http://www.Gtdagenda.com

You can use it to manage your goals, projects and tasks, set next actions and contexts, use checklists, schedules and a calendar.
Syncs with Evernote, and also comes with mobile-web version, and Android and iPhone apps.

Result: A couple friends and I got together after work and created a task management web app that is simple like a notebook, is tailored more towards the needs of software developers, and has just a little more structure than a standard notebook. It has been such a lifesaver this year. You are so right about finding (or in my case, making) a system that works for you.

Thanks!

I text pictures as well. When I see something that inspires me (stained glass) and book covers, magazine pages… all kinds of stuff. Nice to know that someone else does it too, my family thinks I am crazy.

Yes! Sheila is exactly right. It’s really such a great “notepad” – and then you don’t have to remember… to remember!

I also text my email with pictures as well: sometimes in a hurry, it can take too long to type out the book title and ISBN number (so you can check to see if the library has it of course). A quick pic does the trick.

A clear mind allows more focus on tasks you’re working on!

I text my email several times a day. It is a great “notepad” and I find that it doesn’t keep my brain full of little things I need to remember. I send my self a quick text and when I get home and check my email I put the information in the appropriate place.

I too was initially overwhelmed by the Getting Things Done system. But I broke it down in to a few pieces that has really helped me get something in place that was been working for me.

Can it be improved? Definitely. But it’s something that is a living system and can be tweaked as my time permits.

Here’s my three step system in a nutshell:

1) Excel: I track and sort actions (with the columns: Project, Context, Priority, Action Description, Completed Date). I have one for home on my personal computer – and one for work on my work computer.

*I found that rewriting handwritten to-do list’s took up so much time. Excel makes it easy to insert new tasks and re-order priorities.

2) Google Calendar: I add reminders for days, months, even years in the future; recurring tasks/actions, appointments, birthdays, etc.

*I have the calendar send separate emails on a daily basis so I don’t always need to open the calendar.

3) Text Messaging to Email: I don’t have a fancy smartphone so I have a locked draft text message set with my email address. The draft starts with: “GTD: “.

*When I’m on the run, or away from my laptop, I quickly send a message to my email which I will then transfer to my Excel list.

Happy to share more details if anyone is interested!

Thanks,
Jeremy

I enjoyed your post and agree that any system will work as long as it’s yours. Your own routine, your preferred method of automation, and of course, keep it simple. I’ve put my financial life into a single binder so I always have the important information at my fingertips. It works for me. Thanks for the post and have a great weekend.

Derek

RE : FINANCE

I write my work shifts in my diary and include how much I’ll get paid using a pay rate lower than my actual rate to account for taxes.

The day before pay day I’ll write out a budget and estimate my pay. I’ll look through my diary for the next fortnight and make sure I’ve accounted for everything (appointments, special dinners out, birthday gifts etc). My phone bill is monthly and I fill my car up about once a month so I alternate these bills each fortnight.

I log into my online bank and add to my budget how much I was actually paid. I do my transfers and check the balances of all my accounts. Then I work out how much more I need to save until I’ve reached my goals.

Done and dusted, takes about 30 minutes.

RE : To-do lists

I am a chronic list maker and often redraft the same lists. I have a bought to-do list pad with check-boxes for university that I’ve divided by subjects. I also draw up a weekly plan detailing my university work, gym, social and work commitments for each day. I cross each item off the list as I complete them.

Works for me and I stay on-top of everything.

Since we downsized to a 900 sq ft home, and still have lots of things packed in boxes out in a metal shop, I have been extremely disorganized. My office is a nightmare – I haven’t even filed my taxes in 2 years because my paperwork & receipts have been so disorganized. I feel completely overwhelmed by it. This is quite atypical of me – I hate that I am giving Uncle Sam an interest free loan. I usually by early March!

