Info on using wiki for GTD

 

GTD is a planning system that has you:

• move all of your commitments to do things out of your head and onto a written list,
• formulate those listed commitments as discrete actions,
• group those listed commitments into categories, so that whatever situation you are in, you can find a group of listed commitments appropriate to that situation,
• review your list at least once a week to check off completed actions and write down new commitments to act.

 

My Tudomo page

 

GTD summary

CNN interview with GTD founder

article on inbox with wikipad

another article on GTD inbox with wikipad

page of scanned text on GTD projects

GTD TiddlyWiki

List of GTD  tools

Kelly Forrister GTD Blog - good stuff here

Adding form to Google GTD spreadsheet - this is really cool!

Link to my GTD form - this works great!

GTD Times - mindmaps

Excel  implementation of GTD article

Manual Gantt chart in excel

Planner view using excel by GTD  Wannabe

Another GTD Blog

 

Using a wiki for GTD

GTD  refresher

Dogmelon guide to GTD

review and tools for GTD

using mail and iCal for GTD

 

wikipad site

wikipad review

Tracs GTD tool written in Ruby

Pimki - has mindmap technology

 

Steve Bells GTD  spreadsheet with macros

Another GTD spreadsheet

Article for using GTD on spreadsheet

Sample GTD spreadsheet in OO format

 

GTD  for programmers

Apple scripts and GTD article

Interesting article

 

Using Goggle Docs as a wiki

Tudumo home page

Tudumo review

Autofocus

http://www.dave-miller.com/blog/2009/03/01/autofocus

 

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I've tried many gtd applications and I always come back to my faithful Excel spreadsheet that I keep tweaking to my heart’s content.

In my file, I have these separate sheets (with bottom, colored tags): stuff-in, immediate actions asap, recurring tasks, calendar, tickler /someday maybe, delegate & wait for, reference, goals.

For each sheet, I have the columns I deem useful:

-immediate actions: date, priority, action, detail, context, duration ,effort

- recurring tasks: recurrence, days to, next date, last date, priority, action, detail ,context, duration , effort.

-etc.

“I” choose my fonts, colors, date formats, sorts, macros …

Whenever I want, I print any sheet condensed on a single sheet of paper.

Hard to beat!!!

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Secondary sorting with Google Docs spreadsheet:

Q - Currently you can sort any one column in google documents

spreadsheets, but as far as I can tell there is no way to perform a

secondary sort.  I am trying to sort alphabetically by name and within

each name alphabetically by color.  At present I cannot perform this

sort.

A - Yes you can, but you will have to work 'backwards'. First sort by

color, then by name. The relative sorting on color will be preserved

when you sort on name.

This method - sorting while working backwards from sorting on least

significant key values to sorting on most significant key values will

work for as many column your data has.

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(GTD Component)

Agendas: An agenda list is a list of things that need to be discussed, brought, or dealt with in terms of a meeting with another person. It’s just like a context list, only instead of the context being @work, @computer, @home or the like, the context is in the presence of someone else – like an agenda list for your boss, partner, doctor, bank, etc.

My Agenda Lists include:

My wife

My doctor

My Coworker

My Mother

and a lot of blank ones for different clients.

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Here is how I implement GTD with Excel

For your convenience I have posted an example file on MediaFire

http://www.mediafire.com/?3rxidvn1x2z

(gtd.xls)

I only setup 3 tabs: Projects, Next Actions, and Waiting For.

I will start with the Project worksheet:

Each project gets a unique number (Column A). The number doesn't reflect the importance of the project at all. As projects are finished, their row is deleted. As more rows are needed, I simply start adding some more sequential project numbers.

The date is when the project was added to the list (Column B). I prefer ISO dating, but you should know that this column's format is set as Text, b/c most spreadsheet software still has a hard time with ISO dating. The project due date (Column D) is used sparingly and may have tasks laid out on the hard landscape of my calendar as necessary.

Column E and F are used to query the Next Actions and Waiting For worksheets to see if this project has a NA or WF item on either of those lists. For instance, in my example file, project #2 is a red flag b/c it doesn't have a step in NA or WF worksheets. This means that a next action or waiting for item must be defined for that project. Long term, I plan to have those columns just say Y for yes and N for no, but I am OK with this layout for now.

Now, the Next Actions worksheet:

There is a project reference column (Column A), if applicable, but a next action needn't have project. The reason the project reference is important to me is that when I print these lists, I like to have a reference to what project this action may be for.

