I am a wannabe Getting Things Done (GTD) follower and after years of false starts at a having a good personal task management system, I think I have finally figured out what works for me. I had heard really good things about Remember The Milk (RTM) and had tried it out briefly in its early days. For that matter, the problem with any system that I tried was that I didn’t readily have access to the system whenever I needed it and lacked the discipline to keep track of things in one place. But now, RTM and the cool set of tools that support it have shown me a way. This is how I work:
- I have a bunch of task lists defined at RTM (such as work, personal, finance, someday/maybe etc,.). I have created tags and smart-lists for GTD contexts as described in this blog entry.
- A great majority of the time, I add tasks to RTM using QuickSilver. In hindsight, this was the single biggest deficiency in all the other systems that I tried. Adding tasks to RTM using Quicksilver is by far the quickest way to dispatch things to RTM. I just go “Ctrl+Space” “Per…” (autocomplete to Personal), “Ad (auto complete to add task), “Pay for son’s portrait pictures at 10pm tomorrow” and off it goes. I continue to be impressed with QuickSilver, I think they should package it with every Mac. But I digress.
- I have a 35 minute commute (not all that bad, really) and tend to think about my ToDos during the commute. I have had unsuccessful attempts at using my phone’s voice memo recorder. The problem is that I used to record it on my phone, but never went back to my phone to listen to those. Again, I lacked that discipline. Enter Jott. I love their service. As and when I think of tasks or follow up items to do, I send a jott to myself. Jott integrates beautifully with RTM and Google Calendar. Btw, apparently Jott had (has?) folks in India transcribing voice memos to text. Isn’t that a great way to give something workable for your users, and keep refining it over time and perfect the technology? Again, I digress.
- Once a great majority of my tasks started to get captured at RTM, a funny thing happened. I found myself keeping it more and more current and up-to-date. The tools helped me bridge the lack of discipline in accumulating my tasks in one place. I am now a believer in the fundamental idea behind GTD that having a trusted system to setup tasks is the first step towards Mind like Water . Back when I was reading about GTD for the first time, I didnt think this would be the make-or-break, but it turned out to be.
- When I complete my projects / tasks, I quite often send an email to someone with the status or something else. The RTM Gmail extension (needs GreaseMonkey) helps me set them to complete, move dates, etc,. right from Gmail. I do check email quite a few times a day, so there is an added advantage of the tasks due that day being “in my face”. A nice side-effect.
- For my weekly review (which I should get better at), I use the RTM web site itself, which with its Google Gears support, also makes all my tasks available in offline mode.
Overall, I am happy with how things are now. Happy? That may be an understatement. I mean, this is so freakin’ cool, I feel guilty for all of this being free.
For me, it turned out that the missing piece to the puzzle was that I didn’t have quick and simple ways of aggregating my tasks in a single trusted system. This I believe, is also a big reason why our users love OfficeDrop. At its core, OfficeDrop is a single trusted system to gather all your information, regardless of where or how they are. We offer the following quick and simple ways to aggregate your information:
- Paper documents in prepaid envelopes or boxes (no trips to the post office, no counting sheets, no weighing envelopes). Just Stuff It and send it.
- Upload via the OfficeDrop application using the multi-file uploader.
- Email documents to your OfficeDrop account (coming soon).
- Another top secret, Quicksilver-like wicked-easy way to get your information into OfficeDrop, which we cant talk about just yet.
This 5 minute video and this picture will give you a good idea of How OfficeDrop Works:
So what is next for me? I look forward to tuning my contexts and start breaking my projects into more tangible Next Actions. I also need to get better at my weekly review. Stay tuned.
Hi Anand,
My take on any ’system’ that helps you get organized, is similar to Jeff Bezos’ take on the essential element of reading - “you have to capture the essential element of a book, which is that it disappears when you get into the flow of the story. None of us when we’re reading a book think about the ink and the glue and the stitching. All that fades away, and you get into the author’s universe.”
(This was from his interview with Walter Mossberg in All Things Digital - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121261272441346269.html?mod=2_1582_leftbox)
Similarly any system that helps you get organized should ‘vanish’ in the process. If people spend time managing the time management system, then more likely they will not use that system.
I used an early version of RTM and i had to spend more time mastering it than managing my time. So, using basic principles of GTD i deviced my own system using Backpack and it works pretty well for me.
And I am sure you guys would have taken this (product becomes so easy to use that it vanishes into background) into account while designing your product.
All the best.
thx
Mads.