Doing GTD With MemoLeaf

By Tammy Cravit, tammy@tammycravit.com

This document describes my implementation of the GTD productivity method using my Palm Treo 700p smart phone and Redwood Creative's MemoLeaf software. I've chosen MemoLeaf as my implementation of "The Simplest Thing That Could Possibly Work" - or, at least, that could work for me - so that I spend my time actually getting things done rather than playing with and tweaking my GTD setup. (I'm easily distracted, and so I work harder than some people to minimize my tendency to tweak and twiddle.)

What is GTD?

GTD is a work/life management system developed by David Allen and marketed by The David Allen Company. David's system for life management and productivity includes the following key processes:

• Capturing anything and everything that has your attention
• Defining actionable things discretely into outcomes and concrete next steps
• Organizing reminders and information into appropriate categories, based on how and when you need to access them
• Keeping current and "on your game" with appropriately frequent reviews of the six horizons of your commitments (purpose, vision, goals, areas of focus, projects, and actions)

More information about GTD can be found in David's book, Getting Things Done, and on the David Allen Company web site and forums.

What is MemoLeaf?

MemoLeaf is an information management application for PalmOS organizers, developed by Redwood Creative. MemoLeaf replaces the Palm's built-in memo application and extends it with added information management features.

Perhaps the most significant feature of MemoLeaf is the ability to "tag" memos into a hierarchy, and search/retrieve them based on pieces of that hierarchy. For example, if you want to keep a series of memos about books you'd like to buy, you can name the memos like this:

/Books/To Buy/<Book Title>

Then, you can find all the books you'd like to buy with a simple search for the key

/Books/To Buy/

Similarly, you'll see that in my GTD system, all of the memos that represent projects begin with the key

/P/

This makes finding and working with my projects fast and easy, without adding a great deal of fiddling when I need to create a new project.

Here's an example of MemoLeaf in action:

MemoLeaf has a fairly active support community via their Yahoo group.

Why use MemoLeaf?

Originally, my GTD system was implemented using NoteStudio, a powerful and eminently capable Wiki for Windows, MacOS and Palm OS. NoteStudio is a powerful program with lots to recommend it, and for a while it worked quite well for me.

But I found, after I'd been using NoteStudio a while, that I was experiencing subtle resistances when I worked with it. I found myself hesitating to create new projects, to capture new ideas, to check my Next Action lists. My GTD implementation in NoteStudio used back-links to build lists, and the effort of "tagging" things with the right links made the system too fiddly for me.

Part of this, I think, came from the added overhead on my Treo's keyboard of typing square brackets to make links. But whatever the cause, once I noticed the trend, I looked for something simpler that would still allow me to categorize information in a more flexible way than the Palm's built-in notepad, with its 15 category limit, could do. I looked, and I found MemoLeaf. And here I am.

Those of you who have read David Allen's whitepaper about using the Palm for GTD may wonder why I didn't go back to his "vanilla GTD" setup using the Palm's Tasks list. I've tried using the Tasks application, but it just didn't "feel" right to me. I'm not sure I can articulate why, but my forays into the Tasks application were not frictionless, either. And so, for me, the Tasks app is just not The Simplest Thing That Could Work.

So, my system now consists of Memo Leaf (projects/Next Actions/reference materials), plus the Palm's built-in datebook (Hard Landscape) and Address (contacts) applications. Perhaps not the most standard GTD configuration, but I'm a big believer in using the tools that work for the individual. This is what works for me.

The Project List

David Allen defines a project as any outcome we've committed to creating that requires more than one physical, tangible action to complete. In our system, we track projects as "stakes in the ground", so that we can answer two critical questions about each of the commitments we've made:

• What are we doing, and why are we doing it?
• How will we know what "done" looks like?

Here's an example of what my project list looks like. As with other screen snapshots in this document, I've blurred some of the items to obscure private or confidential information.

When you review this list, you'll notice that all of my projects start with the MemoLeaf tag

/P/

This makes listing all my projects as simple as searching for that tag using the MemoLeaf "lookup" feature. I also have project entries categorized into the Memo Pad category "-Projects", but this is primarily so they're easy to find in Outlook on my laptop.

Some of you might be wondering why I don't sub-categorize my projects. In fact, this is something I tried early on. Projects were categorized like so:

/P/Writing/Great American novel - draft 1

and

/P/Programming/Fix XYZ Web site bugs

I found that, for me, the extra level of tagging meant more work to create a new project, and produced little in the way of added benefit. I'm self-employed and have a home office, so I don't do separate "home" and "work" weekly reviews. In the first weeks of refining this system, I couldn't find anyplace where the added level of hierarchy helped me, so I quickly stopped doing it. If it works for you, go for it.

Let's jump into one of these projects so I can show you what's inside. This one is, obviously, an imaginary project I created for the purposes of this demonstration:

You'll notice three headings beneath the MemoLeaf tag. The first provides me with space to describe the answer to the two questions I posed above -- what are we doing and why, and how will we know when we're done. Beneath that is a space for Next Actions to be listed. We'll talk about those in a moment. Finally, I've left space for other random notes or information I'd like to capture.

