Jens Bruntts blog

Category Getting Things Done
This week i started working after four great weeks of holidays in Provence, France. I had a lot of open projects and email-threads when I left, so coming back is always interesting.
It has been truly marvelous how easy it was to get back on track, and a lot of the credit goes to eProductivity - the Getting Things Done add-on for Lotus Notes.

When I came back from my long holiday I needed to do almost no work to get the overview of what was in progress and what needed to be followed up on. Because when I left everything had already been organized into Projects and Actions and especially the "Waiting for" Actions.
The Actions that I knew I needed to do when I came back had already been linked to Calendar entries.

An example:
When I came back I had an email in my inbox. It was from the helpdesk at a company that is developing a set of web services that we are integrating with. This is work in progress in both their and our end. The email asked me to please let them know if we had any still open issues with them; they were afraid that they had missed something because they are in the early stages of establishing their production environment and the helpdesk is also new.
It was so easy to answer that. I went to my "Waiting for" folder in my eP-enabled mail and looked for any lines that had to do with that project.
There were no open issues. Had there been any they would have been there as I always create "Waiting for" Actions when I open issues with external helpdesks.
Easy.

I have talked about eProductivity and the GTD way of working in these two reviews:

• eProductivity review part one: What is Getting Things Done?
• eProductivity review part two: What is it?

Posted by Jens Bruntt At 08:18:48 Location Train | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category Android Getting Things Done
I have release a new version of Braindump to Notes - the Android GTD app. A major release.
New stuff since my last post is:

• SSL support is now a feature. You will need to edit the Preferences to enabled SSL. Remember to edit the Port number.
• Menu button available from both the New Note and the Saved notes tabs.
• A log is available from the Context menu. This should be of help if you get issues with synchronization.  
• Bug fixes. Including prevention of expiry of Domino authentication.

Posted by Jens Bruntt At 18:43:37 Location Provence | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category Android Getting Things Done
I have just released a new version of BrainDump to Notes. Version 2.1 includes some important stuff IMHO.
BrainDump to Notes is an Android application that allows you to quickly get Stuff off your mind, an important part of the Getting Things Done methodology.
You can read more about it and see a demo from when I released version 1: BrainDump to Notes for Android - what is it?.

The new stuff is:
- A bug fix that hopefully removes Force close situations.
- An option for using voice input instead of typing. This of course requires a newer Android version (2.1 and up).
- Support for national characters.
- Support for deleting individual saved notes.

Here is a screen dump:

Posted by Jens Bruntt At 10:31:40 Location Provénce | Permalink | Comments (11)

Category Getting Things Done Danish
Jeg har tidligere skrevet om Hvad er Getting Things Done. Og det er kort fortalt en metode til at få styr på alle sine opgaver, projekter, ansvar... ting der optager dit liv og din tid.
Og det er ikke en højt-ravende filosofi - det er en værktøjskasse.
Jeg har arbejdet efter den metode i et par år nu og er rigtigt godt tilfreds med den.

Jeg vil gerne gøre opmærksom på at der den 28/4-2010 er mulighed for at deltage i et web-seminar hvor man bliver introduceret til GTD af manden der har "opfundet" metoden. Samme seminar blev afhold for IBMere for et par uger siden med stor succes; mint indtryk er at det er er 1½ time man får noget ud af.

Man kommer dels til at høre om GTD og dels om hvordan man kan arbejde efter GTD metoden med de værktøjer som findes sammen med Lotus Notes. Og så får man selvfølgelig også at vide hvorfor man bør overveje at invester i en special-udgave af Lotus Notes mail/kalender som bliver lavet af firmaet eProductivity. Jeg bruger denne skabelon.

Så vidt jeg kan regne ud er det klokken 16 til 17:30 dansk tid. Det er 10am til 11:30am Pacific US tid.

Her kan man læse om og melde sig til seminaret: Getting Things Done with IBM Lotus Notes.

Posted by Jens Bruntt At 14:09:41 Location Skanderborg | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category Getting Things Done
I would like to show a couple of new features from the coming Lotus Notes 8-enabled eProductivity template. As this is a preview version, I guess there is no guarantee that they will be in the release.

Save and Add Another
There is now a "Save and Add Another" button available when you are creating or editing an Action. See the illustration below:


This action button makes it easier to plan a project where you know that there will be a number of actions involved. What you do is you create an action. When the form is filled in, you click the Save and Add Another button. This saves/closes the Action and then brings you to a new Action form that you can then fill in. And this of course can be repeated for as many actions as needed.
Very handy. I definately can use use it. I often know need to add two-three actions in a row.

Waiting for check off box
I also like the new possibility for adding "Waiting for" actions a bit faster than before when sending an email.

In "old" eProductivity you have the "After sending this mail create a..." drop down available when composing an email. And from that drop-down you can choose to create and action, and in that action you can then select the "Waiting for" context.
What is new is the possibility of just checking off "Waiting for" (see the illustration above), which will save you a few clicks. When you then send the email, you will get the Action form including the pre-selected "Waiting for" Context.
Not bad.

