In productivity circles a lot has changed since I last posted an update. Many regular readers will remember how I favored good ol’ fashioned pen and paper. Well guess what? I ditched the desktop for a laptop and invested in a decent smartphone, having relied on other people’s castoff phones for years. I still use a notepad for the occasional brainstorm and doodle, but fundamentally my system is now tech-based and portable.

The story of how this happened isn’t interesting so I won’t detail it here. However, it’s maybe worth noting that I opted for a Blackberry over an iPhone after testing the latter and preferring a BB keypad to a touchscreen one. I can quickly write entire blog posts and chapters on a Blackberry, but on an iPhone it takes too long and usually results in numerous spelling mistakes. Maybe it was a matter of getting used to touchscreens, but the BB keypad is just more responsive.

Anyways, my Blackberry is now my primary organizational tool. Gone are the sheets of paper, gone is my weekly planner. However, I don’t rely on any fancy app, just the default ones. This is partly because BB apps can be damn expensive and partly because I’ve got a Curve 2520 and the browser is clunky, which rules out a lot of online apps (on a sidenote, while the phone is a solid one, it’s evidently no longer supported by RIM despite still being heavily pushed in the UK).

Don’t expect no revolutionary tips here, folks. This is just me explaining what I use, and perhaps demonstrates how you can still adopt a tech-based approach without any added complexity, or even the expense of a top of the range smartphone from Apple, Samsung, HTC, etc.

My primary app is the tasks app. You can create a simple list of tasks, mark them as completed, deferred, etc. and set its recurrence, when it should be completed, what categories it should go in, and so on. It’s quite extensive really, but you can end up with one big mass of tasks with little option on how to organize them. Only when a task has gone passed it’s deadline does it become highlighted. However I use this to my advantage, and set the deadline to midnight so that as soon as I wake up all the tasks I need to do that day are already highlighted for me. Nice and simple.

The other app I primarily use is the notes app. I create several memos to cover various categories, so I have “blog”, “tasks”, “music”, etc. These effectively serve as catch-all buckets. If I hear an interesting song and I’m not near my laptop, I will type the name in my music memo so that when I get onto Spotify I won’t forget it. Similarly, the tasks memo is for any oddjobs I might want to do that I haven’t made official yet. The blog memos are for planning out new posts and even properly typing them up before transferring them to the relevant websites. Again, nice and simple.

Finally, I now track my expenditure on my Blackberry, using the Sheet To Go app. Because it’s not the premium version a lot of functionality is missing, but I only basically need to add data to it anyways. I had to create a excel file on my laptop first, but it’s now a simple matter of updating as and when I spend a bit of money (or even make money, crikey!).

What’s the benefit of all this? Portability, and everything essentially being in one package. I can Google anything, make phonecalls, take notes, photos, etc. all from one device. This is especially apparent with the finances tracking. Where’s before I had to wait till I got home to copy over all my costs, now I can tally everything up as I go. Ditto with my to-do list; it’s always in my pocket, available to be referred to.

There are probably plenty of hardcore Blackberry users out there thinking that this is a crap way of doing it, but it (currently) suits my needs. There are certainly those who can make good use of the many apps out there, and there are plenty more amazing things you can do on a Blackberry (or any smartphone) that I’ve not even touched on here. I’d love to hear what approach you use, what special apps I may have missed that are worth checking out, etc. And even if you have an iPhone, Android device or even a tablet, let me know how you use it to GTD.

