ForumsGetting Things Done®Leveraging Technology for GTD
Leveraging Technology for GTD
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johnprince2112 |
I am wrapping up a book (I have a publisher who is taking over once I completed the final draft) and the book deals with GTD (or variant thereof type processes) and how to augment technology Now, I'm not a GTD consultant or anything like that, in fact I was asked to write this book. My quick background, i've worked in app dev going on 20+ years now (leading orgs from architecture to product mgmt). My son is a pro boxer, he's fought on NBC, Showtime, Spike, blah blah and the bottom line is that we have a million balls in the air. Too often I've been asked "how do you do it?" (manage so many tasks) that eventually it was requested I write my 'story', specific to how I control my scene. Additionally, 100% of the book's profit is being donated to St Jude's hospital, so when published I will send the ISBN so you can all purchase it. ;-)
Intent; The book details how, IMO, technology has finally surpassed processes in that for the first time in my lifetime, technology is DRIVING processes. In other words, many folks are realizing the 'cool things' that can be accomplished with technology by either augmenting it or adopting it out right. Context: To that end, the book emphasizes that my process is not your process. In other words, a huge 'domain' within my process is Continuous Improvement. At the end of the day, I have an automated 'productivity scorecard' that provides trending data based on changes made to process, LOE, etc. It sounds complex, but the POF are very few and it's streamlined and proven. In fact, one "problem" I realized years ago, was the time spent on GTD technology. I was able to matrix tasks left undone due to my "free time" I spent tinkering with GTD apps, consuming APIs and all that fun stuff. Thus I today I ensure I spend no more than 30-45 minutes per day on GTD activities and this includes email triage (which is a chapter in itself) Where my process might differ from most is the following (remember, I am not pushing my process on anyone, simply sharing what I do). 1. I view the operating system (IOS in this case) as a SOA framework. For non-techies, this is a service-based approach where in app dev everything is modularized around business and technical domains/ 2. In this world, apps are my services, and areas of life are my domains. 3. Where I used to (as most everyone does) attempt to fit my processes in to a single app, I instead use the most appropriate app for the most appropriate domain. Examples: For years the search was on for an all-in-one app that supports work tasks, financial tasks, hobby-specific tasks, family-related tasks, etc. Innovation was geared toward lots of generic, configuration elements, sacrificing industry-specific innovation. Using my model, you might find that App A is the best app for your work tasks and App B is the best for personal/hobbies, and App C is best for family-specific tasks, etc.. Thus you can have a workflow that allows you to click a button that will launch the appropriate app. or straight-up provide data to be written in the applicable apps database. This is one reason you see "integrations" becoming en vogue. I mentioned I was old skool....I'm talking about as in I was a beta parnter for XML. How about that, eh? ;-) Anyway, I break-down how I've intertwined ~ 15-20 apps that are used on any given day. Instead of trying to 'fit' something in to an app, I look at the IOS as an app, and "apps" as features. Curious if anyone has thoughts, comments, etc before I finalize the book Toodledo is mentioned OFTEN in this book (along with 30-40 other apps). All good stuff for Toodledo, in fact I remember back in the day Jake and his team were putting it down staying 18+ months ahead of everyone else. Innovation is limited to "here's how to use this API", where in my day, sonny boy, we HAD to be truly innovative to stay alfoat because it was on and crackin' and there were 200 thirsty-a$$ companies on our tail at all time. My book is not an excercise in good ol' day syndrome, in fact only a chapter is dedicated to how we did it. All in all I'd say that my generation exceled at innovation while today's youngsters are incredibly talented when it comes to workflow Finally, we have customer service. In the end, this is a commodity. IQTell as an example. They have lost their edge, their founder brushes off all enhancement requests with a "that's a poor way to handle it"and frankly has been combative over and over with folks asking for simple requests. It's a shame as no one can truly tell another person what is right and/or wrong with respect to task management. Instead, you can provide explicit examples of how you handle that scenario, in hopes of priming the customer to further leverage your tool. Finally, the book's name has not been solidified yet. I'll send the final round of 4-6 titles out for feedback,but again the book is simply, my process, and how it's grown (and will continue to) using technology. from years past, current, and what I believe the future will hold. Thanks for your time! This message was edited Sep 04, 2016. |
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Highsteppin |
John
I look forward to reading your book. Please keep us posted and if you have any advanced copies I would be interested. Good luck!! |
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Ummagumma |
One thing that I completely agree with you on is not spending the time on massaging your GTD flow. I'd say KISS - don't make things any more complex than required to get them done. (20+ years in manufacturing project management).
