Since I decided I wanted to organize the events in my life (personal and work) and try to get things more organized and less complex, I’ve probably played around with tens of possible pieces of software. Web and application, hosted, and personal. When I wrote the last blogpost, I had decided I needed something that would “integrate” into a workflow I commonly use. It seemed to me that Outlook 2007 with the Zen to Done setup would just work for me.
I spent a day or so accounting and writing everything down on paper I could possibly think of. Don’t kid yourself; this is hard work! It takes a bit of time, effort, and cringing to record things.
I had already created workflows which seemed simple. I created a few containers that would hold the pieces of my personal and work life. They came out to be about 5 different action names like:
- @Errands
- @Work
- @Personal
- @Waiting For
- @Someday
These are probably very familiar if you have read any of the GTD primers. But what I learned is that I had been going at this bass ackwards. You cannot find the tool that will work for you until you know the path. Its like wanting to go from San Mateo to Fremont and not knowing what direction it is. You’ll spend a lot of time driving around…
So, after the first workflow, I decided how things would get placed into places, what the review cycle would look like. I created the following containers for that
- .Big Rocks – these are big things I want to do in a week.
- .Important Tasks – these are the daily or so tasks. I tend to create enough for two days or so.
- .Projects – this one takes a bit of practice. I first wanted to find something to actually manage the project. I have redmine, MS Project, etc for that though.
Now for the glue. If you skip ahead and look to see the tool I chose, you are cheating and you’ll pay 
. I chose Outlook 2007 and I chose to use no additional software except for my Motorola Q9 and a nice piece of organizational software on it called PocketInformant. So I created a set of tasks in Outlook parlance for each of the above. The action words were given the sets of undated tasks or ongoing resonsibilities. Like in @errands I have “go shopping for new tie”. This task is undated because I have not done the morning review yet to determine what and when. When I decide what and when, it gets moved or a date assigned or whatever.
Some of the workflow is still open and some things will not get moved to the .ImportantTasks category. I’m still working on the flow of things that will work for me. But the main thing is that this will work for me!
My goal that I set for this was to implement it with no additional software, using the tools I already had. More tools equal more exploration, more setup time, less getting to Zen.
Now a task moves through the continuum of action, delegation, done. It works! I’m still trying to visualize the overall workflow; but the Outlook 2007 setup compared to the other dozen tools I’ve used is simple.
Summation
So this will work for me; I have this sense that I will be able to wake up in the mornings, study my projects, define the day’s Important Tasks, assign, complete, delegate. Be done.
I don’t feel more organized; but I do feel less complex. For me the classic GTD philosophy seemed to breed complexity. Does work and home have to be that way? Projects, milestones, deliverables are already complex enough and have very complex tools managing them. I don’t need more tools.
Coolness overall.
