It has been a while since I started using Evernote as my primary tool for doing GTD. For those of you that just now stumbled upon this blog here is a link to the page where you can find all previous posts on Evernote and GTD.

Since upgrading to the premium version I find myself mailing in more and more documents for projects and it is just great to be able to have all the current files for a project in one place.

With the new iPhone version typing text notes is greatly enhanced because I can now use the landscape keyboard. I still miss a good list view on the iPhone app but the landscape mode makes it already better to navigate and use.

I have had some issues with Evernote. Errors with very large pdf files and errors with mailing documents to my Evernote account. Because these issues were messing with me wanting to have complete trust in the system I contacted Evernote support. They rock. In both cases they understood the problem and provided a good solution.

One of the things that amazes me is that as far as I know the guys at Evernote didn’t know GTD when they originally developed Evernote. It is so funny to see that in my case Evernote turns out to be the perfect GTD app that supports all the importants aspects of GTD. It enables me to keep things under control and have the right perspective on all things in my current reality, both personal and professional.

If you have any question about Evernote and GTD please leave a comment and I’d be happy to answer them. If you have found a great way to use Evernote for your GTD setup, please share them!

Just a short post to point you to a great magazine about Productivity. It is a free pdf download. It covers great topics and it looks very professional. In this latest issue you can read about:

• The art of saying No
• How to optimize your life and claim a couple of hours a week back
• Setting SMART goals
• Mind- mapping
• Working in groups

I highly recommend it.

In some of my posts I have been describing how I use Evernote as my GTD cockpit. Another part of my trusted daily GTD system is my Dropbox account. Some time ago I made a separation between general reference files and what I call documents at work.

The general reference files on my computer do have their own directory structure. There is a basic three folder approach. Work related files, my own private related files and a knowledgebase directory. I don’t have a lot of subdirectories, I am on a Mac and completely trust Spotlight to find whatever file I need based on a couple of words from the original document. The work and private related files are mostly project related and are from projects that are already finished. Time Machine and Mozy make sure that data is replicated on an external disk and on the Internet.

For work at hand I use a free Dropbox account. The basic idea is that you can store 2 GB of files in your Dropbox and you can access that data through the Web on every computer that has Internet access. But the real power lies in the desktop clients, currently for Mac and Windows. When you install Dropbox on the client you will have a folder set up on your local computer. Any file you drop in that directory gets automatically synced to your online storage. You can attach more that one computer to one Dropbox account so files are replicated on the different computers. You don’t have to be online to be able to access the files.

I have Dropbox installed on my iBook G4 for when I am on the road. At home I have it installed on our Intel iMac. I can work on all project and other related files from both computers and know that I have the most up to date version of the file. Because Dropbox has an excellent iPhone enabled web interface I also can view my files from my iPhone. When working on a client computer or a public computer I have access to all my files through the Dropbox webinterface.

Dropbox also has the ability to roll back revisions of documents. So you can even revert back to files in case something went wrong. Even if you delete files from your Dropbox you can restore them in the Web Interface. I have been using it for months now with no problems so far.

In this screenshot you see the directories I have in my Dropbox account. The @Home and @Work folders hold files for projects I currently work on as well as other context related files.

Read&Review holds files (mostly pdf files) I want to read when time permits. The Reference folder holds reference documents I want to have at hand always. The photos folder is for well photos and the public folder is for sharing files with others.

Dropbox gives you two options when you want to sign up: the free account gives you 2 GB of storage and the $99 dollar a year (or $9,99 a month) paid subscription gives you 50 GB of storage.

But here is a catch for you. They have started a referral program. If you sign up for a free account using this link you will get an extra 256 MB of storage free. I will also get an extra 256 MB of storage. I have found so far that 2 GB of free storage is enough for my use of Dropbox in the GTD workflow I have setup. But having some more space won’t hurt

I regularly purge my Dropbox by archiving project related files from projects already finished.

So if you want to give Dropbox a try, here is a good change!

I was visiting the Making it all Work seminar featuring David Allen in Amsterdam yesterday. The seminar was organized by the David Allen Company and Life Architect. It was my third time that I visited one of David Allen’s seminars. I also listen regularly to the audio version of the seminar. It was as usual a very good seminar, relaxed, focused and entertaining. It looks like it doesn’t cost him any energy. Because I know what it is to have to present in a different timezone, it is amazing how he does it. With humor but with great persuasion he tells his story about productivity. You can read elsewhere on Internet about the content of the seminar.

There are two things I want to write about in this post regarding the seminar. First, David demoed his own system with Lotus Notes with the eProducivity addon from Eric Mack. He also showed his extensive use of MindManager. By doing this he showed first hand how it works in his own personal and professional life. I must say this was quite powerful. It resembled much of how I have set up my own system in Evernote.

The other thing I wanted to mention is the story behind the story. When you have been introduced to GTD and have a good understanding of the practicalities of GTD it is fundamental you get the basic and fundamental theory behind it. Completely in line with his new book, Making it All Work, David pointed to the fundamental behavior changes that are needed to really get GTD and stick to it.

