How I Get Things Done (my productivity setup)
Sun, Mar 2nd, 2008
Like most of you, I’m busy. I not only have the normal crapload of work stuff to juggle, but also a few books at various stages of completion, my outreach/activism stuff, and an everyday life to live with its own demands. I also get a lot of email, spread across a variety of accounts. Like just about every other geek on the planet, I read and was fascinated by David Allen’s GTD methodologies. I put them into practice, and they mostly worked for me, though on occasion, I’d fall out of the system, get really behind on things, and then pick myself back up and try again. Finally, I’ve hit on a wonderful set of tools that has kept me on track, and I’d like to share. Maybe you’ll find something of use in this…maybe not.
You can’t always get what you want…or can you?
Being a geeky tinkerer, I’ve shaved the yak1 more than I care to admit when it comes to tweaking my task-tracking and email systems. I’ve tried every manner of To-Do app for the Mac and Linux, including plain text files edited with Vim, some weird ruby scripts, some shell scripts, Things, OmniFocus, iGTD, TaskPaper, and more. None of the systems ultimately stuck for me; the biggest problem for most of them was that they were not ubiquitously available, so I failed to use them, and they became systems that I could not put my trust in. Some of the apps don’t sync with other computers, or they do it poorly, which is the kiss of death for me. I work on at least two and sometimes three computers, and I also have ideas about next actions on-the-go that I need to record (did I also mention that I don’t always have paper?). If I couldn’t easily put next actions into my key lists, I held them in my head, which isn’t a very mind-like-water thing to do, and which also defeats the purpose of having lists as Allen recommends. I walked around stressed that I was missing something, with a set of next actions on my computer, and a set on magazine response cards, random scraps, and other papers that failed to work into a coherent system. What I need is a system that is available just about anywhere, that I can add things to quickly and effortlessly, and which is integrated into my workflows. With my iPhone as a portable device, this shouldn’t be too tall of an order.
A significant number of next actions in my life come from email, so a system integrated with my email is key. If my next actions have to be accessible from anywhere, my email should be too. Ideally, I’d like to sit down at any computer and have basically the same email setup, with all of my accounts in a single place. If I flag an email in any of my accounts in my email client as part of a next action, I should also have a way of quickly integrating that email into my trusted system. To round things out, I also want to have access to my calendar everywhere, including on my mobile.
So, to review, this is what I needed:
- Easy access with low barriers to adding items to next action lists
- Ubiquitous presence, with easy access on any computer with a network connection, and accessible on my mobile device
- Easy email integration
- All email accounts in one place
- Easy calendar access
This shouldn’t be a too hard in principle, but for me, it was tough in practice, and for a long time. I hated every email client I used, and jumped around a lot (Mutt, Mail.app, Thunderbird, Entourage: you name it, I tried it and hated it for one reason or another). Frustrated by a lack of integration, I wandered around and played with a bunch of things, without success or joy. (If you correspond with me, I probably even failed to respond to an email of yours during some of these experiments. Sorry. I suck.)
Finally, in one of these storms of experimentation, I stumbled upon my own email and task-management holy grail….
My Holy Grail
Pulling together a few cheap or free services, I was able to create a system that fulfilled all of my requirements and then some. My system relies on a few tools: GMail, Google Calendar, Remember the Milk, and Jott. Throw in GrandCentral for convenient voicemail and control over the phone (which, as some of you may recall, I dislike), and everything falls into place beautifully.
Here’s how I have things setup.
Gmail and Google Calendars
I signed up for Google Apps , and used my own domain name with Gmail. This also gave me access to Google Calendars, a custom start page, and a bunch of other goodies. Gmail is seriously powerful, and is, by far, my favorite email client today (I expected to hate it, but quickly grew to love it). Gmail does just about everything I need: it has tons of space, great filtering, it can handle multiple email addresses and accounts intelligently, and it is available anywhere with a web browser and network connection (and on my iPhone, too). Turn on the keyboard shortcuts, and you can seriously rock out inbox zero in a hurry — seriously, until you try it, you have no idea how much the mouse slows you down. Install a few Firefox plugins (like Better Gmail 2, FireGPG, and this greasemonkey script for HTML sigs) and you have an email client that is on-par feature-wise with most desktop systems, yet superior in many ways. (Here’s a great article on pointing all of your mail at Gmail and making it work well.)
