(Click on any pics to see them bigger in Flickr, with any comments and notes.)

Introduction

What Is It?

• A Moleskine hack.
• An extreme Moleskine hack.
• A simplified GTD system (What system? See our GTD Introduction), with relatively little actual organising. May be useful if you fancy Doing GTD Without Doing GTD.
• A complete personal management system for those who’s needs aren’t too complicated.
• A rather over-the-top system for dealing with just the capturing and processing end of GTD.

Quick Overview

The rest of this post goes into quite a bit of detail, which makes it all sound a bit more complicated than it is.

It’s just a notebook, you make your notes from front to back, in the usual way. You have a bookmark of some sort to keep track of where you’re up to, so you can quickly open it and make a note. The only ‘clever’ part is that you have another bookmark, which marks the point at which you’ve dealt with everything in some way. Doesn’t matter if you’ve actually done the things, or just made a note of them elsewhere – as long as you’ve processed them in some way, so you don’t need to look at them again.

Normally, the second bookmark will lag a bit behind the ‘main’ one, and at least some of the stuff in-between needs doing or adding to a list somewhere else (maybe just some other pages in the same notebook). Anything left behind the second bookmark is pretty much ‘archived’.

If that sounds like something you’d get on with, read on for more details, and ideas on how to implement it.

Translations

I never thought anyone would want to translate one of my articles – I’m honoured that a couple of people have done just that, though…

• There’s a Japanese Translation, done by Yuya Saito.
• I found what seems to be a German translation of this article – no idea how good it is, because my German is pretty near useless. Thanks to Daniel for doing it!

Why?

I was finding GTD a bit much for various reasons, but didn’t want to stop entirely – I needed to be Doing GTD Without Doing GTD. This is the system I came up with in the end. It’s simpler than GTD, and wouldn’t scale to the sort of level that GTD will, but it works pretty well for me, so it seems reasonable to think it might work well for other people too.

Equipment Needed

• Moleskine Pocket Reporter » [ | : UK, US] notebook. This is, after all, a Moleskine hack. Actually, any notebook could be used, I just find the Moleskine Pocket Reporter to be a good shape and size, and has all the right features. They’re relatively pricey, though, and aren’t easy to get everywhere, so you may want to substitute.

• Pen or Pencil. Your choice. Needs to be pocketable, and work well for quick scribbled notes, but if you can find something you enjoy using, all the better. I started with the Staedtler Mars 780 Leadholder, but I’m now back to using my old favourite Cross ion. The Pilot G-Tec C4 is another good choice – writes very small, so you get more notes to the page. Makes my writing look even worse than usual, though.

• Post-it Tags – available from most office supplies places, they’re little tags where the sticky part is clear, with a coloured non-sticky part – meant for adding tabs to books, much as we’re going to do shortly. Although I’ve specified colours for each use, it’s just to make explaining easier – use whatever colours you prefer.

Preparing

Page Template

Looks Like This

The basic page template is just a ruled line at the bottom, maybe two centimetres or three quarters of an inch from the bottom, then a line from the top of the page down to this line, about the same distance from the right hand edge. Doesn’t need to be exact, and you might prefer wider or narrower margins. Just see what you find works.

How To Mark

Trick I picked up years ago from one of my school teachers, for marking a ‘margin’ line on pretty much anything with some thickness to it – he used it for marking wood for cutting, but it works just as well on a notebook…

• Hold your pen or pencil in hand as usual, between thumb and first two fingers.
• Rest your second finger on the page.
• Press the first knuckle of your third finger (ring finger) against the edge of the pad.
• Slide down the page, using fingers as a guide – do it once or twice with the pencil just above the page, to get the idea, then lower the pencil and draw the line.

The result won’t be as perfect as a ruled line, but not far off, and you can do it anywhere without needing a ruler. Careful of paper cuts.

Why a Template?

The main section is for your notes and scribbles. Drawings, even, if you’re so inclined. The margin on the right is a space for notes added later – maybe actions arrising from the things on the left, or follow up clarifications.

The section at the bottom is for two things – space for the tags, and a space for titles for active pages. If a page is just for capturing quick notes and scribbles, it will be left blank, and just used for the tags. If a page is brainstorming or mind mapping of an idea, event or project, a title can go in the middle of the bottom section, where the tags won’t obscure it. Remember, the sticky part of the tags is clear anyway.

Titles at the bottom seems a bit odd, but it does seem to work, especially with the reporter style notebook and the tags.

Mixing with Other Ideas

The same template idea can be mixed in with other stuff…

• Leslie Herger, for example, uses a system with two pages based on the PigPogPDA idea, followed by two pages of general ideas and notes. The block of four pages tend to get used up around the same time, then she moves on to the next block.
• Peter at Getting (Some) Things Done …Eventually has mixed parts of the PigPogPDA with other things very effectively – adding the other parts of GTD to sections of the notebook.
• This system at azazil makes a system from a Moleskine diary, using ideas from this article, and hyalineskies‘ excellent system. Both of these have taken some ideas from the PigPogPDA, but built some great stuff on top of it, and made a much more complete system.
• I currently do something similar to the PigPogPDA, but using a Filofax. The ‘active’ marker is the ‘today’ plastic ruler, and anything that would be behind the ‘processing point’ gets taken out and archived elsewhere. My GTD-style context lists, and Someday/Maybe stuff just go in different sections.

Stock Up on Tags

The last page in the Pocket Reporter is thick card – use this to stick spare tags on – maybe one spare each of pink and blue, and a good stack of yellows. They peel off this page easier than the other pages.

Date The Edge

No, not the fella from U2. Use a Sanford Sharpie or similar marker to mark the date you start the notebook on the edge of the pages. When you’re done with this one, you’ll mark the end date on it, and they’ll all stand in a line on your shelf looking impressive

Using

Blue and Pink Tags

These mark out the boundaries of your active capturing area. I use a blue tag for the processing point (closest to the front of the book), and a pink tag for the collection point (closest to the back of the book).

