Memento Mori - Remember that you will die.
Time is an amusing thing. Three minutes standing in front of the microwave oven, waiting for our lunch, seem like an eternity. Yet days and months can pass in blink, without leaving any trace behind. Theref...
In the past several entries, we discuss techniques to manage open loops in our lives, to release ourselves of stress and become more effective. The discussed method, aptly named "Getting Things Done", includes horizontal and vertical control. Horizontal control helps us record and manage all loose ends in our lives. Vertical control helps us breaking down projects into concrete activities so that we can carry them out. In this final entry of the series, I will discuss practical aspects of applying this method in everyday life. My focus would be on tools necessary for Getting Things Done. The first problem that we face when trying to implement Getting Things Done is finding a mean to store notes and records generated from our horizontal and vertical control process. While any type of notebook , either digital or physical, is fine, I recommend Microsoft OneNote and Google Keep for this purpose. Both are free tools that are available on multiple platforms, from your home computer to your mobile phone. OneNote is an extensive tool for maintaining digital notebooks. Personally, I create one notebook to maintain information related to Getting Things Done. In this notebook, I have one section to maintain all of my notes concerning goals and visions of my life, to help guiding the planning and organisation activities. Lists of tasks that I have to carry out at different locations are maintained in a section called "Lists". The section "Projects and References" contains notes resulting from vertical decomposition of my projects. Finally, to maintain a quick reference of how everything works together, in case I forget, I have a section called "On my management system".
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Why do we need Google Keep, you might ask? Obviously, Google Keep is not as comprehensive as OneNote, but it shines in term of to-do lists. As there is no complex organisation of notebooks and sections in Google Keep, all of your to-do lists are available on the front page. Moreover, when you tick on an item in the list, Google Keep moves this item to a list of checked item. Those are small features, but they make using to-do list much more efficient comparing to OneNote. Obviously, everyone will have different requirements and therefore choose different set of tools. But the underlying philosophy is the same: to free your mind, you need to capture all open loops in your head into permanent records, clarify their outcomes and tasks necessary to carry them out, and set up to-do lists of these tasks to guide your activity. And with this point, we conclude the series on Getting Things Done? What do you think? What was the most useful idea to you? Leave a comment below.