Google calendar, part of Google Apps, syncs nicely with the Mac with the recent BusySync Beta. Anything added to a BusySync’d iCal gets added to Google Calendar, and vice-versa. This works beautifully with the iPhone, too, the device on which I am often adding appointments.
Remember the Milk
I have tried just about every online to-do system, and disliked just about all of them. Most notably, I spent some time with Nozbe and Vitalist, only to leave them. Nozbe? Too green or something. Didn’t stick. Vitalist? Not bad, but I stopped using it for some reason; it didn’t seem natural to me. I was hesitant to try another to-do system, but heard good things about Remember the Milk, so I gave it a shot. This feels like home! RTM has a simple (but not simplistic) interface, a great Quicksilver plugin for entry on the fly on my Macs, an ace iPhone setup, and best yet, a plugin that integrates RTM with Gmail. This cool little plugin for Firefox lets you see and add tasks right in Gmail, and can optionally make starred emails into tasks. You can even hide the task pane when you want to. Finally, you can also integrate RTM and Google Calendar, for omnipresent task love.
Jott
While RTM has a nice iPhone web interface, sometimes, you just can’t find an open wifi connection, or you’re in a hurry, or you’re driving and need to get a task down. To fill this potential hole, I use Jott. Jott works like this: you call Jott’s 1-800 number, dictate your message, and it gets automatically transcribed into your Jott account. From there, you can do all kinds of cool stuff with it, including sending Jotts to other people, sending yourself reminders, and more. One of the best parts of Jott for this whole setup is that you can link Jott with RTM and Google Calendar very easily. If you activate these links in your account, you can call Jott, dictate to-do items, and have them automatically added to your RTM list. You can also add Google Calendar appointments by Jotting. This makes adding to-dos and calendar items extraordinarily simple, and available anywhere you have a cell signal. Thus, the hurdle to getting those next actions in your trusted system is very low indeed, and available anywhere, anytime you have a phone (and I always have my iPhone with me, nerd that I am).
Grand Central
This isn’t as big a piece of the pie for me, but I like GrandCentral, another free service that simplifies the phone and voicemail. When you sign up, you get a number in the area code of your choice. You can then set it up so that when someone calls your GrandCentral number, it rings the other phones you want to be contacted at. For example, for my friends, I have my GC number ring my cell, my home, and my work all at the same time. If I don’t pick up on any of those, GC takes a voicemail for me, and then sends me an email & SMS message to let me know. You can even customize the message greeting by group or caller, and best yet, you can screen calls and listen in to messages as they’re being left, which gives you control over the phone again.
Conclusion
It took a while, but I think I’ve found the perfect setup. Gmail and iPhone for mail; GoogleCalendar and BusySync to sync iCal and my iPhone calendar; Remember the Milk for task managament anywhere; Jott as a tool for getting actions into the trusted system; and Grand Central, for managing my phone and voicemail. Altogether, this system really works for me, and unless it somehow fails massively and collapses in on itself, I think it is here to stay…this time, for real real, not for play play.
- pardon the nonvegan term [↩]
# Comment by Per-Anders Svärd on Mon, Mar 3rd, 2008 at 6:51 am:
Sweet! A GTD-junkie myself, I am still searching for the ultimate setup, and I really appreciate your ideas. My only problem now is how to sync my (non-I)phone with Google Calendar. But on the other hand, perhaps getting an IPhone is the solution for getting GTD to work AND keep my sanity on the subway to work with the Vegan Freak podcast? (Hmm, just the thought of it gets my mind all watery…) Keep up the good work mate!
# Comment by Nick Cernis on Mon, Mar 3rd, 2008 at 7:26 am:
Good approach, Bob — glad it works for you.
I’ve recently gone back to paper — calendar, to-do list and all (email is my only electronic vice!). It’s pretty refreshing, and something that I’ll be writing about in future on PTO.
# Comment by Eric Prescott on Mon, Mar 3rd, 2008 at 2:22 pm:
I’ve suffered through so much of this myself. I was having a fairly effective time implementing GTD through Entourage and Quicksilver, but buying an iPhone kinda jacked that up, since I haven’t been able to get Entourage to properly sync with Apple’s apps. I am slowly in the process of migrating to Apple’s apps instead, but I am already missing the integrated qualities in Entourage, the Notes feature, as well as its Projects feature and superior task management.
