A look inside someone’s GTD setup
June 11th, 2009 Chip Joyce - Staff Contributor GTD Times Team - Staff ContributorsCategories | Community Contributions | Gear
You’ll find as many different ways to setup a GTD “ecosystem” as there are people practicing GTD. In case this is useful, we want to share this letter we received from Chip in New York City, who wrote to us about his hybrid paper + Mac GTD system, and what’s working well for him.
I’ve been using the trifold wallet for a couple of weeks now, and as a capture tool it can’t be beat. I have an iPhone and use the application Things on my Mac
…(I tried Omnifocus too, but it was too complicated). The problem is that I can’t capture info on iPhone: it is too cumbersome to type quickly. Too often I was failing to capture thoughts because I didn’t have the time to fumble with the iPhone’s virtual keyboard. I have had BlackBerry and Treo devices in the past, and even with a real keyboard, a pen and paper are the best capture tools for me because I can draw arrows and circles, underline words, etc.
Before buying the trifold I tried a homemade solution by carrying some cards in my wallet, and a collapsible pen in my front pocket, but that didn’t quite work. The pen tended to fall out: I went through three in no time. Having cards jammed somewhere in your wallet that need to be pulled out, written on, and put back, was far from elegant. So I retired my nearly new and expensive wallet for the trifold.
Every night I transpose my notes from the wallet into Things on my Mac, and then I sync wirelessly with the Things app on my iPhone. That’s where my lists reside.
Chip Joyce
New York, NY
Profession: new business development expert
Since you have a iPhone, I would suggest using a voice recording application for those times when pen and paper would be a hinderance. Version 3 of the iPhone operating system will come with one built in, or there are over a dozen you can download from the app store.
I find that a voice recorder app is great for capturing info on the fly (and it can be done with one hand), and I don’t need to refill a tiny paper pad as often.
I use the exact same setup (although the wallet is the normal one, not the trifold). Been using things on mac and on iphone.
This is a great and easy to use setup. Although I’m exploring going up to Daylite – steep learning curve but great as it does both GTD and customer relationship management (CRM). This can be great where you can link contacts to tasks to projects to attachments etc. etc.
Hello
I have a similar setup, but I do use Omnifocus. Once you get used to it, it works extremely well, alltough I here very positive things about Things as well.
I’m using Dial2Do on my iPhone to create items in evernote, remember the milk, …
Check it out, it’s very good!
http://www.dial2do.com
To empty my head I simply use my notepad feature on my old mobile phone. Then dump everything later into 1 of my other GTD next action tools.
As of June 19th, iPhone 3.0 will have a voice recorder. I played with the Beta and it worked very well. My plan is to use that for those thoughts that come to you anywhere and everywhere.
Voice recorder is handy, except when you’re in a meeting or presentation. Then only quiet pen and paper will do. I’m a fan of Things as it’s easy and a good price.
I work in medical sales and often need to capture the results of a conversation quickly. A small pocket size note pad works well but I also like to use voice memos. Voice memos due require some privacy but I find using my iPhone it can appear I am talking on my phone. Very discrete. Paper is by far easier but you need to time stamp notes to keep them in context. I then transcribe to Omnifocus.
I personally like to use Evernote. The beauty of Evernote is that it allows me to take pictures of my notes with my iPhone 3GS (which was worth the upgrade because it has the ability to focus closely). Evernote also OCR’s the image so that you can search words within the image.
I use a Notetaker wallet, a Macbook Pro, OmniFocus for Project management and Next Action lists, and iCal, Address book, and Mindmanager to round out my system. My portable device is a Blackberry Curve.
What about having the lists with you, people?
You all take about your mobile inbox solution, but how do you take with you all the info about what you need to do, where you need to do it, when, how, task length, energy available, etc…?
I am seriously considering buying an iPod touch so I could take Toodledo with me (it has offline access), because I need all that info with me in my pocket.
Can you have all that info on paper and in your pocket?
ReQall – for the iPhone transcribes your voice, and automatically adds the task to your calendar if you say the date and time its due.
There are many reviews about this app on the web and in the new york times.