Couple of quotes to illustrate what I really got out of this seminar:

“Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.” – David Allen

“Psychologists say Distributed Cognition, I say Write it down” - David Allen

“A successful executive solves bigger problems that he or she creates!” - David Allen

And as always during a seminar like this all kind of new ideas, tasks and projects have surfaced and are now in my trusted system waiting for the right timing.

Over the last two months I have seen an incredible increase of visitors to my blog and readers of the feed. I have also seen a lot more subscriptions to the email service of my blog.

So a big welcome to all of you who are new around here!

Most of you have been visiting because of the serie on Evernote and GTD. I am so pleased that a lot of you are using Evernote for your GTD process. It has been a tremendous step forward for my workflow when I started to use Evernote as my main GTD cockpit. I am looking for more stuff to write about in this regard so stay tuned.

Feel free to comment on this post or others with your tips, questions or just to say hello. Interaction is great fun in this online world.

For those of you who haven’t read the about page, please do. It will give you some background on who I am and what this blog is all about.

So again, welcome and stay tuned for more practical posts with new tips, tricks and ways to enjoy life to the fullest.

When I first started out with Evernote in a GTD way I struggled with using the rights features for the right GTD use. I tried using the tags as contexts but this didn’t work out in a way I liked. I have to be honest that early on the tags feature of Evernote was somewhat unpredictable in my case where I mixed the Windows and Mac client together with the iPhone app and the occasional use of the web interface. But even after those glitches were solved by the guys from Evernote I still didn’t completely trust that system. Not that it wasn’t reliable but it just didn’t work in my workflow.

In the meantime I have found a great way for tags in my GTD setup. I use the tags as temporary labels for project support material entries. I use it for web clippings, all kinds of documents (see below about Premium). It is my experience that I have at most about 20 active tags. When the project is done I simply delete the tag.

Saved Searches

This feature of Evernote is used for several lists that I use every now and then. I have a saved search that lists all the notes that contain interesting books, films or music. Also Saved searches provides me with a list of restaurants. I have for each saved search a dedicated word that is used for generating the list from all my notes across all notebooks. For books to read the keyword is simply: booktip.

Premium feature

There was one thing in my GTD workflow that didn’t quite worked. In a lot of my actions and projects I have to deal with documents, spreadsheets and other files. With the premium (aka payed) version of Evernote you can use these kind of files in your notes. What I particulary like is the ability to mail documents to your Evernote account. I explained the feature of mailing to your Evernote account in an earlier post on Evernote and GTD.

When I receive a document that I need to review I mail in to my Evernote account address. Before sending the mail I change the subject line of the forwarded mail with a meaningful action like this:

Read quarterly report for the budget meeting.

All mailed entries are routed to my Evernote Inbox and are processed from within Evernote. The automatic syncing of documents is just amazing. Always the most actual version of the document is available on whatever device or computer I work on.

This is the last entry in this series on Evernote and GTD. Since this is my primary GTD setup, every now and then I will write about new cool things I have figured out. For your convenience I have listed the entries below:

Evernote and GTD (1)

Evernote and GTD (2): Collecting

Evernote and GTD (3): Collecting with the iPhone

Over time I still find new ways to use one of the four options for entering information on the iPhone. When I am doing a weekly review I use the new text note to just enter new tasks to pop up during the time I reserve every week. But also when I am on the phone with someone it is quite easy to quickly add tasks that way. It takes some time to make it a habit to enter every single task or item that pops up during the day. Also I have found some resistance in entering some small detail like get new batteries for emergency light. But it is now a natural thing to do.

The Snapshot Note option has proven to be a very convenient way to be more productive and ahead of things. I use it for business cards, clippings from magazines and newspapers, price tags in shops, location of my car in the car park and numerous other ways. Basically all things that I need to remember or want to remember is entered through this option.

The Saved Photo Note is ideal if you want to add photo’s you have taken into a note, for instance when you are writing about a trip you have made.

I use the Voice Note option a lot in the car. When I want to brainstorm on a subject or when summarize a meeting I was in I create a new voice note. The quality of the audio is great. Sometimes I just listen to the audio note and then process the tasks that are in the recording. Other times I just keep the recording for later use.

But there are also other ways I have found the iPhone to be of great help in collecting. I use Google Reader as my newsreader and with the handy option of emailing items right from the mobile browser interface I email items of interest to my Evernote email address. Sometimes there is an action involved in an item and just emailing them keeps my head clear because I later process the items when I review the inbox notebook in Evernote.

A lot of people miss the copy/paste option on the iPhone. I use the screenshot option on the iPhone to make screenshot from a lot of apps on the iPhone. Not only webpages but also screens from applications like contacts, Google Maps, TwitterFon, the SMS app, Calendar and others as well. When I am looking at my tweets in Twitterfon and there is something in a tweet that needs my action I just press the power button and the home button to take a screenshot of that page. With the Saved Photo Note I then add the screenshot to Evernote. The possibilities are endless.

Clarifi case

I really think the iPhone camera is of good quality for the day to day use as I need it. If I want to take quality pictures I take my digital camera. But in one area the camera of the iPhone good be better and that is when taking shots of text. The Clarifi case has a built-in sliding lens that makes close-up photos incredibly clear. Together with the text recognition feature of Evernote there is no need for typing in business cards addresses because with Evernote you can search for that name or address on the card. I have found out about the Clarifi case on the Evernote blog. I immediately bought the case and I must say it is a must for serious collecting with the iPhone client.

