The Productivity Show #30 - Meet the Buddy
Talking productivity with Michael Specht who works for Nortel, knows his stuff in the HR technology industry, oh, and just happens to be Cameron Reilly’s Getting Things Done Buddy. So let’s hear the other side of the story!
(In true blogging about blogging tradition, the sound quality is a bit variable, and the recording ended abruptly with Phil Collins and Genesis!)
Doing those Weekly Reviews
Falling off the wagon - and getting back on by doing the Weekly Review
Moving your Weekly Review time - Working in Corporates often means that on Friday afternoon there are urgent things to do, so find another time such as 8-00am on Monday morning to do your weekly review, instead of the ideal 2-00pm on Friday.
Checking in with your Buddy - and bouncing ideas off them
Dealing with large amounts of email without a Gatekeeper
@Action for dealing with actionable emails
GTD eBook by David Allen that explains Getting Things Done in Outlook, and the GTD Outlook plugin
Outlook Tasks - Dragging and dropping incoming actionable emails in to Tasks, and then categorising each Task.
Using Outlook keyboard shortcuts
Setting an appointment for urgent tasks and colour coding the appointments
Index cards - for note capture, and using notations
Capturing each thought from your desk onto a single sheet of A4 to put in the Inbox, or on to Post Notes, to prioritise on your desk
Making notes in meetings - Different methods
Windows Mobile device - For carrying tasks
Outlook Notes - for Horizons of Focus (Roles and Responsibilities etc)
Outlook Tasks - for creating Projects, which makes sense, because you could capture all the actions, and set the task for the next action in each project
@Waiting - To check up on actions of others that you’re waiting on
GTD for managers to follow up
Instant Messaging in corporates - As a primary form of productivity
Twitter to help Brainstorm - SMS No Thanks
Reputation/Identity - and the Wisdom of Crowds
Just one more thing - Individual and team benefits of doing one more thing each day
Achieving 1 year goals - Tony bangs on yet again about achieving 1 year goals (30,000ft)
Goals that stimulate - Defining a goal that really excites you
Create a Crisis - to make things so bad you’ll do something about it
Process Widgets - to achieve your longer term goals
Email etiquette - Accepting that emails are read but not always answered, poor subject lines, and copying
Made to Stick - Sticky subject lines and intros which people remember
The 4 Hour Work Week - How to outsource your life and work 4 hours per week!
Footballer’s Favourites
July 19th, 2007 at 7:06 am
Tony just put the show on my ipod and will listen to it today! I hope the interview doesn’t ruin the quality of interview subjects you can get in the future ;-)
July 19th, 2007 at 7:07 am
[...] A couple of weeks ago Tony Goodson sat down and had a chat with me about productivity, being a productivity buddy, Twitter and life in general. The audio is not the best, Skype was playing up and we had to record in 3 different sessions but we got through it. Following recording Tony went and moved house which delayed it being posted. [...]
July 19th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
Great podcast. Good to have you guy back.
I realy enjoy hearing about other people’s GTD set-ups. Some great ideas in there.
For outlook users I have to recommend JelloGTD. It’s free and the developer is very responsive
http://www.jello-dashboard.net/wordpress/
How about opeing up a froum to allow wannabe GTD-buddies to hook-up?
Keep up the good work.
July 19th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
Great show! Thanks Michael for your tips. I need to listen to it again because not all of it sunk in properly but I’ve already pinched the symbols to categorise notes that have been captured during the day.
July 20th, 2007 at 8:51 am
John there is a forum already set up, it is just a bit of a waste-land at the moment :-) http://forum.thepodcastnetwork.com/viewforum.php?f=10. I will check out JelloGTD, not heard of it before thanks for the tip.
Miriam, np, the symbols are a Dave Allen come Des Paroz thing that I have manipulated a bit for my own needs.
July 23rd, 2007 at 9:32 am
I’m listening to the podcast now and will have to try the “right-drag email to task” trick tomorrow at work in order to help my users.
One tip on Gmail though..
http://lifehacker.com/software/gmail/hack-attack-become-a-gmail-master-161399.php
Set up a label/filter combination to filter your mail so that it doesn’t stay in the Gmail “Inbox.” One of you mentioned that Gmail doesn’t have folders, so I thought I’d point that out.
July 24th, 2007 at 7:18 am
Good podcast with useful hints and tips.
Michael makes reference to a GTD Outlook eBook. Is possible to post a link to where this can be obtained from?
I found the link below useful to help customise Outlook to manage projects. Best of all it’s free:
http://home.comcast.net/~whkratz/id3.htm
Keep up the good work. Look forward to the next cast.
Damian
July 24th, 2007 at 7:42 am
found it.
http://www.davidco.com/store/product.php?productid=16173&cat=0&page=1
July 30th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Michael mentions using the Notes in Outlook and also about trialling syncing with his PDA. One thing interesting is that the Notes don’t sync over exchange anymore, which is a big pain.
Using the notes field in Tasks seems to be a way around this…but nowhere as nice as pure Notes.
When Michael pops notes on his laptop (not as a Task) is there a Quick app that you can do this with that acts like a single piece of paper [one note per page] type thing?
Good show.
Dave
July 31st, 2007 at 10:16 am
Been offline for a week, which is why there have been no replies.
Damian thanks for finding the link to the ebook!
Dave you are right you can’t sync notes via Exchange, which is a pain. However if you sync directly to Outlook they do still sync. Honestly I have not looked for a app to sync the notes, but it would be very nice.