Category Archives: Getting Started with GTD

Perfect GTD Desk V5.0 Upgrade! - Part 3 Back of the iMac

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Introduction:

GTD Desk 5.0 with 2017 iMac

The first post on this blog, 2011/12/31 GTD Desk 2.0, had as its centerfold, a 2008 24″ iMac on a monitor arm with a hideous array of accessories mounted out of sight. Flashback:

2008 24" iMac on VESA adapter (anyone want the VESA adapter?)

The purpose of this post is to update post 001 (today’s post is 185) over seven years, and two iMac generations.The previous two posts on GTD Desk 5.0 covered desk resurfacing, and a sit/stand upgrade.

However, in addition to these upgrades, I have also graciously accepted Apple’s offer to take my money for a new iMac (first full iMac refresh in 6 years!) when I bought a 2017 iMac. The 5.0 update adds an external DVD drive on the left, with a 4 port USB hub, a board which allows speakers to be mounted to the iMac stand, and kept for the most part, out of sight.

Finally, on the right is a cardboard box that holds blank 3×5 cards to keep one piece of paper, available to capture ideas. The entire iMac back, remains a hideous melange of cables, cables, cables. But, I don’t care, I don’t have to look at them. Out of sight, out of mind … like water. :-) 
The best innovation of GTD Desk 5.0 is mounting of speakers up behind the iMac screen, angled down, to bounce sound off the desk almost invisibly. Step 1 bolt the speakers to board, step 2, tack the board to the iMac stand with two wide headed screws. 
Step 3 mount audio control on the base of the iMac, to make practical use of the impregnable iMac stand. Alas. But, mount a sound control on the base, and you can at least get SOME use out of it. 
 Why not use the stand integrated into iMacs? Simple, because I need a desk, not a giant monitor stand. If you don’t have your monitors floating free, you don’t have a desk that can do rough organizing.

The final upgrade to GTD Desk 5.0 is the addition of the Jabra 510 speakerphone to the lower left hand corner of the iMac. With Google Voice and the Jabra, I have at long last recycled my office phone. More clear desk space!

bill meade

Perfect GTD Desk V5.0 Upgrade! - Part 2 Sit/Stand

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Before:

Fixed Height Desk - (Modified) Galant Conference Table from IKEA

After: 

https://www.standdesk.co/

After starting a new job in January 2017, I discovered the awesomeness of sit/stand desks. And since I was moving, and had the Perfect GTD Desk V4 in pieces, I decided to replace the fixed height legs with a sit/stand mechanism.

Most important = lift capacity of the mechanism, second most important = cost. Searching the internet while the moving van was crossing the country, I found StandDesk which has a 350 pound lifting capacity, and cost $429 delivered. I ordered my StandDesk from Amazon.com but alas, Amazon no longer sells StandDesk mechanisms.

Fear not, StandDesk sells the bases now for $399 without top. The telescoping mechanism is different, but no worries, the lift capacity increased from 350 to 400 pounds.

Why does lift capacity matter? Because I hang a 27″ 2017 iMac from an arm, iMacs weigh one pound per diagonal inch of screen size, so the iMac with USB hub, Bose speakers mounted hidden, along with the floor tile re-covering of the desk, Scanner on the desk, and heavy computer building projects, make me want max lift capacity.

After After:

The work surface has a minimum height of 24.5″ and a maximum height of 50″ which is way more flexibility than my at-work sit/stand desk.

Next post will be “Perfect GTD Desk V5.0 Upgrade! - Part 3 Back of the iMac” where I reveal how I finally moved my speakers out of sight, without impairing sound. Two bolts, four screws, one piece of wood, and ZAP, sight-lines clear.

Bill Meade

 

GTD in Overcoming Adversity

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Introduction:

Came across an awesome post on overcoming adversity on Hacker News (http://news.ycombinator.com) this morning. Here is the original question:

And here is the first response up when I looked at this thread:

Wow, I wish I’d written this! I’ve touched up against the edge of saying this before (About Fear, Scroll down to Stations, and GTD System Notable). But when you read the above answer, and think “What would David Allen think of this?” to my mind *ka-ching* I think “David Allen would emphatically agree!”

bill meade (from Traverse City, MI)

Office Entelechy

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  • Introduction

I’m mid-job-search right now. Decompressing from a 27 month stint at a startup with 60-100 hours a week. Received an awesome job offer last week that reminded me of a Rands In Repose post.

Scan down to “Deliberate Want” and the part about Michelle. My Michelle is Rachel, but I digress.

Decompression allows this thing, reading for fun, that it has been a while since I’ve engaged in. While in startup mode, I read for survival, not fun. But while I was finding Michelle in the post above, and sending the post to Rachel, I started reading more Rands posts.

