To read my complete journey to GTD Mastery see the main post.

Step 6 to GTD Mastery is: I have voice mail, set up the way I want it.

During class, my cell phone is on vibrate. Usually, anyone on campus who needs to reach me will use text messaging, but others who may not know my class schedule will actually call. They are greeted with my voice mail message which asks the person to simply state what they want and the ideal method of reaching them. This lets me easily follow-up with the other party or perform the appropriate next action.

After class, I can check my voice mail by holding down the “1″ key for a couple of seconds. I listen to my voice mail and capture any important details along with the contact using my HipRock. Any triggered next actions are also placed on the HipRock. I delete the voice mail immediately after listening to it.

During the last few weeks I was (successfully) studying for and writing exams. Unfortunately, this left little time for my daily RSS reading. After the completion of my final exam, I was greeted with an all items count of 1000+. In the past, I would get paralyzed thinking of the massive amount of energy and time needed to get the list back to zero. Today, I simply accept that I’m behind and am able to quickly process my feeds using the following workflow. I use Google Reader, but the steps can be modified to fit other feed readers.

Step 1: Go to all items (keyboard shortcut “GA”).

Step 2: Switch to list view (keyboard shortcut “2″).

Take a deep breath. I subscribe to the motto “no shame, no blame” from the great personal finance book, Your Money or Your Life. Don’t feel guilty for falling behind. Don’t blame yourself for falling behind. Often there are external factors which simply must take priority (my degree or RSS?).

Step 3: Scroll through the post titles (keyboard shortcut “N”). Star any items you want to read in the future (keyboard shortcut “S”).

Do not actually read the items. Similar to the Weekly Review, the goal here is to get you up-to-date not to actually do tasks. This may violate the 2-minute rule of GTD, but you can’t predict which items you can read in less than 2 minutes. This also avoids the black hole of a never-ending link trail.

Step 4: Once you’ve scanned everything, mark all items as read. You can use the keyboard shortcut “Shift+A”.

Indulge in an empty inbox. It’s important that you prioritize the reading of new items (instead of catching up) or your starred list will become your new all items list. The truth is, you probably didn’t miss anything life-changing. The most important items will probably be the content of upcoming weekly link posts or in a physical newspaper.

Step 5: Make catching up on your unread RSS a “Most Important Task (MIT)“.

You don’t have to slay the dragon all at once. Make a MIT to read a small number of your starred items (keyboard shortcut “GS”). I’ve found 3-5 an effective amount that doesn’t require stealing time from other tasks. As you read the items, unstar them. Repeat until you no longer have any starred items.

Before, I would star items that I might want to re-read in the future. However, I’ve found social bookmarking to be much more efficient and I never actually referred to any Google Reader content. I had to unstar a couple thousand items, but I find this RSS workflow is much less stressful.

Remember: “no shame, no blame”.

To read my complete journey to GTD Mastery see the main post.

Step 5 to GTD Mastery is: I have an email program, set up the way I want it.

I use Gmail for all my email management. Entering university this year, I received a school email account. However, I’m able to forward all the messages to my Gmail account, reducing my email inboxes to one.

Recently, Gmail added coloured labels. I use this to highlight any email originating from school.

I use Gina Trapani’s Trusted Trio for managing my email. It consists of 3 categories: Actions, Archive, Hold. However, I’ve modified it slightly. “Archive” is replaced with “Reference.” I found it redundant seeing Gmail’s archive button and an archive label. I’ve also added a “Waiting For” label specifically for any emails I’m waiting on a reply. Each are also given their own coloured label.

In my settings, I’ve setup my main Gmail to let me send using various other accounts

I’ve setup a filter for each of the newsletters I subscribe to that automatically labels them accordingly. This makes future retrieval easier. For example, the thinkArete newsletter filter is shown below:

Lastly, I use the Modified Gmail Macros v2.0 Greasemonkey script which enables you to create custom keyboard shortcuts for various tasks in Gmail.

I’m eager to here from the readers. Any more Gmail enhancements I should know of? How do you manage email?