It's R8-enabled
Oh yes, I forgot to mention that the template is now R8-enabled. This does not mean that it is a Composite Application. It does not have the Java Views when you use the Core eProductivity functionality.
It does mean that it runs well in the R8 client and you can click links in the navigator to open up the Inbox or the Calendar as Composite Applications. These have the standard R8 Composite Application design,

Preview
The evaluation I have posted is based on my own experience using a preview version of eProductivity. Features as I have described them or shown in screen shots are subject to change. Go to http://www.eproductivity.com for current information. (Posted with permission)

Posted by Jens Bruntt At 15:35:07 Location Skanderborg | Permalink | Comments (3)

Category Android Getting Things Done
For the last week I have been working on a personal project. I am coding a native Android application.
The application is going to be able to quickly collect reminders, to-dos, things you think about. Those things that in the Getting Things Done terminology are labelled "Stuff". In the GTD way of thinking, it is very very important to move "Stuff" from your brain and on to some permanent storage: paper, an electronic document or whatever.

My app will be able to collect Stuff and when it is convenient for you it can save that data from the device and into your Lotus Notes todo-list as a very very simple Lotus Notes Task document.

What happens next, after your Stuff has been saved to Notes is going to be all-Notes client. I am using the eProductivity template, and when I open up my eP-enabled mail box it prompts me when it detects the kind of Stuff that my ToDoManager has saved to my mail database, asking me if I want to do something with them - get them organized in to proper GTD Actions for instance.

This is a personal journey at the moment. I am building up both Java and Android skills as I go.

At the moment my prototype looks like this:


I can add notes on the first Tab. You can see that I am writing one in the screen dump above.

On the second tab I can see what notes I have saved locally.
The notes are saved in a local SQlite database.
And that's it. No saving to the Lotus Notes mail database yet.


I am in the process of getting to the point where I can save to Notes using http POST. I have just successfully seen my app log on to a Domino server using the Multi Server Single Signon LtpaToken.

This is going to be so good

Lots of wins for me personally here:

• I am solving a real need that I have in my GTD implementation.
• I learn more Java.
• What I learn here can possibly be used at work. Convergens' standard Doc Management solution - now on Android!
• I have more cool stuff to show to my iPhone-using neighbours.
• My daughter Frederikke (aged 11) thinks I am cool (and she wants an Android too).
  

If you need to get your work life organized I can recommend having a look at eProductivity. They are represented at LotusPhere 2010 if you happen to be there. I know that Eric Mack is doing a presentation.

Posted by Jens Bruntt At 08:58:19 Location Skanderborg | Permalink | Comments (3)

Category Danish Getting Things Done
Jeg har nu efterhånden længe brugt en Lotus Notes email skabelon som gør at min email, kalender og to-do følger principperne i David Allens Getting Things Done (GTD) arbejdsmetode. Du kan se hvad jeg har skrevet om eProductivity her og der er også noget tilsvarende jeg har skrevet på dansk.
eProductivity er en opdatering af email-designet. Det er et firma der hedder ICA der laver eProductivity.
Jeg har lige fået en email fra ICA hvor de skriver at hver gang man køber 10 licenser til eProductivity så får man fem ekstra. Jeg ved at flere danske organisationer kigger på eProductivity - måske det var noget for jer at se på dette tilbud. Det gælder frem til 31/12-2009. Hvis der ikke er noget at læse på deres website om det så skriv en email til dem og nævn at I har hørt om tilbudet... så er de garanteret forhandlingsparate.
Men start da med at hente evaluerings-kopien; det koster ikke noget og den har fuld funktionalitet. Og hvis man ikke vil have den efter evaluerings-periodens udløb så skifter man bare tilbage til det almindelige design. Hvis det var noget så smut hen på 3 Steps to Getting Things Done with Lotus Notes.

Posted by Jens Bruntt At 08:38:36 Location Skanderborg | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category Getting Things Done
I am still using eProductivity - the Getting Things Done mail template that enhances the mail database with GTD functionality.
I upgraded to the 1.74 version of the template this weekend. I had some issues when switching between mail-db replicas on Windows and Linux, and those issues have been fixed in this release.

I just did my Weekly Review. The Weekly look at my stuff: Actions, Projects, Calendar etc. After each of these reviews there is two main things that I can highlight:
- I feel confident that I know what my commitments are. Both work- and personal commitments. Nothing is forgotten.
- I am now better at making sure that things don't slip. I now consistenly follow up on emails and projects before there is trouble because everybody involved thought that someone else was handling the issue.
Pretty good I think

I have been using the eProductivity-based way of doing GTD about two months now, and it does not feel obtrusive. Rather, I now get things into the proper shelves right away, for instance flagging an email for future follow-up. I am happy with my tool.

Posted by Jens Bruntt At 13:44:38 Location Skanderborg | Permalink | Comments (2)

Category Getting Things Done
I was allowed to test the next Release of eProductivity. The mail template is going to be version 1.74.
Main highlights:

• Should contain some Linux-oriented fixes. I have problems with the left-navigator's link to the Reference database when switching between Notes on Linux and on WinXP.
• New Mind Sweep feature.
  
