My GTD Outlook + Blackberry + Plaxo Setup
At the close of my sixth week of an empty inbox (barring a few spikes following a hard-drive crash), I don’t feel too irresponsible responding to Brad’s request to share my GTD setup with the world. I’d say at this point it’s working tolerably well but not at weapons grade, so I’d welcome any suggested tweaks.
Let me start off by noting that the primary constraints around which I have to work are an office email system that’s on Exchange, with Outlook on pc as the supported platform and mail client. Exchange has the benefit of pushing to the supported blackberries too, but that particular combination comes with some unique issues, particularly if you have a limit on server space and have to push archives offline (as I do).
So, in outlook, I’m using the GTD Outlook plugin from Netcentrics. It’s $70, but well worth it imho, and they’ve let me upgrade and had decent support on a couple of re-installs, so I’m happy. (There’s a free trial offer if you want to see for yourself.) Sorry, Mac people, it’s PC only - but I don’t think you really need it anyway.
In GTD, every action has a “context” = where/when you might do it. Every action can also be part of a project. The idea is, at any given time, you can look at a project and see what needs to be done, or look at a context (e.g., “@ office”) and see what your top to-do’s are that you can actually do when in that location. The outlook plug-in uses Outlook’s native task categories to denote context, and its primary benefit is handling: it does things like let you send an email and delegate it to an @Waiting For category at the same time. It also lets you easily add both context and project to a single item (something not easily accomplished in native outlook, and my primary issue with it). Finally, it lets you associate an action with an email and then store them in separate places, which is very helpful except when you lose them.
For me, simplicity is the key to the actions / contexts setup. You need your to-do list to be a dashboard you can really take in at a glance during your day, without sorting through 15 categories of things you should be considering doing. The first time I implemented this (over a year and a half ago), I had way too many contexts, and I spent just as much time looking over all my contexts for the relevant ones as I saved by having them be so precise. Now, my key action contexts are @Yahoo office, @Yahoo calls, @Calls on the Go, @Home, @Waiting For, @Agendas, @Errands, @Lists, and @Someday. That’s it.
I try really hard to park any to-do in one of those areas - and I also try really hard not to let any given category stack up with more than a dozen or two items at the outside. You can’t really have that many priority items anyway, so everything else is something you should try to do, delete, or dump into low priority bins. For a handful of absolutely-must-do-TODAY items, I use the high-priority flag. Once in a while, I add a new context, but only if I’ve thought it through.
If you’re new to GTD, the power of the @Waiting For category is not to be underestimated, and it works really well in this setup. If you’re working out of your inbox as your todo list, there are probably dozens of emails you can’t really do anything about that are just sitting there until you can. Maybe an invitation to a conference you don’t know if you’ll be able to go to yet - simple, park it in @Waiting For and title the action something appropriate (”conference budget approval”). Or park it in your calendar as something you’ll decide after a fixed time. Either way, it’s gone from the inbox and the list of things you scan all day long when you’re looking for actionable items. I have a lot of stuff in that list, and it’s much easier to review it a couple of times a week than to look at constantly.
The other power of @Waiting For is you remember to follow up on stuff. I can’t tell you how many times a week I shoot an email off to someone at Yahoo! and wait to hear a response. This is particularly true when it’s one of those situations where you’re helping someone from outside the company get intro’d internally. It’s very easy to trust karma, delete the original email, and forget all about it - but if you park it in @Waiting For and, on review, notice it’s still there, you can follow up. People are amazed sometimes when I chase down little items like that repeatedly, and you win a lot of credibility taking care of things you’ve been entrusted to in this really simple way.
So those contexts form the basis of my todo list, and since tasks sync to blackberry and you can filter task display on the handheld by category, i can pull up a list of “Calls on the Go” when I’m in my car or “Errands” when I’m at the grocery store. On the input side, I can easily add a new task I think of when I’m on the move or in a meeting - i usually just leave it uncategorized and file whatever’s new the next time I check in from the PC. I also sometimes use downtime to scan @Waiting For to delete items that are no longer open. (If I’m not surfing m.twitter.com.)
The @Agendas category is also powerful. You create an item for each standing meeting you have or each key person on your team, and in the notes field for that item list keep a running list of things you need to remember to talk to someone about but for which you don’t need or want to send a one-off email. And, of course, it’s all right there in your handheld when you’re having a meeting.
I do take the time to group some tasks into projects, but only certain kinds. For example, Hiring. By doing this, I can pull up the project Hiring and see all the open (and closed) items having to do with candidates in one view. I don’t currently bother categorizing calendar meetings this way, but I think you could.
