Dave Slusher writes of his struggles with GTD. He provides pointage to a David Allen/Merlin Mann podcast that said:
it takes two years to really get the GTD system internalized.
After reading Dave’s post, I see that he and I are in approximately the same GTD status: we both have Hipster PAA cards out the wazoo, an we’ve both been dutifully adding more day by day. In both our cases, we’ve not progressed steadily on the processing of that information.
I’m using the PAA as input into my Palm PDA, and to do information has been flowing smoothly. I look through the balance of my cards, and find that what needs to be handled is the reference type information (the command to initiate a Linux kickstart from an Open Firmware prompt, stuff like that). The plan is to transfer this info from cards, to properly categorized Palm memos. The Missing Synch for Palm OS does a wonderful job in synching everything from the Palm to a Mac-based desktop. Contact info goes to the Mac’s address book, calendar info to the calendar, etc. Plus, and this is a big plus, categories are created on the fly; for example, if you see a need for another to-do category, create it on the Palm, add the to-do, and Missing Sync will create the item and the category on the desktop at the next sync. Prior versions had a catchall category to lump items, and it was a real pain to have to edit items after a sync, just to get them properly categorized.
So, I’ve got all the tools, I know what needs to be done, and like Dave, I just need to do it. Once caught up, I think the daily portion will be easily maintained. And Dave has it right; pick a time for daily review (with the AM java is a great time), and weekly review (weekends are a great time), and then just do it, dammit.
If it takes two years to get this process internalized, there’s no time like the present to start.
-k-
1 – GID = Get It Done, not the gid in the Unix sense. And not GED, in the Larry the Cable Guy Sense.
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I’m not sure if you’re interested in this feature, but Google Calendar supports imports of iCal calendars through the .ics file format. Just in case you wanted an “off-site backup” of your to-dos in an easy-to-get-to format. Unfortunately, GooCal **does not** export its data out in .ics format for syncing with iCal at a later time.
There are “official” Java, .NET and PHP implementations of the Google Data APIs, through which some app could be written to properly sync GooCal with iCal. Let see if I ever GID.
Some progress on my research on Google Calendar and iCal APIs:
Python libraries for interfacing with Google Calendar:
http://matt.poepping.googlepages.com/gcalpython
http://code.google.com/p/pygooglecalendar/
Python is *almost* as nice as Ruby, and ipython, like irb, is really useful for prototyping.
Apple has an iSync API, which is capable of exporting iCal data.
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/SyncServices/index.html
And this API is callable from Python.
http://developer.apple.com/cocoa/pyobjc.html
http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2003/01/31/pyobjc_one.html
I’ll play around some with this stuff over the weekend. Let’s see if I can get a simple Mac GUI app done by Christmas.
BTW, the reason I’m doing this, is cuz I just started GTD myself. I’ll write more on pjtrix eventually, but here’s a summary:
I’m using a Hipster PAA for quick notes and for jotting down stuff on the go. Then on review day (or more often if possible), all the PAA contents get moved into a Palm TX. The Palm iSyncs with iCal and AddressBook with The Missing Sync as in your setup. And I want the GooCal integration for when I don’t have my PowerBook with me and I need to show someone my calendar and the Palm screen just won’t do.
Crap
http://spanningsync.com/
I learned about it through the Davester.
I have no hope of competing with Spanning Partners commercially, as they are so far ahead feature-wise. But I’m going to continue working on this as an open source project, if only to teach myself Mac OS X development. Plus I got nothing else to do till after New Year’s Day (more details on pjtrix.com later tonight.)
PJ:
Rock on! Source code and the underlying design, rule the world. Knowledge is good
I’ll check the trixter site later.
-k-
There’s GCalSync and GooSync if you’re interested…