Last week I was asked on Twitter what my favorite GTD tools were for getting organized. Did I prefer the hifi or lofi approach? What was my favorite app? My answer was unequivocally that I prefered good ol’ pen and paper. I’ve always prefered the low tech approach and have never really experimented with apps. But it got me thinking, why do I prefer paper? Well, below are my six main reasons…

• It’s quicker
  I strongly hold to the rule that if you do something regularly and it takes more than a short period of time to do, it will quickly turn into a chore. Writing something down on my to-do list should take a few seconds. Ticking a task off as complete should take no more than two seconds (optionally with a few extra seconds to bask in your success). Typing will never be quicker in that regard and if you have to scroll through a bunch of menus and options to do it, then you’re just adding even more time to what should be a simple task.
• It gets me off my computer
  I don’t like being sat on a computer more than necessary. This may be partly down to my archaic seating setup that’s stuck in the corner of my room but even so, it’s much better to be up and moving than glued to a screen all day. If I want to check my to-do list, tick something off or capture an idea I don’t want to have to run over to my PC every time.
• It’s ultra-portable
  Forget your mobile phones and netbooks, a little notepad to doodle in is much more flexible and lightweight than even those portable tools. Plus you don’t have to worry about dropping it either. Getting water all over the paper may still pose a problem but certainly not like spilling a cup of tea all over your Blackberry. I can fold my weekly planner up and stuff it in my pocket if necessary and not even an iPhone is that thin.
• It’s physical
  Clicking a button to confirm you’ve done a task just doesn’t feel as definitive as physically picking up a pen and ticking a box off or scribbling it out. In fact, just being able to pick your to-do list up in your hands and see your entire day’s events laid out is much more powerful than scrolling through an arkward list on a poxy monitor.
• I can tailor it to my own needs
  If you know your way around something like Open Office you can quite easily design your own templates to suit your personal needs, just like I’ve done with my own weekly planner. However, when it comes to apps, unless you’re a pretty good programmer with plenty of time to spare, you’re going to be much more limited. Sure, there are so many apps out there that one could argue something is bound to click, but I’ve found they all invariably over-complicate and over-offer in an attempt to satisfy as big an audience as possible.
• It’s cheap
  Yes, there are plenty of free apps out there but if you want a fully featured one be prepeared to cough up some serious cash. Unless you have a Moleskine fetish, I find a standard notepad just fine and often at a ridiculously cheap price (ironically, it was my very expensive Moleskine that fell apart long before any of my cheaper ones).

Last week I published a guest post by John Anyasor on how to take revenge on your email inbox. He made a good point about sharing your email address. It’s very easy to just put your address out there, use it to register on a bunch of sites without a second thought, mention it in conversation on forums, etc. However, this all leads to your inbox filling up with junk that you have no interest in (I’m not just talking about spam here either) and is just one example of bad email habits.

So much is written about how to manage your inbox – make quick decisions when processing, archive and tag them, write brief replies – but that doesn’t resolve the bigger issue. The number of emails floating round yearly is astronomical but over 80% of them are simply unwanted or just outright spam. I believe to really get a grip of your inbox you need to deal with the cause not the symptoms, and break those bad emailing habits we all seem to pick up. And by adjusting how many emails you receive and send out, you will in turn benefit other people.

• Turn off notifications
  Social media sites can be borderline abusive when it comes to dishing out email notifications for every little thing. Emails to let you know who has commented on a thread, who is following you, who left a comment on one your pictures, who requested to be friends with one of your friends’ friends… friends. But if you’re a regular user of, say, Twitter or Facebook (and according to all mainstream media outlets, everybody in the entire world is) you’ll get this information on the site anyway. Edit those notification settings!
• Reply!
  If somebody sends you an email which expects a reply – whether it be your best friend or some upstart company wanting to give their new productivity app some publicity – give them a reply (unless of course it’s clearly spam) even if the email has no interest to you whatsoever. This may be a controversial idea and you may argue that if you ignore emails they will go away. But in my experience they’ll often send catch-up emails several weeks or days later. Save your time and theirs. A simple “Thanks – but no thanks” is usually more than enough.
• Protect your email address
  So many sites require your email address and almost all of them will take advantage of it if you let them. Companies in particular are bad at this, clogging up your inbox with their latest offers and updates. When registering, for instace, you often have the option of signing up to these updates, promotions, newsletters, etc. Make sure you select the options that say “No, no, no! I do not want to recieve your spammy emails. Go away!” (or something like that).
• Don’t use email…
  There was a time when email was the easiest way of communicating online (it might have been about the same time we stopped living in caves). However, nowadays there are so many different options. A site like Facebook can do a more than adequate job with the socializing side of things (no more emailing massive photo attachments for instance) and because Twitter is limited to 140 characters is makes it deceptively good for to-the-point communicating. Even the good ol’ phone, IM and texting can be better than email in the right circumstances. Leo of Zen Habits recently covered his own experiences of how he has cut out email, which is worth checking out for extra thoughts and ideas on this suggestion

This guest post was written by John Anyasor of HiLife2B.

