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zen habits: My GTD Implementation

Thursday, January 25, 2007

My GTD Implementation

See also: a beginner's guide to GTD.

A favorite topic among GTDers is describing their GTD implementation. I won't try and be a non-conformist here -- I'll jump on the bandwagon.

As with most GTDers, I've tried a number of different setups. That'll be my next post. For now, let me describe my current setup:

  • Pocket notebook - I carry this around everywhere simply as a capture tool. Any thoughts, to-dos, projects, calendar stuff that I collect while I'm not at the computer gets captured in the notebook and transfered to my action lists or calendar later. I've also been experimenting with the PocketMod, and what I really want is a Moleskine pocket notebook, but I keep telling myself that the coolness of the Moleskine doesn't justify its additional cost on top of the free notebooks I get at work.
  • Tracks - this beautiful program, written in Ruby on Rails, was written specifically for GTD, and after trying many other online and off-line apps, this is definitely the best. I use it for all of my context action lists, my someday/maybe list, my waiting-for list and my projects.
  • GCal - OK, I'm not the first GTDer to love Google Calendar, but it's simply the best, and it takes care of all my calendaring needs. For hard landscape only.
  • Gmail - Another popular email app with GTDers, nothing else compares. It rocks.
  • Misc - Other than these main tools, I have an inbox at home and work, filing systems at both locations, and a very clean desk.
A few other posts on GTD implementations:
See also:

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

interesting post. i've been wanting to try the moleskine too.

i love your blog, btw. i just discovered it and have been looking back in the archives and found a LOT of really good stuff.

Archaeogeek said...

Great Post. I find though, that I'm more inclined to keep with a system if I like the tools. For me, the purchase of a moleskine (well, several if I'm honest) and a decent pen was worth it because it means I keep at the GTD. It's a bit of an investment. Not very zen though!

Jo

Leo said...

Thanks for the comment, Jo. I agree with you ... if your tools, like a Moleskine, help you stick with your system, then it's worth the investment. That's the argument one half of me has been making. But if you read elsewhere on my blog, I'm a bit frugal. So the frugal side of me says that I am already sticking to my system, even with the cheep (read:free) notebooks I'm using now, so the cost wouldn't be justified in my case.

But the argument within me goes on.

What's your GTD implementation?

Leo said...

Updated post for Jo: I just checked out your blog, and saw your analog implementation. Pretty cool.

What are you using right now? I also saw the falling off the bandwagon post ... how's it going?

Anonymous said...

Hiya, thanks for linking to my own GTD implementation. I've just put up part 2 of it which you can check out here