So, what did you do on the weekend?

I have a confession to make. I went to the Rugby League International between Australia and New Zealand at the Dome. Sacrilege, I know... but I did spend the first half with my walkman on listening to the Melbourne v Sydney soccer match. As a Victorian, rugby is not my greatest love, although I have found myself appreciating the Union World Cup when it was on a few years back. Some of the rules are a bit strange, but as a cricket and AFL fan, I know that this is nothing to write home about. The crowd puzzled me. For most of the match, it felt like we were at a cricket Test - very subdued. The only excitement came when someone looked like they might get somewhere. Considering this was supposed to be an international with a lot of passion in it, it was pretty civilised. I would reckon that you average AFL home and away game would inspire far more crowd activity.

One other interesting thing (at least for sport loving Melbournians) is that the seat-moving-in feature of the Telstra Dome was in action. I heard about it at the time it was built, but had never seen it used. It looks like it reduces the seating capacity so that could be why they don't do it more often. But it looked cool!

The final point is that we only went because we had free Medallion club tickets, including car parking. I wouldn't have paid for what I saw.

Podding

A comment reminded me of something that I wished to mention. This may surprise some people, but I am the proud owner of a black, 80GB, video iPod. And a pleased one at that - the video quality and storage capacity are awesome. Now, Apple fans will probably be horrified to hear that not only did I not take photos of the packaging and various stages of its opening, but I actually threw the stuff out once I had liberated the iPod! In fact, I had ripped and torn the packaging during the act of opening it - a crime in some circles.

The upshot of it is that I have discovered the 43 folders podcasts and despite the fact that it looked about as interesting as listening to the sound of grass growing, it is actually quite good. I found myself relating quite quickly to their discussions. On a more entertaining front, I discovered Channel Frederator which is an animated/cartoon podcast and has some really good stuff.

First test

I have now come into some work that will keep me busy for the next month or two, and this will be a good test of my GTD skills. Initially I found I slipped on inbox processing, and have remedied this by trying to have a physical inbox on my desk (previously I just processed things as they came in). However, I am enjoying applying the 'what is this' process whenever something is processed, rather than just delaying that decision. Also, I think I am probably not writing down as many things on my lists as I should be.

Open your mind

It has been one full week since I started using the GTD processes. Practically, this means carrying my action lists and my tickler file to and from work. A few people have mentioned hi-tech options but the current set up suits me fine. Initial thoughts are that I really notice the mental freedom of not having to keep my to-dos in my head. Its quite relaxing to ride the bus in the morning and not have try to dig up all the things I needed to address, especially on a Monday! When I turned on my computer and looked in my email system's @ACTION folder, I saw that I had a code review to complete. I had no trace of that task in my active memory - and that felt good, meaning I hadn't spent any time over the weekend thinking about it. Yet at the same time, I was more likely to complete it.

While the title of the book makes it sound like the system helps you to do things, the real benefit is that it helps you to do the right things. Tasks that had been floating around for months were finally nailed down and completed. I also like the mental 'inbox' process: something comes in, say a phone message, and you force yourself to work out what the next step is - and that's what you write down. In busier times, I sure I will have a staged inbox cycle where I will process things in a batch, but now I can do most as they come in.

I do Yahoo?

I have noticed recently that Yahoo have changed their authentication system. It changed before they introduced their flashy new Web 2.0 site, too. Previously, the login was tracked via a cookie with a 24-hour timeout, which meant one login a day at most even if you rebooted. The new system is browser session based so close your browser and it forgets your login session and even your id. I used to be a fan of the old way as it was very simple. It would be interesting to find out why they did it. Perhaps the new site needed it to be this way. The other change is that the default login screen which appears when you go to "mail.yahoo.com.au" is HTTPS by default. This suggests maybe a general tightening of their security policy.

As an aside, the new site is nifty and AJAX-ey but without breaking any new ground. Keyboard shortcuts are nice, although I haven't completely gotten used to them - and have the site doing funny things as a result. One funny note: if you are a poor sucker who still uses Internet Explorer instead of a real browser, the Javascript activity results in a whole barrage of those annoying 'click' sounds anytime you do anything!

Initial experiences with GTD

It was been almost a week since I got started reorganising my personal planning system and its worth taking a checkpoint of what I have found so far. As my previous posting indicated, I am implementing the processes outline in the book Getting Things Done. Here's a summary of what I have done to date.

Day one: the first step was to gather my initial Inbox of loose ideas. This turned up some interesting things. Here is a sample of things that went in: a pair of brown trousers whose pocket needs fixing, a cat figure that my mother wants me to repair, an iPod brochure and a note that said "Study: Cupboard" on it. It definitely felt good to collect stuff into one spot. Luckily, my work situation at the moment meant that I could process that stuff from home too.

Day two: this was when the fun began. I had to work out what each of the Inbox items meant. Was there a pending action on that item or was it just reference material that needed to be filed? Also, as a result of going through this process I had to think about the contexts that those tasks needed to be done in and how I was going to remember them when that context came about. This is critical for me as I am a big one for having things that need to be done during office hours and completely forgetting about them once I get to work. One of the most well known parts of GTD is the Next Action lists with names like "@Home" or "@Computer." As a result I now have a set of lists for all the contexts I could identify, all stored in my very own Hipster PDA. My lists are: Projects, Waiting For, Agendas, @Shops/Errands, @Computer, @Work, @Home, Calls & Emails and Someday/Maybe.

Day three: I guess this is when I started using these tools in earnest. One of the biggest themes that came out of my Inbox processing was that I had a very messy storage system. So, a lot of my next actions were tidy this or clean that and this is what I spent most of my time looking at. Boy, did I throw out and delete a lot of rubbish - and there's still more to come. In my two email systems, I have no inbox items, with every email being processed in some way. My personal file storage is now unified so that I can add a file to my laptop and sync it to my USB key. That study cupboard is still on the todo list.

Next steps: I have read to the ninth chapter so far where the author is talking about how to prioritise next actions. At this point I am happy to just see how the general process goes and fine tune it a bit. My current level of busy-ness is such that I can probably delay thinking about the priority mechanisms for now. I'll read ahead anyway, just to soak it in, but I suspect I'll need to revisit it at a later date. Beyond that there are topics about deciding how formal to manage the projects and then three chapters on the philosophies behind the processes. I think I'll do alright to work on the mechanics of the system for now.

All in all, I feel good at the moment, knowing that all my actions are tracked in a simple, easy to access format. This does not mean that I am more likely to do them, but it does mean I spend less time trying to remember what I need to be doing.