Getting started on GTD

I’ve been reading a lo ton the GTD philosophy the past six months, and while I haven’t fully adopted the preaching’s, some things are working better for me, than in the past in terms of time and project management. This is how I try to work towards less stressful days and more actual work.

Inbox management

I used to have well over 1.000 mails in the inbox. Through focused and efficient cleaning, it’s now down to around a hundred on an average day. Short mails are read and killed. Important issues are managed. FYIs and reference materials are either killed or filed in archive folders upon arrival.

Efficient management of the inbox - and the change from ”on going issues” to an actual inbox – has made me use (paper)notes and wikis more, to track and manage issues.

Calendar management

Since switching to Mac (almost a year ago) I’ve gotten calendaring to work much better. The Mac made it easy to sync between my powermac at home, the iBook at work and (some months later) my cell phone. I still need to get an automated sync between my main calendar and the Outlook calendar, but so far – despite the hassle – I seem to be able to keep them pretty much in sync.

Challenges

I still need to get a little more organized in terms of planning time usage. Too many constant disruptions seem to cause plenty of wasted times. While I haven’t learned yet to enter “Do Not Disturb” hours from time to time, I am seriously considering it.

I’m still looking for a small task management application of sorts. I’m not sure how it should work. The best candidate seems to be Remember the Milk, but it only works when I’m online. Since I do have hours in trains and other unconnected times, where I want to be able to work, I’m really looking for some software, which is a mix between a todo-list (like remember the milk) and a wiki (unstructured searchable brainstorm notepad of sorts) that can sync between a server and (one or more) client(s).