7Breaths

I've been using the new Evernote 3 Beta as my capture tool for the last few weeks and must say how impressed I have been with it. The main advantage with it is that I have access to my notes wherever I am because of its ability to synchronise seamlessly between my computer, the web and my windows mobile phone. Now wherever I am I can capture a thought and have access to it no matter what platform I am working on. This is a massive advantage for me over OneNote where most of my notes where stuck on my home machine. There is the ability to tag notes and also to mark notes as to-do items - so I may switch to using it as a next action manager, although I have not at present.

If anyone is interested in trying it the folks at Evernote have given me 10 invites for the Beta Program so drop me a line.

Here are some detailed reviews of Evernote which will give you a much better idea of how it works.

Firstly I'd like to wish everyone a Happy New Year, I hope you had a relaxing holiday period and are now ready for another productive year. If you feel the need for a little GTD kick start I'd recommend having a look at this list of 100+ GTD links from the folks over at Bootstrapper.

Things have eased off for me at present so I should be getting some more regular posting done soon.

I've just come across this interview with David Allen in the British Medical Journal.

The interview is fairly short, but I enjoyed reading his ideas on work (which should be fun) and 'working' whilst on vacation - "Why would you not want to do fun things on a vacation? ". He addresses why we should be taking breaks from work -

"If you have to take a holiday because you're burning out, you're in the wrong job or you're not working appropriately. If you want to take a holiday because you need a new perspective, fabulous, but what's the value of a new perspective? To see things you haven't seen before, to come up with creative ideas you haven't had before, to see things in new ways. So of course I'm going to have a note-taking device with me on holiday because that's where I'm going to have some of my best ideas."

I'd encourage a look at the whole interview.

Well, just as I decided to try and post more a big new project lands in my inbox. This one is going to take a fair junk of additional time for me and something has to give for now. Looking at my commitments and goals during my quaterly review I've decided to put the blog onto the back burner for a while. Things will hopefully calm down by late December, so I will hopefully get back to the blog in Q1 2008. Until then there may be a very occasional post, but I'm not even sure about this. I'll still be collecting GTD and related ideas during the coming months and will have drafts in my someday / maybe file - hopefully I'll hit the ground running in 2008. Thanks to all subscribers for your support over the last few months, please keep a little place in your readers for 7breaths - I'll be back....

I'll be posting about a blog / website I find useful each Thursday.

My first post is about Jason Womack and his Fit and Effective Blog.

Jason used to work for the David Allen Company as a
Executive Coach/Facilitator. He has since branched out on his own forming the Jason Womack Company and is currently providing Workplace Performance Coaching . In addition to all this he also finds time to take part in triathlons and long distance cycle rides. Jason's attitude to top performance and productivity fits well with my own thoughts on the subject. I like blogs which stimulate and challenge me and Jason certainly does. His focus on Goals, Engagement, Commitment and Focus has certainly given me ideas and inspiration. I'd recommend you check it out, maybe try this post.

gtdfrk over at Getting Things Done has a post of his weekly review checklist. He wonders about other peoples weekly reviews so I thought I'd post an outline of my current one. I keep this of course in OneNote and have just copied it over, so some formating etc is missing but the basic scheme is still there.

I like to have done all my processing already done before the weekly review. I used to spend so much time emptying my inbox and processing stuff that had accumulated that I found I had less time than I would have liked on the actual planning stage of the weekly review. I therfore try to process my inputs each day during the week and do a final processing several hours before sitting down to do my weekly review which I use for "Planning Not Processing".

Here's whats in my Checklist:

'PLANNING not Processing'

YOU ARE REVIEWING AND PLANNING NOW

PREPARE
Ensure Daily review already done .
Disconnect from the net
Sit & Think
Final Mindsweep and keep open

REVIEW WHERE YOU ARE:

Review previous weeks schedule
Did you keep your commitments
Did you work on all your roles
Did you use your time effectively

Review next weeks schedule
What commitments do you have
Are you prepared for these
Support Material
Agenda

Review Current 90 day goal list
Do all goals have supporting projects
Are you moving towards succcesful completion
Do any more projects need starting this week

Review Project list
Ensure all projects have a next action
Ensure all projects have a role assigned
Schedule time to work on each project
Any stagnating projects
Shedule time
Dump
Someday / May be
Is there a balance of roles during the week


REVIEW WHERE YOU ARE GOING:

4 week Brief Overview
Any commitments upcoming which need work now
Birthdays / Aniversaires
Events
Holidays
.....

