One of the worst affects (effects?) of ADD is being overwhelmed with choices. Because of this, I procrastinate, I get lost in the details and the things that need to be done just sit in an ever expanding “in box” and never get attended to.
It's gotten worse as I have gotten older. Bills are late, I put things off to the very last millisecond.
Setting up a system to combat this is fun and usually bubbles up out of an ADD meltdown. Then I feel as if I am organized and that I finally have things organized, a streamlined productive system.
But what happens is that I start to question the system and then start looking for ways to tweak it, change it, look at other options, other software and before I know it, I am “waste” deep in things not done. Time wasted.
David Allen is a business productivity guru who has developed a organizational style that has become cultish. It's called “Getting Things Done” or “GTD.” Type those three letters in google and you will be amazed at how many items come up in the search list. I have researched and scoured over all manner of ideas to implement this method.
Matthew Cornell is one of zillions of people who are happily into the whole GTD thing. He summed up it's method in a very well written paragraph:
“To consistently stay on course, you’ll have to do some things that may not be habits yet: 1. keep everything out of your head; 2. decide actions and outcomes when things first emerge on your radar, instead of later; and 3. regularly review and update the complete inventory of open loops of your life and work.”
The center of this system is what is called “Next Actions.” When you are working on a project the only important “task at hand” is the very next thing that can and needs to be done. Go google GTD to find out more about it.
What I have been up to is trying to find the perfect system. I don't think that there is one but what I do know is that it is individual to each person. I have gone through the various softwares in search of what is “perfect” for me. Funny that the result existed right here in my own backyard.
There are some great resources out there for a planner geek like me. I have seriously tried each and every one of them. After having passionate affairs with DayTimer, DayRunner, Franklin Planner, Stephen Covey, At-A-Glance, Julie Morgenstern and Filofax, I discovered the world of David Allen.
His world involves contexts. Context is defined as “the circumstances (background) or settings which determine, specify, or clarify the meaning of an event.” MY contexts are the following:
Home, Errands, Office, Computer, Calls and Play(time). I also have (as suggested by Mr. Allen) Someday/Maybe and an on hold or “Wait” context.
Then there is the action that neatly goes into each context. And then, then is the whole process which is beautifully illustrated here:
With all of this under my belt, I went out in search of the best way to house my system. I tried to do it with a paper based system, but it became to complicated and trying to marry it with my computer didn't work for me. I had to choose one or the other and so I chose the computer. First of all, for the most part it's free (aside from the cost of the computer). With my decision in stone, I now had to set up and assemble my computer GTD system.
I now went through each and every Macintosh software program designed for GTD.
Does GTD sound more like a sexually transmitted disease or a clinical test done on your brain? I can't decide. See? ADD... anyway...
All manner of programs are out there. They all pretty much do the same thing, but there are lots of little things that get in the way of making it something I know I will use everyday. Things as you know, with me, can get complicated. I am constantly weeding out and simplifying.
The only way to do this is to just list them and comment on them.
KGTD is a set of scripts that work with the outlining program OmniOutliner. It's very well designed and very popular and free (although you have to have the OmniOutliner program which is a tad expensive). For me, it was just that one fragment too complicated. It claims to syn with the Mac calendar program iCal. I was having trouble with it. Whether that involved a learning curve or not, because it teetered in complication land, I had to pass. I cannot spend more time tweaking the program then getting things done. The system cannot upstage the actual doing. It has to support the doing.
Easy Task Manager almost made the cut. It is beautiful and simple design. It syncs with iCal. But I realized that having an easy task manager action list AND an iCal list (although synced together) started to get too complicated. Better to have ONE thing to look at as opposed to two.
Now, you think I would settle with that notion immediately... no chance. I still had to peruse more programs. Maybe just because it was fun.
Another problem I had with many of these programs was the way you input a due date. I preferred the drop down calendar method. Many of the programs I tried didn't have that.
