ForumsSearch
Search results for "Posted by sknipfing"
| Author | Message |
|---|---|
|
sknipfing |
Posted May 28, 2010 in: Help! GTD and my master's thesis
Score: 0
fsendel,
The beauty of GTD is getting everything off your mind so that your are not always thinking about what to do next or "have I forgot anything?". Project management is about managing a project. Steps, time, resources, dependencies, and reporting. I doubt I would use MS project to work thru a masters degree. I could see my self using Toodledo though. For example, I could enter the time for my classes in either Toodledo or MS Outlook (or other such calendar). I would enter each class syllabus into toodle as homework with a due date. Projects in this scenario would be things that require multiple steps to complete. For example writing a paper would entail research, note taking, outlining, writing multiple drafts, handing in the paper. In toodledo, I create a folder called projects and use the project name as a tag. You really need to dump your entire life into your tool box, to get all the benefits of GTD, not just one aspect of it. Good luck |
|
sknipfing |
Hi Again!
This time I want to share my new and improved wiz bang filing system on steroids. Truth be told, this is where I really needed to make changes. My problem was that since last July, I have been on the road 4 out of every 5 weeks. So when I have been home, the last thing I wanted to do was tackle this. Well I thought I was home for good and after 2 weeks, I am back in Japan for another 3 weeks. I did, however, reorganize my home office, and that includes reorganizing my file or reference system. I also have to say, this was where most of my disappointment comes from with regards to Toodledo. Problem: How to best store both electronic and physical files and be able to find them easy? Ideally, I want the ability to store documents on line and be able to categorize both the electronic and physical files. I want the ability to use tags to make searching easier. For example, I have physical documents from State Farm Insurance. They cover my Home and Auto. So I could use tags such as Insurance, Home, Auto, Fire, Theft, and Personal as was to describe the type of insurance this covers. My disappointment comes from Toodledo not having the ability of storing tags on notes. Further, I also want the ability to note when a file needs to be purged. For example, taxes 7 years from now. Or a warranty that expires in 2 years, etc. Sometimes the purging is open ended. Another problem is how do I reference and store electronic documents. Since Toodledo is limited to storing text, that leaves a big hole to overcome. I thought about using another web service, but I really really wanted to keep things in one place if possible. I also needed to balance that with restrictions some of my client’s place of websites I can get to. Ubernotes.com was a serious contender. It is much better at note taking than. In the end, I decided to stay with Toodledo. And here is what I did. Each physical or electronic file is stored as a note in Toodledo. The notes are numbered sequentially, not alphabetically. I started with 00001 for files that are at home. Client files start 10000. I serious doubt I will ever have more than 10,000 files at home. <Fingers are crossed> the sequence # is followed by a “p” or and “e” (physical or electronic). Then a dash, followed by the title of the file. So the structure looks like this: [ref #][p/e] - [Title] Inside the note is where the fun is. I embed the tags and other info inside the note. 1st up is Purge and a date or TBD. The looks like this: 2013-12-31. Below this are other tags as described above. Lastly, if it is an electronic file, I add “Path” followed by the path where the file can be found on my home network. Here is an example: Title: 00001p - State Farm Insurance Folder: Home Contents: Purge TBD Insurance Home Owners Auto Fire Umbrella With this structure, I add new files in the order they are created, but can use Toodledo’s search feature to find the file I am looking for. I would love to see Toodledo add a more robust note taking capability. A wiki would be great. The ability to add pictures and graphs would be helpful. Tagging is a must. And finally a purge or expiration date would allow me to once a year pull those files that no longer serve any purpose. |
|
sknipfing |
sarahinparis,
I see where you are going with your folder structure. With me, I try to keep folder to a minimum. I look for big buckets. I also sort the folders manually. My most active folders area at the top. As for the sub-folders, it seems like a lot of work to maintain. I want very little to be between me and actually getting thing done. Since Toodledo has dates and shows me what coming up, I let it do the work. Scott |
|
sknipfing |
geraldosdias,
More is coming. I've been traveling a lot the last 2.5 weeks. I want to talk about my new filing system which is now fully in place. You can't believe the amount of paper I shredded last week! Scott |
|
sknipfing |
Posted Apr 27, 2010 in: New Style - Toodledo Me Too
Score: 0
That is a great idea. I always forget that I can do that.
