Author Archives: Patrick Rhone

As regular readers know, I recently switched my “Moleskine of Choice” from the Pocket Ruled to the 18 Month Weekly Planner. One of the principal reasons I wanted this planner as soon as it was anounced and eagerly awaited it’s release was it’s layout.

On the left hand page is a week laid out in blocks starting on Monday and running through Sunday. A large header space at the top of that page offers lots of room for writing “soft landscape” items like conference dates and such. The right hand facing page is just a plain ruled page with no header. What this layout allows me to do is have one easy place to glance at my calendar items for the week and have an easy space for next actions and capture.

My use of it is not much different than it was before. Because the planner is organized weekly, I use the ruled page for my actions and capture for just that week using the same dash/plus system as before. With no header at the top of the ruled page there are a full 28 lines available. This is more than enougfh for me. I do not tend to have enough to fully fill the page on any given week. In fact, I rarely fill 3/4 of it (yes, I am really busy – seriously). At the end of the week, as part of my weekly review, I process the carryovers (i.e. unfinished or unprocessed items) to the next weeks ruled page. Also part of that weekly review process is “syncing” my calendar items for the upcoming week with my Backpack calendar. Also, just as before, action items get synced with Backpack as well so I always have those available and easily portable.

Therefore, some of the tools have changed but my system remains pretty much the same as it was. There is a deeper lesson to be learned in this. The goal of GTD is to create a trusted system. If you trust and stick to your system then the tools are chosen to best support the system and not the other way around. Therefore, it was an easy transition between one calendar program, capture device, etc. to another because my system remained the same.

One of the things I have always loved about the idea of GTD is one that a lot of folks have the hardest times committing to – that the priority of a task is only one factor in deciding if a task can actually get done. As a matter of fact, I would argue that it is one of the last classifications one should use for any task. Today, Merlin Mann explains on the ever excellent 43 Folders exactly why this is:

“Unless you can always satisfy the big red letter commitments you’ve created for yourself — as well as the ones that are constantly being generated for you by others — an obsession with priority alone is pointlessly stress-inducing, unhealthy, and unrealistic. The truth is that sometimes you have crap days, pencils need to be sharpened, or maybe you just don’t have the tools or energy to do what you want the second you want. That’s life, pal. Deal.”

Read the whole thing. You wont regret it. Do it. Now!

GTD: Priorities don’t exist in a vacuum