DIY: How to setup GTD gmail

This is a tutorial on how to setup your gmail inbox to better match your GTD workflow.  you can find my previous post on GTD if you're not sure what I'm talking about right now.  Otherwise here is an example of what you'll be able to do with your new GTD inbox:

As you can see, you'll have sections to place your 'Action Required' and 'Scheduled' items.  These sections will sound familiar to you if you're a GTD fan, otherwise I will explain there uses  further as we get to them in this tutorial.


Importing Email: 

We first need to create a master gmail account.  This will be the account where you will be able to check the mail from all other gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, Live or .edu email accounts you may own.  To do this, we need to make sure that mail from all of your accounts get imported here. If you only use one email account you can skip this section.

1.  Click on the settings icon in the top right corner of gmail. Then click on settings. This will bring you to your general mail settings.

2. Click on the ‘Accounts and Import’ tab, scroll down and click on ‘Add POP3 account.’

3. A new window asking for your email address will pop up.  Enter the email address of the account you want to import to your master gmail account and click ‘Next.'

4.  Now fill out the username and password for the account being imported.  Select the correct POP Server and Port number from the drop down menu.  If you are importing a school or work email account, you may need to ask your IT department which Server and Port to use.

5. Check the box ‘label incoming messages:’ , this means that any message imported from this account will be labeled with the email address that it was imported from. Click ‘Add Acount.’

6. The next window will ask if you would like to be able to send mail from this new account.  Make sure ‘Yes’ is checked so that you are able to send mail as this imported account, without having to leave your master gmail account. Click ‘Next Step.’ 

7. On the next window, enter the name you want to appear in the ‘from: ‘ field when you send email.  Click ‘Next Step.’

8. On the next window, Click ‘Send Verification.’ Then check the inbox of the account you just set up import for and look for the confirmation email. Click on the confirmation link to complete imort setup.

9. repeat steps 1-8 for any other email accounts you would like to import into your master gmail account.

Setting Up Labels:

1.  Click on the settings icon in the top right corner of gmail. Then click on settings. This will bring you to your general mail settings.

2. Click on the ‘Labels’ tab, scroll down and click on ‘Create a new Label.’

3. Type in ‘1GTD’, click on ‘Create’

4. repeat step 3 and create tags for ‘1GTD/Action-Required’ and ‘1GTD/Scheduled’

Setting Up Multiple Inboxes:

1.  Click on the settings icon in the top right corner of gmail. Then click on settings. This will bring you to your general mail settings.

2. Click on the ‘Labs’ tab, scroll down and check the box to enable ‘Multiple Inboxes.’ There should now be a tab for ‘Multiple inboxes’ in your email settings.

3. Click on Multiple inboxes in your email settings.  Copy and paste the following search query into the text box labeled ‘Pane 0: ‘

Copy this: is:1GTD/Scheduled

4. Enter the title, ‘Scheduled’ into the Panel title for Pane 0.

5. Copy and paste the following search query into the text box labeled ‘Pane 1: ‘

Copy this: is:1GTD/Action-Required

6. Enter the title, ‘Action Required’ into the Panel title for Pane 1.

7. On the bottom of the ‘Multiple inboxes’ settings page, there is a setting labeled, ‘Extra panels positioning: ‘. Select the option that says, ‘Above the inbox.’

Using the System:

1.  The purpose of this system is to be able to process any email that comes in so that your inbox doesn’t grow out of control.  Your goal is to keep your inbox at zero messages.  I still can’t quite keep my inbox at zero, but here are the steps I use to get as close as I can.

2. When you open any email, you don’t want to close it until you are done dealing with it.  If a friend sends you a message asking for a good recommendation for a great blog on personal finance, do Not close the email thinking you’ll get back to it later.  Go ahead and search for a good blog, and reply with a link right then and there.  When you are done you can archive the email to be done with it.

3. Many times you will get a email that you just can’t deal with at the moment.  For example, I just got an email from Best Buy asking me to spend a gift certificate I’ve won.  But I want to wait until the item I want from Best Buy goes on sale before I pick it up.  Since it’s impossible to complete this email at this time,  I can click on ‘move to’ at the top of the email, and then select ‘1GTD Action Required.’