Review Someday / Maybe list
Can anything be moved to active
Can anything be dumped

Review Dream list

Read and commit to yearly goals

FINISH

Process the mindsweep
Look at the coming week again
Visualise Successful Action
Reconnect to the net
Relax & Enjoy

In my last post I can't do it all... I began to discuss the problem I was having with my workflow - that of taking on too many projects. Jeroen commented regarding using the GTD Horizons of Focus during the weekly review to help decide what you should or should not be doing, whilst SpiKe had not found this approach useful. I've blogged about Higher altitudes previously and have tried to apply Davids horizons to my own life. I found the levels he used did not fit with my thinking - so have slightly adapted things to give me a little more focus - I've tried to represent things in this diagram.

• I began by looking at my long term goals and vision - I've labeled these ambitions. These are not written down - after all if you need to write down your lifes vision to help you remember it, it can't be that much of a vision.

Next I have decided what I need to do in the next year to move me towards my ambitions. I've made a checklist of these so I can reward myself for checking them off as the year goes by - just "cranking widgets" on a bigger scale.

For each yearly goal I then set 90 day targets to move towards acomplishing the goal. I find 90 days long enough to get some significant work done, but short enough to allow me to see progress to my yearly goals.

Each 90 day target can have several supporting projects ongoing at the same time, and of course each project will have next actions.

When I do my weekly review I ensure that each 90 day target has active supporting projects - if not I will decide what I need to do and start a project off. This helps keep my focus on doing what I want to do. After ensuring all 90 day targets are moving forwards I then check my projects. What projects do I have which do not seem to support a 90 day goal. These are the "reactive" projects I've picked up during the week. I very carefully review these and ask "What's in it for me?". Sometimes Projects need to be done which don't fit in with your goals, but often just the practice of reviewing them in light of your 90 day targets makes you realise that you should be re-negotiating or dumping the project.

By applying this method I've reduced the number of projects I have ongoing at a time. However I still find I can take on more than I can do if I don't consider the actual time I have to spend each week working on them - this will be the theme of my next post...

Been thinking a lot recently about my personal productivity workflows. I've got all my inputs covered, nothing is missed, all my project lists are up to date, all my next action context lists are full. The problem - there is too much to do. If all my inputs stopped today I would still have weeks of work to do to clear all my projects. I've realised that collecting / processing / organising in itself is not enough. Too many things to do, too many opportunities to seize, (Don't even mention my someday/maybe list - it's just getting bigger and bigger too). Just working with my GTD lists is no longer enough. I need to incorporate the fact that there are only 24 hours in a day along with the admission that I can't do everything I want to in this time, no matter how many productivity hacks I employ. GTD is a great tool, but is not a solution in itself.
I've branched out from pure GTD and looked at other systems and have come up with a workflow that I am finding more manageable for now. I'll be posting some notes on my current thinking over the next few weeks. One thing I have taken to using is leveraging the Outlook 2007 integration with OneNote and I'll be addressing how this has changed my previous OneNote / GTD set up.
For other thoughts on "GTD 2.0" check out these ideas from Eric, Michael, Pascal and Stephen.

Well - how did you spend your week. A simple exercise today - measure the ammount of time you spent on your goals and dreams, then measure the ammount of time you spent on other things. Do your priorities align with your schedule? If not - why not?

I'm finding that more and more feeds are just recycling the same information, especially "Personal Productivity" feeds. Although initially useful for someone trying to raise their productivity it all soon gets a bit repetitive. After all there is only so much you can say about the mechanics of any productivity system - yes I know I need to get my inbox to empty, write things down, do a weekly review etc. The trouble is that really we all know this stuff, it's just a matter of getting on and applying it rather reading about it.

What I am now looking for is new and original material, different ways of looking at things, ideas and thoughts to stimulate me. What I don't want is another simplistic list of "x ways to do y", all of which have been written many times before.

For the last few months I've been flagging each feed post if I feel it has had a new and significant impact on what I do / think / feel. I've been very surprised at how few have been flagged. I've now begun to purge my feeds - if the ratio of flagged to not flagged articles is low then that feed gets deleted.

Getting rid of these "low yield" feeds has certainly saved me time, and I really don't think I'm missing out on any vital information.

One problem with RSS overload is the constant checking of your feed reader to see if anything has been added. This is unproductive in 2 ways - firstly the checking of the reader and secondly reading new entries as an when they crop up. This goes against the idea of batching your actions to be more productive.


