Now that I have actually read GTD (twice) and reviewed it, I am finally ready to explain my own implementation of its process. This topic has been expounded upon at great lengths by various bloggers, so even if my voice isn't lost in the choir—or perhaps "din"—I may not end up saying saying anything new; the chief reason however, is to firm up and think about my own process of applying Getting Things done.

I am surprisingly low-tech in my implementation, my computers and PDA are secondary to my GTD process. I don't have 43 folders, and I don't own, or even want, a label maker. This is probably like heresy in some circles, but I have done the folder thing before, and it just didn't work. I also don't generate much in the way of paper reference. Some people seem to generate 6 folders-full in a work week. That is about as much as I generate over the course of a few years.

My central station of stuff collection and lists are 2 bound notebooks: one for home, and one for work. I may end up getting a smaller pocket style notebook for when I am in transit as well, but for now, my PDA suffices (sometimes I feel that my PDA is a bit of a wrench in my freshly created GTD machine). I split these notebooks into 3 major sections: daily tasks, projects, and project notes.

I date each section of daily tasks so that I can have a peek at what I did when, which is especially important when I need to look at what day I did something for client work, or whatever. I write each task down, and a little check box beside it, when it is complete I check it off. If I have decided to not do it, I X it out. When I delegate the task to someone else, I draw a left-ward arrow across the checkbox. Of course, some tasks don't get finished on that day, so I just carry it forward to the next day, and then I fill in the bottom left corner (kind of like filling in a spare on your bowling sheet). I only do this when I have finished writing in the task for the next day, lest I get interrupted in mid-carry-over and suddenly a task goes by the wayside. Horray for atomic commits! Finally, this system is great, because I can look back over a week, or a month, and see just how much I have accomplished. It feels good having this kind of permanent tactile record. I paper clip old daily pages together, so with just a flip of the notebook, I can access the tasks for the day.

The projects section is full of lists-with-checkboxes, that are basically a list of all the projects I am involved in. In the GTD vernacular, they are a combination of the 20,000 ft. view, the 10,000 ft. view and the projects view. At work, this is a list for each project, but for home, I maintain separate lists for my PHP projects, website projects, commitments to friends and family, music, and all the other insane shit I am involved in. Frequently the project lists will have sub-projects such as a list for my Meditation project, or a list for the S9y plugins I am working on. The list also serves as a someday-maybe list.

Finally, the project notes are more free-form: mind maps, outlines, scrawled notes, images and all project support materials all go in there. I try to reserve at least one page for each set of notes.

Frequently I will need to transfer things between work and home, or write down notes and ideas, or even process incoming stuff as it occurs to me. I do all of this on my PDA, to be transfered to either my Work Book or Home Book as the situation demands. It also serves as my "tickler file" for any of my time sensitive personal or contractual obligations. At work, Outlook performs the same tickley function.

I have tried a few different methods that just don't work at all for me. The first of which was a pure PDA solution. You'd think that it would; they're small, portable, and fun to play with. The problem however, is that graffiti as an input mechanism just sucks; it is too slow for me to generate the volume of text that a daily task list entails. If the lag between thinking thoughts and writing them down is too great, I am liable to forget a few tasks before I can get them down. That is no good.

I've also tried a wiki implementation—also no good. The latency between updates was too large (more a fault of my server/connection then the wiki itself I am sure) and it lacked portability or flexibility. Sure a wiki is available everywhere, that is, assuming you have a computer. You can't really add drawings or mindmaps effectively in a wiki either. Outlook wasn't even in the running. It isn't that portable unless you are a Microsoft junkie, and while it has a lot of beef, it all seems to be in the wrong places.

So why does my method work for me? Well first of all I am a real hard core stationary geek. I love stationary. So an excuse to have 2 notebooks (as well as a journal and sketchbook) is a-ok with me. Raw paper and pen is easy to work with, adding tasks and notes are easy. Everything is immediate and available. It is also easy to get very free form, sometimes a task can be a quick sketch—a picture is worth a thousand words. The stacking and permanence of the tasks are also a visual reminder of just how much I am getting accomplished which feels great, and being a stationary geek, I love filling notebooks up with useful stuff.

As I work with the system, I see some of the problem areas that need fixing. The more savvy amongst you will notice that I completely skip the whole concept of the context based lists. I haven't yet had the workload at work to warrant that kind of list, but that day is fast approaching. At home it is another story entirely . Instead of doing a weekly review, and making context lists, I do a daily review instead. I prefer this method for now, as I have a few scant hours in which I can get the stuff I need done at home, so there isn't much in the way of context shifts happening. I have enough time to get a few important things done, a few smaller things done, and then its bedtime.

Also, in my notebook, I have intermixed my someday-maybe projects with my current projects. This is mostly just how I work, jumping from project to project on a series of whims, based on what my current interests are. This intermixing may make some of the more organized of you cringe, but so far it seems to be working for me, allowing me to get a lot of my smaller "maybe at another day" tasks completed, or that much closer to completion.

Keeping track of my time sensitive tasks is a hard one. Mostly I just need to get more into the habit of using my PDA and Outlook calendar. Really it is just a case of paying attention to them.

Finally, one final nitpick I have is that i haven't gotten into the habit of dating my notes. This isn't fatal, but it could be potentially useful.

In the future I am going to start playing with some more, and better, contextualizing. Contexts like @home or @work are just far to wide and far-reaching for my needs. I will quite likely drill down to things like inCode, inPhotoshop, etc. Most of my context shifts happen on the computer, rather then in the world around it. Instead of keeping separate context lists, I will probably maintain the daily lists, as it gives me a set of goals to reach, and just use "icons" instead.

I hope this little foray into how I get things done inspires you, or at the very least interests you. Now, do any of you other stationary geeks wanna hit up an office depot? Lets go!