I tried more and more programs, some with very interesting names: Ghost Action, Actiontastic, Midnight Inbox and my personal fave: My MonkeyGTD.
The program that almost clinched it for me was a wonderfully free program called ThinkingRock. It was my favorite because it walked you through the David Allen process. As much as I love it, it's drawback for me, someone with ADD is that it had too many options. I stopped using it but keep it for sentimental reasons.
(Trumpet fanfare) So what is my finally decided system?
Here we go...
It was on my computer all this time. I use iCal. In tandem with iCal I have found a program that works seamlessly with it. Because much of my work involves correspondance via e-mail (who's doesn't these days) I use an Apple Mail add-on called MailTags. It is your computer gopher between iCal and Mail. I can go through my emails and instantly tag them as to what I am to do next. The tags go hand in hand with the various calendars I have set up on iCal.
(You can have several calendars on iCal each a different color) I have one for each context plus a few more.
First of all I have INBOX where everything begins. This is the calendar in which I dump all my thoughts in the form of to-dos to be processed later. Then I have a Birthday calendar. Next is my company calendar. It is a subscribed calendar connected to a google calendar that Jason and I share for our company. Anything put by either of us on THAT calendar automatically comes up on this iCal calendar. Is this sounding complicated? It isn't... please tell me it isn't...
Then come the GTD context calendars: Home, Errands, Office, Computer, Calls, Playtime and two more, a Someday/Maybe calendar and an on hold calendar titled, “wait.”
For me, I have to keep the contexts minimal. I am still whittling it down. For example I had emails AND computer. I chose to eliminate emails because when I am going through emails, it's ON my computer. But if I have to do anything involving emailing someone, I use the word email in the inputted task ex: EMAIL blah blah blah... and then assign it to the computer context calendar.
Another thing to keep in mind when inputing everything is to see to it that it will be searchable. With this in mind, instead of having separate project calendars (too much... too much) I just type the project name or abbreviation (decided before hand) at the beginning of the task. Ex: “Blah Blah Project (or perhaps, BBP) 3 website comps.” This way, when sorting to-do's by title, you will automatically have it listed by project. Aren't I pretty?
So, let's see... I have iCal (free), Mailtags (donation software which means, almost free), Mail (free) and my Apple address book (which works seamlessly with iCal and Mail). What is missing? When I was deep in the heart of Franklin Covey land, my favorite part about THAT system was that before you every day you had your task list, appointment list and then a daily record of events. So with my present set up, that is all that was missing. I googled Mac Notes App and discovered, viJournal lite. What set it apart from other programs aside from being free (the bigger versions of viJournal are NOT free, but the lite one is perfect) what set it apart was the fact that I could add checkboxes in my notes. Geeky, fun and totally me. Love a checkbox...
So, in conclusion, this is what you need to have:
iCal, Mail, Mailtags, Addressbook and viJournal lite (it's fat free!)
Aren't you happy you read this whole thing?
But wait, there's more!
Once I have the tasks put into my inbox, I then go through highlighting the tasks for a specific context and label them as such so that they show up in the correct calendar. THEN, one by one, any task that is an action, get's dragged to the specific day. It there is a specific time I am going to do this, I drag it to the appropriate time block (using the weekly view ofcourse) and if it doesn't have a specific time but a specific day, I just drag it to the top of the day to make it an all-day event. Then I sync it with my phone. Yes, iCal actually syncs with my Razar phone! So it turns my phone into a PDA! (Personal Digital Assistant)
Click the image below to see my system set up on my computer. See? I have my context calendar list, my weekly view for appointments, my tasks and then the viJournal Lite notes.
Are you as excited about this as I am? The point of all this is to make it fun and enjoyable. There are those who will respond, “I have a good memory, I don't need a calendar...” Perhaps, but for me, I have ALWAYS enjoyed planner systems and calendars. My goal has been to keep it as simple as possible and as interesting as possible to make me use it on a daily basis.