In later posts I will write about the ways of the iPhone client for reviewing information and taking action. For now I close with again a call to your readers to add your own tips and suggestions by commenting on this post.

Evernote and GTD: Setting up Evernote

I have been thinking about writing about my setup for quite some time now. Now that our building project in our home is almost finished I have time to get started with a series on how to make the best use of Evernote when you are using the Getting Things Done method for organizing your work.

This first post deals with setting up Evernote for best use. I have created a special account for this purpose on the Evernote web site. For now I will explain things from the perspective of the web interface of Evernote. In later posts I will discuss the different clients that are available.

If you have created your free account you are set to go. Because of the nature of the GTD process in most cases the free account which gives you 40MB of bandwidth a month is enough. But if you are a more heavy user you can always upgrade to their premium plan.

To get going all we have to do is creating a set of notebooks. In the picture below you can see what notebooks I have to make Evernote the perfect GTD tool:

The first 5 notebooks resemble the five stages in GTD, Collect, Process, Organize, Review and Do. In Inbox (the default notebook) the collecting takes place. Everything that is added to the system first is stored in Inbox. The Next Actions notebook is a place holder for actions you are going to do during the day, the Do part. In Projects are notes stored about the projects you are doing at the moment. Notes/References contains notes with information you want to have at hand. And Someday/Maybe is for storing actions that you would like to do sometime but not now.

The notebooks with the @ in the name are used for holding actions that are context based. Archive is used for archiving actions and projects that are done. General Reference is just one big notebook for all kinds of info.

TeamProject1 is an example public notebook, in a later post I will explain how you can use Evernote to collaborate with your team members.

Evernote as list manager

My primary use of Evernote is as a list manager. A notebook is just a collection of notes with in most cases just a title. See the example below.

For some information I use one note to collect a number of items. For instance the @Agendas notebook contains notes for every person that I see regular in a work or home setting. On the lists of those persons I keep track of things to ask them, to track actions I have delegated to them and sometimes to hold specific info on that person.

But I also use Evernote as the place to store all kinds of info. Account information from websites. Information on several subjects of interest, business cards and a lot more. More on that in later posts.

You are all invited to share your use of Evernote in a GTD setting in the comments.

In my previous post I forgot to mention a nice conference mostly dedicated to doing stuff online, Office 2.0. I was reminded of that conference while I was listening to an interview of David Allen with Ismael Ghalami on GTD Connect. The whole conference is around the central theme of my previous post. About being able to work online with some great apps that are available. If you want some more info on the conference, GTD Times has more. David Allen will be a keynote speaker at the conference.

By the way, GTD Connect is offering a free no strings attached two week trial membership.

“GTD Connect is a members-only program specifically designed to keep you on track and at peak motivation with daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly features.”

Check out this link for this free offer from the David Allen Company.

If the circumstances of your life change so does your GTD system. If the changes in your life are relatively small, adjusting the GTD system is not that difficult. But bigger changes like a change of jobs can create quite some stress. It also takes time to get to the point again where you feel control over the work that needs to be done.

I have experienced this first hand in the last half year. It has taken considerable time and effort to adjust the system that I was used to. Not having control makes that the mind like water state of mind can be very far away.

In my new job the standard is Windows. For an OSX guy this was quite a challenge. At home we have several Apple computers. After trying hard for about 6 months I have come to the conclusion that Windows only is not going to work for me, for now at least. But I am really used to have one system for work and personal stuff. Having two systems for me creates stress, because I miss a complete overview of what is going on in my life.

In order to be able to have one system I had to take most of the GTD workflow online. Because of the fact that the summertime is less busy this was the time to try out taking the workflow online and I have to be honest, it wasn’t that hard. In this post I will give you a basic overview of the different parts of the system. Later on I can dive into the specifics of the different parts.

• Mail: Gmail is the one place where I handle and store all email.
• Calendar: Google Calendar.
• Tasks/Lists/Notes: Evernote. They offer  a native client for OSX and Windows and they have web based version.
• Projects: Evernote. For tracking progress on projects as well as storing info on projects.
• Files: I use Dropbox for sharing files between Windows and the Mac, but they have also a web client.
• Documents: Google Docs when online, otherwise the Office suite that is sitting on the computer I am working at.
• Instant Messaging: Meebo. Just sits in a browser window.

There is just one area where I haven’t figured out a trusted system and that are my contacts. For now my Treo 680 is the trusted place for storing all my contacts. I am looking into storing and syncing my contacts to Google or to a service like Plaxo.

As you will notice when you browse to the different sites most of them are in beta. So you have to be comfortable using services that are still in beta. I must say that my experience with beta in the Web 2.0 era is that your data is OK. But to be on the safe side I have a Mozy Unlimited account so all my data is safely stored away somewhere online.

The result is that I have everything available whenever I am sitting behind a computer with an Internet connection. So at work it is my Dell, at home the iMac or an old iBook G4.