Node Glue

I hit zero again yesterday. It took me nearly 8 hours! Admittedly, that’s because I had email two weeks old that was “urgent” (well, after 2 weeks!) that I needed to “Do” and not “Delegate”. I also had a bunch of stuff on post-it notes around my desk to drain into my trusted system. (I’d resorted to keeping the post-it notes stuck to the wrist-rests on my laptop, following the principle of “put it in front of the door“.)

The other thing that I tried to do, however, which significantly extended my time, was to attempt to improve my overall system by setting up MindReader. Unfortunately, I hit several snags that I just couldn’t push through. So I now have a partially working installation/configuration of MindReader, and a loss of two hours (or was it three!?).

I have two main motivations for trying set up MindReader again (my second attempt–I tried before about 10 months ago, I think).

First, I collect a lot of actions with GyroQ. So when it comes time to review, my In-Tray will be full of partially defined items that I captured in haste with GyroQ. One step in my weekly review process is to finish defining them, which means adding due dates, assigning additional owners, delegates, or partners, maybe adding a context. Because opening the ResultsManager edit activity dialogue is relatively inconvenient, and adds time to the overall process, I’m thinking that if I could define some of that additional task information at the moment of capture with GyroQ, that puts me ahead when it comes time for review–because I won’t have to do it again.
Second, when things around the office get really crazy (as it has seemed to be the case often lately), it may be a full two weeks between moments that I “hit zero”. In that interim time, my In-Tray can grow rather large (maybe 50 items?). Which means that, in there, somewhere, might be an activity that I would like to know I’m assigning to, say Bob, one of my direct reports. But until I take time to edit the activity and add Bob’s name to the Resources line, it won’t show up under Bob’s name on any dashboards I generate. Again, however, if I could add Bob’s name to the activity at the point of capture with GyroQ, then even if the activity isn’t fully defined and still sitting in my In-Tray, at least it shows up on the dashboard when I meet one-on-one with Bob and go over his activities. What I’ve been doing to work around this is OK, but inefficient. I look at Bob’s dashboard, and then I scan my gigantic In-Tray to make sure there isn’t anything else in there for Bob. Then in Joe’s one-on-one, right after Bob’s, I scan the In-Tray again to make sure there’s nothing in there for Joe. Then in Bill’s one-on-one…you get the point. So that’s inefficient, which is why I’m looking for a solution like MindReader.
So, I hit zero, despite the disappointing snag with MindReader. I can live with that.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 25th, 2007 at 8:00 am and is filed under GTD, 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.