"Getting Things Done", David Allen

In today's world, we always seem to be strapped for time. As the days go by, we have less and less time. I currently have a ten month old and another baby due in the next two months, so I'm looking at less time than I ever imagined.

In 1996, I came across the Franklin Planner while I was involved in a multi-level marketing organization that shall remain nameless (they have lawyers and know how to use them), but you can probably imagine which one. I guess it doesn't matter which one. In any case, my upline introduced me to the Franklin Planner and I was thrilled with the system. It is based on a top down approach: you define your governing values, use those to choose your long term goals, break those up into intermediate goals and again into daily tasks, and each day you spend 15 minutes or so planning your daily tasks in accordance with your governing values. It sounds good, but I was never able to get it to work properly. I believe part of it is that, at 22 when I discovered the system, my true governing values had to do with drinking beer and the rest were influenced by said multi-level marketing concept ie, "Go Diamond!" or "Pay Cash for Lexus and retire at 24!"

I finally gave up buying the Planner refills each year and settled on a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant). My wife had a Casio Cassiopia PV-400 Plus, and I tried to adapt the Franklin system to it. Being a computer geek, however, the K-mart PDA just didn't do enough for me. Notes had limited character spaces, and I was beginning to figure out how powerful Microsoft Outlook could be and how Palm and Pocket PC could interface with it. I got a Palm Zire for Christmas (the original 2 MB model) and was able to do more, but I still wanted my appointments and tasks to show up together. I also heard that a Pocket PC operated more like Windows and had more memory. A coworker offered to sell me his Pocket PC for $120, and I took it.

My first Pocket PC was an ipaq 3765, and served me faithfully for 2 years. I later bought my friend's Dell Axim x30, which is a good model.

All this time, I tried hard to adapt the Franklin Covey system to Outlook for interface with a Pocket PC in order to keep track of my life. It just didn't seem to be happening easily. Even if I did sit down and plan and prioritize an entire day, I would end up getting done half or less of all that I had planned and prioritized. Needless to say, I started and ceased using the Franklin system many times.

Months ago, I borrowed a productivity book from my in-laws because the title sounded interesting. I brought the book in to work and promptly forgot about it. One of the forums I check regularly is at http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com. I kept reading posts about something called "GTD", as in "How do you implement GTD?" or "How I implement GTD with Pocket Informant". I finally made the connection that GTD was a system written about in a book by David Allen called "Getting Things Done- The Art of Stress Free Productivity". I opened up my cubical compartment and discovered that is the exact same book I borrowed from my in-laws and forgot about.

And so I began to read it.

I'll post more on it as I go along. I'm fascinated by the system. It is true that in our age of "Knowledge Workers", it is hard to prioritize an entire day when you're constantly being hit with shifting priorities and emails and emergencies. This system is built for dealing with that.

I'm about 3/4 through with the book now, and I'm learning how to implement it using MS Outlook and Pocket Informant on my Dell Axim. I'll share my thoughts and tips and tricks as I go.