Does your employer block productivity apps on your BlackBerry, iPhone, or Android Smartphone?

With the recent discussions about Apps and how consumers want the freedom to find, evaluate, and purchase Apps for their Smartphones, I wonder how many users are able download and use a productivity application and how many have policies that prevent them from doing so.

If you found a productivity application for your mobile device that was proven to increase your performance, would you: a) be allowed to install it? b) encounter resistance (or refusal) from IT to allow you to install it? c) make a business case to management for why this App should be allowed?

Please take a moment to take the quick poll then scroll down to share your comments.

I’m not asking whether you think Smartphones connected to enterprise systems should be locked down or not – there are many valid arguments for both sides of that discussion. What I most want to know is what the current climate is like when it comes to productivity applications on mobile devices and what organizations are doing to encourage/permit or discourage/restrict users from downloading and using productivity applications on their mobile devices.

Exclusively for IBM employees:
On April 8th from 10am – 11:30am PST, we’ll be doing a webinar exclusively for IBM employees on applying GTD to Lotus Notes. Many IBMers are fans of GTD already, and this will give more insight into David’s master tips, tricks & strategies. We’ll also look at eProductivity – the only software tool for Lotus Notes that’s earned the distinctive “GTD Enabled” certification.

If you’re an IBM employee, sign up now.

Open to the public;
David and I will be doing another webinar on GTD & Lotus Notes on April 28th that is open to the public.  Sign-up now. Space is limited.

Since I know that someone will object to my statement, let me explain what I want in a mobile list manager: I want to click one button and see my list of projects and actions, sorted by context. I do not want to have to click Start, Run, and then click a bunch of options to find my tasks. I also want these views and the way I set them up to be persistent, which rules out two of the most popular device families on the market today.  I don’t mind using third party solutions to accomplish this, but for some devices, like the Nokia Series, they simply do not exist. I find it amazing that devices marketed to the business professional and equipped with so many productivity features would be so lacking in this vital component of productivity: list management.

For years, David Allen and I have discussed this: why do manufacturers make great hardware and then drop the ball when it comes to the suitability of their list management and task integration? (David uses a 755p, also.) I think it must be that manufacturers are expecting people to purchase based on the shiny features and not on what they can accomplish with the device. Earlier this year, a client generously gave me a shiny new Nokia E90 Communicator  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_E90> as a thank you gift. The E90 is a truly amazing mobile productivity device. Except, it has two problems: No task management. Zip. Zilch. Nada. (Unless you count their lame recording of a task as a note in a calendar event) and no reliable over-the-air sync of tasks to Lotus Notes. David and I played with this device this summer and agreed that while it sported an impressive list of hardware features it was essentially useless for us as a mobile GTD support tool. So, into pile of “really cool devices that I cannot use” it went. I hoped that someday, I might find a solution that would allow me to test this device as a list manager with Notes.

As much as I like the device from a productivity perspective, the Palm OS-based Treo is rapidly being eclipsed by BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices with some competition from iPhone. (I say “some” as I have yet to find a suitable on-device sync and device management solution for iPhone, which means I won’t recommend it for use with Notes and GTD.) I recently surveyed our customers that use eProductivity for Lotus Notes and found that well over 50% are using BlackBerry. In the U.S. the remaining 50% is made up of a large number of WM devices and then a variety of other devices. In Europe, the Nokia S60 platform is more common with WM coming in second.)  (Before I go further, I do plan to purchase a BlackBerry Bold to evaluate as my next productivity platform, but that’s a post for another day.)

Enter Lotus Traveler

Last week, Nokia and IBM announced support for a number of Nokia’s S60-based mobile phones, extending the reach of Lotus Notes to millions of users of Nokia devices that use the Nokia S60 3rd Edition platform. According to the announcements and blog posts including yesterday’s on GTDtimes, in excess of 80 million people – the number of Nokia S60 3rd Edition devices shipped globally – will soon be able to connect to corporate email accounts on a Lotus Domino Server. The glue that makes this possible is Traveler, a product that launched earlier this year. The Lotus Traveler software provides real time access to email, calendar, address book, journal and to-dos and the newly added support for the Nokia S60 platform is coming next month.

