Get Everything Done

Hi Mark,

With regards to a Closed List approach how would you handle Errands that crop up? Say for example I receive a Telephone bill today. It obviously needs to be paid by the deadline, but in order to pay it I have to visit the Post Office. That will be dependant on my other commitments, so may not be actioned in the normal Do It Tomorrow approach. I could assign it to specific date but really its one of those things you just do when you have time, lunch hour etc.

I can't remember reading anything about how to handle these sorts of task specifically. But I may have missed it. I know a lot of it boils down to common sense but I just wondered if you had any advice for managing these types of items.

Regards

Steve

I think Steve has a point. A feature of other popular time management systems, which I think is absent from DIT, is the notion of context. What I could be doing now depends on where I am. I'm in front of a telephone? Good, I can catch up on some calls.

An over-literal intepretation of the phrase Do It Tomorrow has all trips, such as to Steve's post office (which I've no doubt is meant metaphorically) done the day after the errand comes to notice. In practice it's better to batch up such errands, so that they can all be done together, and that may mean that the chosen date is in three weeks on Thursday rather than tomorrow.

I seem to remember Mark saying one useful technique is to put 'like with like' so similar tasks get bunched together then they can be actioned together.

I'm not absolutely sure where I saw this so it might just have been on the Website or in a newsletter and not in D.I.T., but I know it's something I've seen him write more than once and I think that is equivalent to putting things in context.

The other thing I've found with any organisation book or system is that, as we're all different, once you find one you relate to it's still possible to tweak it to your own needs. Providing you understand and follow the basic principles then some of the detail can be customised to suit your own situation. A little like configuring software to suit individual users.

I've been scanning threads on the GTD Google Group and noted Steve Wynn's feedback on DIT, good to see other people have (a) similar problems to mine and (b) using DIT.

A procrastinating tendency person older than most (do procrastinators live longer by putting off illness and death?????) I came across GTD in 2005 and liked what I read, but found myself in the usual path of trying to find the ONE perfect system.

I spend most of my time as a one-man business management consultant working on short and medium assignments abroad, often in strange and questionable places, to paraphrase the BBC's John Simpson.

I tried MLO, but found myself overwhelmed and got switched off by the numerous threads in the MLO Group.

Like others, I have turned to a hybrid approach which I am working through by trying some things out, maybe discarding them later.

GTD: I use GTD concepts mainly for sorting through piles and files and also for Contexts, filing approaches etc.

Contexts: I have @Travel for T2BD ("Things To Be Done") on the long hauls to and from assignments, @Office for my home office stuff, @Assignment for when I'm away, @Errands, @Home, @Accommodation (away from home) etc. However, I have dispensed with @Computer as I have a Tablet Notebook (Toshiba M200 Portege) and a new HTC P3600 Trinity Pocket PC Phone with me nearly all the time. So I have another context @Calls/Emails to group those types of T2BDs. Another reason for having this context is my increasing usage of VOIP both at my home location and abroad (I use Vonage and Skype).

System: I have Outlook 2003 and have used Michael Linenberger's Total Workday Control book to adapt my Outlook set-up and use my own customised list of Contexts. I have set up a couple of Google Mail addresses so that I can send Outlook emails from my usual non-Google mail address. If this is not possible, I then send/receive using Google Mail. Another advantage of Google Mail: I automatically forward a copy of all incoming email for my usual work email address to my Google Mail address (note to self: set up outgoing emails to do the same!). This means I can reduce the number of emails retained in my Outlook system as there is always a copy in Google Mail together with rapid search capability.

DIT: by far the element that has made the biggest impact for me has been Mark's DIT approach, especially the PRACTICAL hints and most notably the CLOSED LIST. By using the timer (I had already bought a small kitchen timer), I was able to get a large report started and finished more quickly than usual.

So far I am making good progress with my hybrid system, it works for me which is the most important, but Mark's DIT has been the single biggest factor.

I hope others may find some useful ideas from my experience. I shall use this forum and associate sites to look at the Wisdom of the DIT Crowd.

Finally, a few hints for those who travel long distances:
(1) Check-in luggage: use hardshell cases only, paint bright orange patches on the corners to make your case stand out among all the other black and grey pieces (also useful when your case goes missing).
(2) ALWAYS pack spare underclothes (more if you have the space, I don't) in your carry-on case/pack because "A fool and his underpants are soon parted"!

Why not simply make your contexts part of your task-diary-page. After I finished reading the DIT bok yesterday, I separated the pages of my task-diary into the contexts

tasks @office
tasks @on_the_way_(errands)
tasks @home

That's it!

Rainer

For errands, just do a little bit of planning, look ahead the next day or days, see what else may come up, and put the errand down for that day. I typically run most of my errands during lunch.

Using a tip from David Allen, I also carry 2 folders in my satchel: TO WORK and TO HOME. If I had to go to the post office at lunch, then I'd put the bill in my TO WORK folder. When I get to work, I check the TO WORK folder, take out the bill, and it's on my desk as a reminder when I go out to lunch.

But that's my twist. It still depends on my doing a bit of thinking to plan, but not much thinking to execute.

Hi Guys,

I think I probably used a bad example initially with regards to errands. I was thinking more along the lines of all those little things that spring to mind that you need to do/get when you out and about. That you can easily forget if you don't have it listed in some way.

It really does all boil down to common sense and perhaps I was over thinking things too much. Probably because I did use GTD with everything separated by Context.

I now do as Mark suggests, just treat and errand as a normal task if possible. If I can't be done the following day, I just add it to my Errands list. I now more often than not batch up my errands and then decide on a day/time to run them. I have a task that just states 'Run Errands' on my Closed List.

Regards

Steve

If you'd like to take batching errands to yet another level, I learned the following tip from Flylady.net. She chose Thursday as her errands day. She further enhances it by scheduling all her medical and dental appointments on that day as well. I think that's a brilliant idea. That leaves her pleasure outings mostly free from nagging out of the way chores and she batches them with her medical appointments commute.