What is gtdagenda?

gtdagenda.com is a web-based implementation of David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology.  The site gives you the ability to track, work at and associate tasks with all different levels of goals.

At the top level you can set broad goals (such as Finish my PhD) that guide your choice of projects.  These can be defined with a time frame, a category (such as Academic, Family, Work), and a priority (which GTD purists will recognize as NOT being part of the core GTD methodology but a piece I have long thought was missing).  Goals can be viewed sorted by either priority or category, offering the chance to see if things are out of balance (for example having far more goals in the Work category than the Family category).

One thing I really like about the application is that the top two goals remain at the top of the page as you move through other parts of the application.  This helps in keeping them always in focus.

Within each goal you can define Projects.  These conform to the standard GTD definition of a project, are associated with one of the larger goals, and again have a priority.  Again, these can be sorted by either priority or the goals to which they are related.

One neat feature of the Projects list is that it shows you how many tasks are associated with each project.  Projects with no tasks need to be revisited or have their priorities changed to reflect their lower importance.

Interestingly, notice that my top two projects are related to a goal that is not in my top two goals.  Something for me to review.

Anyway, within each Project there are Tasks. (No picking on my task lists; the details are in the notes, but each is actually just a single sit-down-and-do-it activity I should probably add some action verbs though.)

There are a few neat features to the task list display.

• Starred items are next actions and they always float to the top of your task list.  There is also another view that shows you just the next actions.
• Contexts are immediately visible, as are the project to which the task is associated
• You can mark multiple tasks as done by putting a check in the box and clicking the button for Mark as Done
• You can schedule repeating tasks (such as grading), add notes to yourself, and set a due date if that makes sense for the task.
• Overdue items have bright red highlighting of the date the item was due to increase visibility.
• You can modify many settings (priority, setting as a next action, moving to someday/maybe) from the menu.  This lets you make the change to several tasks at a time without having to edit each one.

So far all these have been in the left pane of the application.  The right pane brings a number of other useful features.

Let’s start at the bottom.

You have a list of your projects.  Clicking on any given project will give you a list of the tasks for that project.  Notice again that the number of tasks is shown clearly next to the project name.

Above that you have a list of your contexts.  Clicking on a given context will allow you to see only the tasks for that context.

On top there is a calendar, and it’s there to show you more than just the date.  You can schedule things like standing appointments (classes taught) on there as well has scheduling tasks for or due a particular date.  When you click on the date, the tasks for that date open up.

An interesting addition is the Checklists.  This is an implementation of the personal development concept called “Don’t Break the Chain” (sometimes attributed to Jerry Seinfeld), wherein you get a check mark for each time you do something that is unscheduled but a habit you are trying to build.  You add each one, set up the days you intend to do them, and check them off as you go.  Given the struggle many of us have with these types of habit-building activities, this is a good way to track them.  Notice also that you can have checklists at different levels – things like “give the dogs their heartworm medication” can go on the Month frame.  When the due day of the week (or month or year) comes up, these items appear on your task list.

There are a few more features that most potential users will find very helpful.  First, there is an email address you can send a task to and have it added to your lists.  There is also an iCal feed so that you can show your tasks on your google calendar or any other ical-compatible calendar program.

There are several settings for your account; do you want tasks and/or calendar items emailed each morning, what view you want opened when you log in, your timezone, etc.

Finally access from your phone has been streamlined on their www.gtdagenda.mobi site.  While not full featured (yet), it offers quick and easy access to your task list from anywhere.

What works well

I am very impressed with the combination of productivity and organizational tools offered here.  The integration of two items I’ve though were long missing from core GTD (priorities and  checklists) works well, and I love that checklist items show up on your tasks for the day in question.

I am particularly impressed with what a great job the tool does of keeping you focused on properly using the system and not getting too buried in the day to day task list.  It is very easy to get focused on a list of next actions and forget the larger goals; these items are in constant view and attached to each project, so that the larger purpose of what you are doing is always there.

Performance has been fine, and I have not stumbled on anything I would call a bug.

Dan (the developer) has been very responsive to questions and/or suggestions for improvements.  He continues to actively improve the application, taking into account the comments of current users and soliciting their opinions.

