posted at 11:24:27
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
GTD/Productivity

I had an email from a reader recently (yes, I have at least one!) regarding my paper based system and how I deal with managing projects/actions in order to avoid duplication across lists (e.g have an action assigned to a project list and then having the same action written on a context list). I thought I'd share my reply with you all here as I think it's quite a common problem and one that I don't really "get" in terms of GTD.

The Problem...

How to manage projects and avoid duplication of next actions across project/context lists

The Solution....?

I think my personal problem is the way I define projects in a very different way to the GTD idea that a project is a collection of 2 or more actions.

I see a project from more of a high-level project planning view where all actions are known and they must occur in a given order for the project to be completed on budget and on time - the curse of years in web project management I guess!

So basically, all of my actions are already pre-defined at the project planning stage and they're all within one context (e.g. @computer or @coding for example) so in essence the true context here would be the project itself.

You can view a simple project plan here or a more complicated project planner here.

View Full Entry

Dec

2nd
2007

What I've been up to these past few weeks

posted at 02:23:38
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
Personal

I know I've been strangely quiet and only popping up ocasionally - withgood reason though!

I've been working on a rather large project at work which has beentaking up the majority of my time and energy. At home, I've been busilyorganising my CD collection - which I've been meaning to do for quite along time.

So far, so good. The majority of my CD collection is now on my Mac Book- the only problem is that my poor 4 gig Nano can't cope with them allnow. I'm a bit reticent to upgrade to the new 3rd generation Nano as Idon't know whether it's compatible with my i-Station(the website says it is but I'm never sure about these things!), orwhether I should upgrade to a video i-pod or something - suggestionswelcome!

I've also been playing with a new feed reader called Shrook. It's looking pretty good - although I can't seem to find a way to move the preview pane across the screen rather than have it in a third/fourth column.Shrook allows you to sync your feeds across multiple Macs, plus it hasthe added advantage that you can read your feeds via a website if youdon't have access to a Mac with Shrook installed.

Oh, and best of all, it's free!

I've also been fiddling around with Open Project to see if it's suitab....

View Full Entry

Aug

9th
2007

Review: Solo CRM

posted at 17:43:22
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
Review

Disclaimer: This is a paid review from ReviewMe. I will only review products that I think would benefit the people who read this site - no rubbish from me!

solo crm is a tool that would suit most freelance designers and developers very well if they are managing multiple clients or projects.

The services it offers is quite customer-centric (hence the CRM part of the name!) and allow you to manage your projects and clients from one place. For example, you can manage all of your content requests to the clients (after you've created a project-based account for them) so that you're not endlessly ferreting around for an email to prove that you asked for it.

You can upload web URLs, images and content and attach these to tasks so that you and the client can monitor progress quickly and easily.

The part that interested me however was the tasks functionality. solo crm allows you set milestones and integrate a payment schedule with each milestone which is a different approach to other online collaboration tools I've seen that seem to ignore the fact that Freelancers might want to get paid! However they don't seem to have integrated billing functionality to automatically bill the client and link it to something like a PayPal account which is a shame.

There are 4 account types that are based on the number of projects/tasks that you need to run ranging from Free (1 Proje....

View Full Entry

Mar

6th
2007

Get Concept Draw Mindmapping worth $119 for free!

posted at 03:14:34
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
GTD/Productivity

Following my recent posting of a list of Mindmapping Resources, Giveaway of the Day is giving away "Concept Draw".

Usually retailing at $119 you can get it for the next 20 hours or so free!

Download Concept Draw (version 4) free here.

You've just got to love the internet :)

Note that there are some restrictions on use such as it's for personal use only, no tech support and no upgrades.... Well you can't have everything!

Note 2 - I did have trouble downloading from the link I gave above (the website or my connection is very, very slow) so here's the link to the direct download in case you get stuck!

Enjoy!

Feb

2nd
2007

Managing Web Projects #14 - Maintenance Contracts

posted at 07:34:02
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
Project Management

So, the website's now live. You've been paid and the website's number 1 in Google - every's happy, right?

You betcha! I'm in the money!

Oh? That's nice! But what about the future - for you and your client?

Who cares about them? I'm going to get loads of work!

Riiiight. We all think after that one big success that work's going to come in so fast we'll be up to our necks in it in no time. The problem is it never (unfortunately) works that way.

If you're lucky enough to be in the above situation, good for you! But there comes a time for all of us when work slows down and as a result the money starts to dry up. That's where maintenance contracts come in.

Hmm... Perhaps you're right but I can't be doing faffing with odd text changes here and there every day for 12 months

It's true that some customers are never happy. We once had a client that changed every word on a webpage at least 3 times. The work lasted a week but as we were charging by the hour we were quite happy. The problem is that:

It's soul destroyingly boring

The client thinks they can mess about again in the future

It takes you (or your developers) away from other work

You never know when the work is going to come in or how much there'll be

Maintenance work is great - if you know what's going to hap....

View Full Entry

Jan

29th
2007

GTD/Next Actions the Katy way

posted at 05:31:31
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
GTD/Productivity

I thought I'd better clarify something in response to Darren's comment on my post about Projects/Action

I stated that I tend not to write any "Next Actions" down and Darren rightly pointed out that "Next Actions are the basic philosophy behind 'Getting Things Done'".

For the unintiated, anything that has more that one step (action) to it becomes a "Project". Projects are then broken down into their individual steps to form a "Next Actions" list. In theory you should only have one next action per project on your main context lists (phone, email etc.) at a time.

As an example, I need to book my car in for a service (which is overdue - whoops). I need to find the number of my local garage and call them to book the car in. I could just write "Book Car in for service" in my task list but that's rather vague and there are more steps to it than that so it becomes a "Project". Let's look at what the next actions would/should be:

Get the phone number of the garage, write it on my "@phone" context list
Call the garage to book the car in
Put the appointment in my diary
Take the car in on the specified date

In situations like the above, I would split the proj....

View Full Entry

Jan

24th
2007

Managing Web Projects #13 - Invoicing the client

posted at 10:49:53
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
Project Management

So now we come to the last phase of the Web Project - Invoicing.

Hoorah! I get my money now!

Lets hope so! Of course, thanks to your watertight contract you have all of your costs and payment terms laid out, right?

How you bill the client is up to you. Some people like 50% of the project costs upfront, some like a certain amount after x numbers of hours work has been completed and others bill at the end. Whichever method you use, make sure that it's clearly stated in the contract and you have proof (most important!) that the client has agreed to the terms.

Blah, blah, you do go on. I want my money now!

So, how are you going to get it? Just send an email saying "Pay me £100 or else"? All companies have some form of financial/accounting system set up (which you will too of course!) and money paid out needs to be tied up properly with an invoice - especially now thanks to Sarbaines-Oxley.

Yeah, I forgot about that, I'll just use that template I got with Word

Do you think th....

View Full Entry

<< Older Posts