The Someday/Maybe List

Just as projects are placeholders for things we've committed to doing, we need a reminder of things we'd like to do someday but about which we've not yet made any commitments. We don't want to move on them, yet, but we also don't want to lose track of them. So, we write them down on the Someday/Maybe list.

Here's a snippet of my Someday/Maybe list:

As you can see, Someday/Maybe items are listed just like projects, but they use the tag:

/S/

If, during my weekly review, I decide I'm ready to move on something on my Someday/Maybe list, I simply replace the "S" with a "P" to make it a project. Similarly, if I decide to renegotiate a commitment to myself and defer it for now, I can change the "P" to an "S" and move it to the Someday/Maybe list without losing any of the notes I made about it.

Renegotiating my commitments is an integral part of my GTD process, and it's rare that a Weekly Review goes by without at least one item moving between the Projects and Someday/Maybe lists.

Next Actions

If projects are the wagons, then Next Actions (or NAs, for short) are the mules that drive them. NAs are discrete, tangible, physical units of work that move your projects closer to completion. A Next Action must be something physical that you can actually do, which means it has to be small enough to be manageable. "Change the car's oil" is a project; "Call Bob for the name of his mechanic's shop" is a Next Action. Next actions often begin with verbs.

Next Actions are grouped into sets, so that all the NAs you can do in a given location (or with a given resource) will appear together. These groupings are called "contexts". Here are the contexts I use in my GTD system:

• @Computer - Actions I can only do when I'm at my computer
• @Office - Actions I can do in my office, but which don't depend upon my computer
• @Home - Actions I can do at home, but which don't need to be done in my home office.
• @Errand - Actions I need to do when I'm out of the office. An example of this type of action might be "Buy stamps at the post office."
• @Anywhere - Actions that don't depend on any specific resources. Usually, most of the NAs in this category involve brainstorming or thinking about things. I can do brainstorming work anyplace I have a pen and paper.
• @Waiting - The items on this list are not actions, per se. Rather, they are "stakes in the ground" to remind me that a given project is waiting on someone else to take an action before I can proceed.

Every project on your list must have at least one Next Action defined at any given point in time. You can certainly define more than one Next Action for a given project, and I do indeed do this from time to time. However, you should not define on your NA list any Next Actions that depend on other Next Actions before they can be completed. This is because your Next Actions are intended to be things you can do right now, and an action you can't take yet obviously isn't something you can do right now.

In MemoLeaf, I list the Next Actions as part of the notes I create for each project. I use MemoLeaf's find facility - searching for the name of the context - to list the current Next Actions for the context in which I'm working. In MemoLeaf, the eye icon switches the find results between a list of the matched text and a list of the memo titles. In this way, I can easily see both the NAs themselves and the projects to which they're associated.

Let's look at the list of NAs in my @Office context for illustration. I'll show both views (action description and project name) side-by-side so that you can see how the find function helps you manage your NA list. Remember, tapping on the eye icon on the top edge of the screen toggles between these views:

As you can see, one of the things I could have chosen to work on in my office was to make screenshots for this tutorial. That's obviously done now.

Lists, Radar, and Reference Materials

I keep a variety of reference lists -- movies I'd like to see, books I'd like to buy or read, the IP addresses for servers I manage, and so forth. Each of these is simply entered into its own MemoLeaf memo, tagged with the prefix

/List/

This makes finding my reference lists easy and quick. Additional levels of tagging can be added if need be, but I've rarely found that necessary. Here's an example of what my lists look like:

Similarly, I keep my higher-level GTD lists - areas of focus, long-term goals, and that sort of thing - in MemoLeaf memos tagged with the prefix:

/GTD/Radar/

I use a two-level tag prefix here because I have other GTD materials (my weekly review checklist, for example) tagged as /GTD/, and I want to be able to quickly pick out the higher-level items for my weekly, monthly and yearly reviews.

Here's what a search for my radar lists looks like:

Reference and project support materials are stored similarly, with different tags as appropriate. For example, one of the projects on my Someday/Maybe list is a book about software project management. Notes and ideas related to this project are tagged with the prefix

/SD Book/

so that I can easily pick out all my materials related to that project.

The Inbox

Truthfully speaking, most of my immediate capture doesn't happen in my Palm. The reason for this is simple: I write on paper much faster than I can either Graffiti or type data into my Treo. So, 90% of the newly-captured stuff coming into my system is recorded on 3x5 inch note cards, or on the pages of a small Rollabind notebook that lives in my purse. When I get to my PC, I type them into the appropriate place, or otherwise process these handwritten notes into my system.

Still, every once in a while, I'll capture something on my Treo directly. When I do, I tag it with the prefix

/Inbox/

One of my processing tasks is to review items tagged with this prefix and to either capture them in the right place or delete them. Typically I don't have more than one or two of these in a day, and my goal is to get items out of the electronic inbox within no more than a day after capturing them.