I think IBM is making a smart move to extend the reach of Lotus Notes to a variety of platforms. For years, I’ve used and recommended CommonTime mNotes and Sybase iAnywhere. If you have a Windows Mobile or Palm device, CommonTime simply works. Sybase has extensive device support, however, my experience is that they are making it increasingly costly for clients to buy their products. (I guess they are doing really well and do not want my client’s business.) So, I welcome the announcement of Traveler. I think it’s great to have a native Notes solution to recommend as well.

How well will Lotus Traveler handle Task Management?

I have no doubt that the Lotus team will do a good job with sync to the Nokia platform, and I have read enthusiastic reviews from users who are using Traveler on their Windows Mobile devices. What remains to be seen, is how well Traveler handles task management. This is something that Lotus and other vendors historically haven’t done very well. The IBM Web site for Traveler shows a thumbnail for a task list but there are no screen shots of any task lists so I cannot tell how well they have been implemented. Since I have yet to install Traveler, myself, I cannot comment on how well  Traveler handles task management, either on Windows Mobile or on the Nokia Platform. If you are using Traveler for task management on either of these platforms, I’d like to hear from you with your thoughts.

If you are not doing this, you are missing out on perhaps the most powerful productivity tool available to help you accomplish your goals and dreams: your brain.  In fact, if you don’t regularly do this, you’re leaving your brain in park when it could be driving you to accomplish wild success.

Visualizing the Successful Outcome
Many years ago, David Allen shared with me that one of the first things he did when planning his first book, the best-selling, Getting Things Done, was to write the Wall Street Journal review of his book, first. He wrote the book review as he would like it to appear in print, even before writing the first chapters of his book. For many years I’ve written my projects in the past tense — as if they were “done” and I found that helped me to “see” done as the objective.  I thought that David’s example of writing a formal review of his book project was very clever and a powerful visualization tool, so I made note of it.
My Personal Application
When I set out to develop my eProductivity software, I followed David’s recommendation and wrote my own review. I determined to summarize the product in two sentences, one from the perspective of the Notes community since eProductivity is built on Lotus Notes; the other from the GTD community because eProductivity embodies many of the principles that I learned from David’s book.

For the Lotus Notes community, the most concise review I could come up with (after many iterations and variations) was this:  “eProductivity: The Ultimate Personal Productivity Tool for Lotus Notes.” This eventually became the marketing tag line and company mission. It is my hope that I have accomplished this and that people in the Notes community who evaluate eProductivity will tell us that we have accomplished this objective.

For the GTD community I came up with a slight variation: “eProductivity: The Ultimate GTD Implementation Tool for Lotus Notes.” For those aspects of the product that were specifically designed with the GTD methodology in mind this was my driving measure. As I worked on eProductivity I would regularly refer back to my “review”.  Not only did this help keep me motivated but it also helped me fix in my mind the final product and how it would work, how people would use, and how it would improve their ability to get things done.  For me, like for David, creating the review helped me to visualize exactly what done looked like.

Do you know what “done” looks like?
If you don’t know how “done’ looks for a particular task, not only will you be incapable of  knowing when you are done, you will also miss out on the ready help available to you from your most valuable and trusted resource — your brain.

How does this work?
In my experience, writing my project definitions in terms of their outcome creates a cognitive dissonance between what I have defined as done and the present reality. As a result, whenever I read that project statement (or in my case, look at the product logo and tag line) my brain has to subconsciously decide if it agrees with the statement. If it does, great. I’m done. If not, it usually identifies one or more things that I need to do to make the statement true.

A Built-in Personal Success Coach
It’s quite easy to enlist your brain to define the next actions you must take toward success: all you have to do is craft a clearly defined outcome statement and read it. Immediately, your brain will decide if it is true or not. It may say, “Self, well done.” Or, it may say, “Self, that statement’s not entirely true because this is not done yet.” If so, simply capture what has your attention on to an appropriate list and act on it. Shortly, you will be completing actions that are in alignment with your successful outcome and you will be accomplishing your goals.

This exercise of beginning with the end result in mind has been a powerful tool for me — a productivity tool, even — to help me in the decision making process. Whenever I had a decision to make about this project — whether it was in design, architecture, features, programming, or budget — I would ask myself “what decision can I make that will bring me closer to the two outcome statements I defined? There were times in prior years when I simply wanted to wrap up the current feature set and put the product out there, however, it did not meet my criteria for my successful outcome. So, we waited, and persisted, and continued working, learning, and refining until we are where we are at today.

