Merlin’s weekly podcast with Dan Benjamin. We talk about creativity, independence, and making things you love.
Best PracticesProvide context for better ubiquitous captureMerlin Mann | Dec 17 2007Although the first priority in ubiquitous capture is getting it down, the red-headed stepchild trailing in at number two is providing context. And I don't mean the GTD kind of contexts, but the kind of context that minimally explains what this information means, where and when you collected it, why it matters, or anything else that will help you find a meaningful place for it in your life later on. Example? Sure. Here's one from my real and recent world. Index card with one word on it: read more » 13 Comments
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Vox Pop: Your best "best practice" for email?Merlin Mann | Aug 5 2007Short Subject: Now You're Talking (1927) Chris Streeter picks up on a thread that I've been thinking about a lot lately (and he's kind to mention the relationship to Inbox Zero). He reminds us that the etiquette for using a telephone was once well-established enough to earn a place in the encyclopedia: read more »POSTED IN:
Ideamatt on GTD with support staffMerlin Mann | Dec 11 2006Matt's Idea Blog: Best practices for GTD and administrative assistants Matt Cornell has posted some useful notes on emerging best practices for doing GTD with an administrative assistant. There's some practical and thoughtful stuff here, and I recommend having a look. While I have a gut feeling most 43f readers probably don't have/are not a dedicated admin, I know that most of you do work on teams and do have support staff (or are support staff). And one of the constant themes I hear from people is the need for more advice on how to implement GTD practices outside one's own half-acre (here's my interview with David Allen about just that issue). Articles like Matt's can be useful in considering how information might flow with less friction in your workplace. Great way to get the conversation going, for sure. I think the theme I like best here may have virtually nothing to do with GTD, strictly speaking, but has everything to do with informal standards, team culture, and divisions of labor. As David said numerous times in our recent interviews, you want to get to the point where you don't need to interrupt one another to trust that any new input makes a responsible entry into a team member's world. But that requires certain shared expectations and, in many cases, a physical external system that everyone understands and utilizes. To this end, I like Matt's notes on collection: read more »POSTED IN:
Productive Talk Compilation: 8-episode podcast with GTD's David AllenMerlin Mann | Nov 28 2006
Download MP3 of "Productive Talk Compilation" As promised, here's the single-file compilation of the Productive Talk podcast interviews I did with David Allen, the author of Getting Things Done. The final version's eight episodes clock in at a considerable one hour and twenty-six minutes, so this should give you plenty to listen to while you're in line at the DMV. read more »POSTED IN:
David Allen on GTD's future (and why it just works, as is)Merlin Mann | Nov 21 2006
43 Folders and The David Allen Company present the eighth in a series of conversations that David and Merlin recently had about Getting Things Done. Summary
Grab the MP3, learn more at Odeo.com, or just listen here (after the cut). Merlin's commentsIf you bend David Allen's ear for more than 30 seconds about GTD, you'll hear some variation of a phrase that I heard a lot over the couple days we hung out in Ojai: "It's all in the book!" Say what you will about The David, but he is not a man who suffers from The George Lucas Complex. Much to the consternation of his publishers, his fans, and -- one suspects -- even some of his colleagues, David feels like he has already written the complete and definitive work on the Getting Things Done system. And he very clearly has no desire to futz with that basic system without a good reason; it's sound and complete, as is, and there you go. Next subject. And, I have to say, in a lot of ways, I've come to really admire this. read more »POSTED IN:
Vox Pop: Sell me on manual email filingMerlin Mann | Nov 17 2006Lots of the kids are excited about the arrival of MsgFiler, which is a neat litte app for helping you file away your messages in Mail.app:
Zesty. But I'll just play devil's advocate on this one: if you find yourself inordinately excited about the arrival of this (admittedly clever) application, there's an excellent chance that your email archiving system is unnecessarily complex and, in fact, is in need of a major streamlining. Discuss. read more »POSTED IN:
David Allen on best practices for implementing GTDMerlin Mann | Nov 13 2006
Productive Talk #07: Implementing GTD 43 Folders and The David Allen Company present the seventh in a series of conversations that David and Merlin recently had about Getting Things Done. Summary
Grab the MP3, learn more at Odeo.com, or just listen here (after the cut). Merlin's commentsMy favorite bit in this one (jump to 1:38) is where we learn that some of David's best stuff seems to have had a genesis in an unlikely place -- from his tenure as the manager of a gas station, back in the day. read more »POSTED IN:
Vox Populi: How are you using Mail Tags?Merlin Mann | Oct 18 2006I open the floor to all of you on a question of particular personal interest to me: How are you using Mail Tags? While my uses of it to date have been helpful, I keep getting the feeling I'm not getting all that I can out of it -- especially since the ability to associate Projects, Priorities, etc. to a message could make for some really enticing Smart Folders. I wonder if my question is ultimately more taxonomic in nature -- ultimately more about Spotlight in general or Tags in very very general: When tagging items on your Mac, what kind '-onomy' are using? How strictly do you enforce your vocabulary? What are the best practices for someone who's new to this? read more »POSTED IN:
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