It’s been 3 months since my concerted effort to be more organized and productive. Some pretty good progress.

• Email Inbox: 0
• Flagged Emails: 0
• Flagged Newreader Items: 0
• ‘Clean Out’ directory contains: 12 items
• Physical Inbox: ignored
• 43 Folders: ignored

As I mentioned in my previous post, every next action is goes into the stack of index cards. Works pretty well. The trick I’ve found is being specific, start with a verb, use between 5 and 10 words. If the note doesn’t start with a verb, too much thinking when you get down to doing. Fewer than 5 words is too few to be specific and more than 10 and it’s probably more than one next action.

Overall, the big a-ha is to be liberal with what defines a project. Again, as David Allen recommends, if it has more than one Next Action – it’s a project.

Once I made that shift in my thinking, filing email and cleaning out my other inboxes goes extremely quickly.

After years of using Apple’s Stickies as my standard To Do list organizer, I’m a month into an entirely new productivity system. It’s working out pretty well.

With David Allen’s Getting Things Done as a foundation, here are the modifications I’ve made:

1. Next Actions:
   This is a stack of index cards. One thing per card – boiled down to the smallest task discernible. The task I’m working on right now is on top. If I get distracted, just look at the stack of index cards to re-focus. Work-related things are added to the calendar at the same time the index card is made, to reinforce the commitment. Best part – crumpling up the index card when it’s complete and tossing it across the room to the circular file (iCal gives me the record of when).
2. Tickler File:
   Yes, I’ve got my 43 folders – manila. On my physical desktop. Don’t have anything in them yet, I’m checking daily, just in case.
3. Waiting For / Someday Maybe: Both are iCal calendars I add to via Quicksilver (activate Quicksilver, ‘.’, type thing, create iCal To-Do, select corresponding calendar, return.)
4. Inbox:
   I have 3 inboxes:
   1. Mail.app – a bit of hack, a Smart Mailbox that only shows me today’s mail
   2. Clean Out – this is a directory on my MacBookPro’s Desktop where browser downloads go, where NetNewsWire dumps to, basically where everything digital goes – that isn’t mail.
   3. Physical Inbox – a little IKEA cloth basket sits on my desk behind my MacBookPro anything physical goes there for processing.

Part of yesterday’s desk cleaning was taking a critical look at my Thing To Do stickie and committing to trimming it down. All the To Do List things I’ve looked at are independent of calendar – aside from some vague notion of deadline.

A while back in scheduling a conversation with Dave Slusher, he said;

“If it’s in iCal, it’s real.”

So, I’m migrating all my existing ToDo to actual, slots on the calendar. New things will go straight to the calendar. This should end the ‘what should I focus on now’ question.