Today, I’ll share the next part of my e-mail that answers the question:How to ramp up quickly with GTD and Lotus Notes? We’ve touched on the productivity equation and we’ve looked at how methodology is the first component of the equation. We also explored the technology or tools that can be used to implement GTD in Lotus Notes. Now, let’s look at 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…

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Today, I’ll share the next part of my e-mail that answers the question: “How to ramp up quickly with GTD and Lotus Notes?“
We’ve touched on the productivity equation and we’ve looked at how methodology is the first component of the equation. Now, we’ll look at the technology or tools that you use. Since you’ve already selected GTD as your methodology (a decision I wholeheartedly agree with) you now need to find a GTD implementation tool that will support you in the way that you work. From my email:<blockquote>II. Choose your GTD implementation tool and master it

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.

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Today, I’d like to talk about methodology as a key component in my productivity equation and specifically how it relates to ramping up quickly with GTD and Lotus Notes.

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.

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(This is the first installment in my series talking about how to ramp up quickly with GTD and Lotus Notes. This first post is actually not specific to Lotus Notes at all; it described my reference point for how I approach knowledgework.)

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?

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Recently, an executive at a large global consulting firm with over 100K Lotus Notes users called me to ask for help getting up to speed with GTD and Notes. He told me that he was feeling overwhelmed at work with a growing number of projects and responsibilities and in his pursuit of a solution he had found and read David Allen’s book, Getting Things Done. He was also aware that while Lotus Notes is an excellent tool for messaging, collaboration, and information management, it wasn’t supporting him in the way that he needed. He was calling to get eProductivity for Lotus Notes and some coaching to help him set up Notes to be more productive. After a fruitful conversation, and my promise to help him, he asked me, “How can I ramp up quickly with GTD & Lotus Notes?” (I get asked this question a lot, so I decided to write a short e-mail that would be very helpful and something that I could reuse again the next time the question arose.) I promised to send him an email that night with some lessons I had learned and some tips for getting things done with Lotus Notes.

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.

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