Posts tagged Templates

The Triple Hat Trick

Here is something I am trying for 2010… I hesitate to call it a new year’s resolution, so let’s just call it an “experiment”. Sometimes it is tough to get focus with my big fancy fiddly collection of GTD lists. There are just too many items on the lists, and even when I filter on just the “next actions” the list is still pretty long. To gain focus, I plan to identify no more than three critical tasks that I want to accomplish in a given week.  Sort of a hat trick if you will. The screenshot below shows the template I am using each week. The template is available on the Downloads page.

I expanded the concept just a bit to cover two other areas where I wanted to improve. The first was *redirection*. I found that the majority of the meetings and conversations I had were not ones that I scheduled nor were they topics that I selected. As a result, a good percentage of the work I did during a given week ended up being external requests and/or tasks that I didn’t even know existed prior to the start of the week. To help shift momentum, I added another hat trick for “Agendas” to the top of the page. This list is for meetings or discussions that I want to drive during the course of the week.  Difficult conversations and project roadblocks are definitely candidates for this Agendas list.

The other area I wanted to improve was Read the rest of this entry »

Note Taking & Note Page Templates

Part of my new year’s resolution is to be more prolific and to share more ideas, tools, templates, etc.  In the past I often tried to wait until I had things nearly perfected, and felt that everything needed an exhaustive write-up.  I may still do some of that, but you’ll also be seeing a lot more raw content.

So let’s get to it…   There are a lot of times where it is slightly rude or just not feasible to take notes with your laptop.  Good ole pen and paper still have their place.   As I mentioned previously, I use a small 5½” x 8½” binder for this purpose, along with some custom note pages.  The note template I use is in the spirit of the Cornell note taking method, but with some modifications.

One of the primary modifications is that there Read the rest of this entry »

OneNote GTD Project Template

After my post on “Bending OneNote and Outlook to Fit my GTD System” I got a few requests to share the actual project template file. You can download the file here: OneNote Project Template File

NOTE: I make no guarantees related to this file or its suitability for any particular purpose. If your computer implodes, or your cat dies, I won’t be able to help you.

Here are some instructions to install the template: >> READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY >>