Lifehacker thread on GTD modificiations

[mouser]

For all the GTD fundamentalists, there are lots of tinkerers out there who have modified the system to suit their needs. If you're among the latter, we want to hear how you've tweaked GTD.

http://lifehacker.co...em-to-fit-your-needs

[brotherS]

Thanks for the pointer.

Let me quote some:

Angelo Pinon wrote as a comment:

2:07 PM on Tue Mar 17 2009
I've strayed from my Moleskine since it was such a hassle for me to carry an additional notebook, and just started using Gmail for managing my GTD implementation.

There's a Google Labs plugin for Gmail called "Tasks", which you can use as your "Next Actions" list. Additionally you can make separate lists to manage your "Projects" and "Someday/Maybe" lists.

I also use Google Calendar to manage my appointments, and enabled the "Google Calendar gadget" in Google Labs so that I can see my appointments on Gmail's main page.

I really like how these productivity plugins have enabled me to quickly and easily implement GTD. Thanks Google

Like him, I also used "Tasks" and the Google Calendar integration into GMail, and like them too!


apropo wrote as a comment:

2:20 PM on Tue Mar 17 2009
I use autofocus now. I tried to GTD a number of times, but my life isn't quite busy enough to justify the maintenance time of that system.

I've really liked autofocus, however, and have actually kept with it.

I never read about http://www.markforst...et/autofocus-system/ before (but just now found a DC topic about it @ https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=16438.0), nice video there and good explanation of how it works below it. I'm actually using parts of that system already, not on paper though and not as systemized. Just reading through the explanation might give you some good idea.


shanebotwin wrote as a comment:

The biggest flaw for most people I think is the admonishment not to use your In Box as a To Do list. Everyone has email. Everyone is on it most of the time. It's ubiquitous and available to you on the web, your mobile and your desktop in one way or another (I like IMAP). Why not use it? Why create another application to duplicate this?

I basically have an @action folder and an @archive folder. Things in my inbox either go to action, archive or get deleted. They stay in @action till they get done. If there is something that is time based, it goes on my Google Calendar which sends me an email reminder so it ends up in my in Box when I need it. My wife sends me .ics calendar invites which automatically end up on my Google Calendar for stuff she wants me to do since she has Lotus Notes at work (god help her) and it works for her to do this too.

I fail to see why complex systems are needed.

Email + Google Calendar + a paper to do list is all that I require.

As a result of reading this comment I added an "action" label to GMail and will experiment with this.

[dallee]

Thanks for the topic (Mouser - hi!) and for the first comment (BrotherS - Thanks!).

I also find that GTD just too detail-oriented for my purposes, as I have little need to schedule my job related tasks and do them as they present themselves. On personal items, as a Gmail user, I really like the idea of the Google Gmail tools mentioned above -- to access them, I click on the little icon following my inbox name (or, go to your inbox, and then use this link: http://mail.google.c.../mail/#settings/labs).  I add that information because it is not entirely obvious how to add the features mentioned.

So far, the really nice thing is that these features load with your mailbox (if you have tried adding similar widgets to a Google home page, you may have found -- as I did -- that loading is really, really slowed down). So, nice find!

I use www.LetterMeLater.com, a free service for scheduling emails, for reminders. I just like the graphics better than RememberTheMilk.

Still working on other tools and will report back ...

          Dallee 

[brotherS]

I use www.LetterMeLater.com, a free service for scheduling emails, for reminders. I just like the graphics better than RememberTheMilk.

-dallee (March 29, 2009, 01:23 PM)

Hmm... I'm using Google Calendar (which could remind you by email, SMS and/or popup) and can't think of a use for LetterMeLater. How do you use it?

[brotherS]

shanebotwin wrote as a comment:

The biggest flaw for most people I think is the admonishment not to use your In Box as a To Do list. Everyone has email. Everyone is on it most of the time. It's ubiquitous and available to you on the web, your mobile and your desktop in one way or another (I like IMAP). Why not use it? Why create another application to duplicate this?

