Use Siri to capture your “stuff” while driving

February 18, 2013 2 Comments

SiriI use Siri on my iPhone to capture any idea that comes to me when I am driving. It is fantastic because I don’t have to unlock my phone, launch an app, or type anything that would distract me from driving. All I have to do is hold down the home button on my iPhone and wait for the familiar beep that is Siri. Then I say “text inbox” and whatever I want added to my trusted system. It is that easy!

Here is what you need to do. Set up a contact called Inbox in the Last Name field of your contacts with your Evernote email address. Once you have this you are ready to go.

The reason you use text instead of email is Siri asks for the subject when you email but not when you text. Now, when you go to your default Evernote folder (Unprocessed for me) you will have a “Mailed In Note” with your “stuff” in the body of the note.

This is a simple way to avoid distracted driving while capturing your “stuff” in the car. For most recent cars that have bluetooth integration you can use the cars built in microphone and speakers to truly make it an integrated experience.

Try it, you will be amazed how well it works.

Filed under Capture, Tools Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Fall of the GTD Bandwagon? Do a “Mind Sweep”

May 28, 2012

In GTD the vital first stage is Collection. Whenever we loose steam in our GTD flow, I feel like the most powerful collection exercise is what David Allen calls “the mind-sweep.”  Whenever I feel “out of control” with everything going on in my life, I try to step back and do a mind-sweep to regain control.

The idea behind the mind-sweep is to identify and gather everything that is making claims on your attention or is likely to affect the larger areas of responsibility in your life – everything that’s quietly burning cycles, stealing focus, and whittling away at your attention – so that you can then decide what (if anything) must be done about each of those things. David says “put your attention on what has your attention.”

If it’s not being directly managed in a trusted external system, then it’s resident somewhere in your psyche and that is a bad thing. The point is you need to make sure that everything you need is collected somewhere other than in your head. So, just as you learned Collection as the first step in implementing GTD (and to subsequently maintain your system), it’s precisely the place to start when you’re trying to properly get back into it.

By doing a mind-sweep you’ll discover your head is flooded with stuff that you aren’t or haven’t been doing anything about. Not coincidentally, this is almost always stuff that represents some kind of incompletion, functional fuzziness, or procrastination on your part.

The Mind-Sweep

If you are just starting GTD (as opposed to falling off the bandwagon) then you need to do an Initial Capture like I described in a blog post here otherwise, you need to do a mind-sweep to get back on the bandwagon. It is really simple.  Start with a single sheet of printer paper and a pencil, set a timer for 10 minutes, and just begin scraping every conceivable anxiety and “open loop” from the corners of your brain.

Begin with the hopelessly-behind project that’s making you insane right now, then proceed methodically through every flash of thought that makes you cringe, groan, pause, ponder, or exclaim; these are the runaway background processes that are responsible for subconscious stress and you need them out.  Think about it like brainstorming. Don’t judge the items or think about them in any way, just get them on paper. Remember, this is your opportunity to convert the fuel for subconscious stress into items that can later be made actionable (or deferred or delegated or killed etc). But you can’t do anything about it until it’s been captured and evaluated in your trusted system.

For the sweep to really do its best work, you must call upon extraordinary willpower to stay in collection mode. Remember the day you finally “got” how GTD worked by firewalling your planning time (Weekly Review) from your doing (Processing) time? Same idea here. No straying or switching back and forth between the two. Remember, your brain is smarter than you, and it can’t be tricked into thinking that things are taken care of when they actually aren’t. I would even suggest eliminating use of the two-minute rule during your mid-sweep.

Now that your 10 minutes is up, look at the list and process it.  Most of the items on it will be projects of some sort. Get them into your trusted system and you will immediately feel the joy of getting them out of your head – guaranteed.

Filed under Capture

Using Evernote as the foundation of your GTD system

October 30, 2011 3 Comments

EvernoteI use Evernote as the basis of my GTD system and it seems like many others are doing the same.  It is interesting to see how people use it is different ways.  The most obvious is the use of Tags or Notebooks as the primary way to implement their system.  Here is a great example of a tag-based system that leverages Evernote’s Saved Searches feature.

My system is notebook-based and I have separate Evernote Notebooks for each of the analogous folders in my system.  I initially, started with a Tag-based system but abandoned it in the name of simplicity.  I view this as a “less is more” type of thing and have optimized my system for data capture and processing.

Initially, I started out using tags and got carried away with them to the point where they were distracting me. It took too long for me to figure out which tag or tags to assign to a note. This is similar to having an elaborate system of folders in email and filing them in the appropriate folder.