What could use some improvement

All that having been said, there are some items that need improvement.

• There is no syntax that you can use to enhance emailed tasks the way Remember the Milk allows.  This to me is the biggest current flaw, because while I can email myself a task I have to go back in later and add all the attributes.
• There are no start/end dates for schedules.  I would prefer to be able to put my academic calendar in far in advance, but can’t because the items begin showing up immediately.  This is my number two current biggest flaw.

Other items that should be addressed, but which I don’t consider to be a big deal.

• No file attachments, so if it isn’t a short text you are out of luck.  An oversight, but not one that is critical for my purposes.
• I find the schedules feature very confusing to use.
• Entering lots of tasks is a bit tedious as far as overhead goes.  Supposedly a new feature is on its way to address this.  Bulk upload would be terrific.
• I personally would like a way to mark a task as delegated/waiting for and make it disappear until some future date when I need to check on it.  I can use contexts for delegated/waiting for, but the item will remain on my task list.
• Right now when I “Mark as done” one or more tasks, the tool crosses them off but doesn’t remove them from view, even when my current view is Active only.  I would like them to disappear without having to refresh my screen.
• Two-way ical integration (so that scheduled items from google calendar can be picked up) would be very nice.

Pricing

In a perfect world this tool would be free and open to all.  In the real world, developers of new products often need to charge in order to support development.  Such is the case with gtdagenda.

Anyone can sign up for a free account, but it is limited in the number of goals, projects and context.  If your life revolves around a few large projects this may be enough.

Most people will need at least the Basic level.  At a few dollars per month (less if you autorenew) the cost is relatively low for the completeness of the application.  All payments are through paypal and they offer a 30-day money back guarantee for you to try the full product.

Premium is for those who need a LOT more goals / projects / contexts or checklists.

Recently they have also added 2 different shared accounts for work groups, one with 5 and the other with 15 users.  These offer, in addition to the features of the premium level, your own subdomain, message board and branding.

Overall Assessment

Despite desired improvements, gtdagenda.com is the  best consolidated GTD implementation currently available as a web application.  It implements the methodology in a clean, usable interface and adds the things that many GTD users have long thought were missing from the original specification.  By managing all the cross-referencing between goals, projects and tasks, GTDagenda makes it easy to keep an eye on the big picture while working through your daily activities.

As mentioned above this review was based upon a free premium-level membership.  Were this being paid out of my own pocket, my review would not change but I would choose the basic membership instead.  It is generous enough in terms of projects and goals to meet the needs of my life and nothing I do is secretive enough to require SSL security.  When they add file attachments, my guess is that the Premium pricing will be more attractive for those with lots of (or large) files.

I have reverted to paper note taking for a class I am in this semester (Cognitive Psychology).  For some reason, the act of writing the notes in pen helps them make the jump from short-term to long-term memory. (I blame this on growing up in the pre-digital age and training myself to learn this way.)  I’m doing the same thing at work; despite taking my laptop to every meeting, I am carrying a small Circa binder into which I make notes and add to do items.

The reason this works better is because, short of getting myself a tablet pc, there are things I just can’t do with a keyboard that I do all the time on paper.

• Draw myself pictures to help me remember something
• Draw lines between a current thought and one noted earlier to make it clear how they are related to one another
• Color code my notes (do-able on screen, but takes a bit more time than just trading pens)
• The occasional mind map (again, do-able on screen but requires learning  a new tool)

Having said that, all is not quite where I want it to be.  This method works well for taking down information and getting it into my head, but the to do aspect is not working nearly as well.  My work to do list still lives in email primarily, although I try to write one out every monday, and my home to do list *blush* lives mostly in my head and my gmail.

Therefore I am going to try using GTDAgenda for the next month.  It is a pay service, although the cost is relatively low, but of all the electronic implementations of the GTD methodology this one includes all of the core features plus a few others that seem highly useful to me.  For example, it gives you the ability to create checklists for repetitive tasks such as dealing with the administrative items for each of my classes every weekend. At the end of the month I will be posting a full review of the product along with results of my new approach.

