ADD: Attention Deficit Disorder (in case you've been asleep through my last postings)
GTD: Getting Things Done, an organizational philosophy
Now, I've never been big on formal organizational techniques, probably because people trying to give me a system to work within never works quite as well as a system I've created myself. It's not that the other systems are flawed; it's just that most people who enjoy such things can work to a system, while I am much more comfortable developing my own system to work.
On the other hand, I really really like organizational programs. Every few years, I go through every possible program for my Palm (currently a Centro) and for my Mac, to try to see if maybe something that matches my brain comes along. Invariably I end up fantasizing about writing my own darned program. I almost wrote one back at my first Boston job (the management consulting firm where I was so bored), since they really needed a good group task system.
Since we've been looking at project management systems here at Metaversal (and I'll be blogging on that shortly, but I'll say write now that we did NOT go with BaseCamp!), this of course gave me the itch to look at my personal organizing systems again.
Currently I use on my Mac:
* Now Up-To-Date and Now Contact
* StickyBrain (now called SOHO Notes, which is far less fun sounding)
* Missing Sync (for improved Palm syncing)
And on my Palm:
* Built-in To-Do and Calendar apps
* TreoMemo (a swanky $9.00 upgrade to memopad that makes thumb scrolling possible)
Overall, this system works pretty well, though StickyBrain has removed Palm syncing from its latest version. I am considering switching to Yojimbo, a note program that handles Palm syncs much better than SB ever did. However, I have sunk a lot of money into SB upgrades over the years, so there's an investment there, and also, StickyBrain (as the name implies) has the nice feature of letting you have the popular "digital stickies" floating on your desktop, while Yojimbo does not, instead keeping everything in one nice window.
As I begin to pay more attention to my work habits, I am realizing that having everything in sight is a pretty big crutch. For example, the books on my desk at home: I always have to keep the books I'm currently using for various subjects fanned out, so I can see bits of each cover. Otherwise, I will plumb forget that I'm supposed to be working on Japanese or guitar or drawing (Even last night after the adderall wore off, I found myself shuffling these 3 books to figure out which one I'd need first today. I stopped myself and made a note to buy bookends today so I can just stand the books up on my shelf!). So, Yojimbo might be a good step towards getting things organized, if not Getting Things Done.
As for Getting Things Done, the work method, well, I haven't used it, but the fine folks at The Omni Group, have distilled it into their latest product, OmniFocus. As you might imagine, when I was looking for project management software (these guys also produce OmniPlan), seeing even the name OmniFocus, with its soothing purple logo, made me feel all quivery inside. Focus from a software program? Sounds awesome!
The basic principle of OmniFocus is solid: take all those ideas that you have, put them down as fast as you can in a bulleted list, and then drag the bullets around into projects and subtasks. OmniFocus (and GTD from what I understand) takes things a step further by also asking you to organize items by "context" -- ie, where do you need to be to do the task? This way you can run errands and just look at the "Errands" context to get the list of things you need for ALL your projects, while when you return home, you can look at a single project outline to see what step needs to get done next.
Unfortunately, OmniFocus is currently focused on synching with iCal and Address Book, which makes some sense considering they've just come out with OmniFocus for the iPhone. I do carry my iPod Touch with me a lot of the time (I've recently rediscovered how much better music makes everything), so I could download the app and use my iPod for to-dos and my Centro for everything else. However, I carry the Centro, which is nice and small and has a keyboard that I can actually type on at reasonable speeds, everywhere, and I make notes everywhere. It's how I make it through the day without chasing 100 bad ideas in all directions: I put them down in the Centro knowing I can sort them out later.
Also, as you may have noticed from the software list at the beginning of this article, I do NOT use iCal or Address Book. While iCal is OK, it gets very slow when dealing with a lot of to-dos. And Apple's Address Book just plain sucks. Because it is tied in with Apple Mail, it means that every person who ever contacts you ends up in your address book. The idea of having a "whitelist" of people whose email is never junk is a great idea, but that idea should not be entangled with one's contact management program. I have over 1,000 useless Address Book entries that I would rather delete, but I know Apple Mail will just put them back!
I use the Now products because they sync nicely with the Palm and they provide the kind of organization I need. With Now Contact, I can track who I talk to and when (though admittedly I'm still working on this, since it's one of the things I am most easily distracted from), and with Now Up-To-Date, I can see my dated to-dos right next to the Calendar and create new ones that sync correctly (which has not been the case in my attempts at using iCal).
So I spent about an hour this morning playing with OmniFocus and trying to get it to play nicely with my other programs. Since I use Missing Sync, I figured maybe I could sync OmniFocus to iCal, and then iCal to my Palm calendar. But, despite setting everything up and seeing the events get from OmniFocus to iCal, for some reason, that calendar didn't sync to the Palm.
I could tell I was drifting away from productivity by focusing on this, so I went to lunch, and then took my second adderall for the day (I take it every 5 hours, so I was overdue anyway). But, since I didn't get a lot of sleep last night (ironically because I had a sleep study evaluation appointment early this morning), the effects of the adderall are somewhat dulled. So I managed to spend another 2 hours playing with the software this afternoon, while getting a few other small tasks done in between, and now I've spent a good 20 minutes writing this blog posting.
So yes, while the adderall is helping with my distractedness, it's still easy for me to focus on the wrong things, especially if I am tired. I think if I can find a good chunk of free time to really sit down and play with other GTD systems (there is one called iGTD, but the first thing it did when installed on my mac was get stuck in an endless error dialog loop, so it was immediately deleted), I will find one that may help me to really Get Things Done. Then again, before I got treated for ADHD, I also thought that I just needed to find a chunk of time to complete my second novel, my first symphony, my third screenplay, etc. etc.
At this point, my best hope is that Mark/Space will add OmniFocus to the next version of Missing Sync. My second best hope is that Now Software will finish up their much-hyped but little-shown "Nighthawk" organizer, which is supposed to bring Now's contact and calendar management power to the built-in Apple contact and calendar services. And of course, we can always hope that the fine folks at Omni Group will decide to take their amazing products cross-platform, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that one!
