deNantes : du nouveau

deNantes fera peau neuve dès le mois prochain avec un nouveau contenant et un nouveau contenu.

A bientôt !

Stop popping

I just read an excellent article in the New York Times (Web edition).

Flow of digital information is being mesured and would appear to be a huge productivity cost factor.

As a GTD adopter I never pop my emails automatically, but only manually. This way you can stay focus on what you are doing.

Good reading with this article.

Firefox - a record to break

Testing a GTD app (Mac)

It's hard to find the right tool to apply GTD in every work day. I just came across the — long existing — Omnifocus GTD app.

I am going to give this app a try thru a real test drive at work this coming week for two weeks.

If the test is conclusive I will get a license.

Today I am using Things from Cultured Code. This app is simply thus good, but it has certain limitations concerning capturing events and managing projects.

(to be continued)

Video: Merlin's New Time & Attention Talk | 43 Folders

"Living with Data"

Merlin Mann gave a presentation at Macworld 08 and that's about managing time and data.

GTD oriented since from 43folders.com.

Go for it!

[From Video: Merlin's New Time & Attention Talk | 43 Folders]

GTD [at] Work

One of my Web friends Pierre hosting French speaking podcast lepcc.net has introduced his listeners to the GTD method by David Allen.

Since that time I have been constantly trying to improve the way I work inspired by the GTD "method".

What I would like to do today is to share with you how I've implemented GTD at work

Areas of responsibilities
Let me give you a context first. My areas of responsibilities are:
- sales (sale it)

- operations (make it work)

Sector : web hosting, but that is incidental.

I work on a Mac, a GTD oriented operating system with third-party GTD apps. Let focus on that now.

Softwares I use
Things by Cultured Code
Things is a GTD app to help you create task and order them through timewise and by category. Categories are Inbox, Today, Next, Someday, Waiting, Areas of Responsibilities (projects), Postponed and other people.

Backup of this on an internal NAS carried out by Apple Backup application.

iCal

To organize tasks with a identified time frame eg meetings, maintenance etc.

iCal event invitation works when emailed to a Gmail address (automatic implementation in Google Calendar of gmail email address owner).

Also compatible with Lotus Notes.

Works nicely with Apple Mail which auto-detects written dates in emails to create meeting in a couple of clicks.

Not using iCal tasks (see why in Mail)

(two-way) Google Calendar synchronization. That's also a backup.

Spanning Sync

iCal two-way syncing tool with Google Calendar.

Google Calendar

We set up a calendar for Operations. That calendar is there to plan maintenance operations, account creation/termination. Team members act as they get an automatic google event email reminder. We all have a Gmail account. We also consider using a Google app with one of our domains to make it perfectly transparent and look more professional. Google.com/a provides perfect email storage, spam filtering and calendars, IM, home page and more.

Mail

All Support related emails are filtered in an dedicated folder. Reviews several times a day. No direct actions here.

Other emails are dropped in a Archive folder for later use if no action is required.

Emails demanding action are piled up in the inbox. They can also be archived. In this case a to do is created in Things. Keeping email in Inbox or re-create their content on Things, I did not determine which is best for me yet.

Tasks are not generated from mail any more since iCal task system is not tag/category oriented.

TextExpander by Smile On My Mac

Basically this software saves typing time. Here you can insert any strings (signature, html, picture, url, etc) by typing a text shortcut.

Let me give you an example here. I have different email signatures. The appropriate text shortcut will auto-write the right signature.

According to the app stats I saved 3 hours of typing since November 2007.

Adium (GTalk / Msn)

This multi-protocol IM is a tool to communicate with the team and partners. Messaging must be short sharp.

No chitchat here.

Now about my computer work space

Four spaces (a Leopard feature)

1 Mail, iCal, Adium, Address Book, Firefox

2 Virtualized Windows throu VMWare Fusion. No full screen mode to allow Drag 'n Drop from Mac to XP et reverse.

Our CRM is still Windows based and require a (virtualized) XP.

3 Office, iWork for contracts and spreadsheets

4 Personal space with dedicated browser (Flock). Because opened in space 4 personal apps never make me loose focus.

I guess this gives you a taste of GTD applied my way at work.

Really the GTD tool you choose is not the most important thing. It is essential you feel at easy with your app(s).

Several reviews a day is a key at least for pending tasks.

The Mac OS environment and Leopard in that perspective really are assets. It is fast, very handy (space, exposé). I guess GTD oriented apps can help you on Windows also.

Any comment on this article or on how you manage GTD in your life is welcome here.

Posting from Zoho

Just discovered that Zoho has this feature that allows you to edit you Blogger posts.

Zoho may be Google Docs most serious competitor. Add it Google Gear feature to write offline and there you go getting your office documents forgetting Microsoft $400 software pack.

Well, posting to Blogger now to get the rendering.