JTSR

First thing Monday morning is when I go through things:

1. audit the last week - what you had planned, what you achieved and did not, why?
2. preview the coming week - any tasks that MUST finish on a day during the week, any appointments?
3. check project lists - run through all your project lists to determine any _next items
4. check goals - are these still achievable, any new goals, any goals achieved?
5. talk to people - for any tasks that you have delegated, tell them!

Any system, be it GTD or no, is going to fail at some point and simple act as a means to jot down your tasks but not a system to help to Get Things Done on your task….

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• Moleskine Retro PDA Part2 - Inbox
• Moleskine Retro PDA Part1
• Five Steps for a Good Weekly Review
• Remember the Milk instead
• Vitalist to ask for paid subscription

It is all very “Adrian Mole” keeping a diary, but it is something that I have tried to do for years and years.  It only takes a couple of days of not being bothered and then you simply give up, and it is a shame as I find it not only interesting to read back to see what you did at a particular time, but also handy at times too.  There then are two types of diary, one that records your thoughts and feelings, and one that records your activities; maybe you can combine the two.  I find nothing more interesting than reading books of people’s diaries, possibly someone who was a no-one and yet got their life diary published and so off you go and read about their everyday, possibly boring, life.   Writing such a diary can be enjoyable too, sitting up last thing at night going through what you have done during the day, your feelings and possibly your thoughts on the future.

The whole problem is though is that you might find yourself spending more time writing about your life than actually living it!  It would be great to find an hour each day to jot everything down and it would make such interesting reading afterwards too, but I don’t have time to do that and, more importantly, I don’t have the discipline and motivation to keep it up!  However, I would still find it handy and interesting if I could someway record at least things I have done and include "memory triggers".   Triggers that mean nothing to nobody apart from yourself.  You might jot down "lunch at pub" which doesn’t really say that much, but it might trigger your memory to go back to that moment and you remember how it was sunny, how you had a sausage roll and pint of Sussex.  Possibly a bit boring again to anyone else, but for you that trigger has taken you back in your mind to that moment.

So the whole idea then is triggers for the emotional side of things, and simply recording what you have done for the practical side of things.   I came across the idea of the "One Sentence Journal" (OSJ) from one or two websites and that seemed to fit everything that I was looking for.  The idea with the OSJ is that you just sum up the whole day with one sentence, giving you 365 sentences per year and a whole load of memory triggers included.   I kind of adapted that a bit to my own use and keep the one sentence idea but maybe have a "one sentence" a number of times during the day as I do different things.   The whole day then is recorded as a number of single sentences which is more than enough to record the day, includes plenty of memory triggers, and is quick and simple to do (ie you will tend to keep doing it).

I started this then using a simple text file which did the job fine and being simple text meant that any computer system and application would be able to read it (completely future proof!).  This however came against the problem I was having all the time which was I had to be on a computer in order to quickly add something to it.  I kind of stopped adding things outside of work and slowly I couldn’t be bothered to find the file and add things to it at work too.

What I needed I thought was something that would accept my input and then in the background do the rest, ie add it to a text file somewhere, date it and really leave me to get on with things while it did it all.   For this then I wrote a number of Bash scripts on my Linux system to do everything I needed.  It accepted text and then filed it in the correct place for me.  Fantastic, but still fully digital and meant I had to log into a Linux shell to use it (unless at sometime I could have had got round to putting a web front end to it maybe).

I then came across Twitter which seemed to suit the idea of OSJ completely and infact I noticed some people did use it for that.   Never wanting to trust any online service (what happens if/when Twitter goes down and losses its data?!) I wrote another Bash script to grab my Twitter entries using the Twitter API and then feeding that into the existing scripts I had written.  So, everytime I added something on twitter, it soon arrived in the correct text file on my computer for me at anytime to look at.

Using twitter solved one problem as I no longer needed to be in front of a computer to add things as I could use the SMS feature of Twitter to submit things.  However, never a great mobile phone fan, I soon tired of trying to type things out on a phone number pad!  Also, I couldn’t really record things fully as I knew my Twitter feed was available for everyone and also probably being picked up by Google.  I couldn’t mention names, companies, projects and really it seemed like I was having to write in code which possibly I would forget years in the future.   I did set my Twitter account to be private, but I still thought that Twitter continues to store my data and maybe one day it could easily share it with the world if it liked, who knows?!

