GTD In Windows Mobile and Pocket Informant

Many of you may have realised by now that I am Getting Things Done user/fan which has helped to focus my work only on productive tasks and then planning my working week much better. One of the main tools that I have used for this over the years has been Pocket Informant and Windows Mobile, mainly because of the agile nature of my working week.

Why does this work for me? I am on the move and need to have the GTD system accessible from several devices in different locations. Windows Mobile can function as part of your trusted system with just a little few changes, I will outline briefly how I have set the system up and will look to detail more in later blogs.

The first thing I set up were my lists which are really the heart of the GTD system, I created all the lists by “list Name” as category’s either directly in the PDA or in Outlook. I should also add that I manage Projects through grouping tasks as categories in this was as well as by the projects name.

Location Based

Example of Location Based Lists

• @Persons Name (I have a category for all my main contacts)
• @Client Office (Category for all offices)
• @Computer
• @Phone
• @Train
• @Plane
• @Office
• @Home
• @Shops
• Well you get the idea.

The location based list I prefix with the @ symbol so they appear at the top of the list when you are selecting in the windows mobile device and because a task in many cases has more than one location in which it can be done. An example of this is the fact the some tasks can be completed in the location @phone and @Persons Name it also helps before call to filter by both these categories so that you can quickly plan an agenda for the phone call.

Next Actions

I created the category !Next so it is the first category in a menu, and as I am in most cases using the device quickly with my thumb it being the top category makes it easy to access. You will find this is the most used category when you are on the move as part of a filters criteria for example !Next and @Train.

Displaying Projects

I also use the categories to group projects together so for example all the tasks that are relevant to a project will be marked with a category with that project’s name for example “RHRR Website” this allows me to quickly filter the tasks by the project and then if required further by location.

Time Boxing Tasks

The tasks that need to be time boxed are dealt with by either marking a day or range of days within the task so that it is only displayed in the agenda view of pocket informant on the days which it can be acted on. Tasks which have a narrow window are changed over to Appointments in the calendar and can then be pinned visually to specific times (my default view is agenda).

Capture

I use the email client for capturing information a few people have commented on me sending e-mails to myself. It allows me to take a chunk of information outline it and then very quickly move on to the next meeting or task. When I process my Inbox at a later point in the day I will action (if less than 2 minutes) or transfer in to task to be processed at the right time.

Calendar

The other critical part of the system is the diary, as I mentioned I work mostly in the Pocket Informant agenda screen where the visual bar shows the free time available each day, and the appointments are detailed below.

Things I have done with the diary:

• always add 30 minutes to the end of any out of office appointment to make sure you have captured all the information before you go on to the next.
• Add travel time to appointments (use a different appointment so that you are warned that it is time to leave by reminder for the travel appointment).

Synchronisation

So I am dealing with all the same information across all the systems I use whether it is the TouchHD, Netbook or the desktop so Exchange is vital, coupled with this I currently use SugarSync to keep all the files between the systems up to date.

This is just a brief introduction which was inspired by a few conversations in the last few days, I will look to add more detail about this in the future and also show how the GTD process is relevant to project management.

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