I basically have an @action folder and an @archive folder. Things in my inbox either go to action, archive or get deleted. They stay in @action till they get done. If there is something that is time based, it goes on my Google Calendar which sends me an email reminder so it ends up in my in Box when I need it. My wife sends me .ics calendar invites which automatically end up on my Google Calendar for stuff she wants me to do since she has Lotus Notes at work (god help her) and it works for her to do this too.

I fail to see why complex systems are needed.

Email + Google Calendar + a paper to do list is all that I require.

As a result of reading this comment I added an "action" label to GMail and will experiment with this.

-brotherS (March 29, 2009, 08:02 AM)

I also added a "DONE" label. When I'm done with a task I added the action label to, I remove "action" and add "DONE". Really like it so far, especially since GMail made the use of labels easier in the recent past (just mark an email, press "l" and type the first few letters of a label of yours).

[brotherS]

shanebotwin wrote as a comment:

The biggest flaw for most people I think is the admonishment not to use your In Box as a To Do list. Everyone has email. Everyone is on it most of the time. It's ubiquitous and available to you on the web, your mobile and your desktop in one way or another (I like IMAP). Why not use it? Why create another application to duplicate this?

I basically have an @action folder and an @archive folder. Things in my inbox either go to action, archive or get deleted. They stay in @action till they get done. If there is something that is time based, it goes on my Google Calendar which sends me an email reminder so it ends up in my in Box when I need it. My wife sends me .ics calendar invites which automatically end up on my Google Calendar for stuff she wants me to do since she has Lotus Notes at work (god help her) and it works for her to do this too.

I fail to see why complex systems are needed.

Email + Google Calendar + a paper to do list is all that I require.

As a result of reading this comment I added an "action" label to GMail and will experiment with this.

-brotherS (March 29, 2009, 08:02 AM)

I also added a "DONE" label. When I'm done with a task I added the action label to, I remove "action" and add "DONE". Really like it so far, especially since GMail made the use of labels easier in the recent past (just mark an email, press "l" and type the first few letters of a label of yours).

-brotherS (April 01, 2009, 03:47 AM)

Just an update (in case anyone is interested, I'm surprised that this thread seems to be mostly ignored  ):

I'm still using this combination and like it a lot!

And I just saw that I'm already using several of app's GMail ideas too (see her post in https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=14728.0).

[vadik_21]

You can also try using this <a href="http://www.baydin.com/boomerang/">Outlook email reminder</a>. It's a plugin that lets your right click on your email and choose when you want to get back to it or when to follow up.  Completely secure and incredibly easy to use in my opinion  .

[IainB]

Actually, I hadn't noticed this thread before either, and I am an avid "GTD" user.
For years I have looked for a tool or a combination of tools that would replace the DOS-based PIM (Personal Information Manager) Lotus Agenda, which provided me with a perfect GTD system since 1990. To make full use of the thing required you to have the capacity to be logical and able to think in terms of structured and complex cateqories, and it helped if you were a techo (familiar with computer technology), so it was not everybody's cup of tea.

Lotus Agenda's development ceased, and it was made progressively more obsolete by the newer Windows-based technology.
Which was why I actually became quite excited when I started to see the potential for Gmail + labels + filters to do some of the things that I had been accustomed to doing with Lotus Agenda. Some of those - but not all of them by any stretch - have been mentioned in the comments above.

A while back, I installed a Firefox add-on called "GTDInbox for Gmail". I found that by using this together with the add-on Better Gmail2, with the inbuilt categorisation tool "Folders for Gmail" (based on a Greasemonkey script) turned on, I was able to work towards roughly 60% of the power of Lotus Agenda - though it's a bit kludgy. You could experiment with these tools to assess how useful they could be for yourself. It requires setting up properly, in a structured manner, as did Lotus Agenda. I think the future for this Gmail-based approach to GTD is full of potential though.

I had one disappointment: I had been using an incredibly nifty and useful Greasemonkey script with Gmail called "Labellinks4gmail". It was a far more flexible categorisation tool than "Folders for Gmail"), but I had to use the latter because the "Labellinks4gmail" script was broken/defeated by the latest mods to Gmail.

Hope this makes sense and is of use to someone.