Hard Landscape

In the GTD world, Hard Landscape items are meetings or other events that must happen on a specific day and/or at a specific time. There are two ways one can handle Hard Landscape items: using the Palm's built-in calendar, or using the Reminder Alarms feature built into the new (and presently beta) MemoLeaf 5.0 version.

Using the Palm OS Calendar

When I was using MemoLeaf 4.x to implement my GTD system, I used the Palm calendar to record Hard Landscape items. I'd simply add these items to my calendar, like so:

This method is simple and works well, and I still use it for Hard Landscape items originated by other people. (My business partner, for example, invites me to meetings using Outlook's "Invite Attendees" function). But more and more, I'm creating a tight coupling between Hard Landscape items and their associated projects using a new feature of the upcoming MemoLeaf 5.0: alarms on memos.

Using MemoLeaf 5.0's Alarms

MemoLeaf 5.0 (in beta as of 10/16/2006) supports the capability to attach alarms to memos. Tapping on the Details button while viewing a memo brings up the following dialog:

Tapping on the Alarm button brings up the following dialog, which allows you to pick a date/time for the alarm:

When I want to set a Hard Landscape reminder for a project, I first add a note like the following near the top of the memo:

HL: 10/20/2006 10am: Project meeting in conference room

Then, I set the alarm to go off at an appropriate time. When the alarm goes off, I see the following dialog, showing my Hard Landscape note and a summary of the project:

If I have multiple Hard Landscape items associated with a project, I note them all in the memo, and set a reminder for the first item. When the alarm goes off, it only takes a few moments to reset it for the next Hard Landscape item. This way, I also have a list of all the appointments or other Hard Landscape items associated with a given project.

Using the MemoLeaf Key Bank

The Key Bank is a powerful feature of MemoLeaf that allows commonly-used keys to be stored. From the Key Bank, you can create new memos, look up for find keys/text, and even combine multiple keys. I won't go into the mechanics of using the Key Bank; for that, the MemoLeaf quick-start guide (PDF) provides plenty of guidance. I will show you my Key Bank and explain briefly how I use it.

Here's what the main page of my Key Bank looks like:

The first group of entries list the contexts I use for my Next Actions. I use the Find function of the Key Bank to produce lists of Next Actions for the context in which I find myself.

The next group of entries lists the common keys for memos in my system. Here I use the Lookup function of the Key Bank to find, for example, a list of all my projects. I also use the New function to create a new project, Someday/Maybe item or list.

Doing the Weekly Review

The following list summarizes a typical GTD weekly review process. Beneath the steps of the process, I've added notes about how I perform that step using MemoLeaf:

• Loose Papers - business cards, receipts, etc.

I gather loose papers and put them in my in-basket for processing.

• Process Your Notes

I gather notes from 3x5 cards and my Rollabind notebook, and place them in my in-basket for processing.

• Empty Your Head - write down any new projects, action items, etc.

A stack of index cards and my fountain pen at hand, I write these items down.

• Process Inbox

I now gather all the papers in my inbox and process them. Next Actions get added to the appropriate Project memo. Someday/Maybes get added to new memos. Other reference information is added to an appropriate memo, or added to my analog reference materials for the associated project.

• Review "Projects" (and Larger Outcome) Lists

Using the Key Bank, I Lookup the key /P/ and review each project.
Projects I choose not to act on now will be renamed to move them to the Someday/Maybe list. Next Actions will be updated and reviewed. Completed Next Actions will be removed from the list.

• Review "Waiting For" List

Using the Key Bank, I Search for the string @Waiting in my memos. I review each item I'm waiting for and add Next Actions for follow-up, if appropriate.

• Review "Someday/Maybe" List

Using the Key Bank, I Lookup the key /S/ and review each Someday/Maybe. Items no longer of interest are deleted, and items I wish to act on are renamed to move them to the Projects list.

• Review "Pending" and Support Files

I review my offline files and support material and create new projects, Someday/Maybe items and Next Actions as appropriate.

Helper Applications

There are a couple of helper applications that I use to make my GTD/MemoLeaf system more functional and frictionless.

Shortcut5

Shortcut5, by Mark Tamura, extends the Palm OS shortcut function to allow for longer shortcuts. Shortcut5 shortcuts, which are entered by typing a period followed by up to four letters, can also include macro-like characters that can expand to pieces of the current date/time, or that can launch applications and click on menus and buttons.

PsLink

PsLink, by Sembe, enables Wiki-like hyperlinking between memos and other memos, Datebook appointments and other applications. I use PsLink rarely, to link Datebook-based Hard Landscape items back to the projects to which they belong. I also occasionally link related projects together using PsLink.

About the Author

Tammy Cravit is a writer and self-employed computer professional who lives and works on California's central coast. The author of more than 150 published newspaper articles, she has ghost-written two books and published several short stories. She is hard at work on what she hopes will be her first published novel, a mystery. Tammy can be found on the web at www.tammycravit.com.