Getting things done!

David Allen wrote a book called, "Getting Things Done." I read it some time back and haphazardly implemented some of the techniques and tried creating my own; i.e. voice notes.

For the next couple days I'm going to be at the GTD Summit in San Francisco getting schooled on how to refine the techniques he teaches in his book. I'll do my best to pass on any important information I find. The big ones I've found helpful thus far are:

1. Use one to two tools to capture inputs (I use outlook calendar and tasks). If you use too many capture tools (i.e. notes, stickies, binder, notebook, etc) you are bound to lose stuff, forget stuff or throw stuff away.

2. I start my day printing out my Outlook calendar page with the tasks on the right hand side. I take this with me to any and ALL meetings I have throughout the day. It is the ONLY piece of paper I have with me during the work day. I make any notes or calls to action in the notes field on the lower right hand of the page or the back of the page if it's a busy day and, at the end of each work day, I transfer this info into Outlook calendar as meetings, or into the TASKS as action items or, best of all, via email to delegate it to someone else (with a due date of course - you can't get off that easy :)

3. Then, when I'm out at lunch/dinner/driving in my car, etc. I use the iPhone app called "note2self" where I record voice notes. This is great as it helps me "free my mind" so I can be present with whatever I am doing. I transfer these in the same fashion as above at the end of each day.

All these things may sound silly, but when you have to juggle about 100 things at one time it is critical to have a system for being efficient.

These things have REALLY helped me out a lot so I'm pumped to see what I’ll be learning over the next couple of days at the GTD Summit. WOOT!!!

PS. If you have any techniques for being efficient please pass them on. I'm always looking to improve this area of my life.