Notes on Productivity Home Page

I came across the NotesBerry.org web site today when I was doing some research to help a client manage his eProductivity lists on his BlackBerry.



The site is a treasure with focused information on all things Notes and BlackBerry. I later realized that two of the brains behind this site are Bill Buchan and Jason Hook, both of whom I had recently met by way of introduction from Bruce. And, I'll get to meet these gents in person next week at ILUG. Small world.

Great site. Worth bookmarking. http://www.notesberry.org

The Lotus Symphony pages are buzzing with news that Symphony 1.0 is now available.



Many features of interest to me and my clients: PDF Integration built-in, integration with Notes, ODF Support, MS Word Doc support. Did I mention that Symphony is free?

You can learn more and download Symphony for free, here.

I'm at home today, preparing for an important eProductivity meeting. I just emailed the following meeting confirmation and three questions to the 10 people who plan to attend. The first two questions are relevant to anyone that wants to implement the GTD methodology in Notes:

As I prepare for Wednesday's meeting, I want to make sure that I show you things that you will find useful - things which you can take back and put into practice right away.

I have 3 very quick questions to help me prepare...
These questions assume that you are already using, have tried using, or are considering using Lotus Notes as your GTD Implementation tool.

1. What is a key frustration to successfully managing projects and actions in Lotus Notes?  (e.g. What gets in the way of doing this easily?)

2. If you could have any feature you wanted in Notes to support you in better managing your actions and projects, what would that be?   (e.g. What's missing? What would help you be even more productive with Notes?)

3. What would you most like to learn about at Wednesday's meeting? (Please agenda, attached.)

Thank you for your comments.

The meeting will be in two parts. The agenda is below.

I look forward to seeing you on Wednesday!

Eric

How would you answer questions #1 and #2?

I've been using mind mapping tools for over two decades. I started with colored pens and paper and moved to digital tools. One of my favorite mind mapping resources, Chuck Frey, has just published an extensive comparison chart of the major web-based mind mapping applications - MindMeister, Mindomo, Mind42, Comapping and Mead Map...


Some of the comparison features include:
- Overview (versions, pricing)
- Map formats supported
- Map level features
- Topic-level features
- Import options
- Export options
- Publishing options
- Collaboration
- Other features

Chuck's comparison chart is available as a free download from his blog.

With the widespread proliferation of SharePoint sites "under the desk" at organizations (even Notes ones) ... hey, a manager just has to buy a Windows Server box with Server 2003 and they can do Windows SharePoint Services ... it's good to see a vendor come out with a way of integrating the two worlds. Mainsoft Corporation today announced the ability to add a list of SharePoint sites to the sidebar in Notes 8.

This means end users can:

• look at a list of Office documents stored in a SharePoint site within the Notes 8 client, and drag-and-drop those documents into a Notes email message or calendar appointment
• check out documents in SharePoint directly from the Notes user interface
• drag an attachment out of a Notes email or database and drop it into the appropriate SharePoint site

That's the out-of-the-box capabilities of the new "SharePoint Integrator for Lotus Notes", and for organizations that want more, Mainsoft offer a bevy of professional services to more elegantly and fully integrate the two worlds.

I look forward to reading Michael's review of this.

These guys, lurking at the back of the room aren't playing video games, at least I hope not. They are two of the newest team members at The David Allen Company, John Ward and Chris McIntyre. Both seasoned presenters, they are here to audit Kelly's class and sharpen their GTD presentation skills. We enjoyed a nice lunch together; I look forward to seeing them in action, soon.

Kelly just gave us a tour on how to setup Notes and Outlook as GTD implementation tools. Even though I think I know this stuff, I still learn new things and I got to share a few tips of my own. Listening to some of the questions from the audience inspired a few new ideas for features I plan to build into eProductivity for Lotus Notes to make getting things done with Lotus Notes easier. I've got those items on my agenda list to discuss with my dev team.

The seminar is going well, Kelly's in peak form, people are learning and laughing at the stories she's sharing from her work in the GTD trenches. (Example: Most full e-mail box? 87,000 emails. True story from Kelly.)

Well, time to get back to the seminar. I'll try to post another highlight, soon.

Update: Chris is ahead by 45,000 points.

Kelly just gave an interesting illustration of thinking about projects from a...z.

Here's how this works:
Z represents the successful outcome - what your project will look like when done.

A represents the next single physical action to take to move forward.

b...y represents any additional action steps (but not the next action) along the way.

Now, here's the secret: Z (the project) goes on your project list. A (the next action) goes on the appropriate action list.  Everything else (b...y) needs to be parked somewhere, but if they are not next actions they do not belong on your current working list.

Continue Reading "Are there any b...y actions on your current lists?" »

Kelly started the discussion with a great question:

On a 1-10 scale, how would you rate your productivity over the last two weeks?

1= I should have stayed in bed.
10=Master of Control & Perspective

What supports you/gets in the way of you being at 10 more often?

Great question. Some surprising answers. I look forward to hearing what your experiences are.

I'm in Newport Beach today, attending the GTD Mastering Workflow Seminar. Although I've been to about a dozen GTD and MAP* seminars over the past 15 years, I continue to learn something new each and every time I attend.

Kelly Forrister is our presenter today, so I'm certain it will be a great day of learning and fun with a group of people committed to getting things done at work and play.  I've had the good fortune to work with Kelly at four different organizations over the past 15 years. She's as passionate as I am about productivity and she's also a geek and we share a mutual interest for high-tech gear to support our productive lifestyle. (If you haven't done so, check out Kelly's blog.) Oh, and did I mention that Kelly uses Lotus Notes? She and I have been using Lotus Notes productivity since the early R3/R4 days.

Continue Reading "GTD Mastering Workflow with Kelly Forrister" »