NotesOnGettingThingsDone

When in Trouble, When in Doubt

• Ask: "Can it be simplified?" or "Does this make things simpler?"

Choice of Tool

• Outlook.
  • Because it puts Inbox, Tasks, Calendar, Address in a single tool.
  • I'm using a user-defined form for Tasks, to capture Project and other 'custom' fields.
  • Spambayes is my only add-on.
    • More add-ons puts my critical data at risk.
    • I *must* have spam filtering.
• Capture/portable notes on 3x5 cards.

Next Actions

• max of 10 minutes to complete
• physical action
• visible result

Trouble Spots

I'm feeling overwhelmed by too many Next Actions. I'm going to adjust to a slightly modified PigPog (http://pigpog.com/node/1031) system.

• Each project gets ONE Task record in Outlook -- with the current NextAction.

• Remaining action items get held in the Task's notes area.
• Do NOT mark Tasks complete from the table view; use the detail view to ensure that there are no additional action items remaining.

• The variation is that I will use the format action-item @ project-name instead of action-item {project-name}.

  • I tried project-name/action-item and it obscured the action too much.

• For stand-alone action-items, it will look like action-item @.

• A project without a next action will look like @ project-name.

• I'm reverting to the standard Outlook Task form.