Thanks! |
|
sknipfing |
Posted Apr 27, 2010 in: New Style - Toodledo Me Too
Score: 0
That helps a bit, but still too wide. I like the look and switched to the mult-row format. The only problem with that is that I add lots of notes, so its an extra mouse click to drill down.
|
|
sknipfing |
Posted Apr 27, 2010 in: Subfolders... C'mon people! Add this feature!!
Score: 1
I'm with PeterW on this. Folders, to me, should be kept to a minimum. If you need to group folders together, you can always add a tag. Toodledo is not an OS when sub folders are a must. It is a task management system.
I would prefer to see work in other areas. |
|
sknipfing |
Posted Apr 26, 2010 in: How on earth do i put in a due time in the web browser?
Score: 0
As for the browser, when you enter the due date field, right after the date is a field. Simply enter the time.
Make sure that you have turned on the due time in account settings labeled under Fields/Functions Used. If its not checked you won't see it on the browser. |
|
sknipfing |
Posted Apr 26, 2010 in: Can Toodle be used 'off line' ?
Score: 0
Not directly from what I have seen. You may be able to use one of the 3rd party tools and re-sync that tool with Toodledo later when you are back on line.
|
|
sknipfing |
Posted Apr 25, 2010 in: Excellent review of Toodledo (and comparison to RTM)
Score: 0
Pretty much validated my choice.
Thanks |
|
sknipfing |
Posted Apr 25, 2010 in: Suggestion: Time-sensitive contexts
Score: 0
That would be cool.
In the mean time, I would simply list it under a context of Errands or @Errands. Then while you are driving around, all those tasks would be seen together. |
|
sknipfing |
Posted Apr 25, 2010 in: New Style - Toodledo Me Too
Score: 0
I just downloaded it tried it out. I like the look, except for one thing. My screen is no longer wide enough to see all the fields I have on the screen.
Not sure what can be done with that. |
|
sknipfing |
Toolbox,
Starting GTD can be quite daunting. It's the whole brain dump thing that many people look at and don't quite get done. When I started to get organized, I realized very quickly that it was not enough to organize only part of my life (work vs home) but the whole thing. So I created a folder for home. In there is everything home related. If I need to run errands, vacuum the house, sweep the floor at night, fix the always running toilet, it all goes down in Toodledo. Sometimes I need to something at work that is for the home, so I also use contexts. I could say "make such and such appointment" for Saturday, but do it at work. So I have context of Home vs work, etc. I say this because I want to focus on things based on where I am sitting. The folders and context are designed to do just that. Now assuming that you have your list focused and there are 40 things on the list, do what you feel is most important right now. That will of course be based on your knowledge of the work at hand, how much time you have, and to some extent what you feel like doing. As for using paper and an in box to drop yourself notes, there is nothing wrong with that at all. You just have to set aside time during the day to get your in box empty. And that goes for all your in boxes (physical, email, voice mail, etc) I look at your posting and question the wisdom of having only one tag per item. tags to me are a way to categorize things in multiple ways. For example, I may have a Dr. appt. I could use the tags "Errands, Health". Or go to my daughter's lacrosse game and use the tags of "Errands, Family" |
|
sknipfing |
Posted Apr 22, 2010 in: Confining tasks to a folder
Score: 0
You could also assign a context to the tasks in that folder. i.e. FarOut
Then filter that out. I currently have 4 contexts (Work, Home, Calls, and Errands). Usually I either view all tasks or filter based on either where I am or what I need to focus on. Contexts work quite nicely. |
|
sknipfing |
Today I want to explain how I use tags, stars, and status. 1st up are stars. These are easy to use. Since they are binary, we need to decide why they are on or off. As for me, when I start to work on the task, I click the star on. It stays on until the task is completed. I do this to remind me which tasks I am currently working on. It's easy to spot them this way.