• Blue Tag – Processing Point. Anything before this point has been processed, and you don’t need to refer to again – unless it has a yellow tag to mark it as active. I keep this one stuck on the left hand side, which makes it stand out better.
• Pink Tag – Collection Point. This is where you need to note down any new ideas. Sometimes, there will be notes beyond this point, but only when you’ve needed a full page for something. I keep this one on the right hand side, so it’s the only non-yellow thing on its side. You might want to keep all yellow tags on the left, so you can find the collection point by feel, and don’t have to look for colours before making a quick note.

Obviously, you can use whatever colours you like for this. I’ve picked yellow for the active markers, because they’ll be easiest and cheapest to buy, and blue and pink because they stand out well against the yellow and each other.

Active Tags

Anything that’s currently being worked on gets a yellow tag. I find it best to keep them all on the left side – that way, the pink tag can be found easily, because it’s the only tag on that side. Good for when you need to make a note of something quickly. See the ‘Variations’ note further down the page – I’m currently using a slightly different trick for active pages, which seems to work better than the yellow tags.

What Gets an Active Tag?

Anything that’s active. If you’re planning an article, or a party, or you’re working on a list of people you’ll need to tell about something, or a list of things you need to do this weekend, or…

You get the idea. Anything you’re still working on that has a page of its own. Single items should be moved into a list before getting a yellow tag.

Can Active Tags be Before the Blue Tag?

Yes. If you’ve processed all the notes past the point of that page, as long as there’s an active tag on it, the blue marker can move forward beyond it. The yellow tag keeps it active, and lets the blue tag move beyond the page.

Can Active Tags be Ahead Of the Pink Tag?

Yes. The Pink tag is your current capture point – if you’re only halfway down a page, and want to start working on a list, or mind mapping something you’re intending to do, you just move forward to a new blank page. The capture point doesn’t have to move forward, though, until the page it’s on is finished. In this case, you’ll have active work, with a yellow tag, further towards the back of the book than the pink tag. That’s ok.

Alternative to Active Tags – Page Numbering with an Index

I used a variation on this in my second PigPogPDA, and it seemed to work better for me. Rather than having the yellow tags, I started it by numbering all the pages, but skipped the first page (the first one after the card page, that is. The one that sticks to the card page a bit). The first page, I used as a kind of contents page for the pages that would otherwise have had yellow tags on them. So when I want to do a bit of brainstorming about something, or make notes on a specific subject, I scribble a title in the bottom part of a template page, then write the page number and the title on the first page. Things can be crossed out when they’re no longer active.

One page should be enough for the contents, continuing on the second side if needed, but you can always leave a second page spare at the start if you’re concerned about running out of space.

The advantages are…

• Less tags getting in the way – all those yellow tags are a bit of a mess.
• Faster to find a page. Once you’ve got a few active pages on the go, even if it’s not a lot of them, it can take a while to find the one you’re looking for among all the yellow tags. This way, you open the first page, look up the page you want, and flick to it.
• Quick reference to all active pages, making it easier to review what you’re working on.

The numbers are in the very bottom right corner of each page.

Capturing

Capturing is pretty simple, just as it should be. Open up a the pink tag, and make your notes. Draw a line across between items, all the way to the edge. The right hand side margin can then be used to tick off items that are done, or make little notes of actions coming from that note.

Processing

Processing starts from the blue tag (closest to the front of the book). You check each page, and if there’s anything actionable in it, you need to either do it, or clarify what it is and add it to an active list somewhere. That somewhere can be another page further forward in the book, or it could be a to-do list somewhere completely different.

If you’re just capturing with this system, the actual to-do list could be in a copy of Outlook, or index cards, or whatever other system you like.

If this is your entire system (it is for me), you just make lists as and when you need them further forwards in the book. If you’ve got several things noted down that you need to do this weekend, make a page for Things To Do This Weekend, and put these on the list. Then you can mark the items off. When each item on a page is marked off, move the blue tag forwards. Skip any active pages with yellow tags – they’re already marked as active, and when they stop being active, we’ll process them before removing their yellow tag.

Ideally, the blue tag should meet the pink tag fairly regularly – that means you’re all up to date with things. If they’re too far apart too often, you’ve probably got too much stuff between them that’s outstanding, and need to either start doing things more, or you might need a better Productivity) system. Or if you’ve got mostly crossed out items, with just a few that you’ve not dealt with clogging things up, you can move them forward…

Moving Things Forward

Sometimes, there’ll be something sticking the blue tag from moving forward, because it doesn’t really belong in a list, but you can’t (or can’t be bothered to) do it. Feel free to just copy it to your current capture point, and continue moving the blue tag forwards. If there’s a few of them, you could always collect them together in a ‘Stubborn Items’ list. You don’t want to build up too many active items, though. They’ll all need copying forwards to a new book when you reach the end of this one, or you’d have to carry two books around.

Reference Stuff

Personally, I keep reference stuff elsewhere – I need that stuff on a computer where it’s searchable and can be archived and backed up safely.

If you really want reference stuff mixed in with this system, I’d probably just get another colour of tags, and tag reference stuff with that. The blue tag would, obviously, just move forwards past them.

Archiving

Simple trick – mark the start and end dates of the notebook on the side, and they’ll all line up on a shelf with the dates showing.

Other Tricks

• The elastic on the Moleskine notebook can just about hold the tip of your chosen pen or pencil, keeping them together in you pocket.
• The back pocket in the notebook is just wide enough for credit cards and business cards, and it will also hold index cards and paper money quite nicely. If you can manage with only a few items, you might be able to replace your wallet – I have.
• Clip your mobile phone under the elastic too, and you’ve got yourself a PigPog Communicator.
• Number the last ten pages backwards – 1 on the last page, then 2, and on inwards. That way, when you hit the number 10 when using new pages, you’ll know you’ve only got ten pages to go before needing a new PDA.
• When starting a new book, mark up a page halfway through first, and make a note at the top of it to buy another Pocket Reporter. When the pink tab reaches that point, you’ll already have a reminder in place to replace your PDA well before it runs out.