The Date is when the next action was established. Not only is ISO dating an international standard, it makes for easy sorting.

Action is the very next physical action. If digital files need to be referenced for Desktop searching then I include a FileRef for the filename. If it is regarding an email I will include the email subject and date. If there is a phone call, I try to include the phone number. Time is a time estimate, in minutes, of how long the action will take (Hat tip: Julie M.); only the action, no "travel time" is included. Priority is used sparingly and is almost exclusively used for "A" items (Hat tip: Stephen C.).

The Associated Project column is used to reference the project. I don't print this column by setting up the print area to avoid it. It is nice, however, to see when reviewing actions while editing the spreadsheet.

Now, I use the spreadsheets Sort tool in this worksheet quite a bit. Whenever I am about to print, I sort by Context (to group things together), then by Priority (to put the most important things on top), then by Date (to look at the oldest items first).

The Waiting For worksheet is setup very similar to the Next Actions worksheet.

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Hi -- I'm using a Jr Size Day-Timer for my GTD lists, specifically home/personal. I use Steve Bell's Excel GTD sheet for managing work lists.

I have mine set up just as David Allen describes in the tips and tools section of this site. Works great. In my Project section, the first page lists only ACTIVE PROJECTS, that is, stuff that is absorbing my attention for the next week-10 days. After that, are several Smday/Maybe pages. I date each entry.

[When you enter a project into your system, what else do you include? Intended outcome? A list of next actions? A mind map?]

I try to phrase the project such that it starts with an action verb, ie, "Install backup battery in UPS" or "Sell my old comic books"--this is the vision I'm working toward. When it's checked off, I know that project is done.

A separate tab is labeled PROJECT NOTES, per David's suggestions. Each page (pages) is dedicated to a single project. This is where I disgorge any next actions lurking in my brain. No particular order, just splat on the page. Pages aren't big enough for mindmaps, but that could be done. I don't have a page defined for all my someday/maybes, but I do for my active projects. It's a convenient net to catch any ideas related to any projects.

I keep my address info in my Psion -- more convenient and searchable. So I use the Address tabs to index reference material. "Sprint Conference Call" procedure is behind the S tab. "Gift ideas" list is behind the "GH" tab.

For the weekly review, I remove my action lists from the binder and update them as I review the Projects list. When they're updated, I insert them back into the D-T.

I like the tactile feeling of the D-T, seeing a whole page at one time, etc. I can also tell when I'm falling behind. On my @ lists, I write big so that only 3 or 4 tasks are on a page. I record the date on which a task is entered. When a task is done, I cross it out.

So, for example, on @CALLS, tasks are "8/31 Hotel for 9/19 reservation", "9/8 Dr. Taylor for appointment" , "9/10 Call Rani re party."

If i've crossed off the hotel and Rani, but I'm well into next week and Dr. Taylor hasn't been called, then I'm procrastinating that task, for some reason. Since I can only remove a page when all tasks are crossed off, it behooves me to get undone tasks renegotiated or completed.

Sorry for the long post. Hope it's helpful.

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Have you seen our article at:

http://www.davidco.com/pdfs/tt_paper_organizer.pdf

There you'll see a real blow by blow outline of the paper planner along with some of the "best practices" of managing workflow with that tool.

Personally, I used a paper planner for about two years. Here's how I used it:

My projects are all be grouped on a Projects list, and each of those should have a "next action" on the appropriate action list, until the projects are finished.

Using paper, I made sure to visually word each next action so I knew, without having to think, to which project it referred.

THen, whenever I finished a task, I put a yellow hi-lite line through the completed action and wrote the NEXT action on the appropriate list. Again, the weekly review of the inventory of open loops (Projects List) is critical to making this system work; that's where you ensure all your current projects have moving parts.

 

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Another paper-based GTD-er here. Answering some of your questions:

I use DayRunner pages (like the design and the paper holds real ink very well). And I integrate work and home stuff.

I have experimented with size and format and right now, after three years of using the "pocket" size have gone back to the mid-size, "classic". I resisted sizing up because I carry it everywhere (my family calls it "The Book"), but the smaller one was just bursting at the seams and it was impossible to reduce critical work-related documents to fit.

I use both weekly and tabbed monthly pages. I keep 3-months of weekly pages in The Book at one time -- the current month, the past month, and the next. Appointments farther out than that get put on the monthly pages, and as I add a month, I transfer details from that month to the weekly sheets.

