I have had some fits and starts with GTD. Most of my problems centered around finding the right tools and filing system that fit within my life. I've tried pen and paper, Gmail labels, Gmail Tasks, Remember The Milk. and others. Finding Appigo Todo was something of a breakthrough for me. It has increased the effectiveness of my GTD system exponentially.
Nevertheless, GTD and Todo are not a perfect match. I had to go through some trial and error for me to get it right, but now the kinks are worked out, I am very happy with the returns. Since I think others might be interested, this post is a description of how I use GTD with Appigo Todo. Remember that everyone's style of work/workload and way of doing things is different. What works for me might not work for you: ToDo Lists are GTD Projects ----------------------------------------- A lot of my tasks are not related to any one specific "project". My tasks generally fall into these "buckets": *Small home-improvement *Errands *Paperwork and personal finance-related *Work-related (My job is not project-oriented). *Hobby/Extracurricular activities In Todo I have lists like: "home maintenance", "finances", two job- related projects for the two unrelated parts of my job, etc. All of these are open-ended "projects" with no goal, they are simply dumping- grounds for related tasks. If a goal-oriented project does pop up, it will get its own list. For example, I am working on replacing my cable box with a media center PC. It has its own "Media Center" list, since this is a goal-oriented project with multiple tasks. I don't really like the "Project" task type since it just shows up as the title of the task. I haven't found a situation where it provides me a benefit over just using lists. I suppose if I had a complex project that necessitated sub-projects, maybe, but my tasks are very disparate. I simply do not like looking at a list of tasks and seeing a project name mixed in and then have to click in to find the real task that I need to see. I prefer a flat structure. Nothing stays in the Inbox list for more than a day. Everything goes into a project list. Manage "Next Action" with High Priority --------------------------------------------------------- One of the biggest problems I have with Todo (and all task managers) is that they are date-oriented, where GTD is not necessarily always so. In many cases, a project like "Media Center" is not tied to any date but it's managed through the GTD concept of "Next Action". When I'm available to work on it, I do the next action. In Todo, I wanted all "Next Actions" across projects to appear on my Focus list. So, I decided to make all tasks "high priority" by default and set the Focus list to show only high priority tasks. Since I don't really use priorities for tasks with a due date, (if it needs to get done, it's high), this makes it easy: if it has a date it needs to get done by that date. I don't care about priorities here. They're all high. if it doesn't have a date and it's the next action in a project, it should be the only one in the project marked "high priority" This makes my Focus list very useful. I see everything that has a due date in the next couple days PLUS next actions for all non-date- oriented projects. The onus is on me to manage next actions within projects, but that is always the case in any system. I've never understood the priority fetish in task managers. How do you differentiate between "medium" and "low" priority? For me, it's either the next thing I have to do or it's not. It's either a high priority, it's got a date, or it's in the background until my next review. I'd rather there just be a "Next Action" star, on or off. But, what I've set up here works. Contexts are Easy and Important ------------------------------------------------ The GTD concept of a task context never took hold with me until I started using Todo. I understood the utility, but I never found a tool that exposed the usefulness to me. My contexts are: *Home *Online (which means "at one of my computers") *Car Errand (self-explanatory) *Downtown Errand (something I should do on a work day when I'm downtown without a car) *Meeting with X (where x is a particular person that I may not always have the attention of), *Office (general stuff I need to do at my office). These contexts are really easy to use in ToDo. I can very easily flip to the "All" list and turn on a context. If I'm in a meeting with Joe and I have his attention (which might be rare), I can easily flip to the "Meeting with Joe" context and see if there's anything that we need to do. Or, if I'm taking a lunch break I can flip to my "Downtown Errand" context and see what I need to take care of. Very smooth. A couple days after I set up ToDo the way I wanted it, my wife and I were in the car with a few minutes to kill before an appointment. She said, "Can you think of any errands we need to run?" and BOOM, I had every errand that needed to be run on a list in my hand in 10 seconds. Oddly, it felt good. So, every task gets a context, even if I don't think it needs one. The value of having intact context lists is significantly greater, over time, than the cost of assigning contexts. It's easy to do and when you need it, the payoff is great. WaitingOn & Someday/Maybe are Tags --------------------------------------------------------- Very simple. When something is "WaitingOn" or "Someday/Maybe", it's a tag. It doesn't have a due date (it might be a Next Action). It's easy for me to look at these lists at any time by going to the "All" list and filtering by the tag. My only complaint here is that I wish there was a way for me to highlight color or otherwise indicate these statuses in a list of tasks. For example, when looking at a project's list of tasks, I'd like to be able to see which are tagged "WaitingOn" without having to click into them. A custom icon feature in Todo would be great. This is probably the biggest stumble in Todo for me. My other idea was to make all "WaitingOn" tasks "Medium" priority and then adjust my focus list so I would see them below Next Actions. Right now I don't have too many "WaitingOn" tasks. If they ever build up again, I may tweak this. Other GTD/ToDo related stuff about my system: --------------------------------------------------------------------- *Daily/Weekly/Project reviews are really very easy with the "All" list or other lists. *I sync with ToodleDo but just for backup purposes (just in case a CHUD eats my iPhone or something like that). *Overall, I have four inboxes: a physical inbox on my desk at home, a physical inbox on my desk at work, Gmail (one inbox for multiple accounts), and ToDo's. I am vigilant about "Inbox Zero". I now have a hard time going to sleep at night if I know there's unprocessed stuff in my inbox. Best, Michael
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