So…..  I looked at my Moleskine and thought here is something I have with my all the time along with a pen.   Why don’t I simply jot things down in there seeing as that is what it is for.  If I want to store it digitally one day then I can simply scan the pages in which would be no problem (with my new super duper scanner I had bought!).

My OSJ pages then contain a date for each day.  Starting with the format of YYYYmmdd (just habbit as someone who scripts and programs bits and pieces!) it was hard to read, so then used a more human readable date, lining off the end of the each week so I can quickly see the weeks.  I tend to fit one week of these per page so it becomes easy to read back.   For each entry I have the time and then the OSJ bit.

It is quick and simple, you write and then forget.  It makes interesting reading and is handy to remember what and when you did something.  It is pretty boring for a third party to read, but for me it is fill with memory triggers.

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I keep with true GTD working and have an ‘Inbox’ which is used as dump for everything in my head. This is probably the best Inbox I have had as it requires no booting up, swtiching on, or indeed anything. Just need to open the page and start listing everything that is in my head. Doesn’t matter about anything else, just spending some time to jot things down one after the other.

I write down list items in the same way throughout the book, a dash and then the item. When I have done or sorted the task I then put a tick through the line. If the item is no longer needed (maybe it was put down in error or it is no longer valid) then I cross out the whole item.

This list is processed at least once a week during my Weekly Review (WR) where I look at each item in my Inbox and follow the GTD idea of either doing it now (if it will take less than two minutes), add to a project, assign to someone else, or delete. This is where such a retro approach to it all falls down a bit as if this was digital then I would simply move the item from one list and add it to another (in the case of adding it to a project) - but in retro Moleskine land I have to duplicate the item and write it out again on the correct page. However, that is not too much of a problem as during this time I give thought to the “Next Step” (NS) that the item needs, ie what needs to happen next in order to progress the item? That I list in brackets () after the item, along with any assignee if I am re-assigning it to someone else. If I need feel that the task can be broken down into further items then I list these indented as bullet lists, following the same notation rules (ie, this is the GTD of making large items into smaller manageable chunks and incorporating them into a single ‘project’)

Related Post

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• Moleskine Retro PDA Part3 - OSJ
• Moleskine Retro PDA Part1
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• Remember the Milk instead
• Vitalist to ask for paid subscription

I have always liked the idea of a proper notebook, nonbranded and plain inside - use it for whatever I fancy. I was given a Moleskine as a Christmas present and for a couple of years I used it now and then to jot down the odd note and plan, but I never really ‘used’ it as such.

Years later I find myself using ‘Getting Things Done’ or GTD technique and had been quite happy using online systems such as ‘Remember The Milk (RTM). However, it came to me that in order to get things done in my life when using an online tool I had to actually be online. If something came to me while I happened to be out or anywhere away from the computer then I had to either try to remember it (that kind of went a bit against the GTD idea) or jot it down somewhere. Infact, even if I was online, I would have to stop what I was doing, switch over to a web browser, load up RTM (a lot of the time this would be in a tab already loaded in Firefox though), go to the correct page and then write it down in there. After all that, I would find my concentration had broken and so off to get a cup of coffee before I carry on. What I was then really looking for was something that could be with me all the time, at hand, would not distract, and would be able to take both formal and quick informal scribbles. The idea of either my aging Psion Series5 or my Visor Handspring seemed good ideas.

The Psion I had used loads of times for similar things, back through the years from early Series 3 it had done very well. However, the screen and the keyboard was never really that easy to use. As much as I had fought it over the years, it was always a lot quicker to jot things down with a pen and paper. The Hanspring Palm I had switched to from the Psion and it was fantastic. But again, I found it quicker at times to use pen and paper to quickly jot things down, attempting to do the same on the Palm and its shorthand meant re-writing letters over and over again. My handwriting is never too good, so a computer had little chance!

I then picked up my Moleskine and started to use it to jot down those quick things and at the end of the day I would ’sync’ it up with RTM, copy all the new thoughts and things from the Moleskine to RTM where they would then be handled.

