Make Time Tracking Easier

I am becoming increasingly enamored of Jott.

If you haven’t tried it, you sign up with your cell phone, and add contacts. You can just call Jott, tell it who to send a message to, and leave a voice message. They’ll transcribe it (speaking clearly really, really helps…), and email both the text message and the recording to you or one of your contacts.

How does this help with billable hours? If you’re using time tracking on your computer, it’s easy enough to keep your application of choice open to mark time. If you’re on the road, however, try Jott. Call in and send yourself (or your assistant) a message with the start time and project name. Call in again on your way out the door. By the time you get back to your computer, you’ll probably already have emails documenting which jobs you worked on and how much time you spent working on them.

There are lots of other tips for using Jott on the Jotter blog.

And yes, an integration to let you Jott tasks to your Enleiten account is coming soon, we promise. Because we really want it, too.

Version 1? Yes! Version 1!

Tonight we’ll be pushing the button and releasing version 1.0 of Enleiten’s personal project manager. So you know what you’ll see when you log in, here’s the release preview for you. Sign up for a free account.

Any questions? Comments? Suggestions? Feedback? Assign us a task from your Enleiten account and we’ll get right on it, or send us an email at support@enleiten.com

In response to user comments, we’ve made a number of improvements to the interface:

- Task lists are now in table format, so you can see due dates, whether you have comments, and whether a task has been delegated without opening the task for additional detail. You can double-click to edit the summary, context and dates directly from the table.

- In table view you can resort your tasks on the fly - just click the header to sort by project, context, date, etc.

- You can select multiple rows to batch process your inbox. Just click a task, hold down shift, and click another task to select a range. Or command-click on a mac or control-click on a pc to select nonadjacent rows. You can drag the whole set of selected tasks to a contact to delegate, to a context to tag them, or into a project in the left hand navigation just like before.

- Clicking a contact name from your list will show you everything that’s been assigned to that person. So when they’re on the phone, just click their name and review everything you need to check on in one place.

- Use the email address you signed up with to create tasks. Send a message to USERNAME@inbox.enleiten.com and the subject line will become the task summary, and the message body will be entered as task detail. If you used your email address for your username, then substitute a period for the @, ie, dduck.example.com@inbox.enleiten.com

- “View all tasks” has been added, so you can see everything at once (perfect for streamlining your weekly review).

We’ve got more features up our sleeves that you’ve requested, and your comments help us decide which ones to roll out next, so if you can spare a minute, we’d love a quick message from you.

GTD and Start-ups

As promised, here’s your recap from the GTD and Start-ups session at Minnebar.

View it full screen on Slideshare.

If we missed anything important from the Q&A session, or there are other questions, please continue the conversation in the comments.

Minnebar Love!

Photo from Graeme Thickins After 10 hours the crowd was still going strong.

The Enleiten crew has just about slept off the excitement of Minnebar now, and I’m busily working on getting the slides from GTD and start-ups ready for the web. With the support of some fantastic sponsors, over 400 people met for happy hour at the Bulldog, poured into Coffman Union for sessions, and met at the Campus Club mixer.

From implementing social search in a corporate environment to help your employees uncover internal expertise, to a keynote panel on the State of Technology in Minnesota, over 400 attendees in the local tech community were a bustle of presentations, socializing, and demonstrating some truly great tech application, it was great to be there and participate.

And many, many thanks to the great crowd that stuck it out on a long day from 8:30 AM all the way to the 5 PM session to join us for GTD and Startups. As a result of some of the post-session conversation, I’ll be working on setting up a local group to get together and share their experiences using the GTD methodology, details to follow. If you’re interested in joining the group, have votes for a good location, or want to be added to a mailing list for scheduling, leave a note in the comments or drop us a line at info@enleiten.com

Meet us at Minnebar

It’s bright and early Saturday morning, and the Enleiten team is headed off to Minnebar. An impressive 416 attendees have signed up already, and if the happy crowd from the Minnebar social at the Bulldog is any indication, there are going to be some great discussions happening and some great people there.

At 5 PM in the Mississippi room, we’ll be facilitating the GTD and Startups session. Come on by and join us. What will you find at our session?