To overcome this I like to break feeds down into 2 basic classes - "Time Sensitive" and "Time Independent"

"Time Sensitive"

Feeds related to keeping up to date on the latest breaking news in our field of interest. Items you need to know about as soon as they develop.

These type of feeds require reading as soon as they are updated, so I will check these on a fairly regular basis.

"Time Independent"

Feeds from blogs that cover your areas of interest, but are not time dependent. For example Jason's blog entry on "Blocks to Productivity" - it really does not matter if I read this the minute after it was published or a week after, the information is still as relevant.

In my reader I have 2 main categories depending on how time sensitive I consider the blogs to be.

"Time Sensitive" blogs go into one - these are very few in number.

"Time Independent" blogs are put in one, and I schedule very strict time for reading these. I may not read all of them in the allotted time but this does not matter as the information will still be relevant when I do get to read it. It allows me to set a defined batch of time to deal with these blogs and process them efficiently. If I don't manage to read all the posts I don't have that anxiety that I may be missing out on something - I've already decided these blogs can be read at my leisure.

I'll be posting more on managing RSS feeds soon.

What is not measured is not mastered.

How are you spending your time? If you want to be productive a great first step is to master your time management. There are 168 hours in the week - do you know how you've spent them over the last week?

You need to know what you are doing before trying to change anything.

The Exercise:

A useful quick exercise to see how aware you are of how you are spending your time is to:

Recall
Grab your diary and a sheet of paper.

List the hours 0 - 23 for each day of the week

For each hour write down what you were doing - use your diary to remind you. Try and be as accurate as you can, if you are not certain leave it blank.

Review


On doing this exercise you may well find that you can account for every hour - well done in that case. However even if each hour is accounted for a lot of people are surprised at how much unproductive time is spent during the week. Just as bad are blocks of time when we can't even recall what we were doing - again this is usually just unproductive time as you can usually remember if you were engaged in something worthwhile.

How did you do, I'd love to hear some feedback.

It's surprising how unaware we often are of the time we are spending. To try and get some focus on how our time is going I suggest the following challenge:


The Challenge:

Over the next week record what you are doing. Use anything to capture the data, for me I use a sheet of paper which goes everywhere with me. Each time you start a new activity record it. Try and be as detailed as you can, so instead of 2 hours on the computer break it down into its components - reading email, RSS, working on spreadsheet for account xxx etc.. Same with all activities.

Keep the record going for a week, you should have some useful data to work on for next Saturdays exercise...

I've been tagged by Stephen over at HD BizBlog with the latest GTD meme - What's Your Killer GTD set up- which has been started by the Getting Things Done blog.

Man, have I tried to nail down the killer GTD setup. For ages I checked out each and every new GTD app out there. Eventually I came to realise that you will never find the perfect GTD application - what you need is a perfect GTD mindset . Once you are truly "doing GTD" anything you choose will become a killer app. So I have stopped searching, got on with my system and began getting things done. With this in mind here is what I currently do.


Tools:

Microsoft OneNote
SPV m600 Phone running Microsoft Windows Mobile 5
Microsoft Outlook


System:

OneNote setup is the cornerstone of my home GTD system, tracking my projects, next actions and keeping a tab on all my reference material. It also acts as my daily journal. I've blogged in detail about my OneNote System here.

If I'm working at home OneNote is always open so things go in there straight away.
I find these days that I always have my mobile phone with me - this acts as the perfect capture tool when I am out and about. I can either use it to write quick notes, make voice notes or take a photograph of something. All of this information can then be quickly transferred into my OneNote system when I return home. I use Outlook for contacts and calendar information and using the phone allows me to have all this to hand where ever I am negating the need for web based services. I have just got hold of a copy of Outlook 2007 and am exploiting its very tight integration with OneNote to further manage my to do items and reminders.

Any paper based items are scanned in, transferred to OneNote and processed like any other item, with the original document being filed away. I don't use a tickler file as I tend not to have any physical objects to put in it - any reminders I need are place in Outlook.

Application:


Each morning I rise with enough time to review my days commitments, plan what projects I want to move forward and then select my 3 Most Important Tasks.
During the day I collect anything that comes to my attention and then process it at the end of the day. I set aside a little time to review my day and preview the coming days plan of action.
I use the weekly review to maintain the system and also look at higher levels of focus, checking I am still moving towards my goals. It is so true - "if you are not doing the weekly review you are not doing GTD".

Just a short post with the links to all my OneNote GTD series .