The semester is winding down.  Before you pile everything up and forget about it for the break, here are a few things to clean up now (while you still remember what it all is). Read the rest of this entry »

To read my complete journey to GTD Mastery see the main post.

Step 4 to GTD Mastery is: I have a physical inbox, which I use daily.

On page 92 of Getting Things Done, Allen lists (at least three) paper-holding trays as the first basic processing tool for GTD.

These will serve as your in-basket and out-basket, with one or two others for work-in-progress support papers and/or your “read and review” stack. The most functional trays are the side-facing letter or legal stackable kinds, which have no “lip” on them to keep you from sliding out a single piece of paper.

My physical inbox consists of four, letter-sized, “lipless”, stacking trays.

The top tray is for any new items that need to be processed. When I’ve finished emptying my in-basket for the day, I get to press the red, shiny “easy” button.

The second tray is for items I may need in the near future (e.g. receipts, current reference material).

The third tray is just a stack of lined paper which I use for doing homework and any writing that doesn’t need to be word processed.

The bottom tray is for my read/review which includes books, articles/magazines, and CDs that I want to listen to.

I haven’t grasped the concept of the “out-basket.” I don’t think it’s mentioned anywhere else in the book. If any readers use an out-basket in their system, I’d be interested in what it is and how you use it.

A lot of people have the problem of getting an assignment and starting to write it straight away. The problem with this is that you do not yet have a clear idea of exactly where your writing is going. You do not yet have a plan.

Researching will provide an insight that is difficult to achieve otherwise. Some people do not enjoy or understand exactly how to research. The following pointers will help:

• Search the Internet – this is a quick and easy way to get a general overview of the topic
• Go to the library – books on a single topic will always be more detailed than a website. Make sure you read more than one book though to get various viewpoints
• Read journal articles – journals provide the latest research on hundreds of topics, and are an invaluable source for any student

Once you fully understand the topic you are being marked on you can begin to write.
Until you have begun researching, your writing will all be pointless and often wrong. I like to call this filler or fluff. Your assignments should contain as little fluff as possible and that can only come through research.

One overlooked component that has to do with the internet is DNS. DNS stands for Domain Name System. What it does is transform easy to remember domains into their respective server’s IP address so you dont have to remember each website’s IP. Usually, your service provider provides you with DNS, but sometimes those servers can be slow which slows down everything because you cant start loading a page until you know where the page is. OpenDNS is a DNS system that has many servers and they are usually fast. OpenDNS also has a few other services such as it automatically disallows you from visiting sites that are known to be harmful by not giving its IP. This not only prevents you from browsing those sites but it also prevents any applications from sending/receiving information to the site (i.e. Viruses and other malware). OpenDNS also allows you to make shortcuts to websites. For example, if you make “gf” a shortcut to http://gearfire.net, any time you type in gf into the URL bar of any browser (providing that you are using OpenDNS) it will redirect you to http://gearfire.net. Here are a few videos on how to setup OpenDNS.

Setup for your Windows PC:

Setup for your Router

Your marks going into your final exam can both motivate you to study harder or give you some well deserved peace of mind. Sometimes this can be difficult to work out, especially if you are not mathematically minded.

Thankfully this can be simplified using Microsoft Excel, and I will show you how.
First, gather all the assessment that you will have over the year and insert it in a table using the following format:
 
In this table the 2nd column is the percentage weight. For example, the assignment is worth 20% (or 0.2), the presentation is 30% and the final exam is 50%.

The third column shows what percentage you got in each piece of assessment – 90% in the 20% assignment.

In the fourth column, ‘Total Course Mark’ enter the following: =B1*C1, and =B2*C2. This uses excels calculator to calculate how many marks of the total course you have achieved. These can then be added together in the total mark section using =C1+C2+C3.

From this you can modify your value for ‘Your Grade’ of your final exam to see what you need to pass. In this case you only need 19% in the final exam to pass.

If you can create your excel spreadsheet at the start of the year and constantly modify it, you will always have a clear picture of where you are heading.