Filing reference emails is also key - I have a handful of folders that I keep in an outlook .pst file that’s local (not live on the server), and I drop most stuff post-handling into those. They mostly correspond with particular areas of my work responsibility and the major projects within them. Again, the fewer the better, because I frequently have to dig into them to find stuff. I have on general one for “chron”, where I put one-off stuff I want to keep, two general ones for admin (one for sysadmin stuff like password emails) and one for G&A/HR-type office stuff. I also keep a folder called @shortref in my server-synced files so that I can drop, say, the itinerary of my upcoming trip into there and view it from desktop or palmtop. One downside of this is that I can’t access the archives from palmtop or from another computer, and I have to make sure they’re frequently backed up. But since .pst files were not meant to be accessed over LAN/WAN and have a tendency to hang or corrupt when you try, it’s the best I’ve come up with in the absence of an admin assistant.
One problematic element of being in a high-email-volume environment is threaded conversations and ilists. Again, I try to delete or file these quickly once I’ve extracted any actionable elements from them. If i get a long email I’d like to read, I drop it into an @Computer task and mark it low priority.
Finally, I use the Plaxo outlook plugin, which syncs all of my contacts (thus far seamlessly) between my home and work pc’s. You can configure which things you want to sync, and I also sync my tasks and calendar to the web. I’m going to experiment with installing a 2nd copy of the GTD plug-in on my home pc Outlook client (buying the license gives you up to 2 pc’s) and see if that will work too. But web has been fine so far.
Oh, one more thing. I actually lied about having an empty inbox. There’s one email that’s been in there for a month now. It’s red-flagged and marked urgent, and it’s from me to me. The subject line is “GET OUT OF YOUR INBOX”. It’s the only one that I don’t mind seeing repeatedly when I’m in there.
September 9th, 2007 12:04
[…] Original post by greg and software by Elliott Back […]
September 11th, 2007 11:09
The only problem I see is that you’re using a Windows
That’s quite a setup. I’ll have to write something about my own workflow now.
September 18th, 2007 08:58
Sounds cool. I just started using the GTD plugin after coming up with an okay system using Outlook’s basic features. But the Outlook GTD plugin seems to have crashed Outlook a few times….
Does anyone have any comments on ClearContext? I’m considering that one as well…
September 18th, 2007 22:17
it does crash every once in a while, but i have no idea why. you can deactivate it as a plugin and still access the data if you are having trouble starting up. also, make sure you’re using the most recent upgrade.
January 8th, 2008 17:44
The Mentat BlackBerry Client and free Mentat web service is another great way to get one stop GTD for you & your team both at the desk and from your mobiles. http://gomentat.com
The communication setup with Tasks & Projects works to stay on top of things without email spam, which is great by me.
You can even Jott tasks on the move with a voice call, and any changes in task, status, priority etc. are visible right away with no need for extra synching work on your end.
Works on Mac or Windows too!
June 17th, 2008 21:05
I love Allen’s Getting Things Done, but i was dissapointed with the Outlook plugin. It’s overly complicated. I thought i would write my own version of a GTD Outlook Addin. it’s similar, but much simpler.
July 29th, 2008 18:45
Доброго времени суток, форумчане сайта gregcohn.com
Ответьте мне, пожалуйста, на несколько вопросов…
- какая программа умеет [b]автоматически за НЕСКОЛЬКО СЕКУНД регистрировать ящики на mail.ru[/b] и многих других почтовиках?
- какая программа умеет автоматом [b]рассылать по mamba.ru и loveplanet.ru[/b] по заданным параметрам, при этом еще поддерживая функции автоответчика?
- а также сможет разослать по форумам текст (например) “где купить валенки?”, а потом в ответ на этот текст ОТ ДРУГОГО имени и IP написать (например) “только на сайте megavalenki.ru!”?
- плюс [b]распознаёт картинки и вопросы а-ля “что написано на этой картинке?”[/b], “сколько будет 2+2?” и “какой сейчас год?” и умеет корректно на них отвечать?
- какая программа сможет разослать топики по форумам, попутно автоматически регистрироваться на них и создавая подробный отчет о проделанной работе?
- и при этом работает с разнообразными движками - [b]phpBB, VBulletin, IPB, ExBB, Icon Board, YaBB, UltimateBB[/b], множеством различных гостевых, досок и блогов?
- какую программу [b]вы МОЖЕТЕ переделать под свой вкус[/b]?
- какая программа автоматически обновляет прокси / SOCKS, обеспечивая вам полную анонимность? (достаточно просто нажать ОДНУ кнопку)
- какая программа умеет рассылать персональные сообщения всем пользователям форумов phpBB, IPB, VBulletin?
- какая программа отсортирует Вашу базу ссылок по Google PageRank?
- какая программа МАССОВО отредактирует все Ваши ранее разосланные объявления по форумам?
- и при этом еще регулярно обновляется и совершенствуется.