Email has been the culprit of countless wasted hours for as along as the internet has been in existence. Spam, promotions, emails from family members and coworkers, newsletters… it’s all too much. And this doesn’t even include the colossal number of replies that you have to send in response. I can’t take it anymore. Who owns my life? Me or my inbox? The answer to that is obvious of course, but achieving it is easier said than done, right? How are we going to curtail the use of our email if it just keeps coming into our inbox? Well, it is actually easier than you think. It’s all a matter of knowing how to control your emails and better manage your inbox.

Delete it
The solution to all of our problems is right here. Just delete it. I can hear your pleas against your better judgment already. “Oh man, but I want to read this article later!” or, “I can’t get back to her right now… I don’t know if I ever will… but I might!” Hold your horses. If a certain message is really that important to you, it’s better to answer it right then and there instead of letting it pile up with all the other junk in your inbox. Here are some things that you should definitely get rid of.

• Messages you’ve already looked at and don’t need anymore (obviously).
• Time sensitive emails that are way past responding to.
• Duplicate emails under different titles from the same sender(s).
• Spam!

Save it
Now I know there are messages you might want to save from the almighty power of the delete button, so I suggest that with these messages you use the save button or archive it away (depending on which email provider you use). With AOL (yes, I don’t use Gmail, sorry for sticking with the same email address for years) you can instantly move email to a folder for the messages that you just can’t live without. Only save what is necessary and fall under these guidelines:

• Messages from friends, family and relatives that have meaning.
• Introductory emails with passwords and usernames.
• Useful information that you know you’ll go back to.

Regulate it
Through this seemingly arduous process of putting your email on the chopping block, don’t forget that you have a life. Don’t spend too much time focusing on your email or trying to achieve that spiritual inbox zero level. The problem for most of us is that by focusing on cleaning out our inbox, we get caught up in reading and analyzing all of our emails. Before you know it you’ve wasted hours reading, deleting, and saving mail that should have only taken you about ten minutes to a half hour at most.

The other matter to consider here is where you put your email address. Lots of people half-heartedly sign up for newsletters, social networking sites and email services without knowing the frequency of updates which they will get. Keep in mind these important statements for managing your messages:

• Do you actually read these messages? It’s easy to keep an email with the intention of reading it later, but most of the time they are never looked at. If you’re on Facebook regularly, do you also need email notifications when somebody leaves a message on your wall?
• Can you keep up with the number of emails you get? You’ve accepted the updates and newsletters, but if they’re sent everyday and you can’t keep up, you might as well end/change your subscription.
• Has checking your email become an addiction? I identify with this one myself. At most, I check every half-hour. It’s bad, but I usually try to keep it down to only a few times a day. If you’ve let yourself get a regular stream of emails it’s much harder to resist checking your inbox all the time.

After all is said and done, by the end of this lesson you should have a clean and tidy inbox. Whether it takes an hour or even a couple of days, cleaning out your inbox is the best thing you can do to get yourself organized . Remember, it can be easy. So go out and get revenge.

Other posts of interest

• Taming Your Inbox At Work
• Killing Email: How And Why I Ditched My Inbox
• Inbox Taming For Busy People
• Clearing Your Inbox With Minimal Pain

I liked this simple idea so much I decided to create a little template for it. However, it never really stuck with me and it got kicked to the curb… until now. Nowadays, I generally feel that I’ve got the whole working through my to-do list thing pretty much nailed thanks to my weekly planner. However the whole habit building process is something different entirely.

