Getting GTD Things Done

AKA “GTD w RTM”

I am an newbie acolyte, oh yes, of the GTD methodology. GTD stands for Getting Things Done, and luckily for me, there are an awful lot of lists involved. I have been an inveterate list writer since I could do the joinedupwriting, and it has put me in good stead.

The gist is pretty simple really:

1. Get everything out of your brain and into a mega-list. 2. Sort through the list, and either do, defer, delegate or delete. 3. Whilst going through the list, sort the items into single actionable items. Anything requiring more than one physical action becomes a project. Every project should have a next action item. 4. Items rely upon contexts, eg @home or @town 5. Keep track of all your next actions, and keep the system up-to-date.

Be warned, though, you do need to clear out your filing cabinet and empty your inboxes, which took me about 3 days!

I originally set up the GNOME Personal Information Manager Evolution, using the 43 Folders’ wiki entry.

It kind of worked but I have had real issues trying to share my task lists on the web. There are options to publish Evolution task lists as caldav or webcal files, though for the life of me I couldn’t make ’em jump through the hoops.

Enter Remember The Milk, a well-known web app task manager. I used a guest post by Doug Ireton to help me on the way, and it seems to be working well. Using Google Gears, I can work offline. But what about a mobile solution?

Well, I’m glad you asked. Luckily for me, the Huawei Pulse Mini has just been released by T-Mobile, and it’s an Android phone that syncs up with Google Mail and, most excitingly, has a Remember The Milk Android app (available as a demo or for $25 a year subscription).

I have yet to set up the Android device, and I'm also have yet to synchronise my Evolution address book with Ubuntu One. But when I do, I’ll be so organised, I’ll have to have a cup of tea.