apped.design

by David South Jr

The day I read Getting Things Done by David Allen, I realized I was using my Palm Pilot completely wrong. I’ve had one since 1996 and never used it effectively. After GTD, I erased the Palm and redid everything from scratch. Here is what I do now.

The Calendar

There are only two items I put on the calendar:

1. Stuff that happens on that day
2. Tasks I mailed into the future

If you put something on the calendar, it better dang well be there for a reason. If I put on the calendar that I should call someone at a certain time, it’s because I really must call them at that time. If it doesn’t matter when I call them, then put it on the Task list.

Meetings and other appointments go on there for sure. Reminders to take out the trash on Tuesday night. You bet. Add an alarm. Anything that must be done on that day, no matter how trivial, put it on the calendar. If I talked to someone earlier in the day and they ask me to call them back that evening. I will make an appointment to call them again with an alarm to remind me. I cannot tell you how many times that’s saved me.

But sometimes when I am working on my projects, there are tasks or other things I need to remember to do sometime in the future. Not that they must be done on a particular day. It’s just that I don’t need to do them for a specific period of time.

For these tasks, I put un-timed appointments on the day I want to pick up the task. On the day the task shows up I either do it or move it to the Task list or Project list.

I do have two special events I maintain as periodic reminders.

One is the monthly reminder. It says “Monthly Reminder” and repeats every first day of the month. In the notes for “Monthly Reminder” I put stuff I need to do every month. For example “Change AC filter at home” or “Get last month’s police reports for the Neotribune”. I copy these tasks onto the Task list when the Monthly Reminder shows up and mark them finished when they are. Repeat every month.

I have a Quarterly reminder that works the same way on Jan, Apr, Jul, Oct. Examples: “Change server passwords” or “Pay 3 months of rent to chamber of commerce”. Same methods. Don’t let that day pass without copying the tasks to the task list or do it.

Everything on the calendar must be dealt with on the day it comes up.

Task List

I use the Task Program (formerly To Do) everyday and all day so it needs to be found FAST. Just one button push and it comes up. If it doesn’t do this on your Palm handheld (the Treo hides it), set a primary button to bring it up immediately.

These are the context sensitive tasks. You categorize them according to the context you are working.

To really understand context tasks you have to read the GTD book. But in a nutshell, these are single tasks you can accomplish as one physical event. The context is where or what you are doing. Group your tasks by context.

So here are the categories I use: At work, At home, At the computer, At the phone).

• Contact—Calls or emails I should do
• Errands—Stuff to buy when I’m running erands
• Home—Things that can only be done at home (like changing an AC filter)
• Mac—Things to do when I’m using my computer
• Net—Things I can only do when I’m on the Internet
• Office—Things that can only be done at the office.
• Waiting—Stuff I’m waiting for

Of all the task categories, Waiting is the most revolutionary. Let’s say I just called somebody about a task and now it’s in their court. Putting it in Waiting reminds me they are working on it. If too much time goes by, I am reminded to do something about it. Very helpful.

Other useful contexts could be: Letters, Articles, Research

Memos

What used to be the most neglected program is now the most useful. I also set it as primary-second button. On the Treo I put the calendar as a option-click under the memo button. The Memopad needs to be there and very fast. I’ll explain why in a bit.

The Memos are where you put all the Projects you are working on. There are four major categories.

1. Inbox
2. Projects
3. Someday
4. Log

In fact, I actually took to putting the numbers on the categories so they are in order—“1. Inbox”, “2. Projects”, “3. Someday”, “4. Log”.

The Flow

Whenever I hear anything I need to remember. No matter how big or small. I hit the memo button. It turns on the Palm and switches it to Memo if it isn’t there already. If it brings up a specific memo, hit the button again so it shows the memo list. Either hit “New” or just start typing (Palm/Treo will automatically create a new memo if you type anything while in the memo list). Save the thought. When you are finished typing, change the memo’s category to “1. Inbox”.

This is why the memo is a primary button. It brings up a writing screen extremely fast and lets me catch something before I forget. Sometimes I can forget something walking up the stairs so I’m actually getting in the habit of writing stuff down in mid-stride. Even when I’m riding the bike (of course I pull over and stop).

Every week you process your inboxes. In addition to the Palm I also have a pad and pen plus a text file on my computer to catch ideas.

The GTD book goes into great detail on project processing so READ THE BOOK.

In brief, a project is something that takes more than one step. If I wrote “Buy milk” in the Inbox, that can be moved to Errands on the Task list and the memo erased.

But if I write, “Copy iPhoto to Jen’s computer” I would move the memo to “2. Projects”, write down ideas on the best way to do it, and write a next Task like “Check available space on Jen’s Mac” in the “Home” task list (because her computer is at home so it’s the only place the task can be accomplished).

It would stay in Projects until finished.

If a project or idea is something I don’t or can’t do anything about right now I either put it into “3. Someday” or I put a un-timed reminder in the future on the calendar.

Finally, when I finish a project I like to stamp it with today’s date and put it in the “4. Log” category. I put the date as 06.09.02 at the very beginning of the memo. That’s two digits for Year, Month, and Day. Always two digits and always the year first (YY.MM.DD). Always put it as the very FIRST part of the memo.

My Log is now a history of projects in the order they were completed.

Other Memo Categories

I use other categories in Memo. “Reference” is especially useful. I put things I want to ‘refer’ to like:

1. the RPN calculator scripts
2. useful information about my house (e.g. AC filter size)
3. my kids heights
4. places to go
5. movies to buy.

“Checklists” is a category of triggers for GTD brain dumps (see the book). I have an exercise checklist. Even a checklist of stuff that has to happen when uploading the BBS. Stuff like that.

It’s All Personal

Most time management systems break tasks into Personal, Business, Church. This is NOT the way to get things done. We are talking about your life. Your dreams. Your goals. Business, church, friends, fun are all part of who you are. Don’t separate these things on the calendar, task list or project lists.

A project is anything that takes more than one step. A task is something YOU do regardless of if it’s personal, business or church. A calendar item is something YOU do on a certain day.

It’s all personal. It’s all you.

Use this system to free your mind of mental clutter. Learn to focus on the next task and let the system remember the details. You will be amazed at how many things you will get done with less stress and seemingly less effort.