Tuesday, May 29th, 2007...7:32 am
allow me to…
Allow me to introduce Josh Turmel. Josh is one of the incredible digerati team members that primarily focuses on development. Josh is a great PHP/MySQL developer, and is really one of those “figure it out” guys. Currently Josh, and some other folks are wrapping up development on our new Internet Campus project, and then will turn his focus on some other really cool stuff. I asked Josh to post about anything he wanted to….so here ya go!
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Getting Things Done
Being a part of the LifeChurch.tv Digerati team means lots of “stuff” to do. I’m going to talk about some of the ways the Digerati team and myself (personally) organize and maintain what we/I have to do get done.
If you are familiar with David Allen’s Getting Things Done, then you probably remember the simple process (it’s more simple that it looks at first glance) for organizing anything that needs to get done by taking whatever comes into your “inbox” and properly processing it immediately to get it “out of your mind.” I won’t go into detail on the GTD process Details Here but I would like to share some of the tools that I use to implement the philosophy.
The obvious “inboxes” are Outlook, phone/voice mail, people walking up to my desk needing things, snail mail, etc…
For much of my personal organization I use a lot of Google’s software. Appointments and to-do’s are put into Google Calendar this allows me to share events (or the entire calendar) with other family and friends. I use Google docs to put together a general to-do list as well as any project documents that outline the list of to-do’s associated with that particular project. On to-do items that do not belong in a project or have a specific due date, they are put into Google calendar on the day they are do. This allows me to set scheduled reminders.
For work meetings we use Outlook (Entourage for our Apple guys) to schedule and track meeting times and places. On Digerati team-based projects here we make heavy use of a few of 37signals’ products. If we are working with outsourced contractors we use their BaseCamp product, for internal projects we utilize BackPack for project to-do lists and a place to upload files/project documents. For documents that are attached to these products that share project information, such as spreadsheets for processes, we will use Google docs and share the document between all.
For ideas that are floating in our minds that need to be put “down on paper”, we like to use the array of white boards that are present in the Digerati offices. Nothing beats a huge idea, wide-open empty whitespace and a big marker. There’s one last thing that Terry just introduced to me, but I don’t have much to say about it yet since I’ve only had it for 3 days now… it’s a MoleSkine.
What does everyone else use to organize your to-do lists, ideas, and projects?
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6 Comments
May 29th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Good insights…
I’ve started using MindManager. It works on both Mac and PC. I got our administrator using it, and my assistant, and they both love it.
I love it for project planning, you can do to-do lists, track progress, etc, and share the files amongst each other. Everything can be color-coded, and you can even embed hyperlinks and documents right into the mindmap. It’s a great GTD tool and not too expensive.
I’m going to finish reading GTD this week while I’m on vacation.
May 29th, 2007 at 11:43 am
It’s funny you post about this, because I spent part of the weekend looking at how we organize things and making tweaks.
I use Basecamp for all projects that involve other people. Basecamp allows communication on specific projects, file uploading, milestones, to-do lists. Any to-dos assigned to me in those projects are sent to …
Highrise (also from 37signals) to keep track of my daily conversations and to give me a personal to-do list that no one else sees. I can’t say enough good things about how Highrise has helped with my organization.
I use Backpack for organizing projects that don’t involve anyone else. I use the Backpack Calendar for my online calendar needs. I also use Backpack’s Reminders for things that I need to remember to do but not something important enough to clutter my task list in Highrise.
I’ve got Gmail set up to suck in the mail from all my various accounts to it’s all in one place and all online.
I’ve finally moved all my organization online so I can access anytime anywhere. The combination of 37signals and Gmail has revolutionized how I work and made it possible for me to expand my business without hiring extra people.
May 29th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
For my work to-do’s, I use rememberthemilk.com. It’s the best to-do organizer I’ve seen.
Complete with keyboard shortcuts and dynamic smart lists, you can share to-do’s or if you think of a to-do while you’re on the road, just shoot yourself an email (to an email address that RTM assigns you) and it will show in your inbox. Also, you can text message yourself when an item becomes overdue.
It’s great!
May 29th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
I’ll have to try out rememberthemilk.com, sounds pretty flexible.
J
May 30th, 2007 at 12:01 am
We use backpack and basecamp, google groups is proving to be a good free replacement to the messaging part of basecamp and Vitalist has proven to be extremely helpful for handling GTD workflow. It is by far my favorite online GTD app.ical and Google calendar get the hard date stuff.
May 30th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
I’ve found Huddle (www.huddle.net) much easier to use than Basecamp- especially for multiple projects. It’s also much better for the social networking side of business / team management. If you like using Basecamp you should definitely check out Huddle!
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