This email is now moved out of my default inbox, and into my separate inbox labeled, ‘Action Required’.  This new inbox is where I keep all the emails I can’t quite complete just yet.  When the item I want finally does go on sale and I make the purchase with my gift card, I can remove the ‘Action Required’ Label and it will automatically be archived.  


4. Another type of mail I frequently receive is a message regarding an event I’ve commited to.  I’ve already recorded the event in my calendar, but I don’t want to get rid of the message quite yet because it has all the event info such as time, place, descriptions and other reminders.  So I’ll again click on ‘move to’, and select ‘1GTD Scheduled’. 

This email is now moved out of my default inbox, and into my separate inbox labeled, ‘Scheduled’.  This new inbox is where I keep all the emails regarding events already listed in my calendar. And that's all there is to it! Here's another picture of what your inbox would look like now:

DIY: Getting Things Done

As a first DIY project, I thought I could share my own Thrifty Techie version of David Allen's popular GTD system.

So what is GTD?

Getting Things Done (GTD) is a term usually referring to the system David Allen outlines in his book, “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.” If you want a comprehensive guide to this system without having to go out and buy the book, Trent from The Simple Dollar has a great 14 part series explaining GTD as described by David Allen, while using practical examples from his own life to illustrate how the system works. I would definitely recommend going out and reading either the full book, or at least Trent's summary, but here is a quick jump start guide just to give you the gist of it.

GTD is composed of five basic principles: collect, process, organize, review, and do. Each one of these steps has its own set of benefits, but the real power comes from using them all together.

Collect – Our brains are not very reliable. We are bombarded with hundreds of tasks to do, names to remember, great ideas, facts, and other information, only to forget half of it by the end of the day. To make matters worse, keeping all of this information in our heads greatly reduces our ability to focus on specific tasks. How can you expect to concentrate on writing that report when you are simultaneously trying to remember to meet your friend in an hour, pick up groceries on the way home, and the other five errands you need to run that day. David Allen suggests using an inbox to throw anything that comes your way. Whether it's bills you just got in the mail, lyrics from a song you just heard on the radio and want to look up later, or a great idea for a blog post you want to remember. You'd be surprised with how clear your mind can become just by dumping everything on paper and collecting it in one place.

Process and Organize – This pile of items you've just collected can quickly grow into a jungle of uselessness if you don't continually process it into actionable items. At the end of every day, I go through my inbox and place everything into a category. Things that can be done in less than 2 minutes are done right then and there. This usually includes any emails I wanted to send, papers to be filed, maybe a new blog I wanted to check out. Anything I can't get to until something else happens first gets put into the “waiting” pile. For example, I can't make that presentation until Bob gives me the numbers to use, or I can't fix Bob's computer until the parts arrive. At this point the only things left are “next action” items. These are the tasks I will use as my to-do list for the next day.

Review – This is definitely the hardest step of the entire process (at least for me it is). No matter how on top things you are on a day to day basis with the first three steps, there are always going to be little things that slip through the cracks. Maybe a few tasks get pushed to the back of your inbox keeping you from ever getting around to completing them. Or maybe you forgot to write down a couple home repair projects you were planning on getting around to at the end of the month. The only way to combat this is your weekly review. Once a week, you just sit down, and go through your inbox, to-do lists, action items, and project folders to make sure everything is in the right place and nothing is forgotten. You can also use this time do do a complete brain dump and just get everything out of your head and written down into your GTD system.

Do – GTD is a great system for capturing and organizing all the information and different tasks you run into everyday. Once you have a nice list of things you need to do, you need to decide on what to do first. David Allen uses a combination of time and energy you have available to decide what would be a good task to start on. Stephen Covey, author of, “The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People” suggests prioritizing your tasks using some version of his urgent/important matrix. I would say this is the one area I'm still exploring, trying to find a good balance allowing me to get the maximum productivity out of my day.

Whats next?