I encourage you to think about creating one or more successful outcome statements for each of your major projects.

If you decide to try this, post a comment and let me know how your brain worked out as your personal success coach.

I think you will be amazed at the result.

Update: If you would like to see the result of my project, eProductivity, I invite you to watch the overview video

As I wrap up this series, I want to share some of the resources I’ve used to get connected  to the information and people who help me sharpen my skills.

Here’s what I shared in my e-mail about some of my current favorite ways to stay connected to all things GTD:

V. Get Connected

As an eProductivity specialist, I find it valuable to learn from and share what I’m learning with others. Here are some of the activities that I recommend. You may want to explore doing one or more of these:

1. Find, meet and mingle with other productivity-minded people in your organization. Chances are there are several other individuals in your organization who are already familiar with the GTD methodology.

2. Frequent the public GTD forums (mentioned previously)

3. Read blogs, or start one. Learn by sharing with others, learn from others.  There are so many excellent productivity blogs out here. For Notes & GTD, be sure to bookmark NotesOnProductivity. I will be blogging regularly about the intersection of Notes and Productivity, especially as it relates to GTD. There’s also a new GTD blog on the block, GTDTimes. GTDTimes is the only officially sanctioned GTD Blog and even David Allen will post there from time to time. I was invited to be a GTDTimes blogger so you’ll see some of my posts there, too.

4. Consider joining GTD Connect. This is a fee-based program but very valuable. I’m in my second year of membership., I really enjoy the audio interviews, whitepapers, and private forums. You’ll find a number of my posts in these forums, too. You can join on a month-to-month basis, so no long-term commitment required. If you are serious about getting productive with GTD, I think it’s a worthwhile investment.

VI. Get Creative

I hope you will read what I’ve written and explore some of my recommendations to see how they fit your work and learning style. Keep what works and toss the rest. Don’t be afraid to experiment to find what works best for you.

I hope you will keep in touch and let me know how you are doing as you implement GTD. Perhaps I’ll learn something new from you!

Well, that’s the end of this series, for now. What did you think? What tips and resources would you like to share to help a person new to GTD to get started?

Links to related posts in this discussion:

Introduction
I. The eProductivity equation
II. Methodology
III. Technology for Notes & GTD
IV. Mobility
V. Get Coached

There’s a lot to be learned from reading books and attending seminars. I routinely do both. But when I really want to improve my skills or performance in a given area I turn to a coach, a mentor, or an expert that can help me accomplish my objectives. I think it’s important to understand that hiring a productivity coach is not a magic bullet for getting things done. YOU have to do the work, but a good coach can help you see what may not be readily apparent to you and encourage you to build sustainable habits. (I’ll talk more about sustainable habits at the end of this post.)

Here’s what I wrote to the person who asked me about getting things done on the run…

Get Coached

If you are really serious about getting things done, then workflow coaching will transform the way you work. There are three kinds of coaching that I’m aware of. I know you’ve already spoken with Karen Fay; she can give you the details of the DavidCo offerings. here we go:1. Workflow coaching: This is the ultimate in GTD coaching. If you can afford the investment, go for it. A GTD Coach will come to your site and work with you for two days plus some follow-up calls. I did this — it took me 5 days, but I was a real problem case.    Check the DavidCo web site or talk with Karen or Meg at DavidCo for details.

2. GTD Telecoaching: I’ve been through the GTD telecoaching program, too.  In fact, my coach is Meg Edwards. She’s an outstanding GTD telecoach and she really knows her stuff, but I think anyone on the DAC team can help you. Either Meg or Julie are wonderful telecoaches. (I still work with Meg from time to time and learn something from each interaction.)