This lasted a couple of weeks but all the time I seemed to be fighting the online way of doing things. At work it was all fine, in front of the computer all day everything was there for me. But at home I would have to turn the computer on, sit at a desk and look at RTM. It seemed all a bit over the top and long way round for doing things when all I wanted to do was to quickly look up a date or check something or tick off an item on one of my lists. With all that in mind, I then used the Moleskine a lot more as a kind of “offline” RTM where I would write down and tick things off a list and then ’sync’ if up with the real RTM the next day at work. Pointless!

So I finally thought my “digital urge” and decided to go “retro” with PDAs! I decided to look up the numerous web pages on using Moleskines (or indeed any notebook) to “Get Things Done”, including numerous groups on flickr too. From it all, I came up with how I could in theory do everything I needed to do in a notebook, taking a bit from everyone and even including some of my own bits.

Since then I have used an “offline” PDA for a year and it is still going strong. It is with me all the time, I am able to quickly edit/add things to it using a method that is usable in any light conditions (ok, maybe not pitch black!), with any input device I can find nearby, and it doesn’t take batteries or get viruses or do anything nasty!

So I am now ready to go through what I decided upon and how it all works. More to come…..

Related Post

• Moleskine Retro PDA Part4 - Weekly Review
• Moleskine Retro PDA Part3 - OSJ
• Moleskine Retro PDA Part2 - Inbox
• Five Steps for a Good Weekly Review
• Remember the Milk instead
• Vitalist to ask for paid subscription

First thing Monday morning is when I go through things:

1. audit the last week - what you had planned, what you achieved and did not, why?
2. preview the coming week - any tasks that MUST finish on a day during the week, any appointments?
3. check project lists - run through all your project lists to determine any _next items
4. check goals - are these still achievable, any new goals, any goals achieved?
5. talk to people - for any tasks that you have delegated, tell them!

Any system, be it GTD or no, is going to fail at some point and simple act as a means to jot down your tasks but not a system to help to Get Things Done on your task….

Related Post

• Moleskine Retro PDA Part4 - Weekly Review
• Moleskine Retro PDA Part3 - OSJ
• Moleskine Retro PDA Part2 - Inbox
• Moleskine Retro PDA Part1
• Remember the Milk instead
• Vitalist to ask for paid subscription

Before I started to use Vitalist as my GTD tool of choice a number of months ago, I looked at two other systems which didn’t quite fullfill my needs.  Of course, times have changed now, with Vitalist’s announcement to start charging I have had to go back to my notes and re-review systems I looked at before.

This whole charging for Vitalist thing continues to rumble on within various GTD blogs, numerous people saying how bad it is while others say give them a break as the people behind Vitalist have to make a living and we should not expect to get such a good service for free.  In a way that is indeed true, nothing can ever be free in life - but in another way it is totally wrong.  In today’s online world I do expect to get a lot for free.  It is how the online world is these days, look at free email, free web hosting, free social networking…. everything has been put in place that is free.   With that in mind it is silly then to say you should not expect something like Vitalist to be free, because if it is not free then there are 101 other services like it that are.  That is how these things work these days now, we all expect things like this to be free, and it is the industry that has made us think this way by offering us so much free.

So that’s enough moaning about Vitalist, probably the best online GTD around but now unfortunately a paid for service that in today’s world people do not expect to pay for.

Two systems then I went back to look at again.  Firstly there is Thinking Rock which I have found to be the one system that follows GTD strictly and everything is there.  It is a java application which means I am able (and indeed for around four months did use) to use both on my Windows XP platform and at home on my Mac.  But, being java it is slow and it is not quick and easy to add things to it.  One of the things I liked about all the online GTD systems is the ability to email tasks to your Inbox which means a quick and simple email means the task has gone out of your head and can be processed another time.  Without this, you have to fire up the app, wait for java to come to life, and then bring up dialogs to fill things out.  Not a great hassle, but if the idea of GTD is to get everything out of your head quickly and simple, I found the email system a lot simpler and quicker and more likely to use.  So, although I used and loved Thinking Rock, I stopped using it after a while.