In the meantime, however, I want to make it clear that paper has its place in my system.  Research on memory has shown that making connections between new information and what we know already is critical to memory, and paper provides a more free-form way for me to do that.  Further, the act of writing for me is an input device for my brain, whereas the act of typing is an output device.  That makes taking notes on paper a better option even if I never look at them again.

It was refreshing to hear someone else admit it.  I can’t seem to break that habit either.  I have tried, but found myself with too many places to look for what I needed to do next.

Having said that, I have fine tuned the art of using my inbox as a to do list.  Gmail does some of this for me, but at the day job we are locked into Outlook so I have to do it manually.  Specifically:

• Only one reference to each task in the inbox.  If there are 50 messages, keep just the last one in the inbox.  The rest go to the folder that they will end up in when the effort is complete.  (This is where gmail’s threading is hugely helpful.)
• Keep the inbox down to one screen with no need to scroll.  If it has to go onto a second screen, it is time to do some clean up and catch up.
• It’s ok to leave something in the inbox pending more information to make a decision, but try not to leave anything in there just out of avoidance.  If all the information to make a decision is available, do it.  Same goes for avoiding writing hard responses; pull of the band-aid and get on with your day.
• The 2-minute rule still applies; if you takes less than two minutes, just do it.
• Gmail specific: Use multiple inboxes to sort different types of activities while still having them all visible on a single screen.  For example, I often send myself things to read later when I have some time.  I label those items @READING and archive them.  They then appear in the secondary inbox on my screen so that I don’t lose them, but they also don’t keep me from finding things I need to address sooner.  This could also be done for all mail related to a blog in order to batch process responses, approving comments, and keeping up with administrative tasks.

Inbox Zero is a great system if you using GTD fully and looking at your lists regularly, but that isn’t me.  However there is a place between zero and thousands of messages in the inbox that can be very productive, and that is where I am trying to live.

Franklin Covey now has a Rollabind disk-based binder system!  The paper is high-quality, with a week on two pages style that is appropriate when you have minimal scheduling in your planner.  This lets me put my project tabs at the back and still have things make sense.  (My company is in the process of massive cost cutting, so I will be AMAZED if they don’t take the blackberry back soon.  If so, this will become my calendar so that I can carry a less complicated phone.)  I like the look of this one better than the Levenger offering.

I recently came across a couple of really neat DIYPlanner templates that I am also considering (assuming I can find decent paper to print it on.  One is intended for Grad Students, with a column for reading that is really useful.  This one is probably better for full time students, but is nonetheless interesting.  Another interesting idea is the Work/Life planner pages, which are two pages per day but have the hours of the day arranged in boxes around the outside of todo and notes areas.

Dustin Wax at Stepcase Lifehack is writing a series right now on a new vision of Productivity that is really interesting.  The link is to the first article in the series, but all are worth a read. 

Mark Forster is looking for Beta Testers for a new productivity system.  Since his old one is pretty good, I’m going to give it a try.  If you are interested, go to his site, sign up for the newsletter and when it asks check Beta Tester.  He’s going to start around January 5th.

MakeUseOf has an interesting article on tools for students.  Really interesting to me is a free alternative to TurnItIn that I (as an adjunct) can use.  I can’t believe they forgot Zotero though; that thing just keeps getting better and better.

My boss asked me to take on project management tasks for all of the projects in my department.  That means less directly technical work on DOING the projects, more paperwork, politics and involvement with what everyone else is doing.  I accepted.

I was really torn on this one.  I mean, I am nearly a prototypical INTJ.  On the one hand part of what I like about academic work and my prior work is that I worked primarily on my own, succeeding or failing on my own as well.  I like that.  I like being responsible for myself and getting credit for my accomplishments.  When the description said “they are more comfortable working alone than with other people” it was spot on.

On the other hand, however, “they are prepared to take the lead if nobody else is up to the
task, or they see a major weakness in the current leadership”.  This is precisely what happened.  Our director isn’t good at resource management and as a result the team was getting swamped as no-one paid attention to not just how many resources were needed to get the work done but specifically WHAT resources were need.  He’s been giving out estimates for how long things will take that show no real connection with the work any longer.  In this role those jobs will be mine.