Ubiquity is essential to me, too. While I got by on Entourage because of the fact that I work mainly from home (or coffee shops) and can have my laptop and WiFi with me most of the time, I do run around a lot, and unpredictably, so I find myself stuck trying to work from my iPhone, which wasn’t synched properly to Entourage. I’ve resorted to writing my most important tasks (MITs) for the day in a Note, but that is somewhat tedious. I’ve played around with Remember the Milk, but Internet apps always feel “out-of-sight-out-of-mind” to me. Now that the iPhone offers clippings, I can treat internet apps like iPhone apps, so I am starting to learn toward playing with this stuff. In the meantime, if Apple offers more fully-feature synching between all of its app’s features and the iPhone in an upcoming update, then it’s only a matter of me finally upgrading my OS so that I can have all my essential info synched.
The missing link is the Projects feature. If I continue to use GTD, the weekly review from a projects view is really helpful to me for planning tasks and appointments, and nothing slices and dices my info the way Entourage does to work this way. I did come across a little app on the web that I no longer have bookmarked (so I can’t tell you the name), but these internet apps can be cludgy and awkward to work with. And, of course, you need Internet access.
Anyway, I’m rambling. As you can see, I’m still wrestling with how to migrate from a system that was working fairly well for me, to a new system that works for me and my iPhone. So, I’m glad you shared your system. I am going to think about what you are up to and whether I might be able to integrate some of it for myself. I already know that I won’t live in Gmail, though I do use an account. I just live outside the web interface, since I like having a mail client to work offline and organize myself (Unlike many GTD adherents, I prefer filing my mail to labeling it and trying to find it later with an intelligent search. This may change when I upgrade to 10.5.2 from 10.4 and it’s easier to label messages in Mail).
# Comment by Tara Kelly (PassPack) on Mon, Mar 3rd, 2008 at 7:09 pm:
I just discovered Jott recently (I know, I’m slow) through the Webware 100 Awards. It looks absolutely fabulous.
This is a biased suggestions since I’m a PassPack founder — but have you tried adding a password manager to your setup? It helps declutter your mind (no remembering logins) and saves time (no typing them either).
Check passwords off the to-do list
Hope thats useful.
Cheers,
Tara
# Comment by Bob Torres on Mon, Mar 3rd, 2008 at 11:44 pm:
@Pers-Anders: I was hesitant about the iPhone, but man, it is pretty cool. I’ve not looked back…with that said, there are over-the-air sync options for GoogleCalendar. I used to use ScheduleWorld.com to sync up over the air with my blackberry. It was decent. Perhaps it is worth a look.
@Nick: I tried paper, too, including an expensive planner. It worked — for a bit. But then I got tired of having to lug a planner around. Hope paper works well for you. It is the ultimate in simplicity. Thanks also for a great site. I can blow a lot of time being unproductive on your site.
@Eric: dude, I feel you. Bad. I liked Entourage’s project center a lot, but the bugginess got to me, as did the problems with backups. as you know, Entourage keeps everything in a monolithic database, which is horrendous for backup systems like TimeMachine. (By the way, you should go to 10.5 unless you really have a great reason not to — it is much better INMNSHO). Entourage also did a shite job syncing with my apple apps. At one point, it erased all of my contacts (thank god for backups). At another, it duplicated each of them 8 times. At another, it erased all of my calendars. It is buggy as hell, and I just don’t have the time to go fight with it simply for the projects aspect of the program. As for Internet apps being out of sight, I get it: I was pretty much the same way. But one way around that is to use a program like Fluid (fluidapp.com) to create stand-alone web apps that look like other Mac apps. I did this for Remember the Milk and it works nicely. You can do it for Gmail and others too. And as for the net apps being kludgy to work with, I mostly agree, but they’ve come very far, and Gmail is truly superior. Labeling your mail in Gmail is filing it, if you set it up right.
