Simpler Evernote GTD
New, Simpler Evernote GTD System, Part 1: Structure & Agendas
Lots of activity on Hanami lately about my efforts with GTD, specifically with using Evernote. Been working on that and this is Part 1 of a short series on my revised Evernote GTD system (August 2011). Let’s jump right in with the basic structure and the Agendas notebook.
Please note: I lean heavily on my email inboxes and Google Calendar, but this series focuses just on the Evernote aspects of my personal Getting Things Done system.
Structure
Unlike previous arrangements that focused on making the notebooks look very GTD-like, I now arrange by frequency of use and convenience.
- Agendas. Today, @agendas, and related (more below).
- Projects. Active only.
- Lists. Context lists and more.
- Ideas. Just my thoughts, man.
- Someday/Maybe. Projects inactive and incubating.
- Horizons. Notes on why I’m doing and who I want to be.
- Routines. Checklists for things I do somewhat frequently (might eventually become part of Lists).
- Reviews. Weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly review lists.
- Motivation. Pictures and quotes for inspiration, self-encouragement.
- Public. Evernotes I’m sharing with you fine folks.
- Reference. My archives.
- Tags. Take a look at this post for my approach to Areas.
Agendas Notebook
Things that I regularly reach for on a daily basis and notes that frame what I’m doing now in terms of short-term goals. I don’t want to reach far for anything so whatever I need to do today should go here.
- 00. Today. In order, my tasks of the day. I often group these by @context.
- 01. Ticklers – Days/Months. Used mostly for tasks I need off my list today and into the future. Most ticklers go into my calendar.
- 02. Ticklers – No date. Things that are still more or less on my personal radar but aren’t date associated.
- 03. Scrum. Notes for the morning meetings at work. Split between two work areas, further divided by Today and Yesterday.
- 04. Daily Review. My daily GTD checklist I use this everyday.
- 05. Copy & Paste. Not everything I copy and paste frequently, just the daily stuff.
- 06. This Week. Helps to have my plan for the week with my plan for the day. Makes reviews easier.
- 07. This Month. Plan and goals for the month.
- 08. This Year. Plan and goals for the year.
- @Agendas. Unlike the above which are numbered, my @agendas are notes named for people I need to talk to and/or am waiting for. No need for a separate notebook when I’m likely talking to them about something I’m working on today or this week.
Plain Text
One other significant change I’ve made lately is to avoid formatting my notes in Evernote wherever possible. I’ve come to realize that I’ve been spending an exorbitant amount of time prettying up instead of actually doing something.
So now I try to keep things super freaking simple.
A bonus of that is I can better manage my notes on the Evernote on the iPhone, which doesn’t currently support rich text editing.
Next Posts
I’ll be going down the list as outlined above so next up should be Projects. Happy tasking!
[...] you compare this with the last arrangement, you can see that I’ve combined a few notebooks. Routines, Lists, and Ideas are all under [...]
fVQmkV wglcwizckrph
[...] I’ve been writing a lot about my newly revised Evernote GTD system. All began solidly. But somewhere between parts 1 and 2 things got fuzzy. My system began changing, [...]
Just started reviewing this and LOVE IT!!!!
Glad to hear it! Hope you find this all useful.