I hadn’t heard of “Do it tomorrow”, but the concept sounds quite interesting. I think one thing that can make people feel really overwhelmed is the idea that everything must be done immediately.

I can see that strategy working well when you’re at the stage where you know you’ll do the work. I think the reason people feel uncomfortable with scheduling tasks for another day is that they know it won’t get done. I totally agree on the someday/maybe list too – it’s one of my favourite things about GTD.

Thanks for sharing the DIT tips, I’ll be trying some of them out and looking for a copy of the book when I’m out. It’s always great to hear about new strategies that people are using to become more organised.

I’ve found that by far the best system for me in my job and personal life is to combine GTD with DIT (Do It Tomorrow, by Mark Forster). DIT is much simpler. It proposes the use of ‘closed lists’. Anything which comes in today,goes onto tomorrow. So you’re always working on 1) yesterday’s mails, 2) yesterday’s tasks which cropped up and 3) anything really critical that came up today but couldnt be put off until tomorrow. It means you are doing a day’s worth of work at a time. Also, he gets you to create a backlog. So you shove everything in there when you start with this system (clear your email inbox, your tasks, your everything) and then chip away at it on top of your tasks. Before you know it, you’re keeping on top of a day’s worth of tasks and your backlog can only get smaller (down to zero before you know it).

I do a weekly review (GTD) and with my closed tasklist for the day, I group into physical activities (Contexts). I dont prioritise because I know that everything on my list will be done today so no point putting one ahead of another. I use the someday context like its going out of fashion too.

It has worked so well for me that I just can’t stop gloating about how organised I feel. GTD felt like it was never ending. Finally, after trying so many systems and just getting so disappointed with all of them, I now feel the ‘mind like water’ which David Allen talks of as I combine GTD and DIT.

It’s probably best for me to try both computer and paper based systems, and see which ones work.

Mind you, all the above is only useful if you want a web-based (or at least browser-based) solution!

The method you used in “Time Management: Procrastination vs GTD and Non-Conditional Scheduling” reminds me of something I read in “The NOW Habit” called the “Unschedule”. In this method, you schedule all the fun activities you want to do for the day, and then include work in whatever time is left. I think I’m most productive when I have a schedule to work to, so it’s something I want to try over the coming weeks.

I’m still not sure how I’ll be organising my project plans. I’ve tried using Excel as recommended by Joel Spolsky, but it quickly becomes a huge mess of numbers. I’ve also used TaskJuggler (on Linux), but it quickly gets out of hand too. Perhaps I need to spend some time on finding a better method of breaking down tasks.

It’s a shame David Allen doesn’t go into project management in more detail in “Getting Things Done”, and I find the whole idea of only having one next action associated with a project and one time frustrating.

Basically, I came up with two ways of dealing with it. One was a weekly task schedule (the post on which can be seen here) where I allocate time to different projects. This lets me know what I’m doing and when and if I don’t get around to something (things always over-run which is fine) I know what I still have to do the next day/week.

The second way was a project/next action tracker – similar I guess to the project plan you mentioned. This lists all phases (or sub-projects as I guess Allen would refer to them) and related tasks (next actions).

I have to admit, I’m slowly moving over to the cult of the moleskine so most of my Next Actions go in there now as it’s with me 90% of the time.

Good luck with the GTD-rework, I’m sure it’ll work out brilliantly for you!