  • Do this immediately!!!

And a post on CAVE ESSENTIALS jumped out and hit me so hard, I’m pointing you to it. I’m pointing you to CAVE ESSENTIALS right now! Do not walk, run to CAVE ESSENTIALS and experience organizational ambrosia via the written word.

Entelechy is a fancy way of saying “soul” Rand’s post is the soul of office organization. The elements of Rands office entelechy:

  1. Self-pleasing environment design (red walls that nobody else can understand)
  2. Telling people “The door… it’s right there.” at criticism of your office.
  3. Your “forever desk” …
    “A desk’s job is to build productivity, and for me, it achieves this by first providing an immense amount of clear working space.” There is an echo in this blog!
  4. Deep leather couch (so deep that when you put your back against the couch you are in a new time zone).
  5. “Lovingly curated bookshelves” (14)

Highly recommended!!!

Bill Meade

Paperless Resolutions

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Bits Are Better Than Atoms:

Just noticed a Fujitsu ScanSnap on Amazon (not sold by Amazon so Caveat Emptor) for $350 which is just about $100 less than normal price for an iX500. Arrival is already after Christmas, but for those of you taking off for India (not naming names Shobhit!) for a month, might be worth considering.

And, from Amazon, there is an Evernote edition of the Fujitsu ScanSnap for:

  • Brand new for $406 which is still less than the iX500 has been costing. As of post time, this should arrive before Christmas.
  • Six open box iX500s for $356 which might be a deal for a small business!!! All 6 come with free 2-day shipping.

I heartily recommend the iX500 as can be seen by clicking here to read RestartGTD’s 40+ article ScanSnap library.

For those of you on the cusp of buying Evernote due to the 70+ RestartGTD article library, please consider clicking here to support RestartGTD (at not additional cost) as you sign up.

Best Regards for happy holidays and greener pastures for us all in 2017!!!

bill meade

2015 ends, Top 10 RestartGTD arguments for 2016

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BeforeAfterDesk_pptx

Desk before and after GTD

 

Introduction: (http://wp.me/p5btlh-urk)

2015 is ending. Tool options for “how” to Get Things Done continue to eclipse my capacity to integrate them year to year. So I will continue to argue:

  1. OneNote and Evernote are complements, not substitutes.
    1. Evernote is THE REFERENCE FILING SYSTEM for the rest of us. Use Evernote Web Clipper to capture your browsing into Evernote, or iX500 scan into Evernote, and … DONE … PAPERLESS + find any note in 15 seconds.
      1. *Note* Evernote, the company, has begun pruning the non-filing system aspects of itself after having quality and other “spreading itself too thin” problems.
    2. OneNote is THE PROCESSING PLACE for the rest of us. When you have an *explosive* next action (i.e., that project that just landed on you by instant message), put it into OneNote and then use the outlining and image pasting to turn a multi-step next action, into a project plan, all on one page.
      1. Microsoft *appears* to remain behind OneNote. Microsoft does not “get” what Evernote does (reference filing) and so OneNote continues to miss one key component of a dominant design (reference filing) to replace Evernote. So use them together, you’ll be happier than with either alone.
    3. The twain never meet.
      1. Capture to Evernote if the answer to “Will there ever be a next action?” is maybe or yes.
      2. Process next action into a project plan in OneNote.
    4. Simple really. (#ThankYouRaleighMuns)
  2. That Evernote’s defects in losing notes, are more than overcome by Evernote’s utility as a document manager for reference files.
    1. *Sigh* as I say this Evernote has lost our family’s recipe for Shepherd’s Pie for Christmas 2015. Fortunately, I have emailed this recipe so I, this once, have recovered the data and put it back into Evernote. Twice. 2011_01_08_12_24_37_pdf_pdf
    2. Defect: Customer Service
      And I too, have been misunderstood by Evernote’s support “geniuses” who like car sales people can’t hear the loud “creek” in your new car after you are off the lot. Customer service people at Evernote do not even have brain resptors for:

      1. The user I’m talking to is knowledgeable about Evernote.
      2. There is a real problem.
        But despite this, after beating my head on the Evernote customer service wall (Andy), Evernote the product *miraculously* started recognizing the 2,000 previously unindexed notes. Perhaps reflecting on conversations after the email gets pissy, does take place at Evernote.
        ***With customer service, you can only tie or lose.*** This was a tie, which means victory!!!
    3. Defect: Security
      I would strongly prefer that Evernote run on my air-gapped Synology NAS at home. And the NAS has a note app. But, with 16,986 notes in Evernote, I’m a bit past being able to migrate. If only because I’m somehow certain that I’ll lose notes in the process.

