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Did you know you can link contacts to your eProductivity projects and actions? If not, this tip is for you.
You might use this feature to keep track of which key people relate to the project you're working on. Or maybe you have an important call this afternoon and you need easy access to the relevant contact information.
Whatever your need may be, here's how to setup and use contact linking. Enable the Contacts view to appear on the eProductivity Navigator By default, the Contacts view will not appear on your eProductivity Navigator. So first, if you don't have the Contacts view enabled, you'll need to do so from the eProductivity Preferences.
Go to the Preferences (click on the big eProductivity button on the top action bar), and then locate the Navigation > Main Navigator tab. Click the checkbox next to 'Contacts'.
Save and close the Preferences, and then close and re-open eProductivity for the changes to take effect.
Today's a great day for that Weekly Review you've been holding off on.
David Allen calls the Weekly Review, "the secret sauce of GTD". Let him inspire you further...
Friday is a popular choice for the Weeky Review because you can then relax over the weekend without being nagged by thoughts of unfinished work. So if you've been procrastinating on your Weekly Review, what are you waiting for? :)
Spend a couple hours, review your lists, and get clear for the weekend.
Everyone has reference items. It's the non-actionable information you'd like to hang on to. Perhaps it's a business contract that you need to refer to as you complete a current work project. Or maybe it's the manual that came with your car - that might come in handy someday!
So how do you organize and store your reference items?
Well for most people, the answer is they default to a system of semi-organized chaos. Papers get randomly stacked on desks or get shoved into drawers. Emails are left sitting in the inbox. Chaos is the norm.
Despite what some people claim, this is not an effective system.
Two reasons people leave their reference information in a chaotic state:
They've never implemented a more effective system (for whatever reason)
Their system is too hard to maintain
The good news is, there are simple things you can do to improve your handling of digital information.
With that in mind, here's two tips for improving your process of organizing digital reference materials.
1. Organize the Information that is Current to You
If reference information is current to you - meaning you'll probably need it sometime soon - it should be organized into categories for fast access. I find up to 1 year to be a good guideline for "current".
By 'organize information into categories', I mean you take the time on the front end to think through how you might use this reference information, and then assign it to an appropriate category (or multiple categories, as needed). Although this has an initial time cost, it pays itself back quickly because:
You can find it faster
You can easily see what kinds of information you have for a certain topic
For instance, I keep a category of blog post ideas - any ideas that cross my path get filed there. Then, when I sit down to write a post, I look at my list of ideas to rapidly get inspired (hopefully!).
If I don't take the time to categorize my current reference information, I tend to dump it in the "General Reference" category and it becomes pretty meaningless.
But for those items that truly fall into "well, someday I might need this"...
2. Create a 'Catch-All' Location(s)
You probably frequently run across information that is interesting, but you have no idea how you might use it in the future. Put this information into some kind of a 'Catch-All' or General Reference location and don't feel like you need to organize the information further.
This is where digital information really shines. If you have full-text search, you can find just about anything you need in the General Reference category with minimal effort. And because hard drive space is so cheap, you can store lots of files and easily purchase more space as needed.
For me, an email archive can function as a Catch-All category - I just pour email into there without attempting to categorize it. It's somewhat filtered - I only archive email that I think might have future value, however small - but beyond that, it's just a mass of unsorted email. To find something, I can use the powerful search features built into Lotus Notes, Gmail, and other email systems.
Just remember, if you need to access specific info in the Catch-All location(s) on a regular basis, it's probably in the wrong place. Put it in a distinct category.
So what are tips you have for organizing your digital reference items?
Reference items are non-actionable pieces of information that you want to hang on to. Everyone has plenty of reference items!
In my experience, digital reference items tend to come in three different forms: emails, webpage URLs, and documents (e.g. PDFs, Word documents).
For storing emails, email folders are a logical choice. For webpage URLs, many people favor web-based tools like Delicious. For documents, the My Documents folder or a network drive are common destinations, with Dropbox being a popular web-based alternative.
