… to graduation from the 2 year program at RIT leading to a Master’s in Product Development. The time and effort I have put in to adding content into PersonalBrain over the past 18 months is beginning to pay off. PersonalBrain has been invaluable in creating and maintaining my social network, and now I am leveraging the tool to incorporate linkages between papers and reports that we are reading for school. When you tie this information in with important concepts from 18 months of classes it all starts to come together rather nicely. What I really appreciate the most about PersonalBrain is its ability to index through PDF files, as you can imagine, I have many. I enjoy turning the Wander mode on ever so often and have PersonalBrain run through a randomized sequence of thoughts from the Brain. It is amazing how much information has been conveyed to us! It has been nothing short of trying to assimilate a barrage of information, kind of like drinking from a firehose.

In my last article I presented one of the key take aways from a presentation on Social Capital, namely that we have to open ourselves to ask for assistance.

In the past, prior to the creation of the “electronic frontier” or “cyberspace” (whatever the correct moniker should be), we were relegated to seeking such assistance from people that we were colocated with in face to face conversations. We now have the ability to seek assistance electronically as well.

An ideal analog notation for managing GTD lists ought to embody the following design precepts:

1. Succinct Notation

A notation should be succinct enough that it not command a premium on the real-estate of your planning system.

2. Ease of entry into trusted system

A notation should enable the user to quickly jot down the pertinent details of an item and come back later to annotate the entry.

3. State Transition Model

A notation should have a supporting state transition model with visual cues.

4. Upstream and Downstream traceability

43 Folder’s Merlin, as part of an ongoing series called Inbox Zero, provides useful tips on where filters and scripts should be used to keep your email inbox at, or close to, empty. While most people might create filter rules to file important email and invariably have to deal with “near-spam” email left in their inbox, Merlin suggests that users “focus on creating filters and scripts for any noisy, frequent, and non-urgent items…” and recommends that a filter is “ultimately best at shunting away the really un-important stuff…”

My primary collection tool consists of an inexpensive folio with a zipper in which I have a pad of paper, a stack of 3×5 index cards, Post-It notes in various sizes, a hilighter marker and my trusty Waterman Phileas fountain pen with a fine nib.

Information is transformed from the analog domain into the digital domain by transcribing the next actions and projects into Microsoft Outlook during the Daily and Weekly Reviews.

I use a Dell Axim x50v PDA running Windows Mobile 2003 SE and synchronize with Microsoft Outlook. The Axim has Pocket Informant 2005 installed as the default PIM, and I use the PocketBreeze Today plugin to give me a consolidated view into my day.

You won’t truly appreciate the power of the Getting Things Done method unless you have lived in a state of “mega-in”. 

It is easy to get yourself in a state of “mega-in”. Here is a receipe that works:

• Start with an email inbox, or preferably a couple of email inboxes
• Receive about 50-150 email messages a day with varying levels of importance
• Why filter, sort or archive your email? Just back up your computer hard drives every week or so
• Disable your junk email and SPAM filters
• Stash piles of papers everywhere

I started 2006 with a the noble goal to organize my thoughts, commitments and the mountainous stacks of sundry and important papers that towered and teetered on my home office desk and inhabited the claustrophobic cabinets and bedroom closets. I’d been researching (read: drooling over) the Levenger Circa systems primarily due to the ability to move sheets from a main notebook to archival storage. During the course of a Google search to find other vendors that might carry the product, I happened to navigate right into a blogosphere discussion of David Allen’s Getting Things Done - The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, TLA’ed as GTD by the cognoscenti. Enamoured of the fundamental tenets, of which I shall elaborate further in this discussion, I wiped the saliva (engendered by the thoughts of the Circa) that was now threatening to drip off my chin and on to my neatly pressed button down shirt, and quickly put the book on hold at my local library. And so began my personal journey of using GTD from the starting point of “mega-in”. Follow along with me, won’t you?