[chandler-users] David Allen's Getting Things Done.

[Davor Cubranic]

On Tuesday 28 August 2007 09:52:44 Robin Cottiss wrote:
> I have just started reading "Getting Things Done" and I am interested
> in learning more about how Chandler can be used with a GTD approach.
> Are there any resources or experiences that that community can share?
> Does taking a GTD approach in Chandler imply a certain structure to
> collections for example?

I loosely follow the GTD methodology, but because my needs are 
relatively simple, I currently have only three Contexts, which in 
Chandler translate into collections:

1. work appointments and things to do at the office go into "Work"
2. grocery shopping and other errands go into "Errands"
3. everything else goes into "Home". This can be things done at home 
(and on my home computer), or it can be entertainment outside (e.g., 
movies or restaurants).

I used to read 43Folders regularly, and tried using many more contexts, 
although this was before I started using Chandler. (Merlin Mann uses 
ones like "research", "read", "write", "chores" etc. ) Didn't quite 
work for me, but then, my work tends to be focused on very few things 
at a time, and those usually don't even make it into my PIM. Also, I 
don't think having more than 8-10 collections visible in the sidebar 
would look as good. But now that I'm looking at his list again, I'm 
starting to get second thoughts again.

Tasks usually also get stamped as anytime events on the day I need to 
get them done, so that they appear in the calendar. Once I finish them, 
I mark them Done and *unstamp* them as events, so that they do not 
appear in the calendar any more. This has worked fine so far because I 
rarely have more than 3-4 items in that area. If the items were sorted 
by date in the list view to get easier to get this kind of overview 
(including some kind of "this week" or "today" filter), or if I could 
see tasks in the "today" section of the sidebar, I might not stamp them 
as events too. But seeing them disappear from the calendar when I'm 
done with them feels very satisfying and makes me feel like I've 
actually accomplished something. :-)

Non-critical tasks are not stamped as events and usually hover in 
the "later" stage in their respective context collection until I get 
around to scanning it every now and then. Some I complete then, others 
stamp with a date a couple of weeks off to remind me, the rest is left 
in their slumber until the next cleaning-up opportunity. (Dave Allen 
would probably give me ten with his whip if he heard this.) Another way 
to do this would probably be to have a separate "Maybe" collection. I 
might switch to this once I have too many "Maybe/Later" items.

Now, GTD fans will probably notice that I haven't yet mentioned 
Projects. That's because I don't know how to do them effectively in 
Chandler yet. Projects by definition have multiple action steps, but 
there is no way to express sequences, or even better, tree hierarchies, 
of items in Chandler right now. The model allows it, I think, but not 
the UI. This has come up several times on the mailing list, but has not 
really been considered for development plans as far as I know. (I 
should say that I was an EccoPro user before I switched to Chandler, 
and there the "outlines", or trees of items, were the central 
organizing method, so I still tend to think in those ways.) In the 
meantime, I use task items as projects, changing their title to 
indicate the next step, and using the detail view to collect notes and 
write down next steps in the project. The rudimentary editor widget 
doesn't make this a pleasant experience but it's not too painful.

I hope this helps, and am looking forward to hearing how other people 
use Chandler for their information management,

Davor