Crap. I have a day job that I have to wake up early for.
It’s 1am, I haven’t blogged since Sunday…when I was in State college PA. Early (5am) Mon morning, I headed up to NYC for work (and I’ll be here all week.) Earlier this week, I got two hours of sleep. I’m a late night person, regardless of when I have to be up. So, over sun-tues, I had 9 hours of sleep. Go figure why I’m exhausted.
Meanwhile, if anyone is headed to the NYC FCPUG group meeting, it’s likely I’ll be there tomorrow night….
I let myself have a night off - I went to see some live comedy - I’m a big live comedy fan; and I stayed for four hours (which was a mistake. 2 hours max. You get bored of laughing over that) I saw Colin Quinn do a set and Dave Atell. Colin, I’m assuming was trying out new material (so he sorta sucked.) Dave Atell was better.
I carry a notepad (better for drawing examples than my palm); and I’ve started writing some iGTD ideas down.
So, I’m going to dump the contents here to help you get an idea of some thoughts (far from all) that i have about GTD. These are not organized - it’s just to give you an idea of some thoughts I had while I was killing time.
1) I like a wire sorta basket for the icon of “Collect”
The collection phase ought to be able to handling the digital world and the physical world. What do I mean?
Well, remember, the “collect’ phase is the gathering of all your different incoming items (that need to be processed) - Dave Allen uses the term “Bucket”
Always empty your buckets- I struggle because I have a number of them:
notes in my treo, my small notebook I carry (pocket sized), my treo’s ‘recorder’ function, my actual email inbox (A mailbox in mail that I designate. One or several - including the possibility of a smart mailbox), a folder I have for documents I need to sort (more than one, smart mailboxes as well, a wire inbox at home (with bills, etc in it).
So, iGTD needs to be able to automatically monitor the electronic ones, and also have a representation of the physical one to remind you to go empty them. They probably ought to have a context (remember the GTD system physically needs to know where you are - so you have only the things in front of your face that apply to that context), so when you get home, you are reminded to ‘check’ that bucket. .
Which brings up the whole context issue - I think lots of cool icons/settings of the app, depending on your context.
Should the app sorta slide down from your menu bar area…or be invoked by an Fkey? should it be always active? Or just a collection tool all the time (like a widget) and the main app is available when you launch it?
2) Definitely a n00b overview (sorry newbies. Just too old not to get a chance to use 3l33t vernacular).
Should it be just an instruction screen (as an overlay)? A ‘wizard’ walking you through a simple action? (Like setting up and registering the software?)
The app ought to be both comprehensive and an easy introduction for new users as well as migrators. This is a major differentiator between iGTD and anything else.
Look at how much explaining of what GTD does I had to do here? We want people to adopt iGTD (hey, an amazon link to the book would be smart too.)
3) I like this procrastination hack 10+2×5. Let’s build this in. There’s also a 48 minute timer over at lifehacker.
In fact, this makes me want to call the app; iGTD (lifehacker). It’s supposed to help you hack your whole life.
4) Part of it all, is tracking “information”, so let’s add some type of lists:
A to read list; a to watch list (movies + TV), an to buy list; a to learn list. Let’s make all of that recognizable via drag and drop (for order and priority); sortable, and hotlink to amazon, imdb, or whatever the item is, if it has a web presence.
5) I definitely need to post here based on:
Collect, Process, Organize, Do, Review.
Strong review is key
6) How should I differential context? an icon? a full colored theme? Should you be asked when you fire up the app “Where are you?”
Ok, I’ve been at this too long. The hotel bed looks good. G’nite all your judges, finalist and posters.