But I find that consolidating my reference items into a single tool works best for most of my items. (The exceptions are things like my music and picture files, which are fine in their current My Music and My Pictures folders). Too many storage locations leads to items becoming "out of sight, out of mind" and the reference items lose their value.
Instead, I prefer a single "digital filing cabinet" that I can put everything in and see it all in one place. Here's some of my criteria for picking a digital filing cabinet:
Stores any kind of file or media
New entries are easily created
Entries can be assigned to multiple categories
Allows an unlimited number of categories
Provides full-text search for finding items quickly
Accessible across different computers and mobile devices
Integrates with email
For these reasons, I'm not bashful in saying I favor the eProductivity Reference Database (available as a free download). It fits my criteria well and most importantly, it integrates well with my Lotus Notes email system. This is critical because I find most of my reference information comes via email, and I can simply drag-and-drop the email into my Reference Database to create a new entry - very slick!
The bottom-line is, I have a place that I store everything in, so stuff isn't scattered across my computer.
Another popular reference system I hear mentioned is Evernote, although I've never personally used it.
Do you have other reference tools that you use? Any tips on choosing a reference tool? Please share them in the comments!
We just kicked off a Summer Savings promotion that includes great deals on various eProductivity licenses. If you don't yet own eProductivity, make sure to take a look.
eProductivity can help you save enough time so that relaxing on the beach in one those chairs, sipping on a cool drink, could actually happen for you this summer. :-)
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Without further ado...
Key GTD Terms and Definitions -
This week we're taking a brief intermission from our series on the eProductivity Today View (Part 1 | Part 2).
Instead, we'd like to present a concise list of key GTD terms that appear inside eProductivity. David Allen's Getting Things Done® (GTD®) methodology is the foundation on which eProductivity is built. GTD is used everyday by millions of men and women around the world and empowers them to be more productive.
Having a strong grasp on the following GTD terms and concepts will assist you in using eProductivity to your greatest advantage.
Action: a single, physical, visible step to get something done. (e.g. call Fred/draft proposal/wash dog)
Project: Any outcome that requires more than one action step to complete
Sidebar: A key GTD best practice is to have clearly defined options when you are choosing what to do. With eProductivity, we support this by giving you the ability to distinguish between “Next Actions” (your next, physical, visible action steps that are project related or not) and “Actions” (for capturing project related future, sequential, or dependent actions that would follow the Next Actions.)
Context: The locations that work can be done in. Can be geographical (e.g. At Office) or it can be resource-based (e.g. At Phone)
Waiting For: Commitments you are tracking that are dependent on someone or something else
Tickler: A system for tracking date-specific actions in the future
Someday/Maybe: Items that you might want to do in the future, but have no current commitment to complete
Reference: Items that do not require your action, but have value as information to hold on to
Weekly Review: A weekly walk through of your commitments so that everything stays clear and current, freeing you to be creative
The GTD Workflow Diagram
The Workflow Diagram is another building block to working productively. It's worth studying closely:
The GTD Workflow diagram is available as a free download from the David Allen Company Store.
As you may know by now from my previous blog posts, I've been trying out David Allen's GTD methodology, and have also taken a keen interest in eProductivity, created by Eric Mack.
Lucky girl that I am, I got to take a much needed vacation with my family in Mexico for almost 2 weeks. In the past when I took any sizable chunks of time off, It was always with the dread knowledge that I would come back to hundreds of emails to wade through, many of which require me to do something, and many of which would fall through the cracks until somebody reminded me that I missed something. Not what you want to face when you're coming down from a sun-soaked, fun filled, stress-free couple of weeks with the family, right?
So it was with a little bit of pessimism that I started my day on Tuesday -- my first day back at work. I felt myself kind of wince a little bit as I launched Lotus Notes and synchronized my local replica mailbox. I had visions of a slot machine in Vegas with prize going up up up, finally stopping at the number displayed in my inbox, but without the euphoria. Let's just say that had my number of unread emails equaled a Vegas jackpot, I might consider taking another (shorter) vacation ;).
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