[u]Ответ ОДИН:[/u] всё это и многое другое под силу программному комплексу [b][u]XRumer 4.085 Platinum Edition + Hrefer 2.85[/u][/b]
Данный комплекс имеет множество отзывов на авторитетных источниках (Washington Post, Wikipedia и т.п.), имеет историю активного развития более 3-х лет.
Just Google!
См. также: [b]XRumer forever, распознавание капчи, разослать по форумам и гостевым, постинг, XRumer Platinum, рефспам, хрумер 2.9 устарел, программы для SEO, PPC, софт для СЕО, распознавание текстовой защиты, постинг по блогам, линкспам, XRumer, doorways, софт для SEO, чёрное СЕО, ППЦ, SEO, программы для СЕО, XRumer 3.0 устарел, массовые рассылки, хрумер 3.0 устарел, белое СЕО, хрумер, рассылка по форумам, XRumer 2.9 устарел, black SEO, мощная спамилка, распознавание графической защиты, суперсофт для SEO, СЕО[/b]
August 28th, 2008 07:41
Помогите найти нормальный муз. сайт[url=http://www.abuzmuz.ru/].[/url]
September 22nd, 2008 09:29
Раздумывал тоже над этим вопросом. В основном сходятся мысли. В принципе, понравился блог.
September 30th, 2008 04:50
Надо или узнать город на фотографии и заработать 50$, либо разместить на своем блоге ссылку
на сайт ybv.ru и получить еще 50$. Вот где легкие деньги
Я сам не знаю что это за место, да и сайта у меня не предвидится, поэтому ссылку на конкурс могу запостить - http://ybv.ru
October 7th, 2008 17:46
Hi!
I would like make better my SQL experience.
I red so many SQL resources and want to
read more about SQL for my position as db2 database manager.
What can you recommend?
Thanks,
Werutz
October 13th, 2008 07:09
There is a not bad tool for work with Outlook-.pst file viewer,restore contacts, mails, messages, tasks and calendars are stored on mail server and there’s no way to extract it offline,will help you to restore your data from files with *.pst and *.ost extension,
tool will work under all supported versions of Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as with Microsoft Outlook,all emails for our support engineers are usually answered within 24 hours, except the cases, where a support officer needs consultation of development team to check a bug report, for example,pst viewer can retrieve all contents as a number of files in *.vcf, *.txt and *.eml formats,recovered data into a *.pst file, that can be opened by any mail client or viewer .pst file, compatible with Microsoft Outlook, file size will not exceed 1Gb.
October 15th, 2008 13:16
Реально суперское место, мне тут понравилось, правда…
Столько всего суперского и позновательного, я тут останусь на долго.
October 16th, 2008 07:28
Очень классное место, мне тут понравилось, правда…
Столько всего занимательного и позновательного, я тут обоснуюсь на долго.
October 19th, 2008 13:58
Test message
Sorry me noob…
October 23rd, 2008 06:38
There was this guy see.
He wasn’t very bright and he reached his adult life without ever having learned “the facts”.
Somehow, it gets to be his wedding day.
While he is walking down the isle, his father tugs his sleeve and says,
“Son, when you get to the hotel room…Call me”
Hours later he gets to the hotel room with his beautiful blushing bride and he calls his father,
“Dad, we are the hotel, what do I do?”
“O.K. Son, listen up, take off your clothes and get in the bed, then she should take off her clothes and get in the bed, if not help her. Then either way, ah, call me”
A few moments later…
“Dad we took off our clothes and we are in the bed, what do I do?”
O.K. Son, listen up. Move real close to her and she should move real close to you, and then… Ah, call me.”
A few moments later…
“DAD! WE TOOK OFF OUR CLOTHES, GOT IN THE BED AND MOVED REAL CLOSE, WHAT DO I DO???”
“O.K. Son, Listen up, this is the most important part. Stick the long part of your body into the place where she goes to the bathroom.”
A few moments later…
“Dad, I’ve got my foot in the toilet, what do I do?”
November 6th, 2008 19:47
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. says it will modify the terms of $70 billion in troubled, mostly adjustable-rate mortgages it holds.
The New York bank inherited many of the loans as part of its September purchase of a failed competitor, Washington Mutual Inc. (NYSE:WM), and its move will cover as many as 400,000 borrowers. J.P. Morgan said Friday the borrowers will be moved into loans carrying lower interest rates, smaller principal amounts or other more-affordable terms, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The move came shortly after the bank received a $25 billion capital infusion from the U.S. Treasury’s program to strengthen financial institutions and get credit flowing.
“Our goal in doing this was to come up with something that we think will lead the industry in helping as much as possible on this issue,” said J.P. Morgan executive Charles Scharf.
John Taylor, chief executive of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, said the action was “a gutsy move on their part. They are bending over backward to try to reach out to these people.”
November 12th, 2008 14:38
mbcyfhvtpxtb45u2
December 13th, 2008 10:36
Thanks!,