Re: [NTLK] Getting Things Done (GTD)

From: Thomas Meigen (t.meigen_at_augenklinik.uni-wuerzburg.de)
Date: Thu Sep 01 2005 - 02:40:27 PDT


Hallo,

sorry for being that late in responding to a topic one year ago.
But I just found these messages by Googling...

On Sun Aug 15 2004 - 06:20:16 PDT Paul Robinson (probinson_at_gmail.com) wr=
ote

"Anyone using a Newton in conjuction with Dave Allen's Getting Things
Done (GTD) system?

Thanks!"

and there was a number of responses covering different solutions that I
had also tried to implement and Brian=20
Braunschweiger (brianbraun_at_earthlink.net)
summarized the GTD method very good on Mon Aug 16 2004 - 08:33:38 PDT.

I just want to tell some of my efforts (in case the problem is still
interesting for some of you...)

1. Linking:
I feel that linking is a very important point in implementing
the GTD method. I tried "Hypernewt" for that purpose, which is nice for
getting an hierarchical structure of folders. This helps to group the projec=
ts
in a systematic way. However, linking of dates, todos, calls etc. to a
specific project seemed always non-intuitive and complicated in Hypernewt.
LifeBalance is a great software to organize the priorities and options
for actions for different projects, but there is no way to link these
data consistently to other data on the Newton.

Last year I got the MoreInfo software and this was the point where I started
to implement GTD on my Newton. Linking is very easy and so I connect
a "next action"-todo with every project. The "At A Glance" view allows
a good overview of the dates and tasks of a specific day/week/month...

2. Lists:
David Allen=B4s GTD uses different lists (projects, next actions,
someday-maybe, waiting for...). Interestingly, David Allen proposes no
specific linking between these lists, and he described that he uses
no special software on his Palm. First I was surprised, because I would find
it difficult to know whether I had decided some next action for a specific
project some time ago without linking. So for me,=20
linking of the lists is essential.
On the other hand, playing around with different software solutions may be
fun, but I noticed that this sometimes distracts me from the major goal
"getting things done"... Perhaps this is the reason why David Allen tries
to keep these software aspects as simple as possible.

Anyway. I keep my projects as notes, or more specific as checklists, which
I use for planning subsequent actions in a project. I use "MoreFolders"
to file the project-notes in different folders (current projects, completed
projects, someday-maybe projects, each a one "private" and "work" version).
By using the "Filter" function in MoreInfo/"At A=20
Glance" I can focus on different
subsets of folders and thus shift between my "private" and "work" environmen=
t
with a single click.

Each project is assigned one "next action"-todo, "next action"- date,
or "waiting for"-todo. That=B4s it.

3. Open loops and problems...
Before I switched to MoreInfo I sometimes thought about leaving the Newton,
because a similar structure of projects must be installed on my desktop
computer anyway to organize my files. But now the Newton is back in the cent=
re
of my project planning, mainly because I can have the Newton with me anytime=
=2E

One problem is... speed. I am not a Newton programmer, but I am able to writ=
e
some small Dashboard or Gesture Launch scripts that speed up many routine ta=
sks
(copying some template notes for specific purposes...). However, I did not
find a way to write scripts that access the MoreInfo linkage between my
project notes and the associated "next action" tasks. So it would be nice
if I could write a script that modifies the "next action"-todo (filling in t=
he
next step of my project planning) of a project note when the last action
is done. But it is not such a great problem, as the system works smoothly
for me and I can trust that no data are lost.

4. Sync...
As you all know the syncing between Newton and Mac has always been a problem=
=2E
With NewtSync we have a great software to use=20
with OSX. But, I never succeeded to
get the dates synced properly. Dates were lost,=20
or not synched at all. Some tasks
were duplicated etc. But after a while I realized=20
that there is not such a great
need to have the same dates or todos on my Mac as well. I use Name syncing, =
as
the addressbook is really useful on my Mac. And this syncing works fine for =
me.
I transfer notes to my Mac to include protocolls etc in my files of project
related files on the Mac.

I hope this was helpful...

Thomas

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