Getting Things Done

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

I finally finished this book today. I guess according to my All Consuming account, I started it six weeks ago...that sounds about right. It seems like I have about a million books going on right now and this one got buried on my desk until today. I know this isn't a new book but we got a brand new copy at the library and I decided to finally read it. It was a bit of a life changing book for me, not complete life changing, but I have seen enough progress with the advice in this book to know that it absolutely works.

When I first got the book I devoted an entire weekend to going through my crap to start the organization process. Well, six weeks later most of what I started then is still in place! I started an inbox not just for stuff at home, but I've applied the same principles to work and school things. My email situation has improved tremendously. I went from having over 400 messages in my inbox, about half of them unread to currently 23 and only 3 unread. I've also managed to get the amount of junk mail and paper crap hanging around my apartment in various places to reside mostly in one organized mail section of the apartment. This has helped keep the sanity in our home...we can actually eat at our dining table now!!!

I do recommend this book to anybody who needs a little help and motivation in organizing your life, not just paper clutter (if you're like me), but all the little projects you need to get done. It changes the way you think about what you have to do and you end up being surprised at how much time you really do have to get things done (it's probably more than you think!)

Of course I love GTD tools and hacks, here's a few things that have helped me:

GMail of course, but there's a couple of things you can add to GMail to make life and email easier:

GMail + Firefox + Greasemonkey Extension + GMail Saved Searches Script

This awesome Greasemonkey script adds "virtual folders" to the sidebar of your GMail. This script has helped me organize my email so much that if I'm checking my email on a computer where I don't have it installed, my mail will start to pile up because I only read what's important. When I finally do sit down to take care of the email, it only takes me a matter of minutes to get back down to zero unread again.

I also have a very specific way of attending to my GMail through labels, I do take the time to set up filters to auto label most everything that comes in my inbox. I've found that initially taking the time to do this has saved me a lot of hassle down the road...I do have a lot of labels on my GMail though...for me it's worth it.

There is also a GTD script for GMail, I have it installed but I know I haven't used it to its full advantage. I already had a decent system going with the Saved Searches script to it might be a little too much for me, but maybe helpful for other people.

My other new favorite tool is Hiveminder. For a to do list, this one rocks! I've used a lot of pretty decent ones too, but what I love about Hiveminder is the ability to review and hide tasks (it is built on GTD principles). I usually find that when I start having a mental block of what I should be doing next, going through a using Hiveminder in addition to applying some of the strategies in GTD actually puts me back on track again.

I use Google Calendar now, but another great calendar is 30Boxes. It was hard switching from 30Boxes, but Google Calendar is cool and it integrates right with GMail.

Online tools are nice, but the best thing I did for myself was really just create a space more condusive to getting things done. My clutter is actually minized to a few small piles of manageble things. I utlize the file cabinet I have sitting next to my desk (after I cleaned it out and created file folders for projects), and I put everything where it needs to go now...that is once I actually made sure everything I wanted to keep had a home! I even created a To Go System where all of my work and school projects would also stay organized. Six weeks is a long time for me to keep up any system, so it has worked!

Technorati : 30boxes, all consuming, david allen, firefox, getting things done, gmail saved searches, google calendar, greasemonkey, gtd, hiveminder, virtual folders