The other system is Remember The Milk which isn’t a dedicated GTD system but is a very flexible todo list.  While it is not as close to GTD as Vitalist is, the website I think is much better, much easier and quicker to use (and the quickness and ease of all this being such an important thing), some very nice Web2.0 going on.   I must say, I don’t like the larger font and the more spacing out, lots of white space going on, all very Web2.0 which is nice and pretty, but not as handy as Vitalist when it comes to showing as much information.   Also, it doesn’t include tags and things in the main description of each todo item, something that Vitalist does and is nice to see  - but that’s not a huge huge problem.

There are many articles and blogs about how to use Remember The Milk with GTD, which I had a look at and I have sorted out my own same sort of simple system.   Tags are used for the contexts, starting with the ‘@’ character, for @computer, @phone, @thought.   Tags are also used (because you can have multiple tags) as projects and I start these with ‘p-’, so p-moleville for example is the project for anything to do with this website.   Now, some people set up their projects as different lists, but with both personal and work related items going in my GTD system, thats a lot of projects and so a lot of tabs at the top of my Remember the Milk screen.  So instead I have used the ‘p-’ tags instead and for projects that I use a lot I have made custom searches on their tag and they appear as tabs.  I use tags too for items that I am waiting for others to do.  While these are housed within the Waiting list I find it hand to know who I am waiting for, so tags starting with ‘w-’ show this.  For example, w-phil tag means a task that I am waiting for Phil to get back to me on.

The lists that I have in my system include:

• INBOX (new items added via website or email, worked through and emptied once a day)
• Actions (an actionable item, which will be most things)
• Reference (items for reference only such as birthdays and appointments)
• Ticklers (items for the tickler file, reviewed during the Weekly Review)
• Waiting (items that I am waiting for others to do, items here will be tagged with a ‘w-’ tag too)
• Sent (default list that Remember The Milk gives but I do not use)
• ACTION POINTS (a saved search.  During the weekly project meeting at work I will be given a number of action points to do and these will come up the next week in the regular project meeting.  It then is a good idea if I either complete these items within the week or I at least know what I’m doing with them so I can report back.  So any task that has come from an action point from this meeting I add the tag ‘ap’ and it appears in this tab.  I can then make sure that this tabbed list of items is looked at first.)
• NTD (Next To Do.  GTD does not really use priorities for items, and possibly a good idea too as there are only so many high priority items you can have in one list!   So instead, for each project I add the tag ‘ntd’ to one and only one item per project.  I work through the projects in my Weekly Review which I can do quickly using the list of ‘p-’ tags.  This NTD list then gives a list of tasks that I should be working on next for each project.  It doesn’t tell me which one of them I should be doing first, that’s for me to decide at that moment, GTD suggests that different tasks may be more suitable to do first depending on the situation - which is true.

So, I have spent most of the day moving other my items from Vitalist to Remember The Milk, let’s see how I go with it.

Another system that I did quickly look at was a plugin for Firefox which works with Google Gmail and adds a GTD layer on top of it.  I did like this a lot, but unfortunately there is no real way to have timed items in the list, no way to include appointments etc…    People have written workarounds for this, but it all seemed a bit too clumsy at the moment for me.

[tags]vitalist, gtd, remember the milk, todo lists[/tags]

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• Moleskine Retro PDA Part3 - OSJ
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• Moleskine Retro PDA Part1
• Five Steps for a Good Weekly Review

Vitalist Changes to Services

It was a bit of a shame to read this morning that the guys behind the online GTD tool Vitalist have changed their services levels and payment schemes.  Up until now the service has been free and unlimited with a paid subscription for the odd extra feature and no advertising.  Personally, I would not use the extra features, and the ads don’t bother me, so I have been very happy with the free of charge model.

However, the new services mean the free service now has strict limits on the number of projects and really if you are going to use Vitalist properly you are going to now have to sign up to a monthly fee.   I can see why they have done this, they have to make some money to keep things running somehow - but in a world of free software and online services it seems like maybe they could be shooting themselves in the foot and will loose a great number from their user base.

Vitalist is actually quite a good tool and after spending ages evaluating many offline and online GTD systems I found Vitalist came closest to what I needed.  It was not as close to the GTD model as some systems, but all the things it offered scored well against what I was looking for.

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• Moleskine Retro PDA Part3 - OSJ
• Moleskine Retro PDA Part2 - Inbox
• Moleskine Retro PDA Part1
• Five Steps for a Good Weekly Review