Hubby and I are finally getting serious about settling in and getting organized. We’re currently purging clutter, sorting what stays and goes, and have purchased some good second hand office furniture and ridding ourselves of the hodge podge mess that we currently have. I have been reading books on organizing and have following Unclutterer, planning methods and processes for getting and staying organized. Paperwork and files are particularly troublesome areas for me!

I cannot wait to get this place in order, living this way has really screwed up my equilibrium.

I like automating my bills as much as possible. Irks me that I still have to mail in checks for the trash removal because the Sanitation company won’t automate payments!

Hey, thanks to everyone for Outlook reminder suggestions, what a great idea. Maybe then I won’t need as many post-it notes.

BTW I’ve tried Evernote too (I saw it mentioned)– I simply forgot to use it, like everything else.

Also, changed personal banks today. My (new) credit union offers tracking and budgeting capabilities on transactions (no Mint necessary), unlimited billpay to anybody, check deposit via scanner+upload, turbotax discounts, free financial counseling, identity theft protection– I love it! I don’t think I’ll ever need to buy a checkbook or printable checks. w00t!

For filing I use a simplified GTD system. I took the parts of his system that worked well for me and disregarded the rest.

My cash flow got a bit messed up when I started my mortgage. I spent a few months transferring money all over the place until I got an automated system in place where my wages are swept into the right accout and I transfer enough cash to my everyday account to cover my mortgage deductions.

I am trying (still not 100% successful) to impelement a single handling policy, particularly on paperwork. That means I open up a bill, read it and then immediately go online and schedule its payment. No moving it to a “deal with later” pile.

As for all those little things you need to remember, i.e. need to take ‘x’ with me when I got visit Mom. I tried reversing my mental trigger. Instead of saying “I had better not forget to take that basket when I leave”. I would say to myself “When I leave, I am going to pick up that basket”. I mentally picture myself doing that and it seems to work.

The other thing I have tried is to always recognise and act on “I have a funny feeling I am forgetting something”. At least for my memory ability, about 95% of the time, when I get that feeling but leave the house anyway, it was actually my brain sending a message that I really was forgetting something and I’m 10mins down the road and I remember what it was. Now, if I get that feeling, I know it’s a sign and I wait until I figure it out.

When packing for trips, I have system where I mentally start at my feet, check what shoes/socks I have packed, move up to pants/skirts, then tops jackets etc.

Here’s a couple of other work hacks… we’re always trying to come up with ways to keep productive:
http://nicoleandmaggie.wordpress.com/2010/09/29/hacking-my-work-habits/
http://nicoleandmaggie.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/hacking-my-work-habits-the-cd-method/

http://www.markforster.net/

I just checked the website and it is now caller “Superfocus” .

I track expenses every day in an Excel spreadsheet. This one thing right here saves my financial life. I can see on one screen exactly where every penny goes and, by the same token, I can see where I’m wasting money and what I’m spending it on in general. Quick, simple, it works for me. Every week, I’m able to reduce spending waste a little bit more.

@ 33 Ash – thanks for mentioning iGTD. Turns out the developer has joined the “Things” team and discontinued the program. However it’s still possible to download older versions of iGTD here: http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/24288/igtd.

And “Things”, while selling for $50 (“49.95″) offers a trial download. So I have now two pieces of software to test, I hope they work.

–

ALSO was looking at Quicken for Mac (Essentials 2010), and almost bought it, but the reviews on Amazon are extremely harsh– apparently it’s a very sucky program worth about $5. Rather than pay $40 on Amazon or $50 at the Intuit site, I’ll try to squeeze more value out of “free” Mint.

If that plan fails, I’ll get Quicken **for Windows** (thank Steve for Bootcamp– ha!). Quicken for Windows appears to be the real deal– the Mac version won’t allow you to pay bills online, print checks or export data to TurboTax, among other things. Oy!

Produce may not be the best price, depending on seasonality and the size of your local major grocery store, but I buy that at the farmer’s market anyway.