[Edit 21/6/07 - I have upgraded to Outlook 2007, I'm currently intergrating this into my system so stay tuned for developments]

Set up
Collection
Processing
Organise
Screen shots
Deferred Items
email and Outlook
Out and About

Projects:

Sometimes we set a project - but don't seem to move to getting it done. At the most basic level we have to understand what a project is and make sure our projects match this - your project may not be progressing as you would like because it does not fully fulfil the criteria for being a project.

First let's look at what a project is. I like to work with the definition:

"A project is a temporary endeavour which is undertaken to create a unique outcome and is characterized by progressive elaboration towards it". Let's look at that in a little more detail

"Temporary endeavour" -i.e. it is time limited with a start and an end point.

We can see that a project should have a start and end time. Too often in the past I failed to set a time limit to accomplish a project- with this any sense of urgency was lost and often the project was allowed just to sit fairly inactive in my project list. If a project does not have an obvious due date set one anyway. Remember Parkinson's Law " Work expands to fit the time allocated to it" - try and keep a tight deadline - it will act as an incentive and concentrate your work on the project.

"Unique outcome" - the outcome should be different in an unique way from what you already have.

What unique outcome are you aiming for? How is it different from the situation you start in? How will you know when you accomplish the outcome. The clearer you are about what you want to achieve the better. Try and be as specific as you can. I will be posting about defining individual projects in more detail soon.

"Progressive elaboration" - The planning of the project should evolve as it moves forward to the final outcome.

A project is not a static creation - it evolves as you progress through it. You may define a next action which initially seems the next logical step but then find you are just not doing it and the project begins to stagnate. There could be many reasons for not doing the next action but one that you need to consider is whether the next action is still appropriate for the project. If a project is not moving on ask - is this really the next action needed? Don't define a project and try and stick rigidly to your initial plan - always be willing during the weekly review to go back and brainstorm the project again, you may well come up with a different way to get it done.

You've got your GTD system up & running - collecting, processing, organising and reviewing. All that's left is to actually start doing something. This unfortunately is the place many people get to then begin to tail off. It's no good having your lists of projects and next actions arranged by context if you don't begin to start doing them. Infact after the initial collecting and processing people can get overwhelmed by all the things they feel they must do - those project and next action lists can seem daunting. GTD tells us what needs to be done, but won't do it for us.
In the next series of posts I will explore areas where I have struggled to start producing - and the ideas / processes I employed to start working effectively and productively through my projects and next actions.

This will be my final post on GTD with OneNote.

For the full series follow the links

1. GTD with OneNote: Set up
2. GTD with OneNote: Collection
3. GTD with OneNote: Processing
4. GTD with OneNote: Organise
5. GTD with OneNote: Screen shots
6. GTD with OneNote: Deferred Items
7. GTD with OneNote: Email and Outlook

So far I have described by GTD with OneNote set up on my main computer. In this post I will explain what I do when away from home to keep on top of GTD.

I have various tools I use when away from base. These are:

1. Ultra Portable laptop
2. Windows Mobile 5 Phone
3. A paper notebook
4. A hipster PDA



What I take with me and what I use all depend on where I am going and what I am planning to do. In this post I'll just describe my electronic set up.

Ultra portable:

For any real work I take the ultra portable laptop - I keep copies of all my OneNote notebooks on this and sync over wireless with my main computer before leaving home. I then have access to the full range of my GTD set up and any other OneNote notes I may need.

Windows Mobile Phone:

I always have my phone with me. If I'm popping out to run errands or just socialise I will quickly create a summary page of my @Out contexts and drag this to sync with my OneNote Mobile on my phone (a more lo-fi way of doing this would be just to print out the summary page and take it with you).
I keep my schedule in outlook and this too is synced with my mobile.
I can take notes into OneNote Mobile - this also allows me to take photographs and make voice recordings so I always have a collection device with me.

[Edit 21/6/07 - I have upgraded to Outlook 2007, I'm currently intergrating this into my system so stay tuned for developments]

In my previous post I touched on how I use Outlook to complement my OneNote GTD setup. In this short post I will explain how I deal with emails that generate a next action.
When I get an email that requires an action I flag it for follow up in Outlook. I use the ability to set up virtual search folders in Outlook 2003 to keep my flagged emails grouped by client or porject. I then use the send to OneNote function to send a copy of the email to OneNote. I have set the default target location for these emails to my Today section rather than my unfiled notes section. This will then open up a copy of the email in OneNote - from where i can tag it to be processed. I can the process this as I would any other item I collected that day - usually tagging it as a project and adding any next actions to the OneNote item.
Once any actions are completed and the project finished I can switch back to Outlook and find the item quickly, flag it as done and file it away.