" I look at the IOS as an app" - agree, and if I was only using iOS, I'd have the same "use the best tool for the task" approach, with Spotlight search being used to find results from different tools. The problem for most of us is, we're forced to use different systems. I have to use - daily - a Windows laptop, a Windows desktop (locked down like Ft Knox so anything I use should be either part of standard Office or web-based); an Android phone (not fan of Android but it's company issued and I have no choice in it) and an iPad. Plus, home computers, and every now and then a walkup station at some remote place. So any GTD'ing solution I use absolutely must be cross-platform and available from anywhere. For me, having a myriad apps simply won't work as I will be losing the main thing tying them together - the global search tool. Another thing is "not spending more than 35-40 min a day doing GTD and emails". This is very specific to your particular circumstances. I have to deal with a constant stream of action items (in form of calls, emails, you name it). I have to process them as they come in, and re-arrange the priority of my task list continuosly (if there's a burning issue that had just arisen and it must be resolved in 2 days, something else has to give). It really depends on what kind of projects you're working on. Some development projects have huge workload but also a long timeline. Some manufacturing equipment installation projects have a 1 - 2 weeks total timeline from start to complete system readiness (with a year of preparations), a few hard deadlines that simply can't be missed, and any of the myriad issues that come up closer to the deadline must be dealt with yesterday. The point I am trying to make is that for many people, spending time in the morning to plan the rest of your day is a luxury they can't afford - you have to continuously juggle your schedule, your emails and calls, your task list, and get things done at the same time. So the GTD system you use must be as simple as possible, as efficient as possible, as streamlined as possible, and with checks and balances to make sure things don't get forgotten or fall through the cracks. Toodledo is excellent in the features it provides, but I am actually getting away from it and going to Onenote / Outlook / Outlook.com / iOS Reminders based system. Just trying to work out how to replace task Start time feature (a Reminders deficiency), and already figured how to replace Star feature using Priorities and custom filters. This would allow me to spend less time copying stuff from Onenote and Outlook to my task list. Looking forward to reading your book ! This message was edited Sep 28, 2016. |
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johnprince2112 |
Thanks, guys. As noted I am not expert...not even sure what an 'expert' at this is. I can only tell you my experience with personal productivity management, which spans 28 years now. The last thing I will do is be one of these guys (I see we have some folks like that on here) who tell you their way way is the way. Ignore them as I've found over the years these guys simply don't grow and instead focus their energy on trying to find other people's flaws. They will never steer you in the right direction, based on my observations.
Instead I will tell you my way, and explain how and why it works for me, in addition to this, I have a "blog" I'm about to 'release' which I'll share on here. I wanted to get at least 15-20 entries on it before opening it up and am almost there. Yes. it was eye-opening how much time I spent planning vs doing. So I made a commitment then to ensure I monitored this. With that said, it's still extremely important to focus on innovation and building a better mousetrap. Meaning, I would never realized the time I was wasting on planning, had I not implemented metrics/trending involving GTD activities. I just ran some metrics and so I'm able to quantify how much time I spend, here is the break down DAILY Tasks finalization: 7.34 minutes When I enter a task, I limit it to under two seconds. I enter ONLY the information I need ot obtain it later for clean up. The clean up is for granular reporting. The way I see it, when I am entering tasks (walking in the hallways at work. presenting to me team, etc) I have little time. So twice a day I go through and add these additional properties. The amount above is total for the dayand of course is dependent on the number of tasks entered, etc. b>Email triage 8.23 minutes. This includes triaging an average of 218 emails per day Task cleanup 4.05 minutes. As an example, when I tasked is starred (meant for today) it then goes in to a view that is then sliced and diced. I've added some checks and balances where I catch tasks due today but are not part of the cubes. (p.s. Required fields would solve this: hint-hint). Dashboard 6.12 minutes This cubed data is then fed in to a dashboard which is my presentation layer. It's not automated, and I'm building my own now. Automated meaning it requires human intervention, not manual entry. Scorecard 9.41 minutes. This is tricky, but I I feed data from each system I work with to get a feel for how productive I am. Understand the intent here is to quantify what I need to keep doing versus, stop doing, versus modify So 35 minutes (avg) a day is pretty good, considering all that comes with it....with 'confidence' being at the top of that list. This message was edited Oct 09, 2016. |
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therealmikewallace |
How's the book coming along?
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