      1. AmIwrong? Suggest alternatives in the comments below!!!
    4. Defect: Interviewing
      Just for fun, I would like to *note* that I had a job interview with Evernote 2 years ago. And I’m sure that a TWILIGHT ZONE episode could be made out of being interviewed by someone who understood their product vastly less than a thunder-lizard fanboi product fanatic with a low-rated blog.
  3. That the Evernote “false pretender” substitutes:
    1. http://www.fetchnotes.com/
    2. http://realmacsoftware.com/clear/
    3. https://workflowy.com/
    4. http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt
      are a step backwards from having a REFERENCE FILING SYSTEM in the GTD sense. And WORSE they (a) either mix reference filing with processing next actions, or (b) they baffle your brains by focusing on outlines, and simultaneously leave you without a real reference filing system, assuming you have everything you need.
  4. That Evernote dumping Evernote Clearly (which has been displaced by Evernote Web Clipper) is bad.
    1. Why? Because:
      1. I find that I have to have BOTH Web Clipper and Clearly, to reliably be able to capture web pages. Clipper/Clearly don’t do the same thing. The should, but they don’t. So I’m going to have to capture HTML in 2016 to get all the data I need. Ug.
      2. Evernote by allowing parallel competitive products (web clipper and clearly), and then killing the “losers” off, is shaking the jello of customer confidence. I recently listened to an end user berate Microsoft for doing the same thing. Evernote may want to be the Microsoft of notes. But it is a “unicorn” and desperately needs to be the Southwest Airlines of notes. Focus. Focus. Focus.
      3. I like Evernote Clearly. I used it first. We are Borg.
  5. And Evernote dumping Skitch for Windows (same link as Clearly above) is bad.
    1. Highlighting the “afterthought product management” which in Latin is spelled “E-v-e-r-n-o-t-e”
  6. The first three chapters of GTD is all that a human brain can process in one year.
    1. I taught GTD to 200+ MBAs and even a fanboi unemployed person can’t implement chapters 4-13 of the first edition in one go.
    2. I’ve heard that only 17% of attendees to GTD seminars can implement the system. Getting GTD going is a volatile mix of ambition and disappointment. If you get too ambitious, you will be disappointed. And that can add up.
    3. If you don’t swing for the fences, and “take the walk” of getting reference filing going (Evernote, have I mentioned Evernote yet?), clearing your desk (mind=desk like water), and implementing 1-idea-1-piece of paper, next actions, and call it good. Your GTD survival rate will be 100%.
  7. Uneeda 27″ > 1080p monitor. C’mon, you work at a computer for a living. Why not invest in 2x the productivity? Cost = $300. That’s what, like a 1 hr/day payback?
    1. Personally I use el-cheapo refurbished dual-link DVI monitors (warning dual link is a pain) that Cost $200 (now, … but the price is lower at some times) and then get an Apple Mini MB571Z/A DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter, which makes the total cost $280. 20% savings!
    2. But … I’ve seen the el-cheapo monitors for as little as $100. My boss got me 2 for work, $150 for the first one, and $100 for the second. Stalk and save.
    3. *Note* your status-oriented computing colleagues will accuse you of being happy with “crap” monitors if you follow this path. I find however, that “crap” gets my things done just as fast as $600 monitors would. :-)
  8. Uneeda 2nd 27″ monitor. Don’t argue. Just implement. Thank me later.
  9. Uneeda monitor arm to convert your (desk + monitors) from a giant monitor stand, back into a desk.
  10. We lived through 2015, we should declare victory, and gird ourselves for disciplined optimism in 2016.

Best Regards,

Bill Meade [email protected]

Evernote Biggies

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This post is the text of an email I wrote to a restartgtd.com reader who asked about Evernote.
/begin email
I’ve written a lot of posts on Evernote:
http://restartgtd.com/?s=evernote&submit=Search
 