For a time I tried to include these things on my weekly planner but when it comes to building habits, you’ll trip up more often than not. That meant a lot of incomplete or missed tasks on my planner – not encouraging. With that in mind I decided to reinvent my Seinfeld-influenced habit tracker. Check out my progress so far:

• View habit tracker
  
• Check out my other tools

Currently this is a beta release because I really want your feedback on it. Each sheet has four habit trackers on it. You can cut them out if you want (I cut them out and staple them together into a little book) or have them all on one sheet. Each time you achieve your habit building goal for the day you tick a box off. When you fail to achieve your goal you put a cross and start on a new row the next day. Be sure to note down your longest chain to date in the top corner.

The problem with habit building is it’s very black and white. For instance, I’ve been trying to cut back on how often I drink alcohol (just as part of a healthier lifestyle) but every approach I’ve tried to date makes me feel like I have to just abstane from touching a drop of beer altogether. With this tool, I can gently ease myself in. It’s just about creating as long a chain as possible (or beating my previous best). I might do a chain of two days, then five days, then an entire week and so on. Each time I set a new best score I can treat myself by having a beer with my meal. And if I go through a period without really building up any chains, I’ve got that top score to remind me that I’ve done it before and I can do it again.

• View weekly planner
• Check out my other tools

The most striking difference to those who have seen (and hopefully used) the old design is that there is no longer the seven columns to cover each day of the week. I figured rather than listing each project under the appropriate day I’d be doing them, why not have a masterlist of all the projects I wanted to do and then select the days I want to focus on them from a tickbox. It’s something different and saves me from writing the save task over and over again.

The old design also had two boxes for organizing any work that wasn’t day specific. In other words, I’d write something in there if I wanted to do it during the week, but I hadn’t decided exactly when. Only problem was where to write down all the rest of the stuff that was on my mind. I resorted to keeping a seperate list, but seeing as the whole point of my planner is that it should be one complete package, it kind of defeated the point. As a result, for this new design I have replaced all of that with one long ‘mind dump’ column to capture any stray thoughts and loose ends, regardless of when they need doing.

And of course there is the whole visual tweaking, partly inspired by Dave Seah’s tools. For those who use my weekly planner, I hope you like the new design (the previous design will remain available). If you’ve never tried it before, why not print a few copies and see how it goes? Either way I look forward to all your feedback. If you have any questions on how I use it, please ask!

There’s no getting away from it. More and more people are getting into social media, whether it be on Facebook, Twitter or Digg (after much reluctance some years ago even I finally got into it). However, people spend so much time on these sites that it can be a massive time vacuum. There are so many distractions and addictions on a site like Facebook nowadays that it’s easy to lose control of how you use it. Considering I’m kinda into the productivity thing, I just couldn’t allow myself to fall into that trap and I took measures to make sure I was the one in control and those are covered below. Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter!

• Have a clear purpose
  Identify what you want to achieve from your social media experience. You might want to keep in contact with your friends, promote your blog or create work contacts. I see many people spend hours idling on Facebook, browsing through profiles, reading all those status updates, joining groups and adding apps. It’s not because it serves a purpose, it’s merely to pass the time. Don’t allow your social media experience to be a time vacuum. Identify what you really want to get out of it and act accordingly.
• Identify where the value is…
  I used to be on nearly ten different social media sites. Digg, Mixx, Stumbleupon, Friendfeed… turns out I was wasting my time with most of them. Digging a bunch of articles is all well and good but for what gain? Now, I pretty much focus just on Twitter. There are lots of people to engage with and I get to promote my blog at the same time.
• And provide value yourself
  The bulk of social media usage is a waste of time. There, I’ve said it. Putting up every photo from your phone is wasted time. Tweeting every little thought you have is pointless. And don’t get me started on Facebook status updates. Cut out the irrelevance and do only those activities that have meaning, value and worth and you will save a huge amount of time. Share interesting links, tweet thought provoking ideas, etc.
• Make a date
  Currently, I only focus on social media once a week. I put aside an hour or so and do what I need to do (you may set different limits). Catch up on replies, submit interesting posts, leave a few comments. During the rest of the week, rather than tweeting randomly as an idea comes to me, I write it down and save it for my social media day. This means I can focus on what I’m doing and get it off my radar, rather than dipping in and out everyday.