Related

• nowMap – my latest simple system – a quick overview of what you’re doing now, on a single sheet.
• GTD Introduction – if you don’t know what all this GTD stuff is.
• GTD – The PigPog Method – if you’re after more of a small tweak to the basic GTD, to cut down on managing projects.
• 43 Folders – the finest source of inspiration for productivity hacks, especially with Moleskines and Apple Macs. Use the links there to buy your Moleskines if you’re in the US.
• DIY Planner – Organising and productivity with paper, with a more creative twist.
• Post It Flags – Post It’s range of flags.
• Mojo – Moleskine Reporter pads at Mojo UK. For US suppliers, see 43 Folders.

The Lamy Safari is a fairly cheap fountain pen – perhaps the cheapest you can get that’s actually good.

(Click any pictures to see them on Flickr, with notes, comments, and bigger sizes available.)

• Plain ABS plastic casing.
• Simple design.
• Takes cartriges or a converter, but the converter is not supplied. Budget a little extra if you want to use bottled ink.

Looks

Personally, I like the way this pen looks, but it’s not for everyone. It’s quite different in styling to most fountain pens, and the case is plastic rather than laquer. The oversized ‘paperclip style’ pocket clip is effective, but not very decorative.

As I said, I like it, but it’s not going to fool anybody into thinking it cost you a lot of money.

The unusual look even continues to the nib. There’s none of the usual flared shape, polished two-tone metal, or swirly engravings. It’s just plain black-coated metal, with “LAMY” and a letter for the nib width marked on it.

It’s all very understated and minimalist, and that appeals to me.

Feel

For a plastic pen, this actually feels really good. The ABS plastic used for the body feels strong and firm. The screw thread on the barrel feels very precise, and it all has a sensation of quality about it that cheap plastic pens never normally manage.

In Use

This is where this pen shines. The ink flow starts instantly, and doesn’t require any pressure on the paper to keep going. It can keep up even with scribbling and sketching, and although the nib is fairly firm, you can still get a bit of variation to the line width.

Push down firmly, and the nib will give you a thicker line. Turn it upside down for another trick – the top edge of the nib will still write, and writes with a narrower line. The shape of the pen makes it uncomfortable to use that way for long, but if you need a few quick thin lines, it can be a handy trick.

Compared with some other pens (the Parker 45, for example), the Safari is slightly scratchy in feel, but it’s not at all unpleasant, and the flow is still perfectly smooth.

If you like a fairly heavy pen, this isn’t it. The safari is very light, with very little resistance to moving it quickly. For some reason, though, it doesn’t seem to be prone to the sort of shaky lines I sometimes end up with when using very light pens. The balance point is almost exactly in the centre. Pop the cap on the top for writing or drawing, though, and this pen becomes a bit heavier, and very top-heavy. I find it quite uncomfortable to use this way, so I never post the cap.

Oh, and that all-important question for many of you – any good on Moleskine paper? Well, that will depend on the ink, but the Lamy black ink that comes in their cartriges works really quite well. It’s a bit slow drying, so I tend to smudge it quite badly, but doesn’t feather too much, and doesn’t show through to the next page much at all.

Conclusion

I love this pen. It’s the first fountain pen I’ve used that really performs how I expect a good fountain pen to perform. Before this, almost every one I’ve tried has been disappointing. After this, others have a lot to live up to.

Certainly if you’re looking for a good fountain pen to use, this is about the best you’ll find for the money. Alternatives? You could look at some of the Parker pens. Their really cheap fountain pens really aren’t too bad, and a bit more money can get you some nice ones. If you’re willing to spend a bit more, Pelikan make some of the best pens around, and Lamy make some great pens further upmarket too.

For the money, though, the Safari really does perform.

Related

• Pens
• Lamy pens at Penspotters – includes a short review of the Safari.

Once you’ve been doing GTD for a while (however half-assed your implementation), you start to find yourself thinking in GTD terms. You spot something that needs doing in the living room, and your mind jumps straight to “Hmm – tidy side table needs to go on @Home.” The problem is that this isn’t how GTD is supposed to work. You’re supposed to just capture the fact that the side table is a mess, and process that note later. Once you get used to doing it, though, you shortcut through the steps and just find yourself wanting to stick the item straight on the appropriate list.

The Theory

In theory, the way it should work is this…

• You spot the messy table.
• You make a quick note, “Living room side table messy”, and put it in your inbox. In practice, this could be a category in your Palm, a page in your notebook, or a real sheet of paper in a real in tray. The David has always said that the implementation doesn’t really matter.
• Later, when processing, you pick up the note, and decide what to do with it…
  • What is it? A note of something that needs doing.
  • What’s the next action? Tidying the table.
  • Will that action complete the loop? Yes. It’s a single action, not a project.
  • Can it be done now? I’m at home, upstairs, but yes, I could go and do it now.
  • Will it take less than two minutes? No. It’s really quite a mess.
  • Defer It: Add it to the appropriate context list – in this case, probably @Home.

The Practice

Once you’ve got the idea of GTD, what you’ll probably do is cut through most of that…

• You spot the messy table.
• You add Tidy side table in living room to your @Home list.

No Problem

You got the same result, and all that really happened is that you jumped instantly from spotting the situation, to the end result (well, before actually doing it, anyway). There isn’t a problem. You saved a bunch of time, and saved yourself a chunk of work.

Except…

Where it Might be a Problem

There are a couple of situations I can see where this sort of shortcut can be a problem…

• Avoiding Thinking: You’re just pretending to make the shortcut, but you’re really avoiding thinking about something, and you end up cutting out the middle steps, and putting something on your list that’s still stuff. It’s not really a single action, so you can’t do it. Using the sortcut is ok, but you need to take care that you are skipping the thinking parts because they’re really obvious, not because you just don’t want to do them.
• Your System Requires It: I found recently that I’d set up a system for myself that involved me making a checkbox or a dash before things as I captured them. Anything with a checkbox needed something doing about it; dashes were just there for information. The problem was that I had to decide which things were actionable before I’d written them down. Don’t do this. It’s important that your collection tool allows you to just make notes, and work out later if they’re actionable or not. Otherwise, you’ll either rush the decision so you can start writing, and get it wrong, or you’ll end up not making a note of some things at all, because you’re not sure how to start.

Conclusion

Generally, processing whilst collecting is ok, as long as you’re doing it because it’s become so obvious to you. Beware of the traps, though. Don’t let stuff end up on your action lists, don’t sidestep the thinking process when it is needed, and make sure you’re set up for noting down anything, anytime, without worrying about what it actually is until later.