• A chance to get a free copy of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.
• Chocolate.
• A discussion of tools to help your team get software development done.
• Best practices for implementing GTD in a team environment.
• One homicidal but productive robot.
• Launch! You’ll be the first to see version 1.0 of Enleiten’s GTD-based web app, the tool you need to get productive and make tracking delegated tasks easy.

See you there!

Inbox

If my informal Flickr survey is at all accurate, I estimate a full 50% of all GTD inboxes contain one cat awaiting processing.

I’m in ur GTD-inbox on Flickr

Highlights from the David Allen Teleseminar

I was listening to the David Allen Teleseminar last night, and there were two pieces of the call that really stood out and are worth sharing with all of you.

You need to reframe productivity as relaxation, not being Type A.

The idea here, and I’m a huge fan of it, is that a good productivity system isn’t just about accomplishing a blur of activities with superhuman energy. The mark of a productivity system that works well for you is one that eliminates stress.

The obvious follow-up question, of course, is just how does that work? From my point of view, it’s about finding a system that lets you create a harmony between your goals, your commitments, and your resources. When that clicks, the tasks you commit to doing, whether to yourself or to someone else, become things that you can accomplish without being overloaded, and are a part of creating the kind of life you want.

GTD does this for me, because I needed the ability to separate having ideas and requests on my time from the process of deciding whether or not to commit to them. By reviewing once a week, I can choose what is plausible as an actual commitment. And with a conscious idea in my head of what I’ve already committed to for a week, it’s much easier to handle choosing from incoming, spur of the moment requests - because I already now how close to the limits of my time and attention and finances I am.

What’s the relationship between spirituality and GTD?

I wasn’t sure whether there would be a tie in between these things, but given the popularity of GTD among clergy and the religious community, it was interesting to hear Allen’s ideas about the connection here.

The first half of the answer was about clearing your mind. By creating a trusted system for distributed cognition, and using that system to train your mind out of having random thoughts jump in, you create the kind of openness to focus on the present that recurs as a part of Christian prayer life, meditation practice, etc. Being proficient at reliably creating that kind of mental space, without “oh, right, I need to call Bob tomorrow” popping into your mind repeatedly seems valuable.

The second half of the answer revolved around acceptance. By going through the collection stage of GTD, gathering together all the physical and mental objects in your world, you set the stage for accepting your current situation. The collection and then processing stages of starting with GTD serve as more than just step 1 of getting organized. Those stages also provide a time for you to explicitly acknowledge each thing, and form a catalog of your circumstances.

While not part of the call, I’ve been fascinated by how this idea of having a catalog of all my thoughts and resources has changed my attitudes. Having everything laid out and sorted gives me a bit of distance to really evaluate where I am and the steps I need to take to move on.

What Makes a good GTD List Manager?

Kelly Forrister, one of the coaches at the David Allen Company, recently offered a list of criteria to use when choosing your trusted system.

With such a great list from one of the experts, we thought we’d take a few minutes and show you how we’ve implemented those features in Enleiten for you.

Key features to look for:

• Sorting lists by context - many programs have a “category” feature that will easily support this.
• Ability to assign a due date - not forcing it on all of them, but allowing it for those that need it.
• Portable for on the go access - can be synched to a handheld or printed.
• Easily accessible - less than 60 seconds to get something in/out.
• More attractive to you than repelling - you’ve got to like the system your entrusting your brain to.
• Doesn’t force priority codes - if you know GTD, you know that forcing priority codes is old news and rarely accurate anyway.
• Place to capture additional notes - attached to an item to capture relevant info related to the item.
• Ability to search and sort in various ways.
• Robust enough to handle all of your stuff.

So, how do we do it (as well a sneak preview of what’s to come)?

10 Ways to Beat Procrastination

In an interview between Merlin Mann and David Allen, I heard the great phrase “Procrastination isn’t about not doing, it’s about not doing and feeling crappy about it”. None of us want that ambient guilt bearing down on us during our time off, so here’s 10 great ways to figure out why you’re procrastinating and finish what you have to do.