Inside this post you’ll find links to a wealth of tips, tricks, hacks, modifications, recommendations and imaginative uses for your Moleskine (now updated for 2011!)… but if by some chance I’ve missed something out, please let me know about it! Also, why not share how you use yours?

• PigPogPDA
• Planner Hack
• mGTD
• Moleskinerie
• Rebind your Moleskine
• Fix a broken Moleskine band
• Make a Moleskine cover
• Moleskine indexing
• Moleskine multi-tabs
• Mini Moleskines
• Hacking a GTD Moleskine
• GTD inbox hack
• Yet more Moleskine hackery
• 10 great Moleskine hacks
• Mike’s Moleskine hacks
• Pocket diary Moleskine hack
• Moleskines for scrappers
• Moleskine PDA for students
• Pocket Moleskine GTD system
• How I use my Moleskines
• My Moleskine setup
• Lined card inserts
• Writing template
• Writing tips insert
• Duck tape pen holder
• Pen holder using a button
• Moleskine friendly pens
• Moleskine pen clip mod
• Pen loop hack
• Hipster Moleskine
• Moleskine PDA
• Moleskine iPod
• Moleskine iPhone
• Moleskine wallet
• Planner/journal/wallet combo

• Bottom level
  The lowest level is for paperwork that you are unlikely to look at again, but has to be kept for reference or legal reasons. This typically includes stuff like paid bills, wage slips and tax forms.
• Middle level
  This is for active paperwork, that you will need to refer to regularly or will require in the near future. Bills that haven’t been paid yet go here, as does any mail that I’ve yet to fill in, process, read, etc.
• Top level
  I don’t currently have three levels but if I did I would use this to capture any incoming mail and paperwork that I have yet to open/action. Everytime something came through my letterbox it would go here. Later I can make a decision as to whether it should go in the active or reference level.

This works for ME because I have minimal paperwork, and I go through it every seven days as part of my weekly review (this is required because as you’d imagine, it would get out of hand very easily). To keep it all at low levels I’m very rigorous in processing out paperwork I don’t need. In the unlikely even I need something from my reference level, for instance, it might take a few moments to shift through it, but because I save so much time not having to categorize and sub-categorize everything that more than makes up for it.

I admit this approach certainly wouldn’t work for anybody with large amounts of paperwork and would be an impossibility in business (or would it?). Shifting through several dozen letters (or more) to find what you want will quickly become a chore if you don’t have it deeply categorized. The only categories I need are active and reference. Of course, the real challenge will come later in the year. Will the system still work with six months of paperwork clogging it up?

For anybody interested in re-inventing the way they file paperwork, remember the two rules that every organization system needs to follow for it to be a success:

• It should only do what you need it to do (simplicity)
• It should be quick and easy to use (speed)

Thanks to the current economic conditions, I recently found myself back in my home office and it was time to reboot my career as well as the office. So I had an interesting opportunity to start from scratch.

Home Office in another home
I have young children in my house. As disciplined as I am, the kids are incredibly cute and they want to play with me. So I setup in my mother’s basement. It is very close by and it gives me the feeling of going to work. The house is quiet during the day and the rent is very cheap. The first step with it was to simply clean out everything. And I mean everything. Similar to preparing for a move, I embraced the mantra; keep, throw away, donate, or store. I decided exactly where the desk should go in the room and then put my computer in the perfect place. No printer, scanner or other peripherals, no books, papers or pictures. I grabbed a legal pad and a pen. As I worked the first day with my extremely spartan setup I made a list of the things that came up during the day that I felt I would need or wished I had.

