In the beginning there was chaos, a lot of panic, most things got done – eventually, but there was a general feeling of worry, insecurity and malaise. Always concern that something would ‘slip through the net’. That I’d arrive at a meeting unprepared. That I’d get one of those “where are you” phone calls from my dentist.

There had to be a better way. For many years I was a PC user at home and work, and so I struggled to make Outlook organize my life. The drawback was, that Outlook or any other tool can’t do the thinking for you. My problem was that I didn’t know how to think in the right, constructive way.

A symptom of this was the number of things I had to do which for some reason never got done. Not even started. Was I lazy? Stupid? Did I want to get buried under this mountain of ‘stuff’?

Then I acquired an old iPhone. I’d always been a windows mobile user, but was interested just to try it out. A week later I was hooked!

The one really big missing feature seemed to be a task/todo manager. In setting about finding a replacement for mobile Outlook, I stumbled on lots of references to GTD, or Getting Things Done. I found out that they were all referring to a book by David Allen describing a different way of thinking about what needs to get done, and the system needed to enact this.

I was a bit sceptical – who wouldn’t be? Here I was, a 50 something woman with a great job, a family, a household to run etc, what could there be ‘out there’ that would help to the extent this seemed to be helping other people.

So, I bought a condensed eBook of Getting Things Done. I wasn’t ready to commit a lot of money to ‘another to-do list system’.

By the end of Chapter 2 I felt that this guy had actually seen the chaos of my life! I read to the end and then reread it immediately. (I’ve never done that before!)

In short, the things I took away immediately from these first skim reads were:

Get EVERYTHING out of your head and into a list somewhere

Computers, pencil & paper, calendars, these are great at remembering and organizing stuff. Your head isn’t.

Try to only think about each task or email ONCE

Decide what to do with it, and put it in the appropriate folder/file/pile for action/reference/destruction/delegation

If it takes less than 2 MINUTES – do it now

            Whatever it is, get it out of your hair asap if it’s a short job

If a task has ‘got stuck’ – what is the NEXT ACTION?

            What is the VERY NEXT thing that needs to happen to move this forward?

If there are a number of related tasks – are they really a PROJECT or an AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY/INTEREST?

Sometimes it’s easier to think of all the stuff to do with home maintenance together, rather than as 20 separate tasks

Divide up stuff to do into CONTEXTS

What is the point of your brain constantly nagging you about stuff you can only do when at home, when you are currently at work?

STOP putting spurious dates on stuff – only use dates when they are real

You think that putting a date on ‘clear out garage’ will make you do it sooner. It didn’t me. Then, I felt guilty and a failure as I hadn’t kept to my allotted date for doing that job. Then I would move the date (again).  There are better ways to do this.

TURN OFF that email nagger – set times to look at your email – like every 2 hours or whatever AND STICK TO THEM

It doesn’t help your concentration on 1 task to have a constant flurry of warnings in your peripheral vision that x has sent you an email

That’s it – this stuff changed my life. More came later, but just this stuff that I got from the first pass was enough to stop the out of control roller-coaster feeling.

Finding a TRUSTED SYSTEM

Where to put these lists? How to make sure I got reminded when I needed to be. Did it have to be some new fangled hideously expensive system? No, pen and paper are fine. No money needs to be spent. However, I don’t do paper and I wanted to feel that there was more than one copy of all this. Having done all this, I didn’t want to leave it in at home, or be able to lose it somehow. Also, for years, I have used email, Outlook, online and cloud stuff to make sure that nothing gets lost. So, for me it would have to be a digital solution, where I could have a copy on my (now the new and latest iPhone!)

The next hurdle was Mac at home, PC at work. How was that one going to be resolved? Not easily.

I tried:

• Things
• Ominifocus
• Toodledo
• Todo
• 2Do
• Easy Task

All these are excellent software in their own way and have lots to recommend them. But they didn’t really work for me:

Things & Omnifocus – not accessible from PC. Sometimes I want to type a lot into task notes, not really an option on the iPhone.  When my boss wanted a progress update on a project, there was no way to print this out quickly. I was always trecking my personal laptop into work.

Toodledo with Toodledo iPhone, Todo and 2Do– had all the basics, but the web interface was so busy, it was not calming or conducive to feeling in control. Some great stuff here, and I used Td with Todo for a long time. But never felt I had hit on THE solution.

So, I heard about Nozbe. I tried it briefly (there’s a free version – up to 5 projects & contexts), but it didn’t take. It was different, I was very busy, too busy to appreciate the subtle but definite advantages.

The announcement of sync between Evernote and Nozbe made me try it again. Thought I’d try it just for one project, it was good, but the sync with the mobile app was flakey at that time.

New Nozbe mobile app appeared – now we were talking. This third try was different. I’d retained enough of the basics from the first two tries, and this time it was like a revelation.

This system was actually designed from the ground up to fit in with GTD (or at least how I use GTD). It was simple. I could send it tasks from Home, Work, via Email, via Twitter. I could link it to iCal, I could link it to Evernote, I could upload files to it. I could write notes on the project, on each task, or just random context related notes. It had a calendar section.

It was fast, reliable and most important the developer is constantly monitoring user opinion and making improvements.

THIS IS/WAS THE ONE

I look forward with interest to future developments at Nozbe. I love it, it is my Trusted System.