So that was your quick introduction to GTD. Now that you have an idea of what it is, I would still recommend picking up the full version of the book, or at least reading Trent's rundown of the system on The Simple Dollar. It's worth getting the full technical details of how this system works, as well as a full explanation of how following each step can benefit you. Hopefully it will inspire you to get started today. Following this post, I want to share some tweaks I've made to the system to gain better flow with my more digital life. I'll be posting on:

-how to set up your email to work right along side GTD

-how to set up Evernote with GTD

-how to set up Google Tasks and Google Calendar with GTD

jQuery Fundamentals Part 4: Events

This is the fourth part of a 5 part series on jQuery fundamentals. In this part, we will look at how to handle events that occur within your document. The next post will look at jQuery UI.

Introduction

Selection

Manipulation

Events

jQueryUI

One of the great strengths of jQuery is it's ability to abstract many of the annoying differences in the way different browsers interpret javascript. As a result, we no longer need to worry about the difference between the traditional event model vs the W3C event model vs Microsofts Jscript event model. We just implement events using jQuery, allowing jQuery to handle differences between browsers for us.


jQuery uses the Bind() method to attach events to an HTML element. The Bind() method takes two parameters. The first parameter is a string identifying the type of event you want to attach. The second parameter is an event handler that is called when your new event fires.

In this example, I am binding a mousout event to all <div> elements on my page. Whenever a mouseout event occurs on a <div> element, the event handler will notify the user using the “alert” method.

$(‘div’).bind(
     ‘mouseout’,
     function() {
          alert(“mouse out event has fired”);

     }
);

You may also refer to the “this” object in your event handler. The “this” object refers to the html element that fired the event. In this example, I attach a “click” event to all <p> elements with an ID of “clickable. When the click event fires, the event handler checks to see whether the <p> element that was just clicked has a CSS class called “tmpExampleOn”.

$(‘p #clickable’).bind(
     ‘click’,
     function() {
          if ($(this).hasClass(‘tmpExampleOn’)) {
               alert(“this <p> has the class”)

          }

          else {

               alert(“this <p> doesn't have the class”);

          }
     }
);

jQuery also defines a shorthand way of binding events using dot notation. The following examples do the exact same thing using short hand notation.

$(‘div’).mouseout (
     function() {
          alert(“mouse out event has fired”);
     }

);

$(‘div’).click(
     function() {
          if ($(this).hasClass(‘tmpExampleOn’)) {
               alert(“this <p> has the class”) 

          }

          else {

               alert(“this <p> doesn't have the class”);

          }
     }

);

These methods should fill most of your event binding needs. However, these two methods will only bind events to HTML elements that are currently on the page. But you already know from the previous post on jQuery Manipulation, that you can insert and delete HTML elements from the page using jQuery's manipulation methods. So how can you bind an event handler to all future elements not currently on the page?

The answer is to use the Live() method. The Live() method works the exact same way as Bind(), but attaches the event to all future selections, instead of just elements matching the selection currently on the page.

This example binds a mouseout event to all <div> elements currently on the page, plus any <div> elements you may insert to the page in the future.

$(‘div’).live(
     ‘mouseout’,
     function() {
          alert(“mouse out event has fired”);

     }
);

How to Handle Tech Lust

It starts with rumors, Sony’s new PS3 was going to be latest and greatest gaming console ending any doubt about who's going to own the gaming industry.  

“Wow, this sounds interesting, I wonder when it's coming out"

Specs start to slowly trickle out to the public, 3.2 GHz PowerPC-based processor, full 1080p HD, NVIDIA RSX 'Reality Synthesizer' graphics, wifi, support, blue tooth, and Blue-ray on models ranging from 20 to 80 Gigs of storage.  A few citings in the wild are being reported and blogged about, along with an official announcement of the release date.

“What the f*&%, that is crazy! I have to have this!” (at the time, those specs really were crazy)

After countless leaked screen shots, demos, big announcements, reviews, press releases, and commercials, I had no chance.

On the week of the launch I found myself along with three other friends taking 6-12 hour shifts for 3 days, camping outside the local Best Buy hoping to grab one of the thirty tickets identifying who will be walking home with a brand new PS3.