  The Mind Sweep is like a wizard that helps you quickly collect "what's on your mind" and turn what shows up into GTD Actions. It includes trigger text that is designed to inspire you to remember stuff that could be on your mind if you hadn't let i slip. Theres a better introduction to the new feature here: eProductivity to Sweep Your Mind Clean.
  
  I have not had the possibility to test if the Linux-stuff works as the current pre-release has an issue with license-checking when running on Linux.
  
  I have a feeling that the new release will be out this week.

Posted by Jens Bruntt At 12:57:00 Location Skanderborg | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category Getting Things Done
The short one: ePruductivity supports working in the Getthing Things Done way.

In my previous post - eProductivity review part one: What is Getting Things Done? - I presented the Getting Things Done way of handling work and commitments. It was a very brief presentation. Please read the book: Getting Things Done: How to Achieve Stress-free Productivity for the big picture.
Here I will present and review the eProductivity template for Lotus Notes. It adds functionality to the standard Lotus Notes email that makes it easy to work in the GTD way.
This review is written with a Lotus Notes Super User in mind. A basic understanding of the Getting Things Done way of working is preferable - my previous post on eProductivity might be of help if you have no GTD experience: eProductivity review part one: What is Getting Things Done?

Here is a screen dump from my email. This is how my email looks when I open it up in the morning. Yes, a lot of this is in Danish, but I think you should be able to get the main idea:

Yes, it is not an Inbox. The default is a Today view.
It shows me Todays calendar (the coloured rows).
It shows me the actions that I have planned for today - above the "Today's calendar".
It shows me Ticklers that are current.
It shows me Waiting for actions where I am waiting for something to happen.

If I click the "E-Mail" link in the left-side navigator, I get to see my Inbox.

I like the idea that my actions for today should be what I focus on. Not my Inbox. You could configure eProductivity to let the Inbox be the primary view....

So - what is it?

eProductivity is mainly a new design for your Lotus Notes email database.
It is (as far as I can tell) the Lotus Notes email template for version 7 and then with a number of additions and changes.

The main features and additions are:

• It introduces a form for creating an Action.
• It introduces a form for creating a Project.
• It introduces a new left-side navigator for navigating actions and projects by Contexts.
• It has a lot of workflow built in for making sure that Projects and their Actions are handled.
• It has functionality built in for linking emails and calendar entries to Projects and Actions.
• It introduces a Weekly Review Coach. A coach that steps you through the Weekly review.

I will look into each of these below, and at the end I will try and sum up on my experience with eProductivity.

It introduces a form for creating an Action

An Action is a GTD construct. In Lotus Notes speak it translates to a To-Do. But there is more to it than that. An action has to be action-oriented. You can't have an action called something like "Telephone", "Groceries" or "Project plan". A good Action title starts with a physical action-verb: "Call Ben and arrange meeting about Portal performance", "Pick up Joannes mobile from repair" or "Write draft Project Plan for switch to Ubuntu Project". It has to be clear what the Action is.

From almost anywhere in my eProductivity-enhanced email I can click the "New Action" button and get this:

Note how there is built in examples on how to write good Action descriptions. They are even context sensitive. Right now I have selected the "At computer" Context, så the Example is to "Draft email". Had I selected the "At home" Context, the samples include "Clean garage".

The Context needs explaining. That is also a GTD term. GTD teaches you to think of Actions in lists that are ordered by Context. You can have a "At Office" context. If you flag an Action with the "At Office" context it means that it makes sense to perform this action at the office. You wouldn't clean the garage while at the office. Clean garage belongs in the "At home" Context.
And why would you need to order your actions by context? Because it makes sense. When you are at some site (or Context) and have time to burn on doing some of your Actions, you look at the proper Context. And there is the proper list of things that you have decided make sense to do there.
Every time I visit the Company headquarters I look at the Context for that site. It's called "At Hvidsværmervej", the road name of the place where the office is located. In my "At Hvidsværmervej" Context I find actions labelled things like "Talk to Hans about getting a demonstration of the new backup system" or "Pick up Company-branded paper for printer". You can configure what Contexts you want available from the default set or name your own.


It introduces a form for creating a Project

A Project in the GTD definition is when you can foreseee that right after the first Action you will need to have a new Action. A Project can be of any size from deciding on on curtains for the living room to rolling out Lotus Notes 8.5 in a 30.000 seat organization. In the GTD way of formulating at title for a Project, the advice is to describe what Project success looks like. It could for instance be "Curtains for the living room have been ordered" or "Acme corp. signs the acceptance test".

Just like with the Action, I have access to creating a Project from most places in my mail.
Here is the form:


The form is simple, but note how I can have the project be either a work- or a personal project. You can expand the list of Project Types.

It introduces a new left-side navigator for navigating actions and projects by Contexts

In my old email design, the left side navigator let me navigate email folders. In the eProductivity design, the folder navigator is available on the right hand side of the screen while the left hand side has a GTD-oriented navigator.
This is what my Inbox looks like:

I am zooming a bit on on the left-side navigator here. We have already seen what clicking Today and Email does. Clicking Calendar will open the calendar while clicking Contacts will open up the Local, Personal Directory. Clicking Projects will open a view displaying just the Project forms. Clicking Projects - Personal opens up the personal projects.

