Web 2.0 & Social Media

At the FOWA Miami 08 conference I didn’t hear that a Blackberry application for RTM will be available soon. I did hear that the RTM team Omar Kilani and Emily Boyd both have Blackberrys and that I may be pleasantly surprised very soon (even though Omar admits he doesn’t see why someone wouldn’t just get an iPhone) .

David Allen isn’t the first time management guru to suggest that productivity is all about not keeping stuff in your head.  I’ve used the Franklin Covey Planner for years; the trick has been keeping it all in the same system, a system you can trust so you don’t have to keep yourself from forgetting something. The DayPlanner would be great if that was our only calendar; but it doesn’t quite ’synch’ with outlook.

We have calendars, sticky notes, todo list; and just about everyone has had so much going on they had to stop and make a list. The real victory comes when you can maintain the list and stay in the habit of ‘never leaving the scene of a decision without taking action’. If you can’t immediately check “do it” you need to put it on the list (or forget it).

We are constantly making and owning commitments. Wether its verbal or mental, we make a decision and until we fullfill the committment its an open loop. Everything we are keeping on our mind is consious drain on our mental capacity and is subject to inadvertantly being forgotten, details lost, innacurate information etc.  

Why Remember the Milk?

The right solution needs to be easy to use anywhere. It needs to be easy to take the next step and record it. Keep in mind this is a system for managing next steps, personal productivity, not a system for large scale project management. That’s a different topic.

Continue reading »