Total, Relaxed Organization, The Blog

There are over 6 Billion people on the planet and they all want to get the most out of their short lives. Not surprisingly, a whole slew of tools, gadgets, and programs have cropped up out of this huge demand. Unfortunately, this also means there’s a lot of junk to be filtered through. This post marks the beginning of a project to document and review the software and tools used by people around the world to get things done.

The first such review is for software that I personally use each day: Agenda Fusion 8.

The president of a large organization once related that Frances, his beloved wife, fell down the stairs and lapsed into a coma. He was gravely concerned and took up vigil by her bedside. For about 18 days she lay motionless, not moving a single muscle. He cried, as did the children and grandchildren. Then one day her eyes opened, and he raced to her side. He said, “You’re back. I love you.” She replied, “I love you, too, Tom, but we’re in serious trouble.” He thought, What do you know about trouble, Frances? She said, “I forgot to mail in our fourth-quarter income tax payment.”

If tasks are constantly on your mind or cause stress, your time management system needs adjustment. Tasks weigh on your mind when you aren’t confident that you will be reminded at the right time. In GTD or TRO parlance, that particular task still isn’t collected or processed adequately. What can you do about it? [Read More...]

Evernote is a universal note-capturing and organizing system. It is now free and—surprise!—gaining popularity. Their 3.0 Web version was recently released for public beta. (You need an invitation to beta test it, ask me for an invite if you need one.)

So what can you do with it?

Who should use it?

[Read More...]

GTD and Total, Relaxed Organization (TRO) teach simple processes for relaxed control of your tasks AND the stuff that accumulates in your life.

However, it’s common to read David Allen’s great book, collect everything to a massive “Inbox,” and get stuck. This can also happen to TRO trainees if their Self Training is interrupted or technical glitches crop up.

Whether it’s due to uncertainty or interruptions, that huge pile looms and weighs on your mind. What do you do? [Read More...]

Image © Qwasyx | Dreamstime.com

Starting Monday, I will be reviewing GTD and GTD-ish Software.
Software will be rated on:
1. User Interface (Easy to learn?)
2. Functionality (Features, Compatibility)
3. Conformity with GTD Principles (See here)

What do we need from you? Tell us what your favorite piece of GTD(ish) software is and why. We will begin our reviews based on this. These reviews will be posted regularly and I encourage readers to post comments on their own experiences with the software.

Please feel free to recommend software not yet listed on our GTD Software Comparison Page. Thank you!

I have been using a PDA since I first got my hands on a Palm VIIx as a kid. You know, one of those 8MB B&W models with barely enough computing power to tell me the square root of four. Five years ago, a PDA was the height of geekiness. *Takes a bow* Only complete nerds contributed in the CE vs. Palm wars. This is not the case now. Businesses, CEO’s, mothers, and even your local football jock is looking into the new world of mobility. The question on everyone’s mind is: “Which one, which one?”

Perhaps you found a reason to get a cool new Macbook Air. Maybe you’ve dreaded the inevitable but finally bought that PC simply for it’s compatibility. Whatever the reason, you now face a major issue. Your network now has more than one operating system. If you don’t care about “Geeky” things like “File Sharing” or “Printer Sharing” then this may not be an issue for you. But when you care, you really care. In this tutorial, we’ll go step-by-step through everything required to properly set up a Mac/Windows based network.

The latest Preview feature in the Trog Bar is Natural Project Management. This slick tool will let you organize arbitrarily complex projects in bite sized pieces. Here is a brief overview that will get you started with this powerful new feature.

It’s a Project!

Your unprocessed list meets with numerous new arrivals every day. If you are among the blessed few, this number has only one digit, but if you are like me, or countless others, you net 20-100, maybe more. One of the basic tenets of GTD is the processing system, and one of the first questions you ask yourself when processing is “Is it a project?” Now, with the Trog Bar, you can handle these projects better than ever.

When you meet one of these projects, flip open the “Steps” tab, and type in the next step, easy as that. Now for the awesome part: it works with emails too. When you get that email, just add a next step, and voilà! It’s a project!

It’s a BIG Project!

Every project should have one next action, and you should work only that action until it is done, so says GTD. Unfortunately, the reality on the ground is a little different. Especially in large projects, there may be many steps in a project that you can do, so there is no solid “next” step. There are in fact many possible next steps. Natural Project Management allows you to specify multiple steps as they occur to you. Any steps [Click title for more...]

A lot of software companies maintain development blogs. In fact, I’d venture to say that over 50% of GTD-related software providers have blogs. Until now, Priacta stubbornly ignored this trend, and for good reason. Why talk about the features, when we can let you use them? Maintaining a blog consumes time that could be spent creating features instead.

So why the change of heart? Ironically, it was a new feature!