Honestly, just a few weeks ago, I was with you in thinking “wow, this web shit is just too ugly and clunky,” but then I gave it a go and found it all remarkably agile and excellent. I really do hate Mail.app, and Entourage sucks so badly in its newest incarnation that I can’t believe that M$ actually released it….well, perhaps you’ll find something worth using in here. At least, I’d suggest, give Jott a go if you haven’t already — it is sweet.
@Tara: I don’t even know what the Webware 100 is (I’ll go google in a sec), but I do use a password manager: 1passwd for Mac (which syncs to the iPhone). Looks to work from a bit different model than your offerings, but you are right, a password manager is a nice thing indeed. I would probably have some personal qualms, though, with centralizing my sensitive password data on some else’s server…
Thanks all for the feedback.
# Comment by Eric Prescott on Mon, Mar 3rd, 2008 at 11:52 pm:
Thanks, Bob. I will be checking out a number of your recommendations next time I come up for air. I’m keeping this post open in a tab to nag at me. Totally not GTD protocol, but that’s the problem with being in flux again. fluidapp.com sounds cool. My big concern will still be with when I’m offline on a train or plane, etc., but I think there’s ways around this. I really dislike Gmail’s interface. Mail kinda sucks, yeah, but I like having a client. Might just be my old fashioned self, ha. I will work on it. I do also plan to upgrade to 10.5, but at the same time as I upgrade my old G4 iBook to a MacBook Pro later this Spring, hopefully.
# Comment by Bob Torres on Tue, Mar 4th, 2008 at 12:04 pm:
Mail is decent; it can be extended nicely, and I’ve used it extensively for a long time (I started using it back when OS X was in public beta in 2000 or so). I guess I just find that I’m a holdout in a different kind of way: I need to be able to move email with keyboard keys to be effective and keep the inbox relatively clean. I know there’s mail-act-on for Mail, but I never really liked it. Well, to each their own, right?
As for being offline, that’s what Jott is for. But in those times that you’re not even near a cell signal? I guess you can use the notes option on the iPhone, or — heaven forbid — paper! (I say it like this not to make fun of you, but fun of me. I’ll go out of my way to do things digitally, sometimes to my own detriment.) Yeah, it isn’t as convenient, but it works.
And for me, the times that I’m not near a computer, my iPhone with a wifi connection, or my iPhone with cellular service are pretty few and far between — but admittedly, I don’t fly much, and where I live, there is no public transportation at all.
Well, good luck with your evolving systems. If you do anything fun, let me know.
# Comment by girl least likely to on Wed, Mar 5th, 2008 at 11:35 pm:
i love this post! as a newbie to the mac world (i got my macbook pro about six weeks ago), i’m working my way through iEverything (ha ha) and figuring things out. i adore iCal and i actually really like Mail so far, but i want everything to sync, and i had no idea there was a beta to sync google calendar to iCal, so hooray! (my husband and i use google calendar so we can see what the other has planned)
i’m bookmarking a bunch of the links you gave so that i can really delve in as i continue to figure things out. i’ve been using notebook (by circus ponies) for my to-do list (as well as just as, well, a notebook) and i’m liking it okay. i’m not a GTD person so i’m a little more fluid with my planning, i guess (no set rules that i’m following–although who knows, maybe i should!). anyway, thanks for all the food for thought!
# Comment by girl least likely to on Wed, Mar 5th, 2008 at 11:36 pm:
….and i tOtally forgot to say that i’m hoping to get an iPhone when the new ones come out, so i’m excited about all these ideas for that reason as well. planning ahead, whee!
# Comment by Bob Torres on Thu, Mar 6th, 2008 at 11:35 am:
@gllt: Glad that you could find a few things to bookmark in the post. The program to sync iCal to Google Calendar (BusySync) is great — I’ve had no problems with it at all, and it was worth the software fee (which is a reasonable $20 or so, iirc).
Like every to-do program, I”ve also used just about every notebook program, too, and have used the Circus Ponies product for a long time to keep outlines of my readings for class. I’ve never used it for to-do lists, but I can certainly see how it’d work well.
As for the iPhone, I love mine. I think it still has some work to do to catch up to the Blackberry in overall functionality, but the phone has so many other features and is so much better for music and the web that I really had no troubles leaving my blackberry behind.
Good luck with the Mac stuff. If you ever need a hand, drop me a line.