LATEST UPDATE – Added a new link to a site about his signature Marshall amp.

He’s one of the most iconic guitarists of our time, and as you may have gathered from all of the fangirl bletherings in my blog, he’s my favourite guitar player.

Saul Hudson was born in Hampstead, London in 1965 and moved to California at the age of 11, where after learning to play a guitar that only had one string and acquiring the nickname ‘Slash’, he went on to become the rock guitar legend he is today. He and schoolfriend Steven Adler played in several bands on and off, including the one that eventually became the mighty Guns N’ Roses. After Guns, Slash formed Slash’s Snakepit, and Slash’s Blues Ball, and is now rocking like never before along with Scott Weiland, Matt Sorum, Dave Kushner and Duff McKagan in the excellent Velvet Revolver.

The Instruments

His signature Les Paul and Marshall Amp combination are as much part of him as the top hat and the cigarette, but he does play other guitars – a B.C. Rich Mockingbird, a Guild doubleneck, even a banjo (on the Use Your Illusion 2 track “Breakdown”).

Find out more about Slash’s Equipment here:

• Gibson Guitars – Guitars as iconic as Slash himself.
• Marshall Amplification – The official site for the home of Loud.
• Slash Marshall – All about Slash’s signature amp and other equipment he uses.

The Tech

Adam Day has been Slash’s Guitar Tech for over 16 years. It’s his job to make sure everything’s plugged in, switched on and tuned up, both on tour and in the studio.

From an interview in Marshall Law Magazine: >”The big question is how on earth do you get to be the guitar tech for a mega star like Slash?

>That’s definitely one of those sixty four thousand dollars questions! When I got my break, luck definitely played a part. I knew a guy who worked for Guns’n'Roses from the very beginning and every time I would see him anywhere I’d always say: “Hey, if anything comes up, gimme a call”. That’s what you say when you’re a working tech jumping from tour to tour – you put the word out that you’re looking whenever you can. And, in this instance, it paid off. Guns ‘n’ Roses made some crew changes near the end of the Appetite For Destruction tour when they were opening for Aerosmith, Slash had heard that I’d worked for George Lynch [of Dokken fame] and apparently he was into George’s playing at the time so that, along with referrals from other guys on their crew who knew me, got me the gig. I started at the end of ’88 and the very first week I was with the band, the album went to number one which made me go ‘hello!’ And, to be able to stay on like I have, what can I say? It’s been great. I mean, I’ve been with Slash for nearly nine years now.

>How did you get started in the guitar tech game?

>How did I start teching? Well, ‘teching’ is a relative term I guess! I used to haul peoples’ gear around in the back of my dad’s truck when I was in high school to make some money and eventually one thing lead to another. One of the guys I’d been helping out got the guitar playing gig with Aldo Nova [star in America during the early '70s] so I ended up looking after him and Aldo for a couple of US tours. I was 19 years old at the time and I didn’t have a clue! I was literally thrown into the fire so I just ran with it. I didn’t know how long I was gonna last, I just decided to do what I can.

>By virtue of the fact you’re still a tech some 15 years later, It’s fairly safe to assume that you did OK though!

>Yeah, I guess! the early years were the toughest because I was winging it for the most part but I got through them OK. Then, it was kind of an evolution process. Once you finally get your foot in the door professionally then every new band you work for is something new to add to your resume. Then, its only a matter of time before somebody says, “Oh, you worked for him, him and him – you must be OK.” Which, as I’ve already said, is basically how I got the shot with Slash.

>From watching you set-up Slash’s rig, its clear you’re a player yourself. Has this fact proven useful in your job?

>Absolutely. But, having said that, it’s not an essential pre-requisite to the gig as there are some really good techs out there who can’t play a single note! Thanks to my playing background I knew how to string, stretch [new strings] and tune but anything more technical than that I’ve basically learned over the last fifteen years, which is a lot.

>Did you ever have any serious aspirations as a player yourself?

>No, it was purely done for fun. I used to play in a garage band that performed at parties but we wouldn’t accept money, only beer! We were pretty horrible actually [laughs], we’d take a Top 10 hit and put it in the low 200s! We’d make ‘em wish they never wrote it!

> What would your advice be to anyone who’d like to follow in your footsteps?

>What I always say to anybody starting out as a tech is this : ‘make sure you have a spare of everything’. You may not know how to fix it but make sure you know how to replace it. Your job is to do whatever it takes to make sure that your guy always has a guitar with six strings on it that are in tune and always has noise – or should I say sound [laughs], coming from his amp! That’s something I’ve always looked at regardless of how technical the gig or equipment might have been : ‘how do I keep it up and running?’ After all, that’s the bottom-line when you get right down to it. You don’t have to be able to fix a blown amp on-the-spot, you just need the common sense to keep your guy going, no matter what.”

More about Adam Day:

• Interview with Ultimate Guitar

The Sound

Total Guitar summed up Slash’s sound completely in their Top 100 Guitar Solos countdown, when they described Slash’s solos in Paradise City:

>”Slash’s solos delivery what so much sleazy hair metal had failed to: the sentiments of the lascivious and sexually predatory lyrics delivered via a guitar. Slash never bothered too much with Van Halen-style tricks, he just tore notes off his axe as only an alpha-male with a bottle of Jack Daniels in his hand knows how.”

And that, my friends, is what makes me a Slashaholic.

Getting the Sound

• How To Sound Like Slash
• Contraband Album Tab – Tabulature for Velvet Revolver’s fantastic debut album.
• Slash feature in Total Guitar – An excellent article about Slash and his sound from Total Guitar, reproduced here on the Velvet Revolver fansite.

Want more Slash?

I don’t blame you. Here’s a selection of some of the finest sites out there.

• Velvet Revolver fansite – the definitive VR site.
• The World According to Slash – a Guitarist article on the Velvet Revolver fansite.
• Guitar Pr0n – Sexy guitars plus sexy guitarists equals guitarpr0n.
• Slash Guitar Page – everything you need to know about the technical aspects of Slash’s guitar playing.
• Slash’s World – excellent blog run by members of the official forum.
• Snakepit – the official Slash fansite
• Slash Online – Slash’s official website

Last Update: Added a link for Gretchen (one of the people who helped create the PigPog Method), to her new site – Girls Can’t WHAT? – inspiration for girls who can.