3. eProductivity Coaching: Since you’ve got a handle on the methodology of productivity (GTD), I can show you how to get a grip on the technology of productivity. Basically, I’ll work with you to show you how to use Information, Communication, and Action technnologies to get things done. As I mentioned in the call, I am not a GTD coach. My focus is on the tools and technology, whereas only DavidCo GTD Coaches are authorized to provide coaching on the GTD methodology.  If you are interested in eProductivity coaching, I would be happy to help you. if you are constrained by time and/or budget, I recommend that you start with the GTD telecoaching, first. It’s much more important for you to get grounded in the methodology first, then you can apply what you have learned to the tools that you use. (e.g. Lotus Notes)

4. Other Coaching: There are a number of people offering all kinds of coaching, and some of them can be very valuable. I know of individuals that focus their coaching practice on specific market segments or occupations or blend traditional productivity coaching with various approaches to other aspects of peak performance, such as health and fitness. Ask around, check references, and be a continuous learner. This will help you get the most from any coaching experience.

Coaching to help build sustainable habits
I mentioned at the beginning of this post that a good coach won’t do your work for you. The role of a good coach is to help you not only do the work but, more important, build sustainable habits. Coaching is not a small investment. It takes time off work for you, the investment in the coach’s fees, and time for follow-up. Even if you find a friend to coach you for free, all of this would be a wasted investment if you did not leave the coaching process having experienced not only what it feels like to truly get “in” to “empty” but also to have learned how to properly use the methodologies and tools along the way. The goal is that at the end of the coaching process you will have experienced the process and developed the skill to repeat the process on your own, perhaps with some occasional follow-up, as needed.

I routinely get out of control (you should see my desk and in basket today, having just returned from a week of travel) but I know how to get back in control and how to regain perspective so that I can focus on the outcomes that are important to me. I thank my coach for that.

In the final post in this series, I will write about a number of resources that I have found to support me in maintaining my productive edge.  Meanwhile, I would like to hear from my readers.  Have you used a coach to help you learn to get things done? What was your experience?

Links to related posts in this discussion:

Introduction
I. The eProductivity equation
II. Methodology
III. Technology for Notes & GTD
IV. Mobility

As you learn more about GTD, you’ll come to appreciate the value of getting everything out of your head and into a system you can trust. In order to do this, it is critical for you to be able to do this no matter where you are or what you are doing. To do this, it’s important that you equip yourself with tools that support you whether you are; at home, the office, or on-the-go. I recommend at least one analog tool and often at least one digital tool, depending on your mobile information management needs. If you are someone that always has a computer available to you 24×7, then this section may not be useful. Lotus Notes does a great job of keeping information synchronized across distributed computers. On the other hand, if you are like me, you spend at least some part of your work day “out and about” and you need a way to keep your GTD lists and related information with you so that you can work from your lists, and manage your work.

Let’s discuss the mobility aspect of getting things done while on the run…

III. Get Mobile

Analog capture tools
The most valuable tool I have found, one I highly recommend as your first capture tool is a NoteTaker wallet or equivalent analog capture tool. Now, more than my PDA , my NoteTaker wallet has become my single most valuable mobile capture tool. (I know, I sound like a sales person, but please know that I don’t make anything if you purchase a product or not, other than, hopefully, a friend. I’m passionate about sharing what works for me. I own and use the stuff I recommend.) The NoteTaker wallet is available in David’s store. Some of forums have links to other sources for less expensive wallets. I like the NoteTaker wallet because it is well made and has a collapsible pen. This may seem trivial but don’t underestimate the power of being able to get something out of your head any time any place. Since I always have my wallet with me, this seems like the most logical approach for me. Being the geek that I am, I plan to modify my pen and add an LED light so I can use it in dark places.

Digital Capture & Mobile Information Management Tools
You mentioned that you use a BlackBerry. As long as you are set up to sync your BlackBerry to Notes, you can use any of the previously mentioned Notes solutions when you are mobile. Vanilla Notes and eProductivity for Notes both respect the standard task management fields so you should be above to seamlessly sync your mobile device with lotus Notes. If you customize your Lotus Notes template or if you use a third party, be careful not to alter the way that the standard task management fields work so that you do not break this functionality. A good sync tool will allow you to sync, either through cradle/cable or wirelessly, your email, calendar, task lists, contacts (personal address book), and personal journal. Together these provide you with support for the key lists and personal information storage systems recommended by David Allen. For me, having each of these sync with Lotus Notes is valuable because I don’t have to worry about where my data is — it just is. In addition to support for various mobile hardware, Lotus Notes can be accessed via the web, extending the reach of your information to a variety of devices and locations. All of this allows me to work from anywhere, with any device.