There was some discussion of hiring an outside person for this, but the fact is that the level of knowledge of the team, our skills, the organization, the people, our customers and our methods that the person would have had to gain quickly was too high; a lesson we’ve learned lately with some contract PMs brought in who are driving people nuts.  Instead my technical role will be backfilled.

What does this have to do with my life as a scholar?  Three things.

1. The change in role will force me back to a more rigid application of GTD and other productivity tools.  I will be juggling the management of 5-10 projects at different stages, so organization will be key.  And I don’t think that would be a bad thing for my academic work.
2. I have an opportunity to adjunct teach a class starting this fall on Program Evaluation.  Project management and Program Evaluation have huge areas of crossover that I think will let me do a better job teaching that class.
3. My work will be somewhat more stressful and scattered.  This means I will have to work a bit harder to keep my focus when working on my academic work.

In preparation for these changes I am beginning to reimplement GTD for my academic work.  One of my tasks for this weekend is to put my Tasks for the classes this summer into Remember the Milk so that I can track them and see them within Gmail.  (I’m not convinced that any electronic list manager is better than any other, but RTM has features (such as its integration with Gmail and its blackberry interface) that make it more convenient for me to use.  Now if it just had a bulk excel/text file loader….)

I also just heavily trimmed my google reader subscriptions.  I will trim more over the next couple of weeks.  I got rid of stuff I had a tendency to just mark as read because I couldn’t keep up, things I didn’t really care about, and (to focus for dissertation) a bunch of education feeds unrelated to my specific dissertation topic. 

My other recent change was signing on with a trainer 3 days per week to force me to get my butt back to the gym.  I struggle, because there are so many other things that need to be done, but if I DON’T get there my weight will just keep climbing and that will eventually impact my health.  That needs to be a priority.  I also scheduled it for 5:30pm, forcing me to leave work at a reasonable time on those days.  Since I have things like 7pm conference calls with Indonesia once a week, it should net out just fine.

The last change I need to make to get this all working is one I have stuggled with for some time.  Getting up at a consistant time, 7 days per week, earlier.  Now, for me, earlier means 7am.  I have a REALLY hard time doing it.  But I need to make that change to keep everything going forward.  I guess I’m just going to have to be a b*tch for a few weekends until it becomes an ingrained habit.  Meh.

The nature of my work is changing again, and I find that my GTD system has to change with it.  When I had classes all the time, I had specific time-sensitive assignments to be done.  My academic work is more reading-focused now, with far fewer deadlines that are much further out.  My academic work also requires more concentration – I can’t just look something up but need to spend concentrated time on it.  That requires more mental energy and, by extension, more time and focus.  That means I can’t do it at the office.  Bouncing back and forth no longer works.

Interestingly, I noticed the change because my system stopped working so I stopped using it.  I started posting today about my GTD system falling apart again and realized halfway through that it was a signal; it fell apart because it wasn’t meeting my needs.  When a tool isn’t fulfilling it’s purpose, the instinct is to set it aside and that is exactly what I did.

GTD needs to be viewed as an ever evolving system.  The way you have implemented the system needs to be periodically revisited to ensure that it still meets your needs.  If not, as I am finding now, the implementation may need to change.

GTD collapses also need to be viewed as a signal; something is wrong with the system when you let it fall apart.  Are you putting the wrong things on your lists?  Are you not clearing old items and they are starting to bug you?  Are your next actions not specific enough?  Are your lists not organized in a way that reflects your life and your work?  If you’ve lost your system, there is something going on and until you identify what it is you can’t fix it.

GTD is only useful if it meets your needs.  It is a tool, not a task-master.  Revisit it regularly and give it a periodic tune-up to keep it, and you, running in top form.

In Getting Things Done David Allen suggests doing your weekly review on friday afternoon.  A lot of other people have suggested the same thing (such as the blog post above) and frankly I’ve tried.  But I have concluded that friday afternoon doesn’t work for me.  My energy level is low and I am rarely in a good state to make decisions.  Moreover if something “comes up” I am likely to skip the review in favor of doing whatever it is. 

So, inspired by Cal’s GTD modifications, I am moving my weekly review to saturday mornings.  Why saturday mornings?