One “page” contains long range (20 year) planning and investment predictions for my retirement, my kids’ future college, when my mortgage will be paid off. Each row is a year and then the categories across list my various assets/debts for each year. I’ve tried to plan out what each will be for the next 15-20 years but of course anything past 3 years is just estimating. But it’s helpful to see that the mortgage will eventually be paid off and what I can expect the kids’ college accounts to hold when they need that money.

Another “page” contains my net worth calculations for the current year, with each row being a month, and the same categories going across. It’s encouraging to enter in the data every month and see how my savings accounts and 401K are growing slowly each month, and how the house is slowly being paid off.

Another “page” in the excel spreadsheet lists everything I pay for using my credit card each month of the year, with one row per month and categories across listing about 50 different categories that I want to keep track of. I break this down into many different categories since I think this is where I can really save money if I just think about it.

Another “page” contains my total yearly spending worksheet with each row being one annual expenditure like the total gas or electric bill, total credit card bill, total cable bill, total daycare bill, annual car renewal, total mortgage payments, yearly magazine subscriptions, etc. If I sell something or make some extra money or get an income tax refund it goes into this list as a negative number. I use the total of this list to calculate my total annual cost of living and then I compare that with my total takehome pay for the year so I can calculate how much per month I should be taking from my pay to put automatically into savings. I like this list because I see the annual total of things I spend on, and I get to compare with how much I’m able to save–for example, I cringe when I see how much I pay for cable TV over the whole year and it’s tempting then to cancel the cable and dump that extra $1200 per year into my savings.

I focus only on tracking spending I have control over–ie my take home pay + income tax rebates. I don’t pay attention to taxes that are withheld from my paycheck because there’s nothing I can do about that. When I visit my accountant to get my taxes done each year, I get his input on what (if anything) I can do to mitigate my tax hit, but usually there’s not much. So I don’t worry about it.

In January of the new year, I copy all this to a new excel spreadsheet and update the 20 year plan with real numbers for the previous year. I try to estimate if things are going according to plan or if there’s something I can do better. I also look carefully to see if I saved as much as I’d hoped and if there’s anything I should do differently, like cancel the cable or switch to different cell plan or pay off my mortgage faster or whatever.

I use Mint just to check transactions on my credit card and from my bank accounts to make sure there’s nothing strange happening there. I don’t find Mint useful for other financial planning because it only gives you a blunted picture of your finances. For example, if “entertainment” is a lot of money, I want to know am I spending too much on my kids’ computer games? Or am I going to movies too much? So I like my spreadsheets because I can track those kinds of categories very easily.

There is a way you can do this and still take advantage of dollar cost averaging. I invest via Fidelity but I am sure the other big investment companies do this also…

Because of the way we are paid, I can’t put the same amount of money into my ROTH every month. I have months where the deposit is very small and then twice a year we put a large chunk in. What I do is deposit it all into what they call our “core” account – basically a money market account used to settle whatever trades I make. Then, I set up automatic purchases from that account on a quarterly basis. So, for example, say I put $1000 a year in my ROTH (just to keep the numbers straight forward). I just set up quarterly automated purchases of my chosen investments for $250. So, I am still able to put the money into my account when I need to based on our financial cycles but I am able to take advantage of dollar cost averaging. Nothing says you have to do it quarterly either…if all your money is in there in one chunk at tax time you could a set amount invested monthly…

Just a thought…

I automate my retirement savings and that is it. BUT I have rituals for everything else:
1) I track all my expenses in a little notebook that goes everywhere with me.
2) Every payday I transfer a consistent amount of money into various accounts (short term savings (which later gets siphoned off into long-term savings), bills, mad money, travel, misc spending, etc.)
3) After I transfer my money around I write a little report listing all my balances in all my accounts. I send it in an email to myself and keep it in my mail folder – I have these going back to summer 2007 (when I started expense tracking) so I have a sketch of my net worth and how it’s changed.

I don’t have any debt so I don’t have to worry about snowballs and that other fun stuff.

I think this works for me because I’m a little more like Kris than I am like you!