This article describes how I actually implement the GTD system using my iPaq and Microsoft Outlook, though it could be done just as well with almost any computerised lists. It’s my solution to the GTD problem of linking next actions to their project. If you don’t know what GTD is, you’d probably best start with my introduction. If you do GTD, but use paper and pen, have a look at MarkTAW’s Cascading Next Actions method – similar, but designed for paper users.

GTD is all based on David Allen’s excellent books. You’ll get far more from reading the books than from any web site.

• From Amazon US: – Getting Things Done, Ready for Anything.
• From Amazon UK – Getting Things Done, Ready for Anything.

Introduction

This article covers how I implement the GTD system – there’s quite a few other ways, which you may want to look at before reading this one.

The Problem

There’s a few problems that people have with GTD…

Actually Doing Things

GTD is great at organising what you have to do, and keeping you on top of everything, but if you don’t actually do any of the things, it’s only of limited help. Anyone who knows me could vouch for the fact that I’m probably not the best person to advise on that

If you really want my thoughts on it, see my post on GTD’s Dirty Secrets.

Weekly Reviews

A lot of people resist doing the weekly review. It’s pretty much vital for GTD that you don’t skip weekly reviews, but it’s a problem for many people. My system reduces the impact of missing one a little, but only a little. By making the review a bit easier, though, it might make you resist it less. It might not, but it’s worth a shot.

Connecting Projects to Actions

Ah. This is the one for the PigPog Method. This we can help with. Read on.

The PigPog Method

Background

I should point out before I start that the PigPog Method was produced through a long discussion between quite a few people on the GtD_Palm Yahoo! Group. It’s by no means all my idea, and in fact even the post where I started it all off was just me pulling together a few ideas I’d picked up from the group. Too many people to remember had valuable suggestions that, put together, made this method, but special thanks should go to James Cameron, Gretchen, Ricky Spears, Harold (I think?), and Teri Pitman.

The Basic Setup

Personally, I implement this using Outlook Tasks, but you should be able to apply the PigPog Method with almost any setup. It wouldn’t be a convenient system with paper, though, it really needs a computer of some sort. I’ve used the same system in the past with Palm PDAs and an iPaq hx4700. Both worked well.

For the most part, my lists are pretty close to the standard ones David Allen recommends. I keep any non-action stuff in the Memos / Notes, rather than Tasks, so Someday/Maybe goes there. My @Action lists are…

• @Anywhere
• @Home
• @Internet
• @Other
• @Waiting For
• @Work

There’s also ‘Agendas’ at the bottom of the list, for things I need to speak to somebody about.

What? Where’s the Projects List?

David Allen says we need a Projects list to keep track of all of those things we need to do that will take more than one action to be complete. That way, when we have ticked off the first action on that project, we won’t forget about it altogether. However, these things will only get picked up once a week at the weekly review. There is the risk that you’ll end up forgetting about something for up to a week, that really needed doing before. Also, I always found the ‘projects’ part of the weekly review to be annoyingly difficult and time consuming. For every project on the list, and it can be quite a few (David reckons 40-70 is common), you have to search for a matching action on one of the six (in my case – however many you have) @Action lists. If you don’t find one, does that mean you just didn’t look carefully enough, or is there really no action in your lists for this one? How do you know it when you see it? It’s not so bad if you look at the project and can remember what the next action was – then you will probably know where to look for it, and can make sure it’s there pretty quickly. If you can’t remember what the next action was, though, you could have a tricky time trying to find one.

In the PigPog Method, we get rid of the Projects list entirely. In a computerised system, it’s just not needed any more, and keeping track of it is a big waste of time. Using the example we used when forming the method on the GtD_Palm group, if your project was ‘Conquer Albania’, and the first action was ‘Place Army Wanted Ad’, the item on your tasks list would be Place Army Wanted Ad {Conquer Albania}. Your project and its associated next action are there together on the one line. This item goes in whatever @Action context list it belongs in. If you are going to place the ad on eBay, it would go in your @Internet list. Once you’ve placed the ad, you just edit the item to Responses to Ad {Conquer Albania}, and move it to your @Waiting For list.

Planning and Keeping History

If you like to plan your projects a bit further, you can put planned future actions in the notes for the task, and just copy and paste them into the subject line when you’re ready. I use a template that I inserted using Pop! (costs a little) on the Palm. You can also use TeikeiDA (free) if you know enough about Palm DAs (Desk Accessories) to be able to deal with the Japanese documentation (or if you can read Japanese), or use Shortkeys Lite (free) for Windows. Anyway, the template…

>=Outcome=
>
>=Plans=
>
>=History=
>
>=Notes=

Outcome is a statement of the desired outcome – how we’ll know when the project is complete. I’m actually completely hopeless about filling this in. Plans is for any actions planned in the future. History is for actions that have been completed, or notes of things that happened that were connected with this project – I timestamp these using another Pop! (or Shortkeys Lite) shortcut. I keep less history now than I used to – it wasn’t something I used often enough to need it, but you may be different – if so, remember to copy the information to somewhere else if you purge your completed tasks. Notes is for any other information. In the case of things like these blog entries, the notes will contain the actual article as I’m working on it. This is being typed into the Notes section of an Outlook task entitled Write {Blog: GTD: PigPog Method} right now. That way, all my work in progress is always with me in my Palm, ready to be worked on anywhere.

Advantages

The biggest advantage for me is that I never have to worry about projects not having a next action. I’m forced to think about what I’m going to do next with a project before I can update the system to the fact that I’ve just done something. That helps to keep things moving. I’m slightly encouraged to do more than one thing, as that saves changing the item as many times. The Weekly Review is less daunting, because the hardest part of it is automatically taken care of. There’s one less list to look at. When I find the item that says that I should write a blog entry about something, the notes from when I brainstormed about it are right there in the task item. When I come to review and proofread one I already wrote, the written article is right there ready.