Here is a screen dump from my Projects view:

I'll translate a couple of those Projects titles for the Danish challenged:

• Have a good understanding of the last GTD objects
• Documentation on Profile document management Web Services has been delivered to John Doe/Acme corp
• Single Signon for iNotes at Acme Corp has been established

One of the Projects has a sad smiley next to it. This shows me that the projects does not yet have a Next Action defined. This will have to be fixed. A project with no Next Action is not going to move forward.

I will skip some of the left-menu items and jump to the Context views. For instance the At Computer Context. It holds all actions that have been tagged with that Context.
Have a look:

I will translate a few selected ones for you:

• Find model and price of my future laptop
• Write documentation for changes made to Domino and Puakma (there is a relation here to the "Single Signon for iNotes at Acme Corp has been established" Project)
• Write a draft email to John Doe/Acme corp on Web Services (there is a relation here to the "Documentation on Profile document management Web Services has been delivered to John Doe/Acme corp" Project)

Notice the small stars next to some of the Actions. This shows me that these actions are the next actions in the Projects that these actions are a part of.

I will mention a couple of special Contexts.

The Waiting for Context is for Actions where I am waiting for someone or something. For instance "John Doe writes back with acceptance of Web Services Report".

The Tickler Context is a place to put future Actions. For instance I have an action in the Tickler Context called "Turn off all network gear and restart" that I have placed here every three months. It could also be something like "Order Bruce Springsteen tickets", entered with a due date on the day that ticket sales open.

The Someday/Maybe Context is for Actions that you may consider doing in the future if business or personal needs or interests change.


It has a lot of workflow built in for making sure that Projects and their Actions are handled

Let's say I have identified something that is going to be a Project. So I fill in a Project form and save it. When I save it I get prompted: What's the next action?

I can then choose to create a Next Action whixh will bring forward the Action form.
I can choose to select the Next Action from existing Actions which will display a list of existing Actions categorized by Context.
I can create a Calendar entry or choose one from my calendar.
Or I can choose to not have a Next Action defined.  This will flag the Project with the sad Smiley face in Project views.

When I mark an Action as complete, if the Action is linked to a Project, I will get prompted for what to do next in the Project:

In the example I can choose to create the Next Action, create a calendar entry, I can mark the project complete or I can choose to have no Next Action.
Had I already created one or more open Actions for the same project I would also have had the option of choosing what the Next Action was from my list of Actions.

Let's say I have created an Action and then I realise that the Action actually needs to be part of a Project. From the Action I would then press the "Link to..." Action button and get the option of linking to a new Project:

It has functionality built in for linking emails and calendar entries to Projects and Actions

The calendar and email is well integrated with the Projects and Actions.

Here I am writing an email to some people at work and also some contacts at our customer's site. I am writing them in order to start coordinating when to have a workshop on optimizing a WebSphere Portal's performance.
I can see that this email is actually the start of a Project. I will get replies and we will book the workshop.
Then we will run the workshop and following that will come the production of a report. This is clearly something that will consist of a number of steps.
Therefore I select "After sending this mail, create a.... new action linked to a new project" from the drop-down menu available in the email header:

When I now press Send, I first get prompted with an Action form. Here I register that I will wait for responses from the participants. When I save/close that Action I get prompted with a Project form that i will call something like "Workshop on Portal performance has been held and report completed".

When I create an Action I have the option of creating a linked Calendar entry. For instance if I know that the Action "Write project plan for Ubuntu roll out" needs to be in the calendar. The result of having the Calendar entry linked to the action is that I can see the link in the Calendar entry, clicking it will bring me to the Action.

And I can of course also open up the Action and see a clickable link that wil open up the Calendar entry.

It introduces a Weekly Review Coach. A coach that steps you through the Weekly review

The Weekly Review is a very important GTD concept. Once every week, if you work in the GTD way, you should have a good, thorugh check of the overall commitments situation. Making sure that nothing has slipped, checking your Inboxes (physical and electronic ones), checking your current projects, checking your actions and checking both the calendar for the coming week and for the week that has passed. Is everything ok, did you miss anything, do you need to follow up on anything. Basically bringing you on top of things.
The eProductivity design contains a Wizard for stepping you through the Weekly Review. It has it's own interface, displaying the steps as a navigator on the right hand side in your Email, checking off each step as you move through them.

Abovis is an example where I have come to the part called "Review Actions List". On the left I get a list of suggestions about what to do, for instance "Are there any items you can now mark complete?".
I really like the way that the Coach steps you through the review. The Weekly Review in my opinion is extremely central to experiencing success with GTD. Failing to do the review leads to insecurity: Can I trust the system? Maybe you start having a second system for the stuf that is really, really important, outside your GTD system - "just until I am back on track with my real system".  No good. Therefore the Weekly Review needs to be fast and easy to do, and I feel that the Coach built in here does a good job at making sure that that's how it is.


