resistance to persistence

I’m still on the GTD fever and I’ve been doing well with clearing out my inbox. I’m also trying to find a way of keeping all my files structured and organized. I’ve still never been able to find a way to properly organize my files off my desktop and still remember some of the stuff I want to read at a later time. I’d posted earlier about waiting for google to build in tagging to the filesystem so I can search on tags I’d given to files such as “readlater”.

I just now found a solution to my problem - if I can’t tag the file with a name, just include it in the name. So a pdf article “java-AppFuse-Tutorials.pdf” gets renamed to “java-AppFuse-Tutorials-@READLATER.pdf” and I can file it away knowing I’ll later find it using google’s desktop search.

I’ve also come up with a good structure for file organization for personal files, articles, clippings, development work, etc. I’m in the process of setting the structure up across my machines, and sorting the files into each. I’m also using Unison for file synchronization between machines so the files will be mirrored across my machines. This is great for backup purposes, as well as for when I’m travelling with my laptop and I wish I had that file I desperately need from my desktop.

This latest bit of organization has made things a lot easier and saved me a great deal of time…I now know where everything is. It’s great not having to remember where something might be on one machine and it might be somewhere else on another machine. I’d even have 2 or 3 spots for everything on my desktop machine. Consolidation is key.

I’ve even ordered the GTD book from Amazon.ca (arrived in less than 12 hours! - talk about efficient).

I’ve been reading a lot about David Allen’s Getting Things Done techniques for better organization and acheiving more structure for working. Merlin Mann writes a great blog, 43 folders with lots of tips for organizing your life. Check the del.icio.us tag gtd for other articles people have found. For computer “nerds”, read this article in particular for how computer users are harnessing the gtd system.

For me, I’ve created a series of text files (@_nextactions.txt, @work.txt, @home.txt, etc) to track all my items and they open in my text editor by default and I try to keep them open most of the time. For quick access, in WinXp I have a folder as a toolbar in my start launcher. Right-click toolbar >Toolbars> New Toolbar…> and add the folder with all your text files. This keeps you from losing focus and context switching too much.

Also, for when I’m mobile and don’t want to lug my laptop around I use Documents To Go software to synchronize my text files to my palm. When I add, delete items on the go, the updates go directly to my main files. It would be great it I could rsync those files to a webserver as well and then use the data in the files as the basis for a wiki page for editing from even more locations.

I have folders in my email to sort @read-later, @response, @waiting, etc. I’m trying to empty my inbox as much as possible and not “live in it” all day.

I hope I keep using the system for a while. So far, I’ve got some good lists going…I just have to make sure I work on the items I put in it.