How to keep your mobile device in sync with Lotus Notes.
There are many programs available to help you keep your mobile information device in sync with Lotus Notes. For your BlackBerry, the program that you are mostly likely using is the Blackberry Enterprise Server, or BES for short. This server handles all the wireless sync issues between your Blackberry and Notes. For your staff that use other SmartPhones, there are three general categories of operating systems: Palm, Windows Mobile, and Symbian. Many of the wireless mobility vendors that support Lotus Notes can communicate with each of these platforms. I currently use a Treo as my mobile information tool for Lotus Notes and I use mNotes, by CommonTime, to sync my mobile device. I have also used and deployed the Pylon iAnywhere software by Sybase for clients. A few years ago, I blogged about how I found increased-mobility-with-a-treo-and-mnotes.

Regardless of the device you choose or the software you use to keep it in sync with Lotus Notes, remember that the most important features are:
• Ease of use
• Speed of information entry/retrieval
• Reliability.
A properly implemented personal productivity support system will be seamless and transparent to your work. I know this is possible, I’ve done it.</blockquote>OK, so now you have the basics: methodology, technology, and Mobility. In my next post, I will share my thoughts on several options available to you to help you sharpen your productivity game…

Meanwhile, I would be curious to know what my readers are using for their mobile implementations of GTD with Lotus Notes?

Links to related posts in this discussion:

Introduction
I. The eProductivity equation
II. Methodology
III. Technology for Notes & GTD

From 3×5 card to paper planner to MAC/PC to BlackBerry — there are a range of solutions. The brilliance of GTD, I think, is that it’s platform agnostic so you can manage using the GTD methodology just as well on a napkin or using custom software. What you need to find is a very good list manager, something that is easy to use, is easy to integrate with your existing workflow, and is fast. Most important, it must be something you can trust.

We discussed your use of Lotus Notes at your company. I think Lotus Notes is a powerful tool for personal knowledge and action management. It also happens to be the tool of choice for me and for the The David Allen Company. (Disclosure, The David Allen Company is an ICA client and David is a good geek friend - I designed and deployed their Notes collaboration infrastructure and have supported David and his team for the past 15 years, so I’m a little biased as to the power of Lotus Notes.) Many people are successfully using GTD with Lotus Notes in a variety of ways.

Here are three ways to use Lotus Notes as a GTD implementation tool:
Vanilla Lotus Notes:

Some people prefer to (or are forced to) stick with vanilla Lotus Notes. If you are among this group, then I recommend a the Getting Things Done with Lotus Notes Guide. This guide is available for download from the David Allen store for $10. If you are using current versions of Notes, you may find the guide a little dated so some adaptation is necessary to make it work with current versions of Notes. However, the essential stuff is all there and it’s all good. I expect to work with DavidCo to help them rewrite the document. Also, I “think” this document is a free download if you join GTD Connect. So you may want to check there, too.)
Update: Four years ago, I wrote a post in the GTD forums, called “Five steps to implementing GTD within Lotus Notes.” In that post, I shared some of the tips that I share with my eProductivity coaching clients. I just checked the stats and, to date, that post has been viewed more than 20,200 times! Much I what I wrote in 2004 is included in this email, but it’s probably still worth a read to see what I wrote about focus and customizing Lotus Notes as a GTD List Manager. There’s no charge to read the document in the GTD Forum, here’s the direct link.

Create your own List Manager for Lotus Notes:

Out of the box, I don’t find Lotus Notes (or Outlook) to be very GTD friendly. You can work with them and get more from them using the principles of the Notes & GTD or Outlook & GTD documents from DavidCo. One of the nice things about Lotus Notes is that it can be customized. IBM provides a separate product, called the Notes Designer Client that will allow customization of any forms and views and logic in Notes. With solid programming skills and the Notes Designer Client an accomplished Notes developer can customize Notes to do almost anything. Over the years a few people have even created and posted their versions of a notes template on the web. I’ve looked at several of these over the years and the problem I have with the ones I saw was that a) they appear to deviate from the concept of GTD by adding complexity that is not needed or in some cases contradicts the GTD methodology, b) they do not integrate well with Notes Mail/Calendar/Journal/task list, c) and, some of the templates, because of their customization, did not work properly with mobile devices. That’s not to diminish the value of these customizations. When I work with my eProductivity coaching clients, I stress the importance of selecting a tool that works for them.

