GTD: Collection (points)

This post is a follow up on my GTD overview post.

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[ photo by v.nazarian ]

The first part of learning the GTD system is learning how to collect all the information. You will need to identify your collection points, like me,i previously posted on my collection points, but much have changed now. During that time, i was still very new to the GTD system, thus the collection points are very basic points. Mainly are points where i take notes, but now so much have changed, i automate most part of the collection points, leaving only the manual stuffs only to taking notes. After the phase where i moved on from just taking notes to much more collection points, i realized that i have too much collection points. So i tried to cut down on the various collections points, these are my collection points.

Email

I use gmail myself, and i recommend you to because it’s spam filtering is extremely good and it got almost all the components you need in email and also, gmail labs, the search function!.

I set up filters and i use folders4gmail so that my emails fall directly into the folders i have set up. I also have a minimal gmail, using various userscripts to customize the interface of gmail that suites my needs, basically, my gmail is very minimal with only the components i need.

If you see the image above, that is my gmail labels. I use folders4gmail to make them into folders, here’s a guide on it. Under @GTD, are all the labels i use for emails only. Emails that need a action asap are thrown into ‘@Next Action’ and so on.

But the main point is how the emails are routed to various labels automatically. I set up filters according to what i predict the emails will be coming. For example, i receive newsletters from Nike++, so the email is automatically routed to the label under ‘newsletters’ which is under the ‘Misc’ folder.

*The emails are automated to route to different folders*

RSS

I blogged about this before, i use Google Reader to mange all the information i take interest of. If you really really want to manage your complusive web surfing habits, i really urge you to take a look at the post i made. Or this great post by webworkerdaily.

*The RSS feeds are automated*

Readitlater

This is actually a firefox addon. Although you can have it on other browsers, but i don’t really recommend it. Since right now i’m using Chrome full time, and i have a minimal Chrome(i hide the bookmarks toolbar all the time), i make my ‘Readitlater’ as a folder. Most of my information are on my RSS, but sometimes i do some web surfing(ok, maybe not only sometimes), i come across things i wanna read it later on when i have the time. Some real life examples might be that, you are working on something, but do a quick google search, and you come across something that really interest you, but you just do not have the time to read it. So, you put it into ‘ReaditLater’.

For some people, this ‘readitlater’ might be a big list of websites. For me, i usually read them at the end of the week, it’s only 3-7 websites for me.

Evernote

I put all the digital notes into evernote. I clip information from the web as i surf the web. The idea of clipping of creating new notes in evernote is that, this software can manage all the notes you make. So, this is what i call ‘reference’ point, but also it’s my collection point. This reference point will be further discussed in the following posts regarding GTD.

Basically, evernote has alot of information that are crucial(or useless) to me. No matter the information, anything that i find interesting or worth keeping, i will clip it into evernote.

Check the video below to find out more about evernote.

 

Downloads folder

This is a folder that is in my local computer. I use my computer almost everyday, almost everyday i download something. So it gets cluttered after some time. I usually process this folder as soon as i want to access the latest download item, but sometimes the folder can keep very cluttered(just like some of your desktops).

Since i prefer to be minimal, i have set all my softwares to have the file downloaded to be saved into this ‘Downloads’ folder. I don’t like to have my desktop cluttered with files, and my desktop have nothing but wallpaper.

@Process folder

This is also a folder that is in my computer. I don’t have much things this folder. But the reason i have this folder is because sometimes, there are files that need to be processed, but i do not have the time to process it, i just throw the file into this folder. If i do not do this, i will have files all over the place, and i will have a really hard time finding it.

Physical inbox

This is a physical inbox that sits in my room. Check this post for the inbox which is located on the left of the picture. The stuffs of this inbox is unpredictable, sometimes i have alot of things in it. On somedays or even week, there wouldn’t be anything in it at all.

For an idea of what stuffs goes inside(for my inbox)

• Letters
• Receipts
• Notes
• Love letters
• Hate letters
• What every that you can think of

The things inside the inbox are crucial, stored there for processing at a later time. So, i make this the first ‘home’ of any item that is not processed when it gets into my room. So, it goes like this. This particular item come’s into my room, i got no time to process it, i throw it into my physical inbox and that’s the only place it can go, not on the table, not inside the drawer, not anywhere, but only the inbox.

 

 

To summarize the collection points i have.

1. Emails
2. RSS
3. Readitlater
4. Evernote
5. Downloads folder
6. @Process folder
7. Physical inbox

I already think this is very minimal for me. Previously, i have like more than 10 collection points. After alot of reviewing my system, this is what i have now.