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Submitted by sholden on
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At the MT Conference several people asked me where I got the print outs for David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) and Franklin Covey's models that I had taped into my moleskine.

The site is at:

http://www.diyplanner.com/templates/official/hpda

It is very complete resource for not only those models, but also for a wide variety of templates related to to-do lists, contacts, note taking, calendar, etc.

Steve

HMac's picture

Let's be sure to give props to Merlin Mann, the originator of the Hipster PDA - enjoy a lot of his "life hacks" and other GTD-inspired writings at 43folders.com

BillB's picture

Impressive implementation of the Hipster PDA. But you have to wonder...at what point is it worth it to go out and by a pocket size day planner....

James Gutherson's picture

[quote="BillB"]Impressive implementation of the Hipster PDA. But you have to wonder...at what point is it worth it to go out and by a pocket size day planner....[/quote]
I have used diyplanner for over a year now - I would throw out 90% of a day planner. With diyplanner I can just print the ones I need and add in a couple of blank 3x5 cards and I'm good to go.

BTW diyplanner have a great Cornell template in the A5 size files, although I use a modification of the MT one myself.

RichRuh's picture
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I switched from my franklin planner to a moleskin after talking with Steve (and Terrance) at the first MT conference.

5 months later, I'm not going back.

Here's why.

1. Flexibility. A planner takes 2 pages/day. In practice, I would use 1/4 of a page. Or 1/2. Or 4. Every day would be different, but I always had to carry all that paper around.

2. Smaller. I found my Franklin planner to bulky to travel with, so I had a separate notebook that I used when travelling. I would copy stuff from the travel notebook, and of course, I was without my planner when traveling (shudder).

3. I prefer the GTD list of next actions over a daily task list that has to be copied from day to day.

Yes, printing out forms and pasting them into a moleskine or other notebook is a pain. In practice, what happens is that you distill down your notebook to what you really [i]need[/i] on an everyday basis.

OK, everyone who has carried around the Franklin planner table of "weights and measures" for multiple years without ever using it, please raise your hand.

Of course, a planner or notebook is a highly personal decision, and the "right" answer will be different for everyone.

Bill, you can keep using your planner. :wink:

--Rich

HMac's picture

I'm a big DIY Planner guy myself, and I've built it with great respect to GTD and 43folders.com. The only trap I find is that doing a DIY can [i]in itself[/i] be a method of procrastinating - am I the only person in the world who's killed a half day "organizing" my planner, instead of working on the To-Do items on it????

James Gutherson's picture

[quote="HMacNiven"] am I the only person in the world who's killed a half day "organizing" my planner, instead of working on the To-Do items on it????[/quote]

If only it was half a day :oops: . That is a big complaint about many implementations of GTD - there is no actual 'doing'.

sholden's picture
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One additional tip I shared at the MT San Antonio conference is my use of a highlighter to mark off completed items in my projects and tasks sections.

I like using a highlighter vice crossing out an item because you can still read the writing and if you need to photocopy something all the info is there.

I also share the sentiment that you can get nothing done if all you are doing is trying to tweak your GTD system. At some point you gotta start doing.

Steve

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In defense of GTD - you're [b]supposed [/b]to spend a few hours each week organizing everything - that's your weekly review. If you're doing excessive review as a form of procrastination - well that's just procrastination.

Also - if you're spending hours 'organizing' without [b]doing [/b]anything, you're not applying GTD, unless you have no 2minute items (which is pretty rare in my experience). Remember - those get done as you go through the review.

sholden's picture
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Hello!

For those struggling with the Weekly Review there is a great podcast on David Allen's new GTD Connect (aka 'Premium Content') that goes through this in great detail.

One of the key points I took away from the podcast was that the weekly review is not the place to be doing a lot of tasks that you are finding in sweep up.

The podcast recommends that if you find yourself never getting past the step of collecting "tasks, calendar items, waiting for, list reviews, loose stuff, and meeting notes" then you might need to make that specific step something you do before your weekly review.

David Allen stressed in the podcast that the 'mind like water' part is when in your weekly review you get to your projects, support, someday maybe, mind sweep, and higher altitudes.

This is a distinction that I've just learned, and it has only been in a practice the last couple of weeks so I don't know the overall impact yet. So far so good though.

- Steve

skwanch's picture

[quote]One of the key points I took away from the podcast was that the weekly review is not the place to be doing a lot of tasks that you are finding in sweep up. [/quote]

Hmm . . . that's a change from the method I'm implementing . . . I like the 2minute rule myself.

Thx for the info tho.