usually go like “Wow, this is a cool/useful/funny/expensive magazine! I’d better keep it for future reading pleasure!”. Guess what, I’ve never read any of the magazines ever again. Some of them get stacked without even being read. A couple of months ago I decided that enough is enough, literally! I’ve started tossing boxes full of old magazines. The space reclaimed in my house and especially my study is enormous! I didn’t toss any magazine without at least quickly flipping through them, hunting for interesting articles. I rip out the interesting pages or I cut out interesting articles with a special cutter, and store these in my reference system… and then toss the rest of the magazine! Surprisingly, I was left with much less than 1% of the original amount of paper. This was also a great exercise in determining which magazines I should quit subscribing to!
2. Digitize old or unused archive folders
Since I’ve started implementing GTD (back in October 2006) I’ve created a fairly extensive (analog) reference system, i.e. boxes full of file folders. Occasionally I prune my reference system by moving old, unused or obsolete folders to a separate box. I’ve now gone one step further. Just like my old magazines, I’ve decided I do not want to keep my folders indefinitely. Instead of simply tossing them (I’m very bad at that!) I’ve decided to digitize them first and then toss them.
Since I don’t own an industrial scanner, I’ve created my own little digitizing contraption using my digital camera. I don’t own a tripod so I got creative and created something from an old cardboard box to ensure a fixed and stable distance between the camera and the paper I want digitized. Now I simply take snapshots of every single page in a folder; this only takes a few minutes, which is much faster than my flatbed scanner. I merge the pictures into a single PDF, store the PDF in my digital reference system, toss the contents of my file folder and then reuse the folder itself!
3. Recycle paper for use with your ubiquitous capture tool
I must admit that I print quite a few documents and mails for easy reading and scribbling on them. Some of them are then stored in my reference system, but many of them get tossed in the end. My ubiquitous capture tool is nothing fancy, just a simple pen and some scraps of paper I keep in my pocket or bag at all times. I’ve stopped using expensive notebooks (Moleskine!) or index cards for capturing actions, thoughts and ideas. Instead, I am now recycling all the paper that I used to toss (documents and mails, contents of a recently digitized file folder). I simply rip those papers into 4 or 8 roughly equal scraps to be used as my ubiquitous capture tool!
Please share your quick-and-dirty productivity tips & tricks with us in the comments!
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Just a question on number 2. How are you ever going to find anything in there again? JPGs in a PDF are not very searchable, you know…
Seems like just more stuff to me.
/airwhale
@airwhale:
Good point, I’m very well aware of that. In the past I’ve been playing with OCR software to create searchable PDFs but in my opinion it’s too much trouble and not reliable enough.
The file folders I’m digitizing are not meant to be and do not need to be searchable electronically. In fact, they were not searchable on paper either!
I just want to get rid of the paper, but still keep the information in a digital form — just in case I ever need to glance at it again, even though that’s very unlikely.
To summarize, I’d rather store a couple of megabytes of PDFs than a big, heavy box full of old file folders!
I agree with tossing the magazines but firstly, how often do you refer back to the cut articles? Why don’t you digitise them and tag them for easy searching?
Secondly, I don’t toss the magazines to a landfill but every 6 months or so I collect them and take them to the work cafeteria for others to read. If you don’t have a work cafeteria hospitals or doctor’s offices always appreciate modern reading material.
@Grant:
I do not refer to the cut articles very often. The smartest thing may be to do what you suggested, but at the moment I’m satisfied with the way they are stored in my (analog) reference system.
I like your idea of donating a bunch of magazines to people who also might enjoy reading them. In the end they will get tossed no matter what, but instead of just gathering dust in my home office, I could grant them a second or third life!
One last thing about tossing magazines (and any paper material for that matter). Here (in the Netherlands) we collect and process garbage separately, and recycle as much as possible. I have a special container at home just for paper, cardboard, et cetera.
I’m new to GTD, but I hear that the ScanSnap is invaluable for scanning and turning documents into readable PDFs in one step. I’m planning to get one.
The app I use for my GTD allows you to upload files and then enter a description, so that description could provide the means to locate some of your vast reference material. I especially like this application because it allows me to use my GTD on the desktop and on the go. I have more details on my experiences with the system and app at http://johnkendrick.wordpress.com
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