• The majority of planning is around my academic work, and for at least the next 6 months the vast majority of that will take place on weekends.
• I’ve slept in and wake up more refreshed and alert
• I’m home, where most of my review needs to take place anyway.
• Because of my full time day job for the next few months I can’t take a full day off every week.  I need both saturday and sunday to work on my academic stuff. 

Whatever time I wake up, that is when I do it.  This timing lets me organize my work for the upcoming weekend, during which I have chunks of time to do things, but also lets me relax on fridays. 

One of the next actions for today is to create myself a checklist for my weekly review.  There are many of them around already, but I am rapidly concluding that each person’s life is different.  So here is mine:

• COLLECT: This should be ongoing during the week but I consider it important to double check first
• Clean out wallet / tote / backpack: put all loose paper into the inbox
• Collect any miscellaneous papers around the house and add to inbox
• Clear desk and put away supplies.  Add note to inbox on anything that needs to be replenished
• Clean out garbage from car
• PROCESS: Get up to date
• Process inbox (the papers just collected)
• Process email inbox if not at zero
• Process voicemail messages that need responses
• File support materials (make labels/folders if necessary)
• REVIEW:
• Review each project
• add any new next actions to the list
• close or archive if complete
• ensure it is still active or if it needs to be moved to someday/maybe
• make sure there is at least one next action on the list
• Review each syllabus;
• add readings and imminent assignments to the list
• If there are any big projects coming up create as their own project and add them to the list
• ensure that all firm dates are on the calendar
• Review google calendar
• make sure anything written in paper copy has been added to the electronic version
• print off copies of the new version
• Review next action list
• move delegated items to waiting for
• delete dead items
• ensure that each item is actionable and not too vague
• if there is a valid due date, note it on the item
• Review someday/maybe list for items to be upgraded (unlikely in the next 6 months)
• Review waiting for’s to ensure that nothing is stagnant
• Send follow-up messages or add calls to the next action list
• PLAN:
• Review list as compared to available time for the weekend and determine what can be completed
• Determine available non-weekend time and identify tasks that can be done then
• Determine menu for the week and update the shopping list

There are a couple of departures from strict GTD in here.

1. I put due dates on my next actions; almost all of them. This helps me prioritize on the fly.
2. I have one next actions list.  Contexts don’t make sense for me and with them I tend to lose things.
3. I have added weekly tasks (like menu planning) to the checklist rather than making it a repeating next action.  That’s when I would do it anyway….

I’ve been struggling with this lately.  Frankly one of my next actions for today is get my inbox to zero.  Here are my struggles.

Waiting fors:

• If I respond to someone and know they will be getting back to me soon and that the conversation is “hot” I have a tendency to leave it in my inbox.  I really don’t need to.  I can archive a gmail conversation and when the next message comes in the whole thread will pop up again.  This is really my old pre-gmail habits wining the battle and I need to stop it. 
• If it’s NOT a hot conversation I need to start entering these things on a “waiting for” list so that I can get them out of email.

Idea: Part of why this is happening is that I’m not checking my waiting for list often enough… Perhaps I need to create a checklist for my reviews that includes checking the waiting for list, since it seems to be something I forget.

Deferred reading:  This is a bad one.  When I am in google reader if I see an article that looks interesting but will take more bandwidth than I have at the moment or which has a ton of links that I want to look at, I tend to email the post to myself so that I can move on with my reading.  Good for reader, bad for email.  Once I get these (which is almost immediately) what do I do with them?

Idea: My overall next actions list is on paper, so perhaps I can make good use of the Remember the Milk gmail add on by using that as the store place for all those things that I get emails about and need to read.  Instead of keeping a reading list on paper it can be the one list I do keep electronically.

Projects but with (soon) upcoming due dates: What I mean here is, for example, the email that I have a conference proposal due soon.  I have the individual next actions on my list and the final due date is on my calendar, but I don’t seem to be reminded often enough about those things.

Idea:  Move my Projects list with the due dates on it to in FRONT of my next actions list to hopefully force me to look at them.  Better yet, move it to FACING the next actions when my planner is open so that I can see clearly what big dates are coming up as I try to determine what action to do next.

Of course, if my weekly review were more consistent and automatic many of these problems wouldn’t happen.  Still, these ideas should help….