Disadvantages

There’s only really one major disadvantage to this method – there can only be one next action. If you often have the sort of projects where you could do several different things next, depending on where you are when you have the time and inclination, this may be a problem. There’s nothing to actually stop you from sometimes making a separate action that isn’t physically attached to the project, but if you have to do that a lot, the PigPog Method may not work well for you. When you’re new to the PigPog Method, there is also the danger that you could tick off a whole Project on ‘auto-pilot’, when you only intended to tick off the action. To work around this, you can keep completed tasks visible, and purge at the end of each week, so everything gets an extra check before it’s actually gone. This also gives you a second chance to copy any history you want to keep to the calendar where it won’t get purged.

Conclusion

I find the advantages greatly outweigh the disadvantages, but then again, if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be writing this at all, would I? It takes away a lot of what I found unpleasant and difficult with GTD, and makes it all feel much more fluid. I’m a born fiddler, and I do keep trying different methods, but the simplicity of the PigPog Method has lured me back every time.

So far.

Other Resources

GTD Wannabe has made some macros especially for doing the PigPog method with Outlook – I’m honoured…

• Outlook Macro for Starting a PigPog Task
• Outlook Macro to Duplicate Tasks – I actually did this manually for a while – duplicating the task so I could check one off and keep better history – but it didn’t seem worth the effort in the long run. With a macro to do the work for you, though, it could be a good way of working.

Latest Update: Sorry – images lost in some rearranging.

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What Is It?

A mechanical pencil – a ‘clicky’ pencil. Really quite a nice one, though.

• Slightly clear, coloured plastic casing, with metal and plastic parts.
• Thick body, with triangular rubber grip.
• Large, twist-to-extend eraser.
• Costs – £4.99 RRP (£4.49 from Cult Pens).

Looks

It looks better in life than it does in the pictures. The green part is slightly translucent, and although I’d guess it’s just cheap plastic, it looks good – it seems to have depth, and a tiny bit of sparkle. Unfortunately, the pocket clip and eraser surround spoil the look a bit, as they are just plain black plastic. Still, the overall look is quite good. It certainly looks as if it might have cost more than it did.

Pencils have a tendancy to be looked down on in the office, but with one of these, you could probably get away with it – it looks more like a reasonably nice pen.

Feel

The size gives this pencil a bit more weight than most cheap automatic pencils, but it’s still fairly light. It balances well, just slightly down from centre, and feels comfortable in the hand. The thick triangular rubber grip makes if feel very accurate, and the light weight doesn’t detract from it – it still feels quite solid and strong.

The Pilot Super Grip which we reviewed yesterday is refillable but it doesn’t feel like it would last through too many refills. This is different. The Grip Plus feels like it could last for years of use.

In Use

This is a pencil you could do a lot of writing or drawing with – the grip lets you hold lightly, but still keep the pencil under good control.

The only downside to the thickness is that this isn’t the most pocketable of pencils. The point surround does retract fully, making it ‘pocket-safe’, but it’s quite wide. People may wonder if you’re pleased to see them.

The eraser is fantastic – much better than the usual end-of-pencil types. It actually works, removing almost every trace of the pencil’s marks. It’s good and thick, and a twist of the surround extends it out further so it should last well too.

If you’re after a pencil for any ‘drafting-type’ work, you’ll probably want to look elsewhere – the sleeve that decends to protect the lead is conical, and would get in the way when trying to draw along a ruler or curve.

Conclusion

Not a pencil for carrying everywhere in your pocket, but for doing a significant amount of drawing or writing, your hand would like this pencil. The conical tip may be a problem if you use a ruler in your drawings, but other than that, you should find your doodling more comfortable than with any other pencil

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Disclosure: Our Grip Plus was given to us to review from Cult Pens, who give us a little discount in return for us mentioning them when we review stuff we got there. We used them and mentioned them before any of this started, but we like to be open about it.

Sorry – images are missing from this page, lost in some rearranging.

What Is It?

An automatic pencil – a ‘clicky’ pencil. The Super Grip is Pilot’s budget pencil, so it’s cheap.

• .5mm lead.
• Eraser under clear cap.
• Rubber grip.
• Pocket clip.
• Price: £1.45 RRP here (£1.16 at time of writing from Cult Pens, probably around $2 in the US.

Looks

Well, it looks like a cheap plastic pencil. There’s not a lot more to say about it. The mechanism shows through the clear part near the tip, and the clear barrel lets you see how much lead you have remaining, but other than that, it’s a fairly ordinary thing.

Feel

Surprisingly good, actually. The rubber grip is comfortable, and the balance is quite good. I generally prefer a heavy pencil, and this is not one, but it still handles quite well. The balance is neutral – balance point is almost dead centre.

In Use

The lead is quite good. Smooth, without the unpleasant scratchyness you sometimes get. I like a softer grade, usually, but the HB supplied isn’t bad.

The tip retracts inside the pencil, making it what they call ‘pocket-safe’, but as with most pencils of this type, if the top gets pressed in, your leg can still get stabbed.

At first, I thought it wasn’t refillable – the top section doesn’t seem to unscrew. However, when you remove the eraser, there’s a small hole that the spare leads can be shaken out through, and more leads added. Considering the price, I doubt Pilot intend you to replace the leads too many times, but it’s good that the option is there.

The cap over the eraser is good, as it stops the eraser getting caught on things when you don’t want it to be, but unfortunately, the eraser underneath isn’t so good. It would do the job when you don’t have an alternative, but if you use an eraser much, you’d want to carry a Mars Plastic too. The eraser is refillable.

Conclusion

For the money, it’s a really good pencil. My guess is that if you’re reading reviews of pencils, you probably want something a bit better quality than this. If, however, you like to have a lightweight pencil as a spare, or for using where it might get lost, this could be ideal – it’s cheap, but handles much better than you might expect.

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Disclosure: The Pilot Super Grip we reviewed here was sent to us for review by Cult Pens as a freebie, and they give us a small discount on our orders. We bought from them and mentioned them here before getting anything from them, but we’d rather be open about it.

There’s two little secrets and one Big Dirty Secret to GTD. Don’t get me wrong here – I like GTD – it’s a useful system, and it works well. There’s a couple of secrets that you’re never told, though, and one big secret. It’s time to let the secrets out.