The biggies with Evernote are:
  • Install Evernote app on your computer
  • Get Evernote app connected to your Evernote account.
  • Install Clearly and Web Clipper in your browsers on all platforms. 
    • In each web browser, Immediately clip a (any)pagetoEvernote
      • From clearly
      • From web clipper
      • You have to authenticate via Clearly and Web Clipper separately. Stupid but necessary.
    • This on-ramps all your net-found materials to Evernote.  
  • Force yourself to use Clearly and Web Clipper religiously for 1 day, capturing notes that “might be useful … ever.”
  • Then useClearly and Web Clipper when you get a *twinge* that you might want to find the web article again. 
    • Default to using Clearly and Web Clipper too much. Or …
  • When you catch yourselflookinginEvernote for something, and you figure out that the document isnotinEvernote. Put a copy of thedocumentinEvernote so your reality is consistent with your expectations.
    • Example: Somewhere I read that “Nipper” the RCA dog was listening to a recording of his (deceased) master’s voice in the famous painting.
      • I said to someone “I can give you a link to the page from my Evernote account.” And then I went into Evernote just to check myself. The article was not there, so, I found the information on the web, and snipped the information into Evernote with Web Clipper, and now I can share it on demand.
    • The more I use Evernote, the more “stuff” that goes into Evernote. I use Evernote as the ultimate single A to Z reference file ala David Allen GTD
  • Get a Scansnap ix500 ($405 today) 
    • In addition to being an Evernote fanboi I’m also a ScanSnap fanboi.  There are quite a few ScanSnap articlesinRestartGTD.
      • ScanSnaps are optimally valuable ingesting paper into Evernote. I converted 94,000 pages of reference files into Evernote in 4 afternoons.
      • But after you have your data into Evernote, you won’t regret the money spent on the scansnap. My scanning backlog is perpetually zero as I can scan anything in a minute.
      • Buy the best, only cry once.
  • Triage all your paper into:
    • To scan. Then scan and put in …
    • Recycle 
    • Precious can’t throw out, scan and file for posterity
  • Don’t worry about Evernote tags
    • I useEvernote tags only on documents that are hard to find using my default “what two words will only be on the document I’m looking for” query.
      • After I eventually find the article I set the tag to whatever concept I was trying to find. And then I also add the concept name into the note (belts+suspenders strategy).
  • Play with Evernote’s notebooks (I think of these as folders). For the most part notebooks hold two species of documents for me:
    • Projects
      • I gather all the reference materials for a big project into a notebook that I can share with people working on the projects. I out-read pretty much everyone on a project, so I’m a natural keeper of the reference materials.
    • Reference files
      • I have a general “Articles” notebook (folder) for PDFs of articles and captured via Clearly/Web Clipper HTML articles. Motto: “I read therefore I am” so I’ve got approximately 15,900 documents in Evernote.
      • I also have a “Data Science” notebook where I put technical documents on R, ggplot2, Azure Machine Learning, etc. that I work with.
      • I also have a “family” notebook with sub notebooks for reference documents for each family member.
  • Use Evernote’s shortcut feature for folders. 
    • My most used shortcut is a notebook I call “cribsheets” which are notes with the distilled essence of stuff that is important to me. For example, Introduction to R, Excel commands I can’t remember, Introduction to Azure Machine Learning for data scientists, what Neal Analytics is looking for in new hires, etc. 
      • Sub idea: I use notesharinginEvernote quite a bit. This is particularly valuable to me as I can edit the note and not have to notify people of the changes.
        • Right click on the note to “copy shared link” and then email the person the link.
    • But I also add notebooks for hot projects to my shortcuts, and that saves a lot of steps in finding and filing
  • Use OneNote to process a project into tasks. 
    • OneNote allows you to re-arrange scanned 3×5 cards in a note. Evernote does not allow re-arranging of graphics within a note. *Note* readers, correct me if I’m missing something about Evernote here.
    • OneNote and Evernote are complements, not substitutes. I work a lot with Microsoft people, and they just don’t “get” OneNote vs. Evernote. Competitive instincts rear up instantly, and die hard in the face of data.
    • I find OneNote to be superior for decomposing a project into next actions. But, I’m biased by my brain’s refusal to use only 1 electronic system.
  • Use Evernote for reference filing only. 
    • Even my “Articles” and “Project” folders are just reference filing.
  • I use Evernote on both Mac and Windows 10 on my Macbook Pro and iMac. I find it easiest to have my Evernote archives kept separately … even though it sucks to have redundant data. It sucks but works flawlessly.
Does this help? Ask again if not! 
Bill Meade

Great Post on Evernote as Trusted System

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Michael Keithley has a great post for those who want to use Evernote as their trusted system. Covers all the basics in just over a page.

Click here to see RestartGTD’s 30+ posts on Evernote.

Bill Meade

GTD of Fear at Work

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Quick note on the GTD of fear at work:

I recently started a new job. A dream job. But all dreams come with some crazy, and some weird (C&W). The C&W in the new job was extreme time pressure. This post is my observations on what extreme time pressure and the ensuing fear did to my use of GTD. Or better, what my use of GTD did to my productivity under extreme time pressure + fear.