Wrap up and conclusion

First, I have to make sure that you know that this was just a quick tour of eProductivity. The parts that I think are the most important ones. There is a lot of things I have not covered here. There is a quite easy way of getting hold of an evalution copy that will allow you to get a proper feel of what's in the box. The Getting Started page on the eProductivity website is a good place to start if you are interested in looking at the product.

When I held a small demonstration of eProductivity for my colleagues at Convergens, some thought that it looked intimidating, requiring you to do a lot of things in order to just fill in your To-Dos. I want to stress that there is lots of things you can turn on and off, making the eProductivity-options less visible. You can for instance control what the default view of your email should be: Today or Inbox. The good GTD choice IMHO would be to go for the Today view.

I want to mention operating systems here. I have been running my tests on Lotus Notes 8.5. Both on Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux 8.10 (and 9.04). There have been a few, minor things that don't work like they aught to on the Notes/Linux combination: There have been some focus issues and I have had issues with links from the left-side navigator to external databases. Minor things, and the things that have to do with the eProductivity code I believe that the company plan to fix in their next release. I would be surprised if the design does not work on Lotus Notes for the Mac. So, if you haven't been running Lotus Notes, you might consider doing so juste because you can get hold of both a PIM and a GTD tool here - that works on both Windows, Linux and Mac.

Is it any good? Yes it is. The eProductivity design makes for a comprehensive GTD package. It embraces the main GTD objects and nudges you in the right direction. I understand why David Allen has labelled this "GTD Enabled".
When I started out on my test of eProductivity I was worried that I might find the design too ugly, it being based on a mail template that is pre-8.0. Having worked with it for over a month, my conclusion is that the advantages count more than the looks. I am staying with the eProductivity design.

Posted by Jens Bruntt At 22:27:07 Location Skanderborg | Permalink | Comments (4)

Category Getting Things Done
Short review: eProductivity works.
When choosing between the Notes 8.5 standard mail template and the eProductivity template, I choose the Red Pill. I am staying with eProductivity.

eProductivity is a replacement for the email, to-do and calendar design. It enhances the to-do forms greatly, it brings in a project concept, it implements and supports all the Getting Things Done tools.

First, you have to know a bit about what Getting Things Done (GTD) is. In my next blog entry I will look at how the eProductivity product supports working in the GTD way.
Getting Things Done is a set of methods for "achieveing Stress Free Productivity" (taken from the cover of a book by David Allen who is the architect behind GTD). It sounds like yet another philosophy. I would rather describe it as a toolbox full of great advice on how to get your to-do's - ranging from small ones to actual projects - handled in a great way.
I will highlight some of the advice and tools that I find have inspired me to handle my stuff in a better way than before i started using GTD.

I like one of the thoughts introduced very early in the Getting Things Done book. By way of examples it is demonstrated how you need to write down the stuff that is on your mind. You must not let it stay on your mind, it has to be externalised. Most people have tried lying in bed and then getting some thought that just would not get away. It could be something like "I wonder if Raymond has implemented backup on the new email server". If it is just a little important, that stuff might keep you awake. The only sensible thing would be to get out of bed and write that important stuff down in a place where you know you will find it in the morning. When that's done, in all likelyhood you wille be able to go to bed and have a good night's sleep and the next morning you're ready to act on what you wrote down.
If for some reason you did not write that thought down, you may have forgotten and who knows when that thought might pop up again - perhaps tonight again.
The idea is that you need to externalise those things that you feel a responsibility for. Externalise the stuff into a system you can trust to make sure that these objects will pop up when they are relevant for you.
By moving stuff from your head to paper or some electronic device you free up your mind to actually do stuff. Like for instance acting - doing the things that were on your mind. Painting the front door, writing the quarterly report, ordering a new box of Chocolates for the meeting room or whatever.

The GTD way of thinking has got five main principles that it relies on:

• Collect
• Process
• Organize
• Review
• Do

Collecting is basically what I described above: If something is on your mind put it down in a system. Not necessarily an electronic one. It can be on post-it notes or whatever. The main idea here is that you have to decide what your collection buckets are. You can have more than one, but you need to keep the number down. An example could be that you have a physical box on your desk for collecting paper mail, notes from your colleagues, and then you could have a Word Processing document where you keep a list of things that are on your mind,

You then need to Process the stuff that shows up in your buckets. The buckets need to be emptied - processed - regularly. If you don't, the system will break. The trust will go away.
Processing happens by taking out an item and having a look at it:
"What is it?"
Is it something that you can act on or does it not really have logical action that could follow from it?
If it is actionable you need to decide if you will act now or if it should be deferred or if you need to delegate it to someone else.
A guiding principe here is that if it will take you less than two minutes you should just do it.
If the item is not actionable, there are three possible next steps for the item:

• File it for future reference
• Delete or throw away
• Put it on a list of items to look at in the future (but that is not back in the bucket)

Then there is the Organizing. Here we list objects of similar nature on different kind of lists. Stuff coming through the Processing part and that need actions that take more than two minutes and that you have not delegated need to be organized.
And here we get very action-oriented. Some of what comes out of the processing is simple things like: "Call Raymond and ask if backup for the mail server has been implemented". These belong on a list of Next actions. Actions are what some call to-do's. They need to be described in an action-oriented way. Preferably staring with verb: "Call Ben ...", "Write report...", "Phone Raymond...".
Some of what shows up in processing is not simple and will require more than just a single action. These we call Projects. For projects a very central question is what will the successful project look like when it is done? "We have moved in to new offices" or "We have employed a new Project Manager".  Projects belong on a separate Projects list.
You will also need a list of things where you are waiting for something to happen before you do more. It could be when you have delegated something and you need to follow up on this sometime in the future. Put the thing on the Waiting for list.
You also need a Someday/Maybe list. This is a list of things that you don't yet know when or even if you will move on. "Should I buy a new DVD player?", "Do we need to switch Anti Virus system?" could be examples.

