I promised earlier this week that I would detail how I have built my personal productivity system. The short course will be here, a longer more detailed version will be available if you click the “more” link below.
The Short Course
I have become a disciple of David Allen’s Getting Things Done, it literally revolutionized my life almost two years ago.
David Allen’s system is a simple one with many complex iterations and sub sections. Essentially it is broken down into the following steps:
- Collect
- Process
- Organize
- Review
- Do
I don’t want to infringe on David Allen’s product or process, if you are interested, I would highly recommend spending the money to read it. Check it out at Amazon.
My first line of defense (or collection) is the nigh famous hipster PDA. A college professor used to joke about his PDA, literally ink on his palm, mine is slightly more refined, stack of index cards and a binder clip are the easiest way for me to capture every fleeting thought that I have. And that is the front end of my productivity system. Writing everything down.
I won’t lie. I scribble notes on lots of paper, but I always consolidate it to an index card as soon as possible.
I use iCal both at work and at home to manage my appointments. I have tried for years unsuccessfully to use a paper calendar, something about mucking up the pages when appointments are shifted. I share my calendars with each other via icalx.com, allowing me to see both home and work and the other location.
Unfortunately, I have not mastered David Allen’s recommended tickler file. I just can’t seem to get the hang of it.
I have worked in the last 6 months to stop living in my inbox. Having read Merlin Mann’s wonderful series entitled Inbox Zero, I have first of all realized all of the different inboxes I have and secondly worked to keep them at zero.
List of inboxes
- Personal
- Work
- Physical Inboxes
- Work (semi personal)
- Work (office mandated)
- Personal at home
- Mailbox
- Digital inboxes
- RSS feeds from google reader
- Twitter messages
- New Podcasts
A whole lot of inputs! I work to winnow down the total inputs and organize them into projects (contained on index cards) with support materials being added into manila folders.
I keep my address book electronically on my macbook and at work, occasionally syncing them (although my contacts are almost mutually exclusive).
This post is a living document. As I update my process, through kaizen, I will update this post, noting the changes below.
