GTD with Gmail (Part V)
It’s time for the practical demonstration of GTD with Gmail. If you’re just joining us, please skip down and read parts I-IV.
First, collection. Theoretically we start and end with a clean inbox. I try to never leave Gmail with anything in my inbox (that’s much easier now that I’ve implemented GTD with Gmail). So we start here:
My wife mentions to me that we need to remodel our second bathroom. Right now, this is an open loop. I get that simple notion into my collection inbox:
While I’m closing loops, I look out the window and realize that I can’t see the street for the stalk-like greenery growing in my front yard so I add another thought to my inbox. Now I’ve got two.
As it turns out, “mow the lawn” happens to be an action. I open the message up, give it a context label “!Home,” star the message and then archive it. This is an independent action (the star) not belonging to a project.
The next item in my inbox is not an action. It looks a good bit like a project to me, so the processing stage here involves listing the actions I can think of associated with this project. I create a message for each action and here’s the result:
Now I select all of these actions, apply the Bathroom:Actions label, use the star to mark the next action in this project and then archive these actions.
This is the view I use most often. Generally, I’ll hit this page when I need something to do, or when I know I should be doing something. The “starred” view shows me all next actions.
This is the project view. I’ll review these weekly at a minimum, and then of course whenever I have any sort of workflow going on a specific project. Notice that the next action has a star.
Once a project-homed action is complete, I add the appropriate reference label to it (if necessary - sometimes I’ll add a context label, or even trash it), remove the star, add the star to the next action, and then remove the project’s action label.
Now that I’ve picked out my paint color, I decide it’s cool enough outside to mow the lawn. Once I get back in, I retrieve the item by going into my starred view, open the message and then remove the star.
In my real inbox, I have status labels (mostly just as meta-data) and I use asterisks(*) to denote projects, but I’ve left them out in this example for simplicity. Tomorrow I’ll sum up with some answers to questions and give some acknowledgements. Thanks again for visiting.
April 26th, 2005 at 9:56 pm
I like the idea of beginning projects with an *. My labels were getting insane and the * (projects) and the ! (context) help out alot. Again, thanks this is great stuff. Keep up the good work.
Thanks,
Mike512
April 27th, 2005 at 3:15 am
I really appreciate you putting this all together, its certainly helping me out. Have you ever thought about assembling this as a memo or downloadable white paper? I can imagine alot of people downloading it if you did.
April 27th, 2005 at 6:01 am
This is absolutely great!
I agree with Joe here that you need to turn this into a downloadable white paper. I especially like part V because of all the screenshots. I didn’t understand it 100% until part V.
Can’t wait for part VI! Keep it up!
April 27th, 2005 at 8:25 am
Yes, PLEASE consider the downloadable white paper on this — it would be a huge help.
Thanks,
Dieter
April 27th, 2005 at 2:52 pm
Forget downloadable white paper–you should write a book!! I swear, you are an absolute genious!
April 27th, 2005 at 5:49 pm
I’m a bit new to GTD and GMail, but I’m really liking these articles. I have just what quick question: What does mean?
April 30th, 2005 at 9:39 pm
I’ll follow up on what I think Zack is asking. What is the “” at the end of your subject line? Is it end of message?
April 30th, 2005 at 11:00 pm
eom = end of message. I use quick abbreviations like eom and act for easy glancing and automated filtering for messages. If you have a frequently used project or context, you can set up filters to route your actions.
May 1st, 2005 at 10:52 am
Thanks a lot. I’m now trying to implement your system into my way of doing GTD. I like the idea of putting short messages in the subject line, and leaving the body blank. But when you leave the body blank, GMail asks:
Send this message without text in the body?
which requires an extra keystroke to click “OK”. I put a period in my GMail signature (edit labels to pull up Mail Settings, click on General tab, then then siguture box). So now my text bodies look like this:
–
.
It does not look cluttered, and I save an extra keystroke most of the times I send a message. This can be hundreds of times a day for some GTD + GMail users.
Thanks again for putting this together. I’m looking forward to the whitepaper.
March 8th, 2006 at 10:37 pm
Your article has been very helpful. I am even reading David Allen’s book. I was just curious how many action labels/folders “you” actually use? would it be possible for you to post a screenshot of your labels list. It would be greatly appreciated! I feel like I’m making GTD +Gmail more complicated then it needs to be.
Thanks!!!
March 8th, 2006 at 10:45 pm
Good question, Phil. I use about 7 context labels (I have several “jobs” that aren’t well suited for start-to-end project type labels) like !Home and !RealEstate. At any given time, I have between 3 and 10 project labels like *RemodelBathroom or *SellDuplexes.
March 9th, 2006 at 4:09 pm
Bryan, thanks for answering this so quickly! Just wondering if you would email me or post a screen shot of your real inbox?
March 9th, 2006 at 5:04 pm
Nevermind that last post … I’m getting the hang of this now! Thanks again!!