dabbling with gtd

Getting Things Done: How to Achieve Stress-free Productivity

so after a long time contemplating it and hearing other people rave and reading *about* it online, i finally bought david allen's getting things done and actually read it. the final straw was when, after a conversation with my sister-in-common-law about where we each want to be in 15 years time and about the business she's setting up, and realising that our destinations are pretty much the same, albeit at slightly different angles (in 15 years she wants to be a world-renowned alexander technique teacher who gets invited to teach all over the place; i want to be a world-renowned composer who is invited to festivals all over the place as the drawcard guest composer), she said, "if there's one book i'd recommend, it's getting things done" and i kind of thought "wow". and given how far she's come with her business, even part time, it's obvious to me that she really has been getting things done and she's moving forward towards that goal while i sit in a stagnant pond.

so i trotted up the road to pick up the copy that ealing central library's catalogue said they had. but it appears that the librarians of ealing central have *not* read getting things done or they'd have got up and sorted out the shelves so that the books the computer says they have are on the shelves where it says they ought to be. so i gave up and went to waterstone's who of course had it nice and easily accessible in the right place on the shelf, and a lovely shiny £11.99 which fitted just perfectly into my remaining £12 of gift vouchers which were my leaving present from PwC 2 years ago.

short review: david allen is a genius. it's such a simple approach, but you can see immediately how it can work. within a day of starting to read it, i was following his advice and writing down all the random thoughts i was thinking about things i had to do and my gosh! what a huuuuuge difference it makes. almost immediately the permanent clamour in my head began to die down and there was actual peace in there. wow! and the book is surprisingly easy to read. he writes very well and while there is a certain amount of repetition, i didn't feel it was overdone - generally there was an additional point being made where the reinforcement of a concept introduced earlier in the book was useful to have.

and now i am following his advice and trying to clean things up around here. I've already talked to djeli and we've agreed that i should take the whole of march off work because what with the australia trip, an endless succession of (lovely) houseguests, an unexpected trip to belgium and the skiing trip to france, i have got nothing at all done since i finished work at the start of december, so i have a lovely block of time in which to sort through piles and piles of stuff. i started with the overflowing boxes and bags under my desk and have managed to throw out sooooo much crap! i think there were about 5 overflowing boxes and 3 bags of papery junk under there. now there are 3 partly empty boxes (1 big, 2 little A4 shallow ones), a few files which i need to find proper storage for and an absolutely enormous pile of recycling and shredding. thank heavens tomorrow is garbage day! there's still a long way to go, but for the first time i feel calm about the paper in my life. i know where my bank statements are. i know where my spare passport photos are (i'd forgotten i even had any), i know where all the overdue tax documentation is. it's brilliant!

another priority i've been trying to sort out is gtd software. i'm embarking on a collaboration with a friend in scotland and i want something that will keep together not just the tasks i need to do and the things i need to check she's doing, but which will also store all the reference emails and files we've accumulated so i don't have to rat through my email every time i want to check something, so i've been exploring a bit. i like iGTD but i'd prefer something online, and the need to turn on manual sorting to get my next actions in the right order is a bit tedious. and i can't use the latest version because i don't have leopard, which limits my upgrade options, and it doesn't come for PC, meaning i'd have to use a different system entirely for when i'm working. i like the look of nozbe and have played with it a little bit, but adding tasks feels a bit clunky when compared to remember the milk plus in my current unemployed state, €7 a month is a bit steep just for keeping my to-do lists in order (especially when i consider how often i use flickr and how that just costs me $24.95 a year), but the free account is far too limited to be useful. i like remember the milk - it's been my faithful companion for quite a while now, but for a proper gtd system, it's definitely a workaround situation, especially when it comes to adding new projects. but their keyboard shortcuts make adding new list items an absolute breeze and now that djeli's finally starting to use it just a little bit, i'll still have to use it for that. but i'm enjoying the challenge of finding something.

it's so tempting to just say "right, i'll build my own!" but i know i couldn't get it as slick as some of the ones that are out there, and i could spend weeks just programming it and not getting any of the stuff i actually need to do done, which would kind of defeat the purpose. i guess for now, i'll keep exploring, but stick to remember the milk as my primary list. i might re-read their blog post on setting up rtm for gtd and see if there's anything i can do better...

any suggestions?