The phone
At first I thought about just using my cell phone for business, but the math was bad. Long discussions with clients would eat through hundreds of minutes much too quickly. If I was going to sit in the same place every day why use up mobile minutes? Since I was already linked to the broadband internet connection via WiFi, I decided to give Skype a try. So for less than $100 for the year I had unlimited incoming and outgoing minutes and a phone number. That’s a lot cheaper than going up to the next plan on my cell phone or having a second line to the house!

Cheat sheet
Very quickly I found myself looking up the new information for people I talked to (what was my phone number again?) and since I was restarting my consulting practice, I didn’t quite have my talking points down to a science. So I took a single sheet of paper, wrote down the new phone numbers and a great version of my thirty second pitch in large letters and tacked it up on the wall.

Multi-function printer/fax/copier/scanner
At first I thought that I would need one of these right away and wrote it down the first day. But so far I haven’t needed it at all. The house computer has a printer, but my home office doesn’t. And in the last month, I haven’t yet needed to print anything for myself. Nothing. What I found was that when it wasn’t close at hand, I stopped needing to print. For agreements, documents start as PDF files and are emailed to the client for signature. I encourage clients to scan documents to a PDF and email it back to me or digitally sign the document. If this doesn’t work, I ask them to put the documents in the mail. Simple. As for inbound paper, I try to get it captured digitally, filed into an appropriate reference folder, recycled or shredded. I make sure to move fast on this. Paper collects infinitely and every new sheet makes the reduction of the pile just a bit harder.

The power of a timer
Time can be slippery. What may start as a quick email check becomes an hour of wasted time. Whether the timer is a computer desktop widget or a simple kitchen timer, it doesn’t matter. If it is time to check email, set the timer for five or ten minutes to read and reply. Do the same with RSS, Facebook or Twitter. When starting any given task, I decide how much time it should take and set the timer for the appropriate duration. What I have found is that the act of setting the timer keeps the task more focused. When the timer goes off, I can renegotiate the amount of time required for the task. Time devoted to something is a deliberate decision rather than haphazard and unplanned.

Rethinking the tickler file
One of the things that always bothered me about David Allen’s GTD method was the tickler system. It simply didn’t work for me in the digital world. And because I try to use as little paper as possible I found that there wasn’t much in a lo-fi tickler file. After checking it and finding very little of importance there each day, I stopped checking and then ultimately stopped trusting it. As a result I’ve changed my tickler system into the following hybrid.

• Inbox: stuff to be processed
• Now: stuff happening now or to-do today
• On deck: ready to do, could be today, but definitely by tomorrow
• Deferred: an action to do, but not due today or tomorrow
• Waiting for: needs someone or something else to be done first
• Someday: not a priority now, but reviewed regularly for initiatives

All incoming stuff goes into the inbox and standard GTD methods apply. When processing the inbox, stuff goes into On deck, Deferred, Waiting for or Someday. When processing something to Deferred I simply write the due date on it. Nothing goes directly into Now. Once you are done processing you grab the top thing on the Now pile and do it (don’t forget to set the timer). Once everything from that basket is finished, move everything in the On deck basket into the Now basket and put the few things in an appropriate order. In the same organizational moment, review the Deferred basket and move anything relevant to the On deck basket. Something that is truly on fire gets resolved right away (two minute rule). It obviously does not need storage, so it doesn’t affect other bits in the system.

Setting the stage
I don’t have visitors to my home office so it might seem a little bit strange, but I like to setup the office so that it would be ready in the event of any visitors. For example, I have a stack of business cards in a card holder. I have pictures of my wife and kids. I have desk toys to fiddle with while on the phone. I have appropriate office supplies at hand. I even have a small cube fridge (like what I had in my college dorm) and single-cup coffee maker (like K-Cup, Senseo, or Tassimo). I also purchased some healthy (and not so healthy) single-serve snacks to have on-hand. The act of going to the kitchen for a minute can turn into a huge distraction. One month in After a little over a month at work in the new home office, I’m glad that I took the reboot approach. At first it felt radical, but it has translated into an increased focus on work and overall productivity. And the new office environment is actually supporting those key GTD habits that can sometimes be so elusive.