“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955)

The most useful book I’ve ever read on work flow efficiency is Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. The “Getting Things Done” (GTD) system seems at first glance rather ordinary  and  simple, that it’s easy to dismiss.

Getting Things Done: Quick Reference

However, in practice, it reveals our monkey-minded ways (well, mine anyway). I quickly found how easy it was to lose ideas that weren’t sufficiently recorded or how I could easily linger over emails that could have taken less than two minutes to take action on, but instead took five or even ten minutes. Observing and practicing GTD using this chart alone can make a tangible difference in your ability to get more done with less time. More importantly it helps to give you peace of mind. A key principle in GTD is to write everything that’s on your mind down. It’s an excellent way to clear your mind in order to focus on what’s really important.

The book has very little to do with technology. In fact, you don’t need any sophisticated technology at all. You can work the “Getting Things Done (GTD) system using paper and pencil. I’ve tried paper and pencil in conjuncition with email. It worked, but felt burdensome. Recopying contacts from year to year or rewriting weekly appointments each week is senselessly tedious. Why not use a computer to automatically repeat appointments? Replicating information is what computers do best. So… my next incarnation of GTD was utilizing a Palm Pilot. This got me much closer to an easy yet comprehensive system for accomplishing tasks and projects. In retrospect, I can see how clumsy the combination really was. Or maybe not clumsy so much as limited. The device I was using did not connect to the Internet.

Ubiquitous Dashboard

I’ve found that the combination of a handheld Internet device and a dashboard website are the ultimate GTD tools! I’m using an iPod Touch and an iGoogle page. Using an iGoogle page along with gmail, google docs, tasks, notes and calendar, I’m able to see all incoming information on one single page. Better still is that I can be anywhere and still see the same information and act on it. Whether I’m on my laptop at work, desktop at home or iPod touch on this couch, I can access the same dashboard of information.

Image by Bruce Tuten on flickr.com

If you’re looking for a way to get a grip on all of the data swirling about you, explore iGoogle. It’s a great place to start. Not only can you get all of your data in one mobile place, but you can even set up different pages so that you can switch pages to match your personal self and your professional self. Work page at work. Personal page at home. My favorite feature is the ability to route ALL of the email addresses I’ve accumulated over the years directly through the gmail widget on my page.

Getting everything under control can put a big smile on your face. It feels pretty good. Next blog entry… “Saying no to more work.”