Making It All Work…Really?

Mr. Rhone reviews David Allen’s latest book Making It All Work.

Here was my problem with Making It All Work, the long anticipated follow up to Getting Things Done, by David Allen: I have heard it all before. You see, I was one of the many people who really dug deep into the Getting Things Done philosophy. Not only did I read the book several times, as well as practice the system, and try every GTD application, I also attended his GTD: The Roadmap seminar when it came through town here a couple of years back. I really fell deep into line with the program. Because of this, there was not much more for me to get out of the book. Don’t get me wrong, there were some useful nuggets of wisdom that I found. It was just not the further enlightenment I was hoping for, largely because I was already there.

read the full review here

We Don’t Need No Stinking Business Model…

I heard about this while listening to Twit. Think 100% time suck…the new yummy wholesome goodness that is Foursquare.

Think 50% friend-finder, 30% social cityguide, 20% nightlife game. Wanted to build something that not only helps you keep up with your friends, but exposes you to new things in and challenges you to explore cities in different ways.

(via ehub)

Foursquare is essentially a re-envisioning of Dodgeball, Twitter’s precursor and a cult phenomenon until GoogleGoogle reviews left it for dead, and actually hails from one of the guys that worked to build that app. Foursquare, which offers an iPhone app or mobile browser experience, works by letting you tell the app where you are and then lets your friends know where to find you. All you need to do is check-in via SMS (text to 50500) or mobile app.

(via mashable)

Getting Things Done With Gmail…Really?

As a long time Gmail user I fell into the trap of trying to make it jump through hoops (with lame grease monkey scripts, etc.) and meet all my needs…but in the end I found out that for me it’s most productive use was just as a web based email client.

While my search for the perfect Windows Getting Things Done (GTD) app continues, I’m resorting to using Gmail Tasks as an interim measure. While it’s not perfect — it’s nowhere near fully-featured enough for me — Google’s addition, last week, of the ability to move tasks between lists was definitely a step in the right direction for GTDers. You could use Tasks for GTD before, but moving actions between lists was painful, as you had to manually copy and paste the tasks

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(via webworker daily)

The whole trying to make square pegs fit into round round holes side of the productivity cult isn’t really working for me at the moment.

Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.

peter drucker

Your thoughts…

Productivity Power Links 03-16-09

Good guidelines for getting stuff done?

This succinct set of workday guidelines is a nice blueprint for getting productive on the important stuff and ruthless about cutting the c**p

(via smarterware)

Google Voice…one number to rule them all?

Google Voice is led by GrandCentral’s co-founder Craig Walker and the newly packaged service provides an upgraded version of the original concept. Subscribers will receive a new ten-digit phone number that will link all your phone various numbers which will then ring simultaneously, home, cell and work, you name it.The idea being that from now on you will avoid the irritating voicemail phone tag game. Google Voice will also allow you to make calls for free to anywhere in the US and it will offer far cheaper rates for international calls, which is likely to threaten Skype’s VoIP domination.

(via redherring)

Yet another GTD app…

I set uTodo up with a few projects and some actions. One of the first things that I noticed was that while uTodo is very keyboard-friendly, unfortunately it doesn’t have a global hotkey, like Things and ThinkingRock do. I like being able to add tasks to my task inbox whenever a thought strikes with one key press, without having to open up or switch to my GTD app and enter it. Having to switch apps does tend to break up your flow.

(via webworkerdaily)

Dude reviews Staction…yet another communication and task management type thang

Staction’s interface is very Twitter-ish. It’s comprised of two columns: the main one is your stream of user generated updates (on the left) and the other is data you’ve created such as projects, tasks, users etc. (on the right).

(via weekly review)

The Mac version of Evernote just got a little cooler….

Evernote has updated its Mac version, adding support for Growl, Safari, note merging, and gobs of performance and usability improvements.

(via lifehacker)

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Technorati Tags: gtd, productivity, evernote, google voice

Group To-Do Lists With KonoLive…

…Downloading right now.

Using the application requires nothing more than creating an account, logging in, and creating your tasks—which can be shared and discussed with other members of your team using the built-in collaboration features. Your tasks will be stored on the KonoLive servers, and can be accessed from more than one computer—although your data is also cached for offline access. The signup process automatically creates a Box.net account, or you can link to Google Docs for file sharing between team members

(via lifehacker)

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3 Kind Of GTDers?

What kind are you?

There are three groups of people who use, or try to use, Getting Things Done, David Allen’s cult like time management system. The first group are those who follow every single step of the book religiously. The second group are those who start to read the book, get a little scared by the all or nothing approach, put the book on a shelf and forget all about it. But it’s the third group that is by far the greatest. The group that modifies the GTD system, tweaking it to make it work for them.

I’m a proud member of that third group.

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A Brilliant Ideal Or To Much Free Time?

You judge…its called “the circle“

Let’s get started. Write down the projects name, like: Product Brochure for My Brand Inc. Put a circle in front of the name. Then, indenting lines a bit, draw a circle. After the circle, you write down the actions you need to do before the project is finished. One line at least for each action. You might want or need to add a few actions or a phone number later on, so leave a little space between projects.

Ok, this was about the bones and now it’s the meat. The Circle.

We now have projects with its actions, all with circles in front. And we surely have individual actions that are not part of any project, like Pay this bill and so on. Put everything in, every action you need to execute at home or work. Don’t try to remember everything — except one thing: The notebook remembers.

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