eProductivity for Lotus Notes:

Most of our clients simply want to get things done with Lotus Notes; they don’t want to become programmers, they just want Notes to support their GTD implementation. For people that really want to leverage the power of Lotus Notes as a GTD implementation tool, there’s really only one solution: eProductivity for Lotus Notes. Developed over the past seven years, here are some of the things that eProductivity for Lotus Notes does to make it easy for people to implement GTD in Lotus Notes are:

• Fully integrated into e-mail, calendar, and task lists
• Mobile support for PDA/SmartPhone/BlackBerry
• Out-of-the-box support for all of the standard GTD lists
• Support for custom project and action lists
• Linking of actions to projects so that you can see a project and all related actions
• Linking of emails, calendar entries, and other items to projects or actions for immediate reference and retrieval
• Automatic prompts for next actions upon project definition and completion of an action
• Weekly Review Coach to walk you through the weekly review process in the context of your project and action lists

I think eProductivity is the ultimate list manager and GTD implementation tool for Lotus Notes. (OK, that was a shameless plug, but I invite you to judge for yourself) I would be happy to invite you and your colleagues into the eProductivity workgroup pilot program so that so that you can experience eProductivity firsthand. There’s no charge or obligation, I’m simply looking for productivity-minded individuals to use eProductivity and provide periodic feedback on their experience. This will be a 4-question survey to complete as well. If this interests you let me know and we can make this happen.

Regardless of the tool you select as your GTD list manager, be sure that you get grounded in the methodology first. Remember a tool is just a tool – it is designed to support you in your work; it won’t do your work for you. (Sorry.) Next time, I’ll share the next part of this email that takes a look at how to take your Lotus Notes and GTD implementation Mobile. Meanwhile, I invite my blog readers to share how they are using Lotus Notes as a GTD Implementation tool. I’d like to hear from you.

Links to related posts in this discussion:

Introduction

I. The eProductivity equation

II. Methodology

Whether you are conscious of it or not, you have a methodology, a system, a habit for how you get your work done. Some methodologies, systems, and habits will be more productive than others; some can even be counter productive. I began this series by writing an email to help someone get started using Lotus Notes as his implementation tool for David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology.

Over the years, I’ve learned several approaches to knowledge work but to date I have found none that made more sense and was more sustainable for me than GTD. It wasn’t always this way. I used to find Stephen Covey’s 7-Habits approach to be ideal and while I think it is an excellent approach for planning, I was unable to sustain it on a day to day basis and I often felt bad that my day to day actions were not getting me closer to my goals and vision. That’s not to say that Covey’s approach doesn’t work – it does, but it was a great deal for me to maintain.

Covey takes a top-down approach to productivity, starting with the desired outcome (“Begin with the end in mind”) and then working down to daily actions that line up to support those goals. On paper that makes sense to me as the best way to go. In real life, however, it was hard to do, because, well, life happens.

David Allen’s approach starts at the bottom – clearing the decks — so that you can think freely about the bigger picture stuff. I’ve been working with GTD since long before the GTD moniker and I can tell you that it is sustainable. What do I use today? A little of both. The foundation of my work style is built on the GTD methodology, while Covey has certainly influenced the values and planning aspects of my work and life.

OK, let’s get practical: My advice for getting started with the GTD Methodology:

If you are already a GTD black belt, then what follows will be preaching to the choir. I invite you, however, to read on and share your experience about how you learned the GTD methodology and how you sharpened your GTD habits. Remember that the context of this topic was how to ramp up quickly with GTD.

From my email:

I. Get grounded in the basics of GTD

There are several ways to do this. Here are a few that I recommend:

1. Start by reading David’s book, Getting Things Done (yes, again). It’s good stuff — it’s all advanced common sense, but will often take many iterations to make the connection to the finer points of your work.

2. Listen to a GTD audio program, to reinforce the book
You can purchase the CD’s of the book and seminar from the DavidCo store; or, you can sign up for GTD Connect and listen to MP3 Podcasts about specific topics. (I recommend and do both.)

3. Review some of the free GTD articles available on-line.

4. Frequent the public GTD forums
The Public GTD Forums contain a wealth of information from people in all walks of life, sharing how they implemented and are using GTD. It’s a great place to find answers to almost any question you may have.

