Genuine Curiosity

Author Dwayne Melancon is always on the lookout for new things to learn. An ecclectic collection of postings on personal productivity, travel, good books, gadgets, leadership & management, and many other things.

 

[Updated] A great GTD “aggregator” site

I stumbled across a great Getting Things Done (GTD) aggregator site the other day - in fact, it calls itself "The Ultimate Getting Things Done Index" and it pulls GTD-related feeds together from a wide variety of sources.

This is a time-saving, focusing list - what could be more appropriate for the topic?

In addition to quotes, links to blogs and articles, you'll find links to software that may help you on your quest for personal productivity the GTD way. Enjoy!

Update: Thanks to Stephen for sharing some other resources:

Travel Tip: Receipt tracking

If you're a business traveler like me, you need to keep track of your business and travel receipts. For a long time my standard process was to put them in my "Inbox" folder so I could process receipts like a normal inbox item. This worked pretty well, but I found that I sometimes missed a few here and there. Why? Because I sometimes needed to turn in my receipts before I had a chance to process my physical inbox, so I'd shuffle through my inbox folder looking for receipts.

Recently, I've started using a very simple system that works for me:

  1. In my laptop bag, I maintain a folder labeled "Expenses" - it's my special purpose inbox, just for receipts.
  2. As I receive receipts, I just open up the zipper on my bag and slip the receipts into the folder.
  3. For things which I don't get receipts (like tips, bag check fees, or things I forgot to get a receipt for) I take out my Notetaker wallet and make a note on my notepad with the date, reason, and amount. I then tear the sheet out and put it in the Expenses folder.
  4. Each evening before I go to bed in my hotel room, I check my pockets and put any relevant receipts into the Expenses folder. I also check my Notetaker wallet to make sure I haven't forgotten to tear out a handwritten receipt.

This system seems to work pretty well for me. Like any system, it's only effective when used consistently, but I've gotten it to become a strong habit so I don't go around my system very often any more.

For electronic receipts, I have a few techniques I use:

  1. I try to keep my business travel expenses confined to a specific card, and use one where I can check recent transactions online. This is especially helpful for international expenses because I can determine what exchange rate I received when I purchase things in foreign currencies.
  2. When I receive emailed electronic receipts (like for Wi-Fi day passes) I create a task in Outlook to remind me to reprint them when I get back to the office.
  3. For web page-based receipts, I print them to a PDF and save them in a folder on my Windows desktop called "Print Me" (I file the PDF after I print it).

What about you other travelers out there? Any tried & true systems for you?

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Fresh Gear: Faster filing - email style

I've been running the new version of Claritude Software's SpeedFiler, which is an Outlook add-in designed to streamline the way you file messages in Outlook.

If you ever use Outlook's [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[V] keystroke combo to move messages to filing folders, you know that it is a good habit to develop, but it requires a lot of steps if you use subfolders (the Outlook UI is a little clunky). I've been using this since I got hooked on David Allen's "Getting Things Done".

Outlook's clunky old filing

If, for example, I want to use the traditional Outlook UI to file a message in a folder called Inbox/Customers/Fictional, I have to:

  • type [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[V] to get the move dialog,
  • type "IN" to get to the Inbox folder,
  • hit the [Right] arrow to expand the subfolders under the Inbox,
  • type "Cust" to get to the Customers Folder,
  • hit the [Right] arrow to expand the subfolders under Customers,
  • type "Fict" to get the the Fictional folder,
  • hit [Enter] to save the message to that folder.

SpeedFiler's better way

SpeedFiler replaces Outlook's dialog for filing. To do the same thing with Speedfiler, I would:

  • type [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[V] to get the move dialog,
  • type "Fict" to get the the Fictional folder,
  • hit [Enter] to save the message to that folder.

Much easier, and a lot less hand movement.

Another cool thing - if you have multiple folders with similar names, SpeedFiler narrows down the list as you type - you can see an example in the screenshot I snagged and posted here, in which I begin to narrow down my various "...reference..." folders.

Other tips and observations:

  • SpeedFiler helps with retrieval
    • One of the drawbacks of filing is that it gives you more folders to navigate through when you want to retrieve things. SpeedFiler helps there - their CEO, Itzy Sabo, turned me on to a very cool shortcut:
      • When you want to navigate to one of your folders, hit <Ctrl>+Y, and the SpeedFiler dialog pops up and you can start typing to narrow down the folder you want to go to. When you've typed enough, hit <Enter> and you're looking at your folder. Beats the heck out of mouse-based navigation.
    • By the way, Itzy's blog has some great productivity articles, as well.
  • SpeedFiler plays well with other children

OK, gadgetboy - what's the big deal?

As David Allen says in his book, filing needs to be easy or it won't get done consistently. SpeedFiler makes it easier to do mundane filing, therefore it is more likely you'll file things consistently.

If you're an Outlook user (using Getting Things Done or not), I recommend you give it a whirl and download the 30-day trial of SpeedFiler

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Interesting take on GTD, MindManager and GyroQ

I love mind mapping (I use MindManager Pro all the time), and am into GTD, so I'm always interested in hearing how people put them together.

Eric Mack (or Eric Mac, as I call him) has a great article on how he is using GTD and MindManager, and he has also added Gyronix's GyroQ into the mix. Ironically, I just watched the online demo of GyroQ yesterday (I own a copy of Gyronix's ResultsManager but have never quite gotten it to "click" for me).

One of the things I really like about the GyroQ demo is that it seems like it allows you to simultaneously add a task to your queue, assign an "owner" and file it according to whether it's a commitment you owe to someone else, or one that someone else owes you. That's pretty slick.

If I spent more time at my desk instead of traveling, I think this might be a viable option for me, but I just don't see it fitting with my work style because I don't always have my computer open to capture commitments. What about you?

If I had a magic wand:

In my dream scenario, I would be able to send an email or voice mail to a "GTD parser" service that would decipher my tasks and email an Outlook task back to me that would automatically show up in my list in the proper category/context. That would be cool.

I could also let other people send emails to that address, and they could be added as "candidate" actions. The service would, of course be able to tell me by my originating email address or caller ID from my phone. Any request originating from anyone else would be subject to my reviewing the task before accepting it, assigning it, etc.

Get to the point

Got a presentation or message to deliver? Get to the point. To get the message to a more "crisp" state, here is a tip that helps me:

If the message, slide deck, or document is running too long, I pretend I have to deliver the message in half the time. I then go through a process that goes something like this:

  1. Decide on 3 to 5 main points you want your audience to remember.
  2. Print out the content (working from hard copy helps for the next step).
  3. Go through the content and highlight key points.
  4. Discard any content that is not essential to delivering and supporting your 3-5 points.
  5. If you find any points that don't directly support the main points, but you feel they are too important to delete:
    • Use the "So what?" test to figure out whether each point warrants an exception, or whether I feel compelled to add another main point.

It pays to be aggressive during this process, particularly when you identify and remove embellishments, non-critical modifiers, and other "fluff" from the message.

You, your message, and your audience will all benefit from this approach..

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