1. The excuse: It’ll take so long!. Maybe, or does that objection stem from not really knowing how long it will take? Set a timer for 15 minutes and see how far you can get. You can use a kitchen timer, the alarm on our cell phone, or grab a computer based timer, like a widget with an audible alarm. Most of them time, I can finish before the timer goes off just by forcing my self to get started.
2. The excuse: I’ll mess it up. So what? Do a quick scenario run down in your head. Even if you don’t do it perfectly, will the outcome really be a problem? You’re nervous about calling a potentially big client - but if it doesn’t work out you’re not any worse off than you were. So what if you aren’t good at painting or knitting? Do it, enjoy it, and practice until you’re great. Your color choices or dropped stitches won’t cause anyone any harm.
3. The excuse: I don’t know enough. Not being an expert doesn’t mean your efforts aren’t worthwhile. Tufte may be the expert on displaying information, but he’s not going to be putting together anyone’s quarterly sales reports. Acknowledge that lots of the work, in every company, everyday, is being done by non-experts - and the results are pretty impressive. And unless you’re contemplating neurosurgery, you can use your current skills, a few questions to colleagues, and some research to be good enough.
4. The excuse: It’s not worth it (pt. 1). You’ve already committed. But maybe you can renegotiate the task. Will an outline do instead of a draft? Can you offer to take on something else for the person you committed to this task for instead? Can you delegate it to someone else, so your responsibility then lies in making sure it happens? Delegating isn’t necessarily a cop-out. If you ask the right person, this can be a great learning experience for them, a chance to cross train on a related team, or a way they can demonstrate they’re ready to take on more responsibility.
5. The excuse: It’s not worth it (pt. 2). So maybe you can’t renegotiate. For whatever reason, you have to do it. As long as this project is weighing on you, it’s draining your energy and attention. Try reframing your reason to reflect this. Getting the task or project done is no longer about finishing it for its own sake. Now it’s about taking a weight off your shoulders to free your mind up to relax and enjoy other things without guilt.
6. The excuse: It’s not worth it (pt. 3). You’ve probably been through parts 1 and 2 before. A great way to avoid procrastinating on similar projects again is to look at why those “not worth it” projects in the past repelled you. If you’re a freelancer, did you charge less than you feel you’re worth? Promise not to make that mistake again. Did you make a commitment before understanding the effort and the time involved? Resolve to get more clarification in the future.
7. The excuse: I just can’t get into this. Sometimes it’s just hard to get into the right frame of mind to make progress. Are there easier related tasks you can start with? Try cranking through a few of those to get yourself in a productive and successful state of mind. If they’re part of the same project, they can also grab your attention and help you load the right ideas in your mind, so when you go back to neglected task you’re already thinking about it.
8. The problem: Distractions. When you’re avoiding a task, working in a space that offers shinier, more entertaining alternatives is going to strain your willpower. Schedule a block of time devoted to nothing else. Close your email if you can. Turn your phone to silent or have your assistant hold your calls. If you’ve got the flexibility, consider changing locations. Go to a library or coffee shop and bring just the materials you need with you. It’s amazing how much more interesting your task becomes when you don’t have anything else to do.
9. The problem: Your to-do list. Make sure your to-do lists are set up to help you work. If you procrastinate often, maybe you need shorter lists of things you’re actually going to do that day to keep you on track. If so, move more to your “someday” list. Maybe you need to view your attention as a resource, and group tasks by how much energy and focus you have. Maybe your tasks are too vague, and little time to process them into steps or add additional supporting detail to the steps will make them seem more manageable. Take the time to examine your set-up periodically and see if how well it really reflects the way you work when you’re at your best.
10. The problem: Lack of urgency. If you’ll honor it, set yourself a deadline. If you’re not sure that’ll do it, give yourself a source of external accountability. Tell a colleague or a friend you’ll see at a meeting the next day you’re going to finish your task or project before you see them. Ask them to check in with you about how it went.

EmmeBi’s Toolbox Cabinets

Just too pretty not to share:

The Toolbox series from EmmeBi seems like a gorgeous set of cabinets for setting up reference files. Numbered drawers aren’t quite the GTD-approved alphabetical system, but I can imagine they would provide wonderful storage by active project or some other system.