It’s the start of a new year, and I’m thinking once more about the challenges that face me, and the methods I might use to manage them. Last year I happened upon the “GTD” (Getting Things Done) methodology, and it has served remarkably well in simplifying that which I concern myself with from day to day.
It’s worth pointing out (for those of you who know all about goals, contexts, tasks, and such like) that I have only been following a small subset of the guidelines outlined in David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” book. Having the iPhone, and a wonderful online to-do list application called “Toodledo” has helped tremendously.
Why am I thinking about changing things around? To make life more simple.
At present I constantly find myself juggling the following;
A task list on the iPhone (that syncs with Toodledo on the web)
The calendar on the iPhone (that syncs with the internet via MobileMe)
MobileMe contacts (that sync with the Mac at home, the web, and the iPhone)
Google Calendar (where my other half records everything for our family via shared calendars)
Outlook Calendar (at work, where my employer keeps tabs on me)
Google Notebook (on the web, were I throw things from time to time)
Google Docs (on the web, where I keep various spreadsheets, letters, and so on)
Moleskine Notebook (daily notebook that gets carried just about everywhere)
37Signals Basecamp (online project management tool)
Google Mail, Yahoo Mail, Fastmail, freelance email, and work email acconts
The immediate thing that strikes me is that there are far too many things on the list - and that’s before I go anywhere near blogging, where I regularly post to a personal blog, a professional blog, livejournal, tumblr, posterous and myspace. I also log into MySpace and Facebook regularly to catch up with friends.
I am regularly connected to Yahoo Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, ICQ, Google Talk, and Skype.
It’s too much.
Early last year I spent a couple of months using 37Signals BackPack, and liked it enormously. I am considering a return with a mind to consolidate and simplify on a huge scale. Before doing so I need to look at the various competing services that now exist, and evaluate them against it. My abiding memory of using BackPack was that it had been thought about - that it was both flexible and simple; inviting you to invent ways in which you might use it, rather than it being a tailored tool for a specific application.
How many services have you ended up using in your online/offline life, and how do you knit them together?