Then there is the Review. Once a week you should do a complete review of all lists and you should empty all collection buckets. Get a complete look through the system.  It is a great way of making sure you have the overview in place. The Weekly Review really is a key component of the GTD way of working. This is where you will get feel very much in control of your work, commitments, your calendar - everything. When the Weekly Review is done, you know where you are going and you know that you haven't missed anything.

That's the very quick tour. Buy the book - I really recommend reading it. And I would be surprised if you don't get at least a couple of good ideas. Most likely you will have lots of those moments where you think "Yes, that makes perfect sense" while reading the book. In Europe you can get the book from Amazon for just €8: Getting Things Done: How to Achieve Stress-free Productivity. If you sometimes feel out of control of your commitments - professional or personal - then buy it.

I am preparing a review of eProductivity. Stay tuned.

Posted by Jens Bruntt At 20:15:31 Location Skanderborg | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category Getting Things Done
Last week we had our monthly "Technology meeting" at Convergens . This is a 3-hour workshop or meeting where we have all sorts of demonstrations or discussions around tech stuff.
I was presenting all three subjects this month. One of my subjects was called Getting Things Done Demonstration. It was a 30-minute introduction to the Getting Things Done way of thinking about your work and a demonstration of how I use the eProductivity mail template.
Today I visited the main office again, and apparently both GTD and eProductivity sounds like it could cure some pains experienced by my colleagues. Especially those working with management or project management. I got comments from some colleagues that they were sorry they missed the show, they heard that it had been interesting. There was talk about our Director having placed an order for the David Allen book, and when some of my colleagues had been at a customer site, mentioning the eProductivity template and my demonstration, the customer asked for a demonstration; calling that cusomer has been been registered as an Action in my system with the @Phone context - of course.
Interesting experience, really. My first impression from the demo was that people thought that it was a lot of work managing your actions and projects in the GTD/eProductivity way. My counter-argument is that whatever way you organize, you do have a system that takes you some time to maintain. So, the real question is if eProductivity and GTD will cost you more or less time to use compared to what you did before. In my opinion using GTD and eProductivity is definately something that pays for itself. I am sure that I do not use more time managing my projects and actions in the GTD way than before I switched from my rolling Microsoft Word To-Do document.

From my talk with colleagues, what has been resonating with them is the "in a system you can trust" line (compared to the mix of Sticky notes, Unread-marking emails, Word Documents etc.), the Weekly Review and the way that the GTD way of thinking really enables you to handle all your activities and projects, not just your work-related stuff.

One manager asked me if there was a reseller model for the eProductivity template. And is there a model for translating it to Danish? Both questions haave been registered in an Action with the @Computer context

Posted by Jens Bruntt At 16:12:58 Location Train | Permalink | Comments (1)

Category Getting Things Done
Right, I did it. I replaced the design of my Lotus Notes mail database (8.5 format) with the eProductivity template.
The instructions are pretty easy to follow. I did this on my Linux laptop of course. No problems there.
I am using the Lotus Notes 8.5.1 Standard client - also known as the Rich Client - both on Ubuntu Linux 8.04 and on WinXP.

This is the extremely early testing phase, but a few notes:

Bookmark-link
Both on WinXP and Ubuntu I see that when I launch the "Mail" bookmark from the Bookmark bar, I do not get the complete eproductivity look and feel. The left-side navigator is the old left-side navigator (R7 or thereabouts).
I have now created a new bookmark that points to my mail file, and when using that, it launches like it should.
Added note: eProductivity support told me I can switch to the eProuctivity navigator by clicking a "drop down" at the top of the navigator an selecting "Switch to eProductivity".

Sidebar problem with the Day-at-a-glance panel
The right-side sidebar in Notes 8.5 has a Day-At-A-Glance panel. It does not display like it did when running the 8.5 mail template. It will not work for me now as it needs a quarter of the total horizontal space to display properly.
That's a pain. I am used to having the sidebar open all day with both the day-at-a-glance and Sametime Contacts panels open.
Added note: eProductivity support told me that this is an issue that comes from the Notes client. I am not entirely convinced about that. Or rather - I think it can be fixed by tinkering with the Standard R8 mail template.

Sidebar problem when the sidebar is open when the Notes Client starts up
Not a major issue. When starting using the template, the eproductivity tool has a "splash" screen. When you haven't selected to not display the splash screen, it will display when the Day-at-a-glance sidepanel gets displayed.

