awg's blog

Getting Things Done With Tracks

I'm a pretty organized and pretty productive person, but I've always had trouble with keeping a to-do list up-to-date, and figuring out how to stay on top of projects. I have a notebook that I write things down in when I have meetings, and a notepad at work that I write things down that I need to do, but I'm not always good at checking these regularly.

I read an article in Wired about David Allen's Getting Things Done method, and I figured it sounded like a decent idea. But I realized that in many ways, I already do this: I try to keep my inbox as empty as possible, I write down things I need to do, etc. What I needed was a tool for Getting Things Done, and my experience with traditional to-do lists and pads of paper told me that they weren't it. I searched the web a bit and found Tracks, a Ruby on Rails application that implements GTD very nicely. I've been giving it a try over the past few days, and I wanted to write down some of my thoughts on it.

One thing GTD encourages that I've found handy is making everything you write down an "actionable item." This has really changed how I use the to-do list-like bits of Tracks. Before my todo list might have said something like "develop content for orientation lab session." Now it will say "email presenter re lab session content," "email labadmin re lab session content" and "meet with presenter and labadmin re lab session content." This means that I don't need to keep as many notes attached to a to-do item, since each one is a speific thing I need to do. This is made feasible by the GTD notion of "deferring" an actionable item. I need to email the presenter right away, but I don't need to email labadmin until next month, and I won't be able to meet with them until after I've heard back from both. So, I create all three to-do items, but only make emailing the presenter show up right away; the other two will show up in a month. Making my broad to-do items into small, concise actionable items has really helped me.

I have noticed a couple of issues: 1) I have to remember to put everything into Tracks. If I think of something while I'm in bed, or when I'm talking to someone, I have to remember it until the next time I'm at a computer (or write it down). 2) I need to figure out a way to integrate Tracks with my email. It'd be nice if I could tell Tracks I'm blocking on someone, and have it automatically unblock that item when I get an email from that person. I might just work on this. 3) A non-GTD issue: Ruby on Rails uses an ass-load of memory. I can't run it on xvx.ca, I have to run it on my home machine because it eats memory like nobody's business.

Anyway, I might post more about GTD/Tracks sometime, but that's it for now. Give it a try if you like, it's working pretty well for me.