Hopefully my little story illustrates some of the dangers of tech lust.  With access to so much information, it’s so easy to build up a product in your mind to an obsession, leading you to throw away big time money on something you may not even need in the first place.  So how can you prevent yourself from falling into the same trap I’ve been falling into for years?  Here are some tips that have helped me greatly reduce the unwanted side effects of tech envy.

Banish the Advertising!

Most people don’t believe that advertising has any major effect on them.  I believed this myself until I came across an article at SebastionMarshall.com explaining why advertising works on you.  The point of the article is that just because you don’t get hungry for a Big Mac after a McDonalds commercial, it doesn't mean the commercial hasn’t affected you.  Exposing you to the product has a large enough effect on its own.

A friend of mine recently bought a used Chevy Cobalt.  I'm not a huge car enthusiast so I had never heard of or seen this car until she got a chance to show it off to me.  After I got a chance to admire it, I feel like I see this particular model everywhere I go.  It just stands out a little bit more to me now.

For  me, banishing advertisements means deleting blogs like Gizmodo and Engadget from my google reader.  I still get my tech fix (something I really enjoy) from podcasts (buzz out loud, the engadget show) and other blogs.  But at least I don’t get the daily barrage of gadget rumors that the engadget blog provides.  For others, banishing advertising might mean less television, taking the long route home to avoid window shopping, or taking advantage of more on demand content with services such as Netflix, Hulu, TiVo, Pandora,or Slacker Radio.  These types of services deliver the content you enjoy with much less advertising.  

30 Day rule

The 30 day rule is something I picked up from Trent over at the Simple Dollar.  The 30 day rule states that you can’t buy any big ticket item without waiting for at least 30 days.  This small and simple rule has an enormous amount of benefits.  The most obvious advantage of following a rule like this is that it eliminates impulse buys.  Most times, when I see something I really want, I’ll hold off and tell myself to revisit the decision in 30 days, only to completely forget about the item when time is up anyway. 

Another advantage that most people don’t think of when they first hear about this rule is the extended enjoyment of the buying process.  Similar to how planning a vacation can be as fun as actually going on the vacation, researching the best products and prices can extend the joy of making the actual purchase.  If you’re looking for a phone, go out and find out about all the operating systems available, which carrier has the best coverage in your area, which data and voice plans will match your use, who has the best apps.   You might even research phone manufactures release schedules so you can find the best time to buy your phone at the cheapest price.  Sometimes, you'll find out that the new gadget you were dreaming about isn't so hot after all.  One last note, don't be afraid to extend the waiting period for larger purchases.  A good rule of thumb is to wait as long as it takes to save up the money to make the purchase without any impact on your normal budget.

Don’t Torture Yourself

So you’ve waited and waited and you still feel that your life just isn’t complete without that new iPad 2.  But of course you don’t want to waste all this work you’ve done to hold off from buying another expensive toy for so long.  Others might disagree with me, but my best advice to you at this point is to just buy it.  You’ve already done the research to know it’s the best product for the best price that will meet your needs.  You’ve had enough time to think about whether it’s just more tech lust, or something that you honestly need.  And you’ve already saved the money needed to buy it without affecting your budget. 

Not many gadgets have made it past this rigorous test for me (just my iPod Touch, and Kindle come to mind), so at this point, I no longer have any fear of buyer’s remorse, and I feel confident in making the purchase.  I still have a hard time giving myself permission to put a large amount of money toward a non-life essential.  I just try to have faith in my system and trust that all my work led to the best decision, and now it’s just a matter of being confident in myself and my decision.  

This process isn’t limited to gadgets for me.  I try to apply it to any big time purchase I’m thinking about.  Right now I’m in the process of planning a month long vacation I’ve needed for a while now.  Hopefully I can post some pictures soon!

leave a comment: how do you handle tech lust?