I only use a few of the statuses. Primarily Planning, Delegated, Waiting, Someday, Reference, and No Status (most tasks). Since I use the star to tell me that I am working on it, there is no reason to use Active. If I delegate the task, or I am waiting for someone to get back to me, I add their name as the 1st item in the tag list. So if I delegate to Sue a task, the tag could read "Sue, Project ABC, Budget". This way I, I can easy see that Sue needs to complete something. If I am waiting for the PC Help Desk to fix a problem, then their name will go in the tag and the status become waiting. Finally tags. I categorize most of my tasks by one or more tags. Here are examples of my current tags: Taxes, Home Env, Finances, Family, CC, Birthday, Bills, Organize Home Office, T&E, Health, Vacation, High Freq Trading, Expiration, Job Search, Futures In Swap, Personal Dev, Meeting, Agenda, Backup, Anniversary, LinkedIn, Movie, Service Desk, Automobile, Hobby. Most of these are straight forward. Others you might not recognize are projects. When I create a project in my projects folder, I then use its name as a tag. For me, a project is anything that has more than a few steps and will take more than a week to complete. Often these steps are undefined (don't worry they will get defined at some point). Now if I want to see all defined tasks related to a project, I can use the tag. My overall goal when using tags, star, and status is to keep it to a minimum. I don't try to over think it. I find I don't need to flag something with "Next Action" because I generally know what I will be doing next. As for my next posting, I think I will be discussing my new filing system. With Toodledo, I will be putting it on steroids. I think I've got it worked out in my head so it may be time to share (and maybe gets some feedback). My current system works, but I think this will be a lot more fun and useful. |
|
sknipfing |
Posted Apr 22, 2010 in: Timer function in mobile apps
Score: -1
You can also do a Google search "GTD Timer". I see lots of apps that come up. So you could simply start a timer and stop it that way.
I downloaded a timer for my BB and use it to keep me under two minutes for things I am doing now. |
|
sknipfing |
Hi Terry,
Expect another post in a day or two. Truth be told, while I tag most of my tasks, I really do rely on them too much. I find that folders and context provide most of what I need to look at from day-to-day. The big break through for me was biting the bullet and ditching my home grown spreadsheet for Toodledo. Now when I think of something it goes in. Now if my wife asks me to stop on the way home to pick something up, I can log it in Toodledo and know that it will be under context of Errands and be viewed on my Blackberry. Thanks for the feedback, Scott |
|
sknipfing |
Hi All,
I thought I would share how I use Toodledo and how it pertains to GTD. I am a big proponent of GTD and for years I used spreadsheet to track my tasks. These spreadsheets were custom made. I programmed them using VBA to make them more efficient to use. The problem I kept running into though was that they were stored in multiple locations (or contexts). So I had one at work, one on my laptop as I travel a lot at times, and one at home. Toodledo allows me to bring these all together without losing any off the functionality that I built up over the years in my spreadsheet. (Way to go Toodledo!) So first a little background on how I've set things up and in subsequent posts, I will walk you all thru how I GTD and use Toodledo. Folders: I use folders for major groupings. So I have folders for [my current client] - I'm a consultant working in Tokyo, but live in NY [my business partner] [my company] - A lot of tax to do items are in here. Go figure… [Home] - Projects, routine items, personal finance, kids sports schedules, etc [Agendas] - Things I need to discuss with different people the next time we talk. [Projects] - Anything that will require more than one step to complete. I also use the project name as a tag in the "to do" list. [Job Search] - I'm always looking for my next client [Birthdays] - Also anniversaries [Vacation Ideas] - Got to have some fun [Someday] - Maybe I'll get to these or maybe not From these folders I can derive some contexts though some will cross between folders. Contexts I have defined are [Work] - For while I am in the office [Home] - For while I am at home [Calls] - These could be while I am anywhere. Have phone will travel. I thought about dividing these up further, but for now they are all together. [Errands] - While I am traveling by car. Topics I will cover in the near future will be tags, filing, and getting "IN" empty. Let me know if you have any questions. Hopefully we can all learn from each other. |
|
sknipfing |
Posted Apr 18, 2010 in: Some qs on GTD and Proximos GTD setup
Score: 0
Here is what I do:
I created folders to represent the major buckets: [Current Client] [business partner] [Home] [My Company] [Agendas] [Projects] [Job Search] [Birthdays] [Vacation Ideas] [Someday Projects] All Actions and reminders go on my to do list. If it has a dead line, I enter it. I estimate the amount of time for the task if I know it. If a task repeats, it to is captured. Most tasks get tags and Contexts (Home/Work). This way I can filter things that make sense. For example, if I am out and about, I can filter on the "Errands" tag. If I have time to make phone calls, I filter on the "Calls" tag. If a meeting may be required while traveling, it will go in my to-do list since I may not have Outlook in front of me. Though I have only a couple of those. Most of the time my meetings are within the context of "work" so they go on my Calendar. But GTD is more than managing your to-do list. It's about all the other pieces of information in your life. Creating a folder system and having an in-box is equally important. I hope that helps, Scott This message was edited Apr 18, 2010. |
Skip to Page: 1 2