Seven Habits and GTD with Windows and Outlook

By Nathan


Now that’s a mouthful…

I am a big fan of both David Allen’s and Stephen Covey’s books (Getting Things Done and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People). Some argue that these time management philosophies are opposite viewpoints (inside out vs outside in) and cannot be used together. I disagree. I think as part of the weekly review, you can incorporate Covey’s philosophies to create a hybrid time management model that both ensures productivity and allows first things first.

1) David Allen’s principles are

  1. identify all the stuff in your life that isn’t in the right place (close all open loops)
  2. get rid of the stuff that isn’t yours or you don’t need right now
  3. create a right place that you trust and that supports your working style and values
  4. put your stuff in the right place, consistently
  5. do your stuff in a way that honors your time, your energy, and the context of any given moment
  6. iterate and refactor mercilessly

[via the rather brilliant 43 Folders]

2. The Seven Habits principles are:

* From Dependence to Interdependence
* Personality vs. Character Ethics
* Proactive, Personal Vision
* Beginning with the End in Mind
* Personal Management
* Paradigms of Interdependence
* Think Win-Win
* Seek to Understand, Then Be Understood
* Principles of Creative Cooperation
* Principles of Balanced Self-Renewal

[via]
I find the seven habits philosophies come into play during step 5 and 6 of David Allen’s getting things done philosophy. Especially around the context of selecting what to do at any given moment. Generally that involves during the weekly review, put the big rocks in first (first things first) and filling up the rest of the calendar with “other stuff”.

Naturally being the technically inclined, I wanted an application that would enable me to work in this way.I tried the hipster PDA thing and just a normal PDA and found it just didnt work that well. I also tried the Life Balance software from Llamasoft to arrange my tasks. However most of my activity revolves around Outlook, at least in terms of email and calendar, so it didn’t really make sense to have two applications running both projects and my schedule.

I don’t think Outlook is as good as it could be in terms of time management software. Like every Microsoft application it’s bloatware with only 5% of useful functionality, the other 95% is there to ensure lock in to Microsoft, thus ensuring you won’t switch to anything else as your learning investment is too great…but anyhoo. It does the job, and Mozilla Thunderbird isn’t quite there yet.

The process:

Step 1: Put all your tasks in Outlook and group them by projects and roles utilising the Categories field for Tasks. Be sure to create categories for the “Sharpen the Saw” components of the Seven Habits. (Physical, Emotional, Spiritual and Mental Improvement).

GTD.jpg
Step 2: During weekly review, identify opportunities to put big rocks in your calendar (including sharpening the saw, and the other covey habits). In Calender view (Office 2003), drag the tasks into your calendar, allocating time periods for each. I have installed the Taskline software to get me a more granular view of tasks, although I’m not sure if its needed.

Step 3: Fill calendar with remainder of tasks (small rocks). Ensuring a full calendar!

Lessons from this model:

1) Leave some slack. Although Covey preaches to ignore or control interruptions. Reality has it it doesnt happen.

2) Be conservative in estimation for task time allocation. I always spend 90 minutes gardening when I allocated 60…

That’s really it. I am constantly looking to improve this model, but it seems to work quite well.