I track both work activities and home/family activities in the book. Family activities on the monthly pages are color coded (me, husband, daughter) which makes it easy to see potential conflicts to plan around at a glance. I use the weekly pages to track appointments and date-specific ticklers or to-dos; the left column for each day for appointments the right column top for work-related, right column bottom for home. This works for me because like many I do home-related stuff from home and vice versa.

I posted somewhere else on the forum that I keep weekly time-frame lists as my next action lists, one for home, one for work, side by side (just works for the rhythms of my particular work needs and style). I have two sets of tabs, the front set are home/family focused and include tabs for goals/objectives, homemaking (decorating, shopping, menus, garden, etc), finances, and general personal notes. Behind my weekly pages are work tabs: a tab for general notes, another for a comprehensive list of active/open projects, another for project action plans (one page per project), one for contacts (agendas with others, voice mails, etc), and a fifth one with current work financial reports and data.

My tel/address pages are mostly personal/family, with a few critical work entries. I keep my work-related address book in Outlook, at the office, though I'm planning to print out a list and put in The Book (just haven't got around to that yet)

All this gets processed through my weekly review, which actually has two parts: Friday afternoon at work, and usually early Sunday morning at home. I generally review only work stuff at the office on Friday, but usually on Sunday -- at my kitchen table, in my slippers, without the phone ringing -- can complete the home review and then return to additional work planning/review if needed.

Makes Monday morning almost worth looking forward to (with a deep breath!)

Sorry for the long post, I got carried away.

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[Just out of curiosity, what do you use as a calendar, weekly or daily? How do you handle day specific but not time specific tasks?]

I have monthly calendar pages (the big picture), and use the weekly calendar as a graphic view of my week's activities.I waver between the vertical 2pg-per-week calendars (each day is its own column) and the Day-Timer 2pg-per-week where appointments are on the left and tasks on the right. Work tasks go at the top and personal start from the bottom.

Day-specific--either a tickler folder or a timed task in my Lotus Notes calendar at work. For personal, I make an appointment to do the thing in my D-T calendar.

[You said you keep your home/personal stuff in your D-T and your work stuff on an Excel spreadsheet. Is there any over lap between the two? How do you handle that?]

Slight overlap. I do have a page for @WORK and a someday/maybe for my office. But I try to transfer those to the Excel spreadsheet during weekly review.

No, not much overlap. I've been doing it this way for so long, I can't conceive of blending them. To me, work takes place at work, which is where all my support materials, calendars, etc., are. I don't want to shlep that junk around in my DT. The DT is my personal (emphasize 'personal') memory machine and holds all non-work stuff. Not a terribly wholistic view of my life, I guess, but it works for me. That's the test.

[Do you do anything to integrate long term goal planning, your mission, roles, and values into your process and your tools?]

Not consciously. Never studied Covey so never did any of that. I do keep a list of goals in my Projects section and I review it every week, along with everything else. When I review "Take piano lessons" for the 143rd time, and really think about it, something might twig me to move it from Someday to Active, and then put a phone call on my CALLS list. And then that long-term goal is finally put into motion. But until then, it remains on paper and out of my mind till my intuitive mechanisms let me know I need to do more with it. Trust your tools.

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I'll respond in the same manner as Mike...question, my response:

<<Thank you too for the information! Yes, I have read the article, and it there is a lot of good info, but I seem to be more interested in the details.>>

<<When you used a paper system, did you use Day-Timer, Franklin, or another? What did you use as a calendar, weekly or daily? Did you also use the monthly calendars? Did you use an integrated system between home and work? Any issues with that?>>

I started using a paper system while attending a GTD seminar in 1997. So, I made my own. My calendar was a TWO page, weekly view. It had enough room to write "just" the hard landscape. I did TRY to keep separate calendars, and after I missed a couple of meetings/appointments (because the reminder was on the "other" calendar), I went to ONE calendar for everything.

<<Did you, and do you now, do anything to integrate long term goal planning, your mission, roles, and values into your process and your tools?>>

I have an inventory of "executive-level" thinking at each of the levels:

20,000 (for example: (Areas of Focus: Volunteer, Speaker)

30,000 (for example: (Publish a book.)

40,000 (for example: Own another home.)

50,000 (for example: Support sustainable learning systems and behaviors for students of all ages.)

I review these "whenever" I think I should, making sure that I have collected all the "active projects" that could be embedded in them. Again, long-term or someday/maybe, there is a difference!

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