(Drumroll…)

(Feeling the tension yet?)

(Maybe I’m giving this too much build-up.)

(Here goes…)

• The best way to get things done is to do them.

There. It doesn’t matter how much you push things around your lists, and how carefully you pick the contexts for them, if you don’t do them, you won’t get them done. Sounds obvious when it’s all spelled out, doesn’t it? Does to me now I’ve worked it out, but until I did, I could spend weeks moving things around my lists without actually ever doing anything.

Actually, I still can, but at least I know what’s going on now. I’m just no good at doing anything about it.

If you’re not careful, your GTD system itself can become a whole world of procrastination that you rarely escape from to actually do things. Anyway, this leads us to the second secret…

• The best way to do them is to start doing them.

Again, it sounds obvious, but how many things are on your lists that you haven’t started doing even though you’ve had time (if you’re honest). I can spend all day flat out doing absolutely nothing, and at the end of the day, I haven’t started on anything useful at all. I haven’t had time.

If you’re going to get any of those things done, you need to actually start doing them. The start doesn’t have to be much. Mark Forster has a simple trick that he refers to as just getting the file out. You make a start by giving yourself permission to do the smallest possible amount of work on something, even if it wouldn’t help at all, but you make yourself do that bit. It might just be getting the file out, or it might just be creating and opening a blank document that you could start typing in if you were going to do more. But you don’t have to do more. If you’ve been putting off doing the dishes, you could just put them in the sink and add some hot water.

The point is that the very small step isn’t offputting enough that you don’t start, but once you’ve started, you probably won’t stop and put the file away again. You probably won’t just close the document without doing anything else, and you probably won’t leave the dishes to sit in the water or drain the sink again – you might at least write a paragraph or two, or jot down a few ideas that occur to you whilst you’re there, or at least wash a few items. The key is to get yourself started.

OK. That’s the two little secrets. Ready for the big one? Oh, come on, don’t kid me – it’s just underneath this text, and I know you’ve already skipped ahead and read it…

• GTD is of no help at all with making you want to do things.

It’s a nice little method of keeping track of all the things you need to do, but if you don’t actually want to do them in the first place, it won’t make you want to do them when they’re on the lists. I even find myself resisting looking at the context lists, because I know they’ll be full of things I don’t actually want to do. The problem lies in making yourself want to do the things on your lists, otherwise you won’t start doing them. And as we’ve already covered – if you don’t start doing them, you won’t get them done.

So how do you make yourself want to do things? That’s a tricky one, and I don’t really have any answers. (No, come back. I’ve got a few ideas. They might help.) If your lists are too full of things you really don’t want to do, it might be time to have a good think about your life – is it what you want? Is your job something you actually don’t want to do? How can you go about changing it? Maybe you actually don’t want to do all that DIY work to get your house into the state you want it in, and you’d have been better moving somewhere that wasn’t described as “ideal for a DIY enthusiast” in the brochure.

Assuming things are basically how you want them, it might be that you just need to spend a bit more time thinking at the higher levels – working out why you’re actually doing some of these things – what’s the longer term gain from them? Visualise where you want to be, and how some of the tasks that are on your lists will help with getting you there – that might give you that extra bit of motivation to get going on them, or at least to stop being scared of looking at the lists.

Alternatively, just give yourself permission to go through your lists, and move a few things you really don’t want to do (and won’t cause any really huge problems if you don’t do them), and just move them to your Someday/Maybe list. You can always move them back once you get a few other things out of the way, but if you’ve not been doing them anyway, you’re not losing anything by getting rid of them – and it might just make the lists feel a bit more enticing.

Once you actually want to do the things on your lists, GTD is a great way to organise them – it will give you nice simple lists of the things you can do at any point, with a fairly minimal overhead. Until you want to do them, though, it can be just another way to put them off.

I’ve done GTD in an assortment of different ways over the years, and one idea I’ve kept coming back to, but never quite used for long is running the whole system in the computer’s filesystem. The idea is that GTD is just a matter of lists, and the list of files and subfolders in a folder is a list, so the one could represent the other. Most of the stuff I actually work with is in some sort of computer file, so it would seem like a sensible way to do it.

I’ve tried it out, and it does work. I’ve got a PDA again now, though, which makes a pretty convincing argument for keeping everything in Outlook tasks, so I didn’t stick with it for long. In the time I’d been trying it out, though, BigNosedUglyGuy had been asking about it, so I put some notes together to let him know what I’d been doing. That also means I’m halfway through writing it up – might as well finish the job and post it…

The Basics

We need a folder to keep everything in, with a few subfolders. The whole set of folders can live anywhere, really. In a Unix system, you’d probably make a folder under your home ‘~’ folder. In Windows, My Documents may well be a good place. You could also consider keeping the whole thing on a card or USB ‘thumb’ drive, so it’s portable.

Under this folder, we’ll have a few subfolders.

Subfolders

!!Inbox

‘!!Inbox’ folder (!! keeps it at the top of the lists), where you can chuck anything new. This just acts like a virtual version of the in tray from standard GTD.

Active

An ‘Active’ folder for all active tasks and projects.

A task that doesn’t belong to a project is just a file dropped in here. So that we can find all these actions later, we need to give them standard names – I decided to use names in the format ‘@@Context@ Thing to do.txt’. These files can be any file type – plain text is good if it doesn’t need to be anything else – and if the only content is the fact that you have to do the thing, it can even be an empty file. The name is what we’ll search for to create the ‘context’ lists.

Journal files are good on my tablet PC, as you can just scribble away at ideas in them. If it’s something to do online, it could be a .url file in Windows – so the file is also a bookmark to the page you’ll need.

Contexts

With a standard GTD system, you have several context lists to keep your next actions in. Instead of that, we ‘label’ the files, then use a search to find all the ones with that ‘label’.

Anything that needs to be done at home, for example, would be a file, with the filename starting with “@@Home@”. If you need to replace the light bulb in the bathroom, you might have a file in the ‘Active’ folder called “@@Home@ Bathroom- Replace light bulb.txt”. In this case, there’s nothing you’re likely to need to refer to about it, so it’s just an empty text file.

