GTD

Project planning and managing my to do list has been a craft that I've honed over the years.  Before reading the GTD materials, I regularly utilized my Google Calendar and task lists within the calendar to keep track of tasks and projects on my radar.  I also utilize a three subject spiral notebook to keep track of tasks, notes, ideas, meeting information, etc.  This method is extremely low-tech, but its always worked really well for me, especially when I use my Google calendar in conjunction.  On a daily basis, I make to do lists in my notebook and transfer those to my google calendar.  I still feel that the act of physically writing  things down is an important processing task for me.

In the spirit of class assignments, I decided to try one of the tech tools that can assist the GTD process.  I set up an account with Simple GTD and began the process through that lens.  I used the list of tasks I already had on my Google Calendar and put them onto the GTD tool.  I grouped the tasks by project type and ordered them in order of importance.  Initially when I transfered my small tasks to this online tool and ordered them into bigger projects and in terms of importance, I felt like the tool would be helpful.  Once I ordered them and grouped small tasks with projects, I didn't really find that the tool was helpful beyond that.  And in all reality, my Google Calendar (and to do list within Google Calendars) and paper and pencil methods really were no different than what I did with the online tool.  It felt as though I was just repeating the process, and in all reality I didn't have any more clarity.

I think processes of project management are essential to productivity.  I have always been a learner that needs to see the process and chunk it into smaller bits in order to accomplish the big task.  The processes described in this module are those that I engage in on a regular basis.  I will continue planning tasks and projects in this way, but I feel that my Google Calendar management along with my trusty spiral notebook, have served me well in terms of managing and completing projects.