For email I only have one folder called “Archive.” My inbox represents unprocessed emails and then as I process them I 1) delete them, 2) use the 2-minute rule, 3) send them to Evernote. Then if I think I may want the original email for some reason like CYA or to reply to the original or whatever I put it in my Archive folder. Then I use the email program’s search capability to find things. All actionable items are sitting in my “- Unprocessed” folder in Evernote waiting to be processed.

I used to try to assign tags at that time and it really bogged me down. Similarly to capturing ideas or “stuff” on the go. Now I just click on FastEver type the stuff in and click on save and it end up in my “- Unprocessed” notebook. No tagging, no thinking, just the minimal effort to capture the “stuff” into my trusted system.  Then, when I am processing I clarify the item to define what done looks like and just switch the notebook from “- Unprocessed” to the appropriate notebook.  That is as simple as I can make my system.

I do have a few tags and saved searches that I use for special situations but have really tried to minimize their use. I suppose each of us needs to use trial and error to see what works best for how we work and implement GTD.

Check out Evernote’s Blog on GTD for a great discussion of how people use Evernote to implement GTD.

Filed under Capture, Processing, Tools, Trusted System

Getting started – the “Initial Capture”

August 14, 2011

Now that you have set up your trusted system and have your capture devices, the first thing you must do to get started with GTD is to capture all your “stuff.”  Stuff is literally anything and everything that you need to do something about.  It may not be something you are going to do soon.  You may not even be sure if it something you actually will commit to doing now but you might want to do it at a future time. If so, you must capture it.  Capturing all your stuff is extremely important because once you do you will feel a great sense of relief once you get it out of your head and into your trusted system.

If you are just getting started with GTD, you will have to do a onetime initial capture of all your stuff.  After this initial capture you will only need to capture the new stuff that has come into your life since the initial capture.  Please resist the temptation to get right to it and skip this initial capture.

For your initial capture I recommend taking your smartphone and literally walk around your home and office to capture everything.  Say you start in your garage and you see something that needs to be dealt with like organize garden tools or inventory your tool chest or wash the car.  You need to capture all of these things. Don’t worry about making judgments about the stuff or what list it needs to go on.  Your goal is to just capture it at this point.  You will process it into the appropriate category and decide exactly what to do about the stuff later.

Walk around your home from room to room, front yard to back yard and capture everything that has your attention.  Then go to your office and capture everything there.  Go to each physical place you spend time and capture everything.  There are three easy ways to do this with Evernote and your smartphone.

  1. Select Snapshot and take a picture of the stuff
  2. Select Voice and record a voice note about the stuff
  3. Select the Untitled Note field and type in the description of the stuff

For an even simpler way to capture into Evernote using an iPhone, try FastEver and FastEver Snap.  These apps are designed to capture text and photos into Evernote with the minimal amount of clicks.  I highly recommend spending the $1.99 for each of these applications.

I cannot emphasize how important it is to resist the urge to make judgments about your stuff during this initial capture.  All you are trying to do is to capture everything into your trusted system.  You will process your stuff later.  This initial capture will not take as long as you think it will and the payoff is huge so get started.  You will be amazed the sense of relief you will experience just by capturing everything.

The “initial capture” is a critical part of a successful GTD practice

Filed under Capture, Tools, Trusted System

You must have your “Capture Device” with you at all times

August 7, 2011

It is critical that you equip yourself with tools that support you whether you are; at home, the office, the gym, the car or on-the-go.  We all spend at least some part of our work day “out and about” and you need a way to keep your GTD lists and related information with you so that you can work from your lists, and manage your work no matter where you are.  This is a critical point.  You need to be able to capture “stuff” wherever you are so it is important to make it easy to capture your “stuff” at the moment it comes to you.  This can be a pad of paper, index cards or just about anything as long as you have it with you at all times.

I used to use Outlook Tasks to capture my “stuff” but now I have found Evernote to be the perfect place to capture and process my “stuff” because it is available on all the devices I use (iPhone, iPad, Mac and PC) and it automatically syncs to all my devices.

Since we all carry our mobile phones with us at all times, your phone is the logical capture device when you pair it with Evernote.  Whenever you have an idea or make a commitment, it’s easy to capture it in Evernote on your phone.  If you reduce the friction you experience when capturing ideas, actions items and commitments, you’ll naturally capture more of them.

I use my iPhone as my capture device

Filed under Capture, Tools, Trusted System

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