I’ve blogged previously about my Graduate Student Planner and my student work day.  As one might expect, these things change each semester and need revisiting.

Planner:
This actually hasn’t changed much, although I printed off new blank forms and reorganized the project pages to reflect just the projects I am ACTIVELY working on in the next 6 months. 

I removed quite a few of my “good idea but no time” projects and put them in folders that I keep by my desk.  If they aren’t in the binder than I won’t feel the stress associated with open items in need of doing something.  Yes, they are still open, but they are captured and in the equivalent of a someday/maybe list rather than an active project list.  That helps.

The one change I made is that I printed out my google calendar all the way through May so that I have the entire semester laid out.  Once the semester is over I will have more breathing space, so my focus is getting through it.

Student Work Day:
Obviously this required a substantial rework.  My updated schedule will look something like this:

WEEEKDAYS
6:30 AM up and shower
7:15 AM in the car driving to downtown
8:00 AM at work, eat lunch at desk
4:00 PM leave work
4:30 PM arrive at either GYM(T/Th/F) or CLASS (M/W)
              Gym: Done and home by 6:30, then make dinner for me and husband
              Class: Done and home by 8:00, eat on the go/in class
8:00 PM at desk; 2 hours of PhD work
10:00 PM stop and relax
11:00 PM bed

WEEKENDS
8:00 AM up
  Most of the day working on PhD work
  Break for exercise (1-2 hours), usually a bike ride from home
  Try not to carry work over after dinner
11:00 PM bed

Here’s an image of an average week:

Now, of course, if I am efficient and effective, I may get everything I NEED to get done completed on the weekends and not have to work so late on weeknights.  (Or at least not EVERY weeknight.)  Part of the rationale of putting off comps until August is that I don’t have to kill myself on all the fill-in reading during the next 6 months.  This is important.  And as I said, I am trimming down my active projects list for the next few months to just the things I will really have time and energy for. 

1. I need to get my GTD system updated and ready to go for the new
year, which will involve a number of steps:

• Decide what to do about my someday/maybe list.  I think I need to split
  it; someday/maybe BEFORE graduation and someday/maybe AFTER
  graduation.  I don’t want to look at the latter on a regular basis
  because frankly it just reminds me how much longer I have to go.  The
  former has very little on it.  I’m open to other alternatives, but
  right now looking at it tends to make me feel bad or distract me.
• Update my google calendars to reflect my plan and put exercise back on the list
• Print my calendars for the next 3 months and put into my binder
• Print off new blank diyplanner forms so that I have a ready supply
• Clean out old projects; this includes both removing ones that are complete or inactive and cleaning up the pages of the ones that are still active so that there isn’t as much random useless crap.  It may involve some rewriting and almost certainly will involve some brainstorming
• Create new projects for things I know that I have coming up
• Rewrite task lists for neatness and organization (there are lots of done items; the one thing I dislike most about a paper system is that I want the done items to disappear on their own.)

2. I need to get my office and desk cleaned up and cleared up

• File everything that needs to be filed
• Make labels for things that need them and file that as well
• Reorganize my remaining stuff so that it is at hand, won’t be forgotten, but isn’t in my face
• Order the books for my class(es)
• Recycle what can be recycled
• List any books that can be sold on Amazon marketplace

3. Make a trip to the Good Will with all the stuff that doesn’t fit and that I don’t think is worth keeping.  It’s already been pulled from the closet; we just need to load it up and take it there.

4. Clean up and put away all the christmas stuff

• Take down and put away decorations
• Put away gifts or decide what to do with them (donate/regift/etc)
• Plant little live christmas tree and rosemary bush somewhere in the back yard

5. Basic cleaning

• Change the sheets
• Clean the bathroom
• Put away as much clutter as possible

6. Clean and sell old laptop (This is harder than it sounds; the internal CD drive is dead and the thing is too old to boot off anything connected by USB.  I’m 5 minutes away from taking a magnet to the hard drive and selling it for parts….)

I’m sure there’s more, but that ought to keep me pretty busy over the next week or so.  If luck holds I can get this all done and have a day to work on the paper we are doing. 

So what do you do for your end of the year clean-up?