5. Attend a GTD seminar
I’ve had the good fortune to attend more than a dozen MAP (Managing Actions and Projects) GTD (Getting Things Done) seminars by David Allen over the past 15 years and I learn something new each time. There are currently two seminars: “GTD RoadMap” and the “GTD Mastering Workflow.” Ideally, I would say to attend both, but if you must choose, here’s my take on each: The RoadMap is presented by David Allen. it’s a great seminar, follows the book, and gives you an overview of the methodology, why it works, and how to do it. The Mastering Workflow seminar is a new one that focuses on the nuts and bolts of implementation. I’ve not yet attended this new format but I am very familiar with the material and I think you would find this one most valuable. I’m sure you would enjoy either one. Here’s a link to the schedule of upcoming seminars:

OK, that gets you the basic methodology. Next, you will need to decide which technology you want to use as your GTD Implementation tool. Since you asked me about using Lotus Notes as a tool to support your implementation of the GTD methodology, I will share some of my experience and thoughts on the next page.

My own learning actually occurred in reverse of the list I propose above. You see, I started working with David and his business partners long before GTD. In those days, the company was called The Productivity Development Group and their flagship seminar was called “Managing Actions and Projects” (MAP). So I learned by seminar first and then by forums, books, and articles. Along the way, David, been most generous to help me understand and refine some of the more subtle and powerful aspects of the GTD approach.

I began my recent eProductivity Seminar by introducing my eProductivity equation for knowledge worker productivity:

KWP = M x T x K

Put another way:

Knowledge Worker Productivity [or results] =
Methodology x Technology x Knowledge

That is, the outcome of any project will be influenced (one way or the other) by how well you use and apply (your methodology) your knowledge and tools to the problem at hand.

I believe GTD provides an outstanding framework for managing work productively – the methodology; I think that Lotus Notes can be a powerful tool for information, action, and knowledge management — the technology. As far as what your knowledge… only you know that.

Think about how this equation applies to your knowledge work. What are your methodologies (defined or undefined)? What tools do you use?

How does what you know influence the work that you do?

Well, my e-mail turned into an 6-part essay of my lessons learned and recommendations from the past 15 years of using Notes and the GTD methodology.

Over the next several days, I will take a look at the methodology (GTD) and the Technology parts of the equation… and share my experience and response to this person’s question of how to ramp up quickly with GTD & Lotus Notes.

I invite you to follow-along and join me in conversation about this topic.

As I prepare to launch eProductivity, a GTD implementation tool for Lotus Notes , I need to keep one or two key milestones in sight at all times. Specifically, we have a few big milestones – things like “launch web site” or “Prepare for meeting with David” or “Deliver presentation to IBM” that we have been working on for many months or in the case of the product launch, several years.

Several months ago, I watched a NASA Shuttle mission video and I was inspired by their countdown clock and their mission elapsed clock. I decided that I needed my own countdown clock, so I decided to create one for myself.

Starting with a countdown clock mechanism that I purchased on-line, I created a custom clock face and built five eProductivity countdown clocks. I set each one to the date of a key milestone. I kept one clock for myself and I sent the other four to key people on my team. Now, I have a tangible reminder of each event and the time remaining in which to complete it. I’ve had the clock on my desk for a few months now and it’s been a fun reminder of an event that I am looking forward to. The key question “What’s your next action?” keeps me focused on the little things that I need to accomplish to achieve my goal.

It’s been a fun way to get things done.

Last year, my daughter, Wendy, recently made a post in the GTD Connect forum about how our family is learning about GTD at the breakfast table. [If you're a GTD Connect subscriber, you can read the posts and respond there.] I thought I would take a moment to share my own thoughts and experience here, too.

Over the years, I’ve often ask my children to help me test new software and programs. I find that they approach software from a totally different perspective and I always learn new insights as a result of their efforts. (Even Microsoft found benefit in this approach; they distributed Amy & Wendy’s podcast on OneNote Shared Sessions to the OneNote design team.) Anyway, back to the GTD breakfast club…

In December, I decided to ask my wife and children to test some prototype features for my productivity software for using Lotus Notes with the GTD methodology. (Little things, like linking projects to actions, switching contexts, and a tickler to calendar system.) In order for them to be effective helpers, however, I knew that they would have to distinguish between the methodology and technology of the productivity equation. I decided that this would be a good time for me to set up more formal GTD instruction for my family.

