All right, I’ll give. I’m going to share how I implement the Getting Things Done methodology. Allen’s book, Getting Things Done, explains five separate phases of managing one’s workflow. He says that everyone who has to make decisions about what to do has to manage their work by moving through these five stages, although the specifics may differ considerably from situation to situation:
- Collect. In this stage, a person collects input. This may be from an email, a letter, a note, a conversation, meeting notes, an idea, or some nagging thought.
- Process. This involves making decisions about all of the things collected. The questions are “What does this mean to me?” and “What do I need to do about it?” If it is an actionable item, other questions include “Is this a multi-step project?,” “What does the outcome look like?,” and “What’s the very next physical action to take about this?”
- Organize. Once decisions are made, the stuff is dealt with. It can be trashed, filed, delegated, incubated, deferred, or done. This is when things get parked in the organizing system, including action (to-do) lists and calendars.
- Review. Once decisions have been made and the stuff organized, the system must be reviewed regularly enough to keep it current and to make good action decisions. One of the pieces to this is Allen’s somewhat famous Weekly Review concept.
- Do. This is the part that ultimately matters. This is the getting things done part.
Allen lays out the principles, but the implementation of a system that utilizes this methodology can vary significantly from person to person. I’ve tried several schemes over the last four years, but here’s the system that’s been working well for me for over a year now.
Workstation
- I have a dedicated desk at home and at work.
- Each desk has a phone to the left, a pad of paper and pen to the right, stickies lying about, a stapler, several stacked in-box style baskets, a standing file holder for active project files, and a Brother’s labeler.
- I have a computer at each desk with roughly the same set of software, and synchronized files between them.
Inboxes & Collection
- I almost always have my Space Pen and Moleskine Cahier pocket notebook with me to jot notes. When I can’t write, I call Jott from my cell phone and leave a to-be-transcribed message.
- I have a work email account and a personal Gmail account. These are kept separate. I have an “– Active –” folder in my work email that contains all in-process emails. This lets me keep my inbox empty when I process it. I follow a similar pattern with Gmail, except I star items that are in-process.
- I have desk 4-5 in-baskets on my work and home desks. The top is for my inbox - everything gets collected there. The other baskets has different uses at home and work.
Organizer & Lists
- I use MS Outlook for my organizer software. I tweaked Outlook to better fit my workflow style, and it functions quite well for my needs.
- I keep my address book, action and project lists in the tasks area, and my incubated someday/maybe lists, checklists, and many other notes and reference in the Notes app (which I must say is usable, but just barely).
- All of this gets sync’d to my Palm TX. I would much prefer a Treo, or possibly a Blackberry, but this is fine, and costs half of what a Treo costs. The TX is a fine Palm, in any case, and the PalmOS handles lists, calendar, contacts, and memos (notes) in a very fast, simple, and intuitive manner.
- Allen talks about a tickler system, which involves a set of folders that get cycled through, one a day, that hold reminders and materials needed that day. Since my current job isn’t as operational with many daily repeated tasks or day-specific actions, the tickler file didn’t really work well for me (although it was essential when I was scheduling daily and special computer jobs and reports at a VAX operator job a few years back). Instead, I use non-timed appointments on my Outlook calendar (the ones without times at the top of the day) with the word “TICKLER:” or “URGENT:” in front.
- I have a separate next-action list for each physical context (where I’m at). I have separate personal and work project lists to remind me of all my commitments. I also have a “Someday-soon” list to park things that I don’t want to see on a daily basis. I trust that I will review those items weekly during my weekly review. Finally, my Waiting-For list tracks things that I’m waiting on from others, or outside of my ability to act (a shipment, a project deliverable, an email response, a person to come back from vacation that’s needed for the next project step, etc).
Filing & Reference
- I have a filing cabinet at home and office. These hold their respective files, which are all plain manilla folders with Brothers white labels on them. Not a single one has a penned-in label. The files are labeled alphabetically. This is actually a project on my someday list, because my files could be organized much better and more intuitively. For what it is though, the system works very well.
- Outlook/Palm hold many notes/memos on various reference items. I hold a lot of Someday/Maybe lists there for books, music, videos, restaurants, and other longer-term goals and things I want to do. I have several checklists for reminders, travel, etc. I keep gift idea lists for certain people. There are reference memos with model numbers and refill number for much of our stuff (the numbers I always wish I had when I’m at Home Depot, for example). I also have several other little work and personal reference notes.
- My PC files hold the biggest bulk of my filing system, and that setup is explained in this post.
Reviewing
- I look at my lists daily. As my wife will tell you, that doesn’t mean I always actually get to much on them.
- About once a week (every 6-12 days, as I can/feel like), I’ll do some form of weekly review, which I’ll talk about in another post. Basically, it includes reviewing all of my lists and updating them, making sure that every project and commitment is processed into my system.
