During the GTD Application Panel discussion at the recent Office 2.0 Conference David Allen revealed to a rapt audience his recent revelations about software applications designed to support the implementation of an individual’s GTD system.  Summed up eloquently as the Five “I’s”  they are as follows:

 Interception: the software must support the process of capturing ideas as they occur to you.  A premium is placed upon the speed, ease and context appropriateness of this process.

Interpretation:  David says that interpretation relies more upon executive function than any other aspect of the five eyes.  What he looks for is an answer to the following question:  Can the tool help me to make a decision or keep it in my face until I have made a decision about i?

Integration: David considers this area to be were the software (or the person using the software) needs to determine what the next action is.  For example, is it a  phone call, some other action - this can also be seen as list management

Investigation:  According to David the software should help you quickly locate those things that are critical to performing a particular task at any given moment.  For example, I have a call with Micheal and I have five things that I need to talk to him about.  The software should make those five things immediately available.

Implementation:  This is where the rubber meets the road in a next action.

One of David’s comments about software is that so much software fails because it forces the user to think too much on the front end about what they need to do with something. He stressed ease of use, flexibility, and context appropriateness.  He also mentioned the difference between input and interception.  (interception is the actual capture of a thought whereas input is the process of taking some already captured information and placing it into a particular trusted system).

So, based upon the above, what applications are you using and how well do they meet David’s “Five I’s”?  Please let us know in the comments.

If you’d like to see the full video, go here: David at Office 2.0

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Hi, everyone.  As you may know, David Allen will be delivering the keynote (along with Conference Director Ismael Ghalimi) at the upcoming Office 2.0 Conference which is taking place at the St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco from September 3rd through the 5th.

In addition to David’s appearance, I will be moderating a panel discussion on how Office 2.0 tools can support David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology.  So far we have Kevin Merritt (blist), Tim Norton (PlanHQ), and others to be confirmed.

If your company has developed a GTD-Oriented application that has a growing and passionate userbase  and you’d like to be considered to participate on this panel, please write to me at editor at GTDtimes dot com.  While the final decision about the panel participants will rest with Ismael Ghalimi, I expect that my input will be seriously considered.  There is a key caveat here and it is this:  The application must operate within the constraints of what is considered to be a Web 2.0 application.  In practical terms this means that the code and the data both reside in the cloud and thus the application can be accessed from any connected computer.

To further clarify this, if your software comes with a .dmg or .exe extension and requires a download it does not qualify for this panel.  Please understand that this is not a criticism of installable applications, it is simply that the focus of this event is on applications that operate within the Web 2.0 framwork, hence the name Office 2.0.

For those of you that are passionate users of applications that do fall into the definition of a Web 2.0 GTD application, please let me know about the application and why you like it in the comments.  If anyone feels like submitting a review of such an appliction for publication here, please send your review along with  your contact information and a brief bio to me at editor at GTDtimes dot com.

See you all at Office 2.0

Image from Dion Hinchcliffe’s Excellent Blog at ZDNet

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Thanks to the DidIGetThingsDone Blog I just discovered FreeLine Reports and their most recent video which does an amazing job of describing several helpful and free GTD applications.  You may have heard of some of these, you may have even used them, but the refresher is quick and I can almost guarantee that at least one of the applications they mention is new to almost everyone.  Check it out.  Hat-tip to DigIGetThingsDone for the discovery…

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Geekrepreneur has listed five of what they consider to be the best GTD resources running under Windows Vista. If you’re a Vista user you might just want to cruise on over and have a look at why they like the following applications:

SimpleGTD

ThinkingRock

FusionDesk

Tudumo

43 Folders

We’ll be doing our own review of some of these applications in the not too distant future.

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