I’ve practiced GTD since before my children were born and have tried to model good GTD habits to my children. A few years ago, David invited Amy & Wendy to be his guests at the Vision seminar (Pre-RoadMap). Still, there’s a big difference between modeling or listening and DOING. Now, I would have the opportunity to teach my children GTD in a more formal approach. I decided that the best way for me to do this, while keeping their interest and (hopefully) enthusiasm for the topic, would be to make it fun, to create a productivity club, with structured activities and lessons. Thus, the GTD Breakfast Club was born.

This January, we started the GTD Breakfast Club in our home. It’s really just an additional 10 minutes a day, tacked on to the end of our family breakfast time. (Our breakfasts can run up to an hour and include time for eating, discussion, a brief lesson from the Bible, prayer, and planning for the day’s homeschool & work activities.) It seemed natural, therefore, to plug the GTD breakfast club into this time.

Each day (or few days, as the topic may require) I introduce a single GTD topic to the family. We talk about it and then the kids implement it during the day and following days. I try each week to do a follow-up session to see how things are going. I keep the topics singularly focused (e.g. what is a waiting for? why might you have one? how to track? what if there’s paper involved?) I also encourage and randomly acknowledge (and reward) a processed in-box. (An occasional note in someone’s in-box that says “bring this paper to dad by 4:00 PM today only for a surprise” can be a great motivator to reinforce the habit of processing your in-box daily!)

You don’t have to read the GTD book to your children. Instead, adapt the concepts to their world. Start simple: e.g. the importance of getting ideas out of your head, memorize the five lists together, and acknowledge/praise creative adaptations of the five lists. I could probably write a book on how we use GTD at home and in our homeschool, but rather I want to encourage you to adapt the material to your own family needs.

If you take anything from this post, I want to encourage you to make GTD a family habit. Start simple, stay consistent, and keep at it. It will make a huge difference.

We are having a great deal of fun with this and it’s already made a big improvement in our family, work, and homeschool life. I would like to hear about how you’re implementing GTD at home.

Kelly just gave us a tour on how to setup Notes and Outlook as GTD implementation tools. Even though I think I know this stuff, I still learn new things and I got to share some tips of my own. Listening to some of the questions from the audience that inspired some ideas for features I can build into eProductivity for Lotus Notes to make getting things done with Lotus Notes easier. I’ve got those items on my agenda list to discuss with my team.

The seminar is going well, Kelly’s in peak form, people are learning and laughing at the stories she’s sharing from her work in the GTD trenches. (Example: Most full e-mail box? 87,000 emails. True story from Kelly.)

Well, time to get back to the seminar. I’ll try to post another highlight, soon.

Update: Chris is ahead by 45,000 points.

b…y represents any additional action steps (but not the next action) along the way.

Now, here’s the secret: Z (the project) goes on your project list. A (the next action) goes on the appropriate action list. Everything else (b…y) needs to be parked somewhere, but if they are not next actions they do not belong on your current working list.

Perhaps this is support information, it may even be a list of next next actions. A great place to park this is information is with the project. If you use Outlook, park it in the Notes field. If you use Lotus Notes, the comments field. The key is to keep it accessible in the proper context – when you are looking at the project – but not on your current list.

Got it? If you do, then your action lists will only have “A” items on them and your project lists will only have “Z” items on them.

Take a look at your lists….

How are you doing? Any opportunities for improvement?

What I like about this approach is that it keeps my lists clean and simple. As a result, they are less full, less intimidating, and less repelling.

So, if your lists seem too full, ask yourself: “Is that an A or a b…-y action?”

I’ve been aware of this concept for many years, but I think this is a great illustration. The day has been full of these kinds of illustrations and practical examples. I’m glad I attended.

(Slide used with permission)

Kelly started the discussion with a great question:

On a 1-10 scale, how would you rate your productivity over the last two weeks?1= I should have stayed in bed.
10=Master of Control & Perspective

What supports you/gets in the way of you being at 10 more often?

Great question. Some surprising answers. I look forward to hearing what your experiences are.