One of my coworkers at Cheezburger asked me to post pics of my GTD, Getting Things Done, system. I put my to do’s up on the wall next to my desk. I’m a visual person, so having tasks on paper where I can see it at all times is a winner. I’ve used digital task management tools such as hiveminder.com and teuxdeux.com but I do best with paper systems.
Each task is written up as the next actionable task. There’s a row for things to do today, a row for tomorrow, this week, and this month. I change marker colors each week so I can tell what tasks are really old.
Once the task is completed, it goes to live on the World of Stuff That’s Done. It’s very rewarding to move post-its to the completed wall.
UPDATE —–
I’ve added an Awaiting row at the top. Tasks are docked in this row if I’m waiting on something from someone else. It’s been very helpful in my morning standups in answering the “what’s blocking you” question.
3 comments
Thomas Nguyen says:
Dec 15, 2010
Thanks for this! A good friend of mine, James T., sent me your way. We currently have a Post-It Notes Kanban board for our work items. I never thought about using the same concept for daily TODOs at work. I’m going to replace my paper notepad list with this idea starting today.
Although as much as I’d like to carry a wall with me for personal TODOs, I’m still on the hunt for a decent digital version (I’ve tried astrid+rememberthemilk, astrid+producteev). Maybe I just need change the thought that that I need a digital version…
Todd Kenefsky says:
Dec 27, 2010
I’m surprised you don’t use multi-colored notes. I noticed you write notes with different colored pens- black, blue, purple, pin-ish. Does the different colored ink have any significance in your system?
Do you still use Hiveminder to capture and plan long range projects and “someday maybe” stuff?
admin says:
Dec 27, 2010
I’m updating the post since I’ve added an Awaiting row. See above.
Todd, the colors indicate week. On Monday I change to a new color so I can see roughly how old the task is. The week that is pictured I was using pink. So you can see all four tasks in Today had been added that week. The blue task in Tomorrow was from the previous week. The This Week row is particularly incriminating as I have a purple task three weeks old.