Creating an email - error when unable to open html footer file
Also a small issue, but some people might get confused. When I create a new email I get an error message saying that c:\sig\jbr.html is not available. That is probably because I once a long time ago had an html signature for my Notes email placed in that spot. I had moved on to the 8.5 way of handling signatures, but it looks like a field in the email profile document remembered the location for me.

Dragging email to the left navigator - no prompt about what to do about email
When I drag an email to for instance the "At Computer" navigator item, I get to create an Action. Then I close and save it. In the Demo database I would then get prompted about what should happen to the email I dragged - put in folder or delete. I don't get prompted now. I guess it is an option somewhere in the preferences.

Personal projects - nice
Aha. It's possible to have Work- and Personal projects separated. Not just by naming them "Private" or something similar. You can actually have up to five Project types where I now have "Projects" and "Projects - Personal". Good.

First full day of using the eProductivity template

This is the day after I replaced the mail database template. So now I have a representative day at the office. Here are my notes on the experience:

I reported two issues using the built-in feedback forms: The broken Day-At-A-Glance Sidebar panel and the issue with launching mail using the "Mail" bookmark. Both mentioned above. These won't stop the show though. I'm excited to see how the template will work.

Personal context
I found that I could create my own Context. I created "At Hvidsværmervej" which is the headquarters of Convergens, the Business partner I work for. I needed it to create an Action with that context. The subject of the action was: "Pick up new hard drive". My server (at my home office) has a hard drive that is about to fail, and the replacement was delivered to our headquarters.
Great to have the option of having your own contexts.

Synchronising with Lotus Traveler
No issues there. Synchronisation is not broken.
Email works like it always does.
Lots of what eProductivity does is built using the To-Do form inside the Lotus Notes mail template. This means I have started having a lot more to-do notes in my Nokia E65 device. I have a feeling that I won't be using eProductivity from my phone. The To-Do features of the E65 are just too primitive: There is no way of sorting or filtering To-Do notes. I certainly can't blame eProductivity for that problem.

Converting outbound email to Projects and Actions
This is powerful. When I have a newly created email open I have clicked the Action bar button at the far right. It is a toggle that displays an interesting drop-down: "After sending this email, create a..." it says. And here I can select for instance "...new action linked to new project". This is great. When I now send the email I get prompted to first give my new project a name (and optional start and due dates) and after that I get prompted to describe the next action.
A real world example:
I received an email from a colleague at the Main Office saying a new hard drive has arrived ready for me to take back to my home office.
I created a reply saying thank you. And here I selected the "...new action linked to new project".
When I sent the email I got prompted to name the project. I named it "Home office server re-installed including new drive".
Saving the project I got prompted to create a next action. I called this action "Pick up new hard drive at Main Office" and gave it the context of "At Hvidsværmervej" and a due and start date of tomorrow where I know I will be visiting the Home Office.
I am pretty sure that tomorrow in my Today view there will be an action telling me to remember to pick up the drive.

Converting inbound email to Projects and Actions
I have also been dragging inbound emails to the navigator to create Actions. And when I have crated an action in this way I have the possibility of creating (and thus linking to) the project that the action should should "attach to" to. Works fine.
The only thing I am missing here is the thing I memtioned earlier: In the demo I saw that the process of creating an action from an inbound email ended by me being asked what to do with the original email: Put in folder, delete etc...... I neeed to take a new look at the options.

End of the day notes
And that was it. I have created 3-4 projects and maybe 10 actions linked to them. I like it. It feels good.
I have also exchanged a couple of emails with the eProductivity support. They are helpful. Sending an email to the support is built into the template. Goode idea.

Posted by Jens Bruntt At 21:11:34 Location Skanderborg | Permalink | Comments (2)

Category Getting Things Done
I am in the process of running through the list on the Getting started page on the eproductivity website.

David Allen certainly sounds like he likes the eproductivity tool.

I have been looking at all the screen dumps. Impressive. My first thoughts are that it looks a bit overwhelming; lots of new features in the mail, calendar (and perhaps the to-do). But I expect that I will be allowed to choose not to use everything right away.
The Weekly Review wizard looks promising.
I see syncing with Nokia Smart Phones mentioned. Interesting – I use a Nokia E65.

Watching the Video Tour.  It looks promising.  The video to me highlighted two things that I am looking forward to try out:
–        The easy way of creating projects, the related actions and waiting for items.
–        The Weekly Review Coach. Especially that one. I can see how it will help me to more fully do more of the GTD things like “Empty your head”.

I see – synchronising with a device (Palm Treo in the video) of actions and projects will synch to the To-Do itmes on the device. I think that the Lotus Traveler will synchronise Notes' To-do documents. Will be interesting to try out.

There is a demonstration database. You get access to downloading it by watching the “Interactive demo”. The option to download the database is at the end of the video.

