Node Glue

Using ResultsManager has become about as automatic to me as waking up and brewing a pot of coffee. It’s just part of life.

A question was asked in a comment to a previous post about how my ResultsManager usage was going. I thought I’d post a response here with a trackback to reply.

I don’t know if you’ll find this comment below an older post, but I’m wondering how things are going with ResultsManager over the last month-and-a-half.

I tried it out last year, and got frustrated at the complexity, but after being off it for a while, I’ve come to miss two things:

1) Seeing the big picture, or larger context of my life
2) Habitually working in MindManager (I tend to open it less–and thus benefit from its creative encouragement–when I’m not using for daily activities)

Please post an update on your progress.

ResultsManager helps me maintain my sanity by giving me decent level of command over of the stuff of my life. So, yes, to your point #1, ResultsManager continues to be a big picture win for me.

As for #2, I do use MindManager for just about everything. So it’s nice to have my personal productivity system blended in with it.

I too avoided ResultsManager at first because of the complexity and seemingly daunting learning curve. But I’m thoroughly pleased with the dividends it’s paid over time. Before ResultsManager, I outgrew and changed my entire system about once every six to nine months, which was a productivity loss each time–just the overhead of re-engineering my system. ResultsManager and MindManager forms a broad and solid enough foundation, and a rich enough toolset with the dashboard concept and the customizable dashboard filters, that I can tweak it here and there as my needs evolve and it doesn’t require a wholesale system change. So I’ve been using it solidly for over a year now, and I’m not looking back.

The fact that I can share maps and do nearly seamless collaboration with my assistant is huge, too. I might have chosen a slightly less involved system if there were similar rich project oriented collaboration tools out there. I have a friend that uses Basecamp in a similar way for collaboration. And at the last Seattle GTD Meetup, vitalist was suggested. I don’t think those would fully satisfy me, though, because I like the tight connection with my “resources” system of choice, MindManager, and also Outlook. I think something like Basecamp would probably come in handy, though, for dealing with a broader team. I don’t think my team would take very well to ResultsManager as a project collaboration tool. With my assistant, it’s OK, because he’s tech savvy and enough of a tech tool geek like me that he’s not intimidated by such a tool like ResultsManager.

Actually, I will admit that I have looked back from time to time over the past year. There have been significant moments of GTD Despair, crossroads of sorts, and I’ve wondered if the only way to break through might not be to throw out the whole system. But every time I’ve come to that crossroad, I’ve come to realize that I am my problem, not the system. The system actually does help me when I let it help me.

Here are a few examples of my more cathartic GTD moments:

• Mind Under Water: Confessions of a GTD Vet
• Mind On Fire: One Hot Dashboard
• Good Enough is not Good Enough
• GTD in the Grip
• Mind Emerging from the Water: Soul Baptized

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 3rd, 2007 at 10:38 am and is filed under ResultsManager. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.