After capturing all my raw thoughts by boogie board or memory palace / mind palace (see earlier post on “The GTD Capture Tools: Memory Palace, Boogie Board”) , the next step in the GTD system (“Getting Things Done” by David Allen) is to clarify the stuff into meaningful categories.
Here comes Google Keep and Google Calendar. (Evernote should be better but too bad my office blocks the software!! urgh).
Google Calendar – time-sensitive items ONLY!
- any time-specific action (e.g. time to renew my monthly MTR pass)
- any time-specific appointment (e.g. meetings, lunches, dinners, seminars)
- any anniversaries or holidays
Google Keep – everything else!
Once I have written down a raw thought, I would then transform it into (1) actionable step + (2) label them accordingly in Google Keep. It could be personal, work-related, basically anything that you think you should bear in mind.
Actionable step should be specific and easy to understand, e.g. “To discuss with my boss on xyz deal”, “to put these coins into my piggy bank”, “to read these FB saved links by today.”, “to dye my hair”.
For my tailor-made labels, they are:
- To Contact – these are “Next Action”. Need to execute.
- To Do – these are “Next Action”. Need to execute.
- Pending – these are the stuff I am waiting for other replies. Can only action when someone else responded / completed it for me. I can check the list regularly and follow up when ineeded.
- Someday / later – not urgent but good to remind myself from time to time. say, Visit Guangzhou K11.
- Reference – some links and notes. They are NOT actions.
- !QUICK – anything can be done in 5 seconds but I couldn’t do it now (e.g. to shred a paper in my handbag once arrived office..)
- !TODAY – it is like an urgent category, must look into these by today.
- errands
- General – some general reminders in daily life, say Read HKET every day.
- #MT – some MT related tasks.
- #Wedding – this is project specific.
- #Boss – this is for my boss -related tasks.
