SJ Cuthbertson

To claim I’ve sorted all my organisational issues when batch-posting at 2.30am would be slightly, erm, silly. But, further to my various mentions of GTD over the summer, I have been trying to implement a GTD-based system on my PDA using just the in-built apps, and it basically works. My to-do list has context-based categories (@email, @pc, @pet [peterhouse], etc etc) as well as a “wait” category which I set any “waiting on” things to, with a date by which I should have followed it up. Someday/maybe things go into a list in the memos, which also has a few context categories (e.g., @blog, where the idea for this post was lurking for the last few days) and a “lists” category, including shopping, items for agendas/email lists I manage, money I’m owed…etc etc. Most other notes are deliberately temporary, and get transfered to textfiles or otherwise on my PC if I need them for longer-term reference.

I’ve stopped using Gmail specifically as a GTD tool, and rely solely on my PDA as “trusted system”. I am just starting to star emails that contain action items, mainly things that would just get an @email context anyway, so I can look through my emails without getting out the PDA, and still accomplish things. This kinda-sorta goes against the bucket-philosophy of GTD, but it works for me. I have really gotten on top of the InboxZero strategy: once I’ve got used to starring, I will always be able to process my inbox to empty every time I check. As it is, I normally leave one or two emails in the inbox that don’t fit into one of my vaguely project-esque labels, but they never stay there for more than a few days.

An interesting development that the geekier among my readers will have heard of is that Gmail has now released IMAP support on all accounts, including Apps. I debated for a while switching back to Thunderbird, which can be customised into a very nice Gmail client; I initially moved to Gmail because I needed a long-term email solution, and because of that, I waved goodbye (with a tear in my eye) to TB. However, now I’ve got used to The Gmail Way, and their web interface, I can’t see any reason to bother with TB: it’s just another application to have open, and my desktop only has so much RAM (even more of a concern on my ancient ubuntu/fluxbox-based laptop, which I struggled to read mail on via TB all summer). I don’t want to know every 5 seconds if I have a new message or not, so having to consciously browse to my Apps account is a good thing; and I get the exact-same interface here (my room) or on one of the departmental computers, or indeed anywhere else, which means I can productively check email away from my desk. This helps in many other ways – on a shared computer I have much fewer distractions, so concentrate on processing all my mail, and then actually getting on with tasks.