I am looking at the demonstration datbase. A few notes:
Contacts stored in the mail database and with an option to synchronise with the Personal Address Book. Interesting. Why?
I like the demonstration database. A simple way of leading you through the main features.
When going through the Weekly Review Coach I can see that I will probably benefit the most from the tool if I re-read some of the Getting Things Done book. I am pretty sure that the book has clear instructions on for instance the “what is it”, what's the next action, Do/Delegate/Defer things.
Still looking at the demo and doing the Weekly Review I can see that some areas that I have not been doing much in are the ones at the end of the Review – “Review Goals & Objectives”, “Review areas of focus”, “Review relevant checklists”, “Review Reference files & Project Support materials” and the “Someday/Maybe List”. Interesting.

I have some font issues some places in the demonstration. Probably because I am running the demo on Notes 8.5 on Ubuntu Linux with some tweaks done to the fonts... For instance when I create a new Action item and there are fields for dates, there is a text saying “Start” and “Priority”, and there is not enough room for the text, so the t in Start and the y in Priority is displayed on a separate line.

Almost ready to install the template now.

Posted by Jens Bruntt At 20:48:36 Location Skanderborg | Permalink | Comments (2)

Category Getting Things Done
I have been actively working in a way that is inspired by the Getting Things Done way of organising work for about 9 months now.
And GTD works. No doubt about it. My life (both personal and work life) has become more well organised and I feel more in control. I have seen the light you might say.

I have planned to re-organise my way of Getting Things Done. I will be trying out the eproductivity (http://www.eproductivity.com/) offering. Before I start out on that odyssey I want to record a status – where am i now. Hopefully, in a month, I will look back and see that things have improved.

Working for a Business Partner that focuses on Lotus technologies of course I have looked at how the Lotus Notes client could help me. And I have ways of managing central GTD objects in Notes:

• My email inbox is my most frequently used Inbox. I also have a physical inbox on my desk.
• I have a list of Stuff. It is a To-do document (yes, the to-do document type located in the mail database). I add to and remove those “I'll organize that later” things to the Body field of a single To-do document.
• I have a Tickler file. It is my Lotus Notes calendar.
• I have a projects list. That is a Journal-template based database. Each project has a document in the database.
• I also have a Waiting-for system. It is a combination of my Lotus Notes calendar and the Follow up feature that you can use for email. When I email someone and need to later know that they have acted on this like they should, I flag the sent email with a follow up date. Sometimes I need to follow up on something, but it is not based on an email and then I just put a reminder entry in my calendar.

My routines around all this are basically these:
Most days I check my email inbox in the morning and for each email I try and live by the 2-minute rule.
Some emails require more than two minutes to act upon. If they are very important I act immediately.
If something will take me more than two minutes but nothing is burning, I will use the follow up feature and then move the email away from my inbox to a different folder (usually a folder named after the customer organisation).
The rest of the day I will re-visit my email inbox perhaps once an hour. And I will process what's there by the same rules as I do in the morning. This bit is probably not very efficient.

I have a weekly review. Yes I do. I have heard that this is often the Achilles heel of GTD. And it is for me too.
Every friday I have scheduled (in the calendar) a 4-hour slot for doing the review. The review consists of a review of all my GTD objects. Is there anything in the calendar that needs to be rescheduled, are there things in my Stuf list that needs to be moved to my calendar (Tickler file or Waiting for), are there projects in the Project list that need action... basically I have a look at all my “lists” to see if things are OK, if they match my current priorities, and if not, I change things.

Sometimes things force me to move my Weekly review. It's bad. In the GTD system there is this notion of capturing projects or to do items in “a system you can trust”, and this trust in the system - to me at least - is very much dependent on the Weekly review. The weekly review is the safety net that makes sure that things don't slip through and don't get acted upon.

This is what my system looks like today. I am not totally happy about it, but it works acceptably.

I am sure that I have not implemented all of the GTD way of working. My guess is that I may have about 50% right.
I also feel sure that I will feel (and be) more in control if I get more of the GTD stuff right.

And then I heard about Eric Mack and his eproductivity product. I noticed it when I was following LotusPhere 2009 from home; Eric Mack and David Allen (who invented GTD) had a session there. And I was reminded about it when I listened to the Taking Notes podcast: Taking Notes Episode 96: 2009.03.10 - Getting Things Done with IBM Lotus Notes and eProductivity.

I had a look at the product description, and it looks very interesting. Implementing Eproductivity requires you to switch design in your Lotus Notes Email database. It makes sense to me as the Mail database is my main inbox, it is the database I access the most and it is also a database that I tend to “carry around” - accessing it on my stationary PC and laptop. The GTD tools need to be available all the time.

I have decided to invest a month in trying out eproductivity. I plan to blog about what I find out.

I have not yet been through all the pre-installation material, but here is a a short list of my worries before getting started:

• Will I hate the template for not being as sexy as StdR85Mail?
• Will the template have a web interface still - for mail and calendaring?
• Will email synchronisation to/from Lotus Traveler break?
• Will the template work on Notes 8.5 on Ubuntu Linux?

And here is a short list of hopes:

• I will discover and use new GTD Objects
• I will be more effective at doing my Weekly Review
• I will more often have the "Mind Like Water" feeling

Good bye standard StdR85Mail.

Posted by Jens Bruntt At 11:53:27 Location Skanderborg | Permalink | Comments (2)