GTD with a Pocket PC

posted at 17:07:04
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
GTD/Productivity

I've now got my pocket PC hooked up to my work laptop and all the tasks have been syncronised. It took a while, especially as I couldn't download ActiveSync from the Microsoft website (and I'm still waiting for a response from my support query) but I managed to finally download it from another site. If you're experiencing similar problems or would like to download ActiveSync Version 4.1 (Microsoft only seems to have 3.8 on release) you can get it from here.

Then I had problems syncing my Inbox as I'd accidentally checked the "Use Exchange Server" box, this seems to stop anything held on the Exchange Server (Contacts, Calendar & Inbox in my case) syncing with the PDA.

As the in-built tasks manager on the Pocket PC is pants (thanks again Microsoft) I'm running Pocket Informant which is excellent and I've yet to go through all the features.

This has sync'ed fantastically with Outlook and allows me a lot more control over my tasks.

I know that David Allen specifies certain @Actions in his books but I have found that they don't really work for me as all of my tasks would be lumped under one or two of the categories so I have developed my own @Actions lists which I find helps me much better organise my tasks. They are:

@Administration - General paperwork to be done
@Design - Websites to be designed [Work]
@KWWD - My own personal website stuff that needs doing
@Personal - Stuff for me (e.g. clean oven!)
@[Company] Development - Things I need to do for my company's website
@[Client] Development - Various sites for various Clients
@Emails - Emails to send - both work and home
@Calls - Calls to make - both work and home
@Projects - Projects to start/complete etc.
@Waiting For - Stuff I'm waiting for both at home and work
@Agendas - Meeting type things
@Misc - Anything else that doesn't fit into the above.

True followers of Getting Things Done will probably be horrified that I've "messed up" the system so much, but it's really working for me, the "official" list was just too restrictive and I was losing track of what task was assigned to what area of my life.

Now that I have everything set up it's a doddle, and completely portable too.

There's a brief article over at LifeHack.org about setting up Pocket Informant for GTD which can be found here.

I'll keep you appraised of my progress...