- I try to create some form of perspective focus tool every week. This is usually a mindmap or one-page word document that includes higher level goals I want to be reminded of, as well as weekly objectives and urgent items to make high priority. This gets looked at most days.
Other notes
- I use Mind Manager religiously to track projects, plan, brainstorm, and think.
- I tried to link projects to actions in my lists for the first couple of years. This proved to be really cumbersome, and I couldn’t keep my system current. So, now I rely on the weekly review to keep those linked. If I have a high priority project that needs more attention than once a week, I’ll put it in front of my face somehow.
- I use Jott reminders to send me one-time text messages at certain times if I need to remember something (don’t forget to buy X, meeting in 5, etc).
- I keep a lot of information in the notes section of projects and contacts. In projects, I’ll often include brief plans, milestones, objectives, and other support. In contacts, I’ll put as much information about that person as I can - directions to them, facts about them, etc.
- Every project on my project describes an outcome and starts with a verb: “Baby-proof the house,” “Deploy monitoring server,” “R&D DNS system architecture,” “Finalize vacation plans.”
- Every Waiting-For item follows the same format: “wf <DATE PUT INTO SYSTEM: MM-DD> <WHO> <WHAT>”. For example: “wf 7-14 Amazon books shipped.”
- Every item on the @Errands list starts with the location name for sorting purposes (”target:”, “parents:”, “bank:”).
- All the next-actions are really next actions. So I don’t say “buy mom birthday gift” — that’s a project outcome. I’d say “brainstorm several ideas of things mom has liked in the past.”
August 4th, 2008
by Chuck Sharp
This is a tremendously useful article explaining step-by-step how to use the free Hamachi software to connect PCs into a secure VPN. It’s very thorough, and since the process doesn’t take too long, it’s possible to go through the whole process for all of one’s PCs in under an hour.
Creating Your Own Personal Virtual Private Network with Hamachi | MakeUseOf.com
August 4th, 2008
by Chuck Sharp
Well, over the weekend I moved this site from 1and1’s hosting service to Bluehost. This was a fun move, and I think the site will be much better for it. 1and1 was never an outstanding provider, although I personally never had many problems with them. Their servers were slow, they imposed some odd controls over their clients, and they’re Europe-based. While the last item isn’t bad by any means, I’m personally much happier dealing with a company that’s entirely based locally. It’s the same reason my friend uses GoDaddy, which is based right here in Phoenix. He’s comforted by the fact that he can call up their helpdesk and speak to someone who’s actually in the same city. Kind of makes sense, I think.
Finally, and this was the kicker, 1and1 is not cool in the billing department. When my father-in-law’s debit card expired, as all cards do, and his card therefore declined automatic renewal payment for his business website with 1and1, their customer support promptly shut down his website, actually called him a deadbeat over the phone, and sent him to collections with massive fees, even after he immediately rectified the situation. I don’t want to deal with that kind of company.
In any case, Bluehost is run by a cool guy, their pricing is great, and it appears that they have real expert engineers working on Bluehost’s architecture. They also offer some great freedom to a geek such as myself. I’ll try to give some updates and thoughts over time on Bluehost, but overall, they meet my needs and what I want with a webhost, and they just feel like a good group to work with. We’ll see!
July 31st, 2008
by Chuck Sharp
July 30th, 2008
by Chuck Sharp
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Do you remember old DOS video games? Commander Keen, Ultima, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, One Must Fall 2097, The Oregan Trail. The memories… These were so much fun. Well, a lot of old games were abandoned and released to the public. You can find, download, and enjoy all those old titles and more (legally!) here: Abondonia. Seriously, check it out. There are a ton of games there.
Now, old DOS games never play quite right in Windows, which is why some folks wrote Dosbox as a free semi-virtual machine just for DOS. Install it and play your games in it. Works perfectly.
Just don’t blame me for lost hours…
July 30th, 2008
by Chuck Sharp
July 29th, 2008
by Chuck Sharp
I have many types of data on my PCs. I value different data differently, and different data changes at varying frequencies. Here are few principles of data protection that I buy into:
- Backup all data you would not like to lose, period. How many of us don’t follow this rule even a little bit?
- Backups should spread across space. Data backups should be as physically separated from the originals as possible. In other words, don’t keep your home PC backups on your home PC. Really, don’t keep them in your home, if you care about the data (wedding pictures?).
- Backups should be taken as snapshots in time. If I delete a file today, I want to get the last backed up version of that file. File replication is a great strategy to keep your eggs in multiple baskets, but if you delete a file, you might delete it in all replicated locations too. Don’t let this happen to you. Keep other forms of backups.
- Data should be protected in proportion to its value. Measures taken should be no more and no less than the value of it in case of loss. If it’s easier and cheaper to re-create than to restore, than don’t back it up. Along the same lines, you don’t need to create DVD, mirrored hard drive, Mozy, and thumbdrive backups of the latest download of Firefox. Nor do you need to do that for old work data, assuming you’ve already created backups. You probably also only need minimal backups of certain multimedia and reference materials.
- Backups should be done as frequently as needed to feel good about them. This varies with the data being backed up. If your music collection changes very gradually, then maybe you only need to back it up every 6 months or so. That’s ok, as long as you feel good about it. Your master’s thesis should probably be backed up 10 times a day. If you enjoy sleeping soundly, anyway.
I use file replication, drive imaging, DVD archives, and online (Mozy) backups to protect my data. Here’s the breakdown:
File replication: I use Foldershare (see my Data Access post) to keep files synchronized across 3-4 PCs at all times. The only data not auto-synchronized is my music collection, because I keep it manually sync’d pretty well, and it’s fairly static.
Drive imaging: I use Norton Ghost to create images of my system partitions. Ghost makes a big file that holds a picture of the hard drive, in essence. If I really screw up my computer, I can use ghost to copy that image back in place like nothing ever happened. I only do this for the system partition (C:), not my data partition. I rely on these other methods for my data.
DVD backup: I make DVD archives of my data every once and a while. It’s just nice to have a hard disc with your data on it. In particular, it’s good to have snapshots in time of my data. (What did my resume look like 12 months ago? Ah, there are my 2007 archive discs…)
Online backup: I use Mozy to store remote copies of my data. $55 a year gives me this peace of mind. Honestly, I’m still testing it, but it seems good so far. The backups are slow, but ok once the first backup completes. I only backup my home desktop, which of course has replicated versions of all data I care about.
Good PC maintenance: Treat your PC right and it will treat you right. Scan the disks once in a while, defrag it, run all the spyware and antivirus tools, and keep a firewall running. Don’t install programs willy-nilly, and protect your PC like you protect your car (or like you should protect your car).
July 29th, 2008
by Chuck Sharp
July 28th, 2008
by Chuck Sharp
Here is a list of software and online services that I currently use and recommend. These are all free and incredibly useful.
- CDBurnerXP - Free replacement to Nero or Roxio CD/DVD burning software. Good stuff, and it doesn’t cost $70.
- Combined Community Codec Pack - A collection of codecs (drivers for media files) that lets your PC play about any kind of media file you can find. It includes a media player called Media Player Classic, which suitable for playing any video or audio you have. I use it as my DVD player. Works great.
- Del.icio.us - Online “social” bookmarking. Save your bookmarks online, sync to Firefox, share with others. Find popular bookmarks.
- EditPad - Powerful replacement for Notepad, but not as programmer-ish as Notepad++. Recommended for more casual and power users.
- Evernote - Simple and powerful note taking, media clipping, organizing, outlining, second-brain type thing. Includes web access and PC software, syncronized.
- Firefox - Open source web browser, very flexible and powerful. Best part: it’s not Internet Explorer.
- Foldershare - File syncronizing across multiple PCs, and remote file access. Very useful, and acts like a backup too.
- Freemind - Open source mind-mapping software. Fun and useful. Not as feature-rich as Mind Manager, but costs $350 less.
- Gmail - Google email. Excellent, almost perfect.
- Google Calendar - Very nice online calendar. Share with others, coordinate meetings, subscribe to public calendars, sync to Outlook. Send email or text message reminders.i
- Google Reader - Web-based RSS newsfeed reader. Subscribe to blogs and news sites (subscribe is a technical term — it’s free), view and read online. Easy to use, very fast navigation with shortcuts.
- Hamachi VPN - “Instant, Zero Configuration VPN.” Connect all of your PCs, remote and local, into a secure, private network. Suitable for remote desktop, getting past work firewalls, SSH to Linux/Unix, and file sharing via Windows network shares.
- Jott - Leave a voice message from your phone, get a transcribed copy sent to your email or to someone you know.
- LogMeIn - Remote desktop from any computer via the web. I use this fairly religously.
- Notepad++ - Powerful replacement to Notepad. Great for text editing, made for programmers, suitable for all users.
- Picasa - Absolutely amazing photo management software. The best I’ve seen for photo organizing, displaying, emailing, and posting to web.
- Thunderbird - Firefox’s sister app for email. Great, especially if you’re currently using Outlook Express. (Tip: don’t use Outlook Express)
- Traffic.com - Check on congestion, accidents, and construction before you leave.
- Xplorer2 lite - A surprisingly nice file explorer. I’ve made fantastic use from this.
July 27th, 2008
by Chuck Sharp
July 26th, 2008
by Chuck Sharp
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