Christopher's GTD Setup and Implementation

So, I have been struggling for the past few months to really settle down with a GTD tool. I have floated between them all and have decided to give a concerted effort to Toodledo as it is the most ubuiquitus of any todo list manager I have found. I will post my initial setup and any progress I make with it.

From: http://www.toodledo.com/forums/5/8881/0/christophers-gtd-setup-and-implementation.html

About Me

I am a pretty busy person and have several different areas of my life. I am a student, work for two different companies, have my own business pursuits, a husband, and a puppy owner. It feels like GTD was made for me; now it's all about the implementation and using what works. Mr. Allen always says that if you cannot trust your tools there is no point in even trying this.

Caveats

That said, I'm going to point out some quick caveats that I found so far with Toodledo and GTD. Mind you this is my opinion.

1. Sub-tasks suck for projects

Seriously, sub-task handling in Toodledo is extremely annoying to use. I found myself trying to setup Proximo's way and became irritated with having to move actions around based on the crappy sub-tasking model. Mr. Allen says that linking projects to tasks isn't that important, as long as you have a plan to follow, all you really need is a reminder of the next action on your next action list. The only time I will use sub-tasks will be for a task in a project that has multiple steps. Even that seems a little annoying though, so I try not to use them at all.

2. Statuses do not make sense

I have tried so many different things to make statuses work, like, "well, "active" could be for a project, on "hold" could be stuff that isn't a next action, delegated could mean waiting, but wait... THERE IS WAITING!". They don't really make too much sense to me, and because of that I really have to put some thought into using them. I don't want to think that much using my system, so I got rid of them. Thank God.

3. Get rid of priorities

It's either important or it isn't. If you need to differentiate something, use stars. It's a binary way of looking at things. Fewer choices means less thinking, means faster input and use.

4. Folders and contexts are your friends

My entire system is based on the use of Folders and Contexts. I am setting them up sort of opposite from Proximo's way. Folders are used for "Areas of Focus" and contexts are used for tools or places. I would use folders for projects but you are limited to 32 characters for a folder name (WTF?!) and at that rate it's somewhat useless. Also you can't put a note on a folder (you can leave a note inside of a folder, but you can't attach it like a task). Plus folders cannot be given due dates. I'll use them for "Areas of Focus". We will get into that in the implementation section.

5. Custom searches are just 'OK'

I love the way that you can hack and shred the information in Toodledo in any way you deem fit. It's really awesome. I don't use it that much though and won't be included in my implementation. You can use it if you want, and there are definitely good reasons for it. It just is too much to add into the mix for what I am trying to accomplish.

Wow... All that out of the way, let's look at the setup, shall we!?

Setup

Here are the fields/functions that I use in Toodledo:

Folder
Context
Start Date
Start Time
Due Date
Due Time
Repeat
Length
Tag
Star

I don't use all of the features all of the time but things like tags, length, and start dates sometimes are valuable. If you really wanted to make this setup and implementation nice and lean then you could only include the following:

Folder
Context
Due Date
Star

Here is how you use each function:

Folder

Like I said above this is for "Areas of Responsibility". My areas include the places that I work, anything that has to do with house and home stuff (this also includes family things), my personal business (writing, development), school, and volunteering responsibilities.

Contexts

I use these a little differently than just normal contexts. I also use them for project, waiting for, and on hold differentiation. Here are my contexts:

@home - anything I can do at home
@phone - anything I need a phone for
@car - anything that can be done in the car, I commute a lot
@computer - anything done on a computer
@online - anything online
@campus - anything that must be done at campus
@agenda - things that I need to go over with people (I usually tag the task with their name)
@waiting - things I'm waiting for
hold - any action or project on hold
project - projects
someday - someday/maybe items

Start Date/Time

Pretty self explanatory but sometimes I set this to the date that I put something in the @waiting for context. Helps me know when to start some fires to get results from others.

Due Date/Time

Obvious

Repeat

Use this for repeating tasks. Toodledo has decent handling of repeat tasks. You can then change the view options to only see items that are due soon.

Length

Sometimes it's good to give an estimate to a task's length, especially if you are looking for something quick to do.

Tag

I use tags for different things. What I use them for most is to put contact names in (good for sorting when I need to speak to someone off an @agenda list), identify what tasks belong to what class in school, or sometimes a customer's name for development projects. You can get pretty creative with tags; my advice with tags is that the less you have the better.

Star

Good for pointing things out that are really important.

That's about it for setup, now let's take a look out how I implement it.

Implementation

Let me give you a real world example of how my setup works. I will take my work at Erie for an instance.

Task Management

First I go to the folders tab and click on my Erie folder. I usually have my 'all tasks' list sorted by context. This gives me a nice little bar at the top of each context with its name as a heading. I could work this way if I really wanted to; just accomplishing tasks from the context that I wanted to work in, but I usually hit the filter bar at the top of the page and choose what context I am in while I am at Erie. So, what this is essentially doing is giving me all tasks with the folder of "Erie" and the context of, say, "@computer".

When creating new tasks the least I do is give them a context and a folder.

Project Management

This may make some people uncomfortable but I couple Toodledo and Evernote for project management as they are both universal, ubiquitous tools. I first outline and brainstorm my project in Evernote, give it a task in Toodledo with the context of "project" and the folder of whatever Area of Focus it is in, assign due dates if applicable, and then give it a next action in one of my next action lists. I don't make any effort to "link" next actions to projects as it is difficult and annoying to do with sub-tasks in Toodledo.

I use the next action as a reminder of what to do next on the project and usually what happens is that I start to work naturally on the project accomplishing many tasks that need to be done that are not even in Toodledo; they just happen sporadically. This is the real beauty of GTD that I have found; it truly is all about the next action.

If you can't stand the idea of combining Evernote and Toodledo, then you can of course just include your project plans as a notebook in Toodledo or merely attach a note to the project task and put all of you information there.

Conclusion for now

This is the basis of my GTD with Toodledo implementation. The best part about being a GTD geek that uses Toodledo is that you have a ton of options and room for growth. For instance, I experimented with sub-tasks for a long time and just decided they weren't worth the effort; having a good weekly or even mini daily review of projects and tasks is enough to "link" my projects to actions.

So, for now this is it. I may tweak things here and there and I am definitely open for questions, criticisms, and suggestions. If I get a decent amount of response I will post a video of my setup and take on any questions.

Now, get back to work!