How I use PI to implement GTD

[krypticide]

Just wanted to share with GTD users how I do GTD on my Pocket PC, using Pocket Informant. I hope it helps some people:

http://www.stanford.edu/~aylin/blog/2005/05/how-i-use-pocket-informant-to.html
Update: http://www.stanford.edu/~aylin/blog/2005/05/update-how-i-use-pocket-informant-to.html

[Jon Westfall]

Thanks for the link! I'm sure anyone who practices GTD to increase their own productivity will find this useful.

[krypticide]

I'd love any comments, suggestions, or any other kind of feedback. I don't doubt there are a lot of GTD users with PPC, and they just need a head start to getting even more productive.

[emuelle1]

krypticide, I read this about a month ago, and went looking for it again today. I'd actually like a little more explanation about how your system works. I'm trying to overcome some limitations of Microsoft Outlook, and your task naming convention sounds interesting.

[Phillip Dyson]

I'm also reading "Getting things Done". I'll admit it. Its slow going. :oops: I think it may have something to do with the fact that its my first eBook. I also have paper back but I'm trying to try something new.
Perhaps this is not the book to try out the new medium.

Anyway ... I've been tossing around several options for my PIM strategy. I did come to the realization that I will need to limit my self to the capabilities of the least common denominator. In this case its Outlook.

While PI and PhatNotes are powerful programs, I still spend a lot of time in Outlook. Especially at work.

[krypticide]

Hmmm, not sure what clarifications you'd like. I've realized that Pocket Informant has some issues with category names: for instance, it gets confused, thinking that "_Work", "!Work", "@Work" are all the same things. It seems that the extra characters don't do anything to distinguish the categories. They will still show up, but you'll see weird issues when trying to delete categories.

So now I have things set up differently:

!Categories
!Personal
!Business
!Work
!School
_Location
_Home
_Campus
_Office
@Action
@Agenda
@Calls
@Other
...
I use the !Categories for everything, including appointments, contacts, and tasks. For tasks, I add an additional @Action, which allows me to distinguish between real tasks and organizational tasks (goals, projects, etc.) when sorting. Filtering is a bit limited in Pocket Informant, so anything I categorize with "(G!) Someday" I do not associate an @Action with. I just have to remember to assign an @Action to it when I move it out of the Someday category.

The @Other action category is important, since I use @Action for real action tasks. In the past, some tasks did not have a clear action, e.g. "Replace halogen light bulb in projector". This way, I maintain some sort of action categorization for filtering purposes.

As for use in Outlook, I find that I don't really use Outlook very much. Of course these categories show up when you list tasks by categories, which can be helpful. Because of multiple categories, you can see a list of tasks by either !Category, @Action, or _Location. I've never set up a filter in Outlook, but I'm sure that can be done as well.

More discussion is welcome! Update post on my blog is here:
Update: How I use Pocket Informant to implement GTD (http://www.stanford.edu/~aylin/blog/2005/05/update-how-i-use-pocket-informant-to.html)

[emuelle1]

Until this morning, I had no idea what GTD is, and it turned out that I had the book all along (I borrowed a time management book from my inlaws months ago and left it in my cubicle compartment at work). It turned out to be David Allen's GTD. I made it through Chapter 1 today and started 2. So far it's really intereting. It is true that Franklin is rather limited when you can't just prioritize all of your tasks first thing in the morning and expect nothing to change.

[krypticide]

I would say the biggest key points that you can take out of GTD and apply to anything would be writing things down immediately and using action words for your task list. It's amazing how much difference action words make to your particular impetus to do it. In fact, I'm so used to action words now that I can't even make a task list without them!

[emuelle1]

This GTD book is interesting. How am I supposed to survive without my daily task list 8O ?

I look forward to further chapters.