If you need to visit PigPog for some papercraft project ideas, you might have a file called “@@Computer-Online@ Visit PigPog for papercraft ideas.url” – this one is a .url file – a shortcut to PigPog, so you can just double-click it and be on your way.

Active – Subfolders – Projects

Under the ‘Active’ folder are also subfolders, one for each project you have on the go. They can contain files and other subfolders if needed, related to the project, so all your notes can go in there, and if the result is going to be a document or blog post, the actual work can be in there too. Next actions are files with ‘@@Context@…’ names again, but left in the folder for the project.

Next Actions – Context Lists

To see the next actions associated with a project, you just look in the project folder, and they should all be up near the top becuase of the ‘@@’ at the start of the filename. To see the next actions in a particular context, search for files named ‘@@Context@’. When you complete an action, either delete the file, or rename it and move it. On the Mac, you can use search folders to do the work for you, and in Windows XP you can save searches and run them again by double-clicking them. The only problem with this is that the location to search in can only be saved if it’s one of the locations in the drop-down list. You can save a search for a specific drive, but not on a specific folder. If you keep the folder on a drive, that’s not a problem, but it it’s under My Documents, you might find that searches take a long time. I’m sure there’s other ways of doing the search that could get around this, though.

Most desktop seach programs build an index rather than actually searching, so they’d probably be pretty quick still. The only problems is that they might be out of date with files that change often.

If you have lists for ‘@@Computer@’, and for ‘@@Computer-Online@’, you can get either one by searching for them, or you can get both by searching for ‘@@Computer’ without the trailling ‘@’. Keep this in mind when you decide what contexts to use, and you’ll be able to combine them a bit. That way, when you’re at your computer and it’s online, you can bring up a single list of actions at the computer – both on- and off-line.

Completing Actions

When an action is complete, either delete the file, or if the contents of the file are still useful, just rename it to something else. Once it doesn’t start with “@@Context@ ” any more, it won’t be found by your searches.

Good Points

• You can keep any files at all in there, and keep all the stuff relating to a project right where you need it.
• Easy to capture stuff when it arrives as a file of any sort, by just dumping it in the !!Inbox folder.
• Could be made cross-platform. If you need to work on Windows at work, and Mac at home, you could use the same set of files on a USB ‘thumb’ drive, and just use saved searches in Windows and Search Folders on the Mac. I don’t think there’s anything built into most Linux systems for saving these searches, but it could be made very smooth and easy from the command line with some simple scripting, I’m sure.

Bad points

• Not so easy to sync to a mobile device, compared to using Outlook.
• Never found a really quick way of capturing new stuff that wasn’t in files. Journal isn’t bad on the tablet, but on a normal PC, creating new files isn’t that quick and easy.
• Didn’t feel natural to me – definitely not using something designed for the job.

Conclusion

Well, it wasn’t for me. Might work well for someone else, though. If you don’t use a PDA, and need to access the same data on different systems at home and work, it might be a decent enough method. I’m guessing someone with a bit of scripting skillz could do some good stuff with this under Unix.

Alternatively, you could skip all this playing with your system, and just get things done instead.

Don’t worry, I’ll keep fiddling with new systems for you.

What Is It?

A clutch pencil. They were very popular before automatic pencils came along, much less common now.

Compared with Automatic Pencils

Problems with Automatic Pencils

• Lead is very thin. Usually 0.5mm. 0.7mm commonly available too, but even that is really a bit thin for sketching, and breaks too easily for writing if you’re heavy-handed. Not sure why such narrow sizes have become so popular, but people do seem to keep buying them.
• When carried in a pocket, they tend to stab you in the leg. That sharp thin lead, coupled with a nice easy-action button can be quite painful.

How This Is Better

• Lead is 2mm thick – thick enough to be strong on its own, so it can be used reasonably roughly without breaking. Still thin enough for drawing with, though you may need to sharpen it before using it for detailed stuff.
• When crushed in the pocket, the button won’t get pushed in, because it pushes the clutch arms directly out of the tip. Difficult to explain, but if you put it between your hands and push together, it doesn’t open out. The exposed tip isn’t thin enough to break skin or pockets either.

How This Is Worse

• A 0.5mm automatic pencil will never need sharpening. This will for doing detailed bits.
• Not as quick to use – you have to hold a finger (paper, table, whatever) under the pen where you want the lead to get to, then push the button, otherwise the lead just keeps falling. Putting it back in is quick, though – just push the button with the pencil upside down. The lead just falls back inside.

Anatomy

Button at the top – hides a sharpener in a hole in the tip – pull the button out, push the lead in the hole and twist.

Knurled metal grip – not slippery at all.

Clutch mechanism. When you push the button, three arms push out of the front of the pen, and open out to release the lead. With the lead dropped back inside the pencil, they retract almost completely back in, but when gripping the lead, they stay forward of the tip. You position the lead by holding the button in, sliding it to where you want it, and releasing the button to grip it. Push the button in with the pencil pointing downwards without anything under it, and your lead lands on the floor.

Feel

I find it a little thin. The Pilot Croquis Pencils are shorter and chunkier, which makes them more comfortable to hold, but their lead is much thicker too. I prefer the Mars. The metal grip is very good – not at all slippery. The only real drawback is that it looks distinctly old fashioned. Still, that may well be because it is. The last pencil of this type I remember using belonged to my grandparents. Now, however, this is my favourite pencil.

Spare Leads

The spare leads come in 12-packs, in one of the most splendid bits of packaging around. They’re laid out in six little compartments in a tray, two leads to each compartment. The cover of the tray slides back, and the bottom slides up a curved path like a roller shutter. The leads can then slide forwards out of the box.

In the top end of the box, another slider reveals a small plastic rod. Pink, it was, and I had no idea what it was for. Finally, I realised that it was the same colour as the band on the label with the lead hardness on it – 4B on the ones I’d got. Presumably, other lead hardnesses have different coloured rods in them. the rod can be fitted to the actual pencil as a replacement button, so you can tell which pencil contains which type of lead. You’d have to remember the colours, but I guess most people wouldn’t be carrying too many different grades anyway.