ThemBid.com

Working From Home and the GTD

When you are in the practice of executing under the GTD model, you are to consider the context, time available, energy available and priority when you are in the moment. At the daily level you are doing predefined work, work as is shows up or you are defining your work. Then there is the big picture which starts by looking at your overall life picture, then your three to five year vision, then one to two year goals, your areas of responsibility, current projects and finally the current actions you are to execute.

I am fortunate as a ThemBid.com executive to be able to spend a great deal of time working from “the command center” AKA home. This means that when I am operating in the moment the context and time available are largely static. In that case I end up with a very large list of next actions to execute. So I needed a way to get things done without letting my list overwhelm me. Following is my current system and thoughts. I am interested to hear how others are dealing with this issue.

Tools

List & Contact Management

When at home, I use Microsoft Outlook 2007, and when on the road I have a Pocket PC xv6700 with Pocket Informant and a Dell D420 Laptop that also runs Outlook 2007. I use 1and1.com’s exchange server to synchronize.

Calendar

I use Google Calender in combination with Outlook 2007 using OggSync to synchronize.

Execution Process

During the weekly review I identify must do items and appointments that have a hard deadline or scheduled time frame. In Outlook and Pocket Informant I use the category feature to label my contexts and then a sort by context. In addition to the usual contexts I use one called @Today. I also diverge a bit from the GTD by using the High Priority flag in Outlook to mark action items that I consider to be “extra” important.

With that done, the following is the procedure I am using:

1. Check the Calendar and execute
2. Review all High Priority items in all contexts and place those I want to work on today in the @Today category
3. Count all the items in the @Today category and choose the most important 20% of those and add a priority number in front of the subject line, 1 - 4.
4. Execute the action items in order of the priority you just assigned.
5. Rinse and Repeat
6. At the end of the day, review the calendar and the @Today list. Place items on tomorrows calendar date if necessary, otherwise remove the @Today category and start at step 1 tomorrow morning.

TIP: To easily remove all the @Today categories, left click the grouping bar and select @Today. This will remove that tag from all the items in that category.

Concluding Thoughts

If you are in a similar situation, how do you utilize the GTD?

These ideas are part of a bigger project called the Life 2.0 Entrepreneurial Framework.