Getting Things Done (GTD) with ThinkBook

Getting Things Done (GTD) is the “groundbreaking” work-life management system by David Allen that provides concrete solutions for transforming overwhelm and uncertainty into an integrated system of stress free productivity.

I dabbled with it and tried a few apps on the iPhone and online (things, egretlist, toodledo) but it really didn’t work for me. The concept was sound, but I seemed to have to spend more time than I could justify managing my to do lists when things weren’t done when they were expected to be. Left to its own devices GTD ended up with one big list of lots of high priority tasks that really didn’t help me get things done. Maybe it was me who couldn’t get my head round how I should enter, categorise and prioritise tasks so things would be easier to manage. But it just didn’t help me.

Many years ago I used an old system of slicing the month into 31 days, and in my desk drawer I had 31 folders into which I could drop things that needed doing. I could plan ahead by dropping a piece of paper into a date in the future, and easily move something from one day to the next if things changed. Back then, almost everything was on paper so it worked well and I did get a lot done.

However, in the intervening years most things are now virtual – like my office and 95% of my paperwork. My filofax (yes, I had one) has been replaced by electronic counterparts on the Mac, iPhone and iPad. But there has never been anything that I have tried that came close to the old time slicing system I used all those years ago.

Until now. Enter ThinkBook for iPad.

For the first time I have been able to recreate my time slice system by creating 31 ‘projects’ within the app (representing the days of the month), and under each ‘project’ I can add, delete and move to do items effortlessly with one or two swipes. You can see a screenshot of this below.

First a quick overview of the app … ThinkBook is a powerful application that allows for a number of different entry types.

• There are ‘books‘ which equate to a specific topic area you want to manage separately. So I have a separate book for each of my client projects where I can keep notes, questions and other related information needed to move projects forwards.
• There are ‘pages‘ which are essentially a one-sheet page for textual information – useful for summaries or developing content ideas for example.
• There are ‘projects‘ which I use to group a selection of to do items. As you complete the to dos, the project circle slowly fills showing overall progress – although it doesn’t pick up sub-sub tasks, only the top level ones but this is a minor detail.
• There are ‘to do‘ items which are tick box items – as the name suggests – and they can be nested easily and changed on the fly
• There are ‘questions‘ which allow you to record both the question and its answer – you use this nicely for research to make sure you have all the information you need.
• And finally, there are ‘notes‘ which are basically textual bullet points

So, I have a book called ‘TO DO’ and within this I have 31 projects for the days of the month. Under each day I have a number of tasks to make sure I am on track and getting things done. I don’t need any fancy prioritisation to help me because I don’t have a million tasks to make sense of, nor do I need to list every item of every activity. Some may say this isn’t ‘complete’ but I don’t need it to be. Everything is there that needs to be done. Client projects (for example developing code, designing websites, sending email campaigns) are the routine day-to-day work that don’t really need an entry in the ‘to do’ list – they are not independent tasks per se as they can take several days to actually complete and are better reserved for a project plan and not a to do list.

The great thing with ThinkBook is the slider on the right and how easy it is to use. If you need to move a task to tomorrow or next week, you simply slide your finger on the right-hand side of the screen towards the slider and the task (including any sub-tasks) moves over to the slider and disappears from where it is. Slide two fingers and you take a copy, leaving the original in place also. Then you move the slider to the place you want to insert the copy (or copies as you can drop many things into the slider) and then simply slide left from it and the to do drops into the insert point where you are. And you’re done.

You can slide ANYTHING into it – projects, books, pages, etc, etc. So it is really powerful.

This makes managing the to do list really easy, and also means I can replicate the simple, effective time slicing method I used many moons ago. I am really getting more done now with ThinkBook and cannot recommend it more highly. If you want a simpler way to get things done without all the detailed methodology, try out this method – feel free to drop me a line also if you want any help or guidance.

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