Book Review: Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time

Before I dive into my review of this book, I have a confession, the reason I picked this book up was because of the title. As you already know, I am slightly introverted and enjoy reading about people with similar experiences to mine, and how they deal with it. When I saw the title, “Never Eat Alone”, I thought to myself, “wow I would love to never eat alone again.” So if you made the same mistake as me, this is just a warning that it may not be exactly what you thought it was. While this book does have some nice tips on establishing strong relationships, the real focus is on networking in your professional life. You can also see a list of other books I've reviewed on the “Book Reviews” page of this blog.

Section One: The Mind-Set

Most professionals have had to reach out for help to get a job interview, an internship, or some free advice at some point in their career. But many others are reluctant to ask for this help because of the negative connotations we attach to the idea of networking. Keith talks about many of the misperceptions we have about networking, and describes how we can build these relationships properly. His main argument is that you shouldn't be looking for how others can help you, instead you should be looking for how you can help them.

Your “Blue Flame” is where your natural talents and abilities intersects with your passion and desire. Finding this blue flame is the key to a successful career. After identifying your career path, you need some tools you can use to reach these new goals. The main tool Kieth uses to reach these goals is the “Networking Action Plan”. The first part of this plan is identifying incremental goals that will help you to eventually reach your end objective. Then identify the people that will help you reach these goals. The third and most important part of this plan, is to determine how to reach out to these people for guidance.

The biggest take away from this section for me, is that the wrong way to network is to start reaching out to others when you need something. Instead, you can build real relationships with people you genuinely care about, doing everything you can to help them succeed before you need anything at all. Your success depends on everyone around you, not just the people above you.

Section Two: The Skill Set

So now you have the right mind set, and all you need to know is how to execute properly. This section is the important part for people like me (people who have trouble with small talk). Keith covers some great tips on how to connect with people in a short amount of time, and how to turn this into a long lasting friendship.

“Friendship is created out of the quality of time spent between two people, not the quantity.” How can you make sure the short amount of time you get with to spend with someone is of the highest quality? Research! It's okay to google someone you know you're going to meet. It's actually something you two can laugh about when you do meet. Good preparation makes it easier to find things to talk about, places to go, and activities to do with each other.

The most interesting suggestion from this section was to always let your guard down. Carrying polite, formal small talk with someone you just met leads to a boring and forgettable experience. Don't be afraid to expose your interests, concerns, and passions. The more personal the better, whats the worst that can happen?

Other than offering some specific techniques for achieving the memorable encounters described above, Keith also covers how to: warm cold calling, the importance of gate keepers, follow up properly, approach conferences the right way, how to expand your circle of friends, and the importance of doing so.

Section Three: Turning Connections into Compatriots

This section was my least favorite of the entire book, because the topics included in this section remind me of why I personally have a negative attitude towards professional networking. I can see the importance of “value pinging” (ex. sending a contact a helpful article), or mixing your friends through dinner parties. But it still sounds like finding a way to keep in contact with people you don't really care about, just for the sake of keeping them as contacts.

One positive I did take away from this section was the idea of social arbitrage. Social arbitrage is a formal way of describing something most of us already do, helping others around us to succeed. You can do this by introducing a friend to someone you know can help them reach a goal, or even just by doing some research yourself and sending some of that knowledge to someone you know it will help.

“What better way is there to show appreciation and to lavish praise on others than to take an interest in who they are and what their mission is?”

Section Four: Trading Up and Giving Back

The theme of this section is this: when you do finally make it, remember where you came from, remember who helped get you there, and don't get too full of yourself. Keith tells a beautiful story of his experience in this area where he admits he had to learn these lessons the hard way.

The section starts off with how to build your brand. In order to stand out, you should find yourself a niche. Some area that combines your passions and skills to the point where you can call yourself an expert. When you finally do find it, put your shyness aside and market it like crazy. The key here is to focus on building the natural skills and talents you are already strong with, rather than focusing on your weaknesses. Find clubs where you can work on these skills, if there are none, start your own!

When you have the opportunity to move up, remember to help others move with and before you. The most valuable connections are the ones you already have. When you are a leader, you have to make the people under you feel like they are working with you, or you won't be able to move up. Remember all the people who've helped you get there and do the same for others just starting out.