  1. The biggest positive of this experience was that GTD put me in a focussed frame of mind. There was no possibility of having a mind-like-water when I was desperately behind. Ready for anything? I was barely able to keep up with meetings tomorrow.

    But, … GTD did allow me to develop an attitude towards worry = that worry was a complete waste of time. Being afraid, and resolving to not worry about it. I focused on doing good work, and living or dying based on the good work. This turned out to be an ace that I can keep. I’ve been able to re-use the “We are data scientists, all we can do is good work. And we will live or die based on doing good work.” and so far, good work has produced nothing but breakthroughs. And, …

    I don’t miss the time spent worrying. :-)

  2. I’ve heard about trotting horses that you train them to swing right and left legs together, and then very gradually, you train them to speed up with the trotting gait. If you push them to faster than their training can support, the stop trotting and gallop. This slows the horses down.

    Fear at work pushes my use of my trusted system, to the point where I stop using it. And like trotter horses, I begin to gallop with stream of consciousness organization. And I slow down.

    When I go from trotting with my trusted system, to galloping without it. I’m off the GTD wagon. :-(

    I find that I have to budget time to focus on organizing all the information pouring in. Budget time to refactor and build-out my trusted system towards new challenges. But because of the time pressure, I have to sneak trusted system building into time cracks of the day.

    This is the sentence we GTD users bring upon ourselves. Raising productivity, taking on more, getting to the point of galloping. Then, refactoring and refining. Over time, responsibilities increase, and the refactoring of the trusted system never gets easy. It just works. No guarantee trusted system refinement will be easy.

  3. Looking back on the past 3.5 months, I wonder if the focus GTD has brought, or the ability to put aside fear and worry, has made me more sensitive to patterns. Patterns have been leaping to mind. For example:

    (a) A common pattern of our customer sales cycle.
    (b) The repeated pattern of co-workers under pressure.
    (c) The validation of my “radar” that sees future problems … far in advance

Perhaps there is a self-induced “Hawthorne effect” for GTD people in struggling to keep work life functioning smoothly from a trusted system. Whatever the source, GTD has stood me through.

bill meade

Getting Started with GTD: The 2 Minute Rule

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Source: GETTING THINGS DONE page 34

What is it?

An execution step set smack in the middle of defining next actions. This is an exception to David Allen’s rule that doing work be separated from processing the inbox. If the work is small (<2 minutes) you do it upon definition.

How does it work?

When processing items out of your inbox, you ask yourself “Will it take less than 2 minutes?” and if so, then you do it. But …

There are A LOT of recurring tasks that don’t come out of our inboxes. For example some come out of litter boxes:

  • Cleaning the cat litter every morning
  • Squeegeeing the shower when done

And the productive GTDer will apply the 2 minute rule upon recognizing these tasks. Even if s/he does not like the task. This takes discipline only until you’ve built a track record of following through. Conversation with self: “Cat box need cleaning. Just do it! Ugh, I HATE CLEANING THE CAT BOX. Yeah, it has killed you for the 31 days in the last month you’ve done it every day. Just do it. Well, OK.”

What are the benefits?

  • Encouragement: when you mow down a bunch of small tasks, it pulls a lot off your mind, and builds energy.
  • Economy: When the task is small, it is more effort to make it into a project than to just do, and be done.
  • Implementation ease: If you can do nothing else in GTD, you can implement the 2 minute rule.

What is the strategy?

Avoiding a trusted system full of minutia. Organized minutia is not exciting to work on, is an energy suck to set up, and a repeat-energy suck to close out.

What are the objections?

  • But if I don’t do it, my spouse will do it.

True with the cat litter and squeegeeing, false with every other two minute task. But please note, that me procrastinating to make my spouse re-recognize a task, and do it, does not harmony make. Before marriage, flirtation. After marriage, negotiation. Harmony is negotiated.

  • Maybe I’ll feel like doing it later.

Aha! The “inventory theory” of motivation. The more you let pile up, the more motivated you will be. The flaw in this theory, is that the more that piles up, the less motivated we get. I knew someone once who checked himself into a mental hospital. When I found out I asked him “I’ve felt a lot of times like I was close to the edge. What is going over the edge like? And his response was “I had so much to do, I could not do anything. I sat on the couch for a week, and then realized I needed to check myself into a mental ward.”

David Allen has cast his lot with mowing down small tasks immediately to prevent work piling up. Cutting real work out of “stuff” is 1/2 the genius of “What is the next action” that got you into the 2 minute rule boat to begin with. Following through on 2 minute tasks is the other half.

  • But … but … I could delegate it!

Nice try, but sorry. Since the task can be done in <2 minutes, it is too much overhead to track, and it is too much overhead to delegate. Just do it.