Nirvana GTD Usability Questions & Introduction
Hi Everyone - I'm excited to be one of the Beta Testers here at
Nirvana! The purpose of my note is to ask some specific questions
about Nirvana features/usability and ask some best practices. The
benefit to addressing my questions in this forum is that I know,
from reading comments from Proximo and DC Clarke, to name a couple,
will help get me to exactly where I need to be.
First, I thought it might make some sense to introduce myself. About 2 years ago, I read David Allen's book. It changed everything for me. Truly - as it most likely has for all of you. I went from Moleskine's to OneNote to just Outlook to Evernote (which I LOVE) to using Evernote + Remember the Milk (see here where I profess my love for RTM: http://dangoldesq.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/getting-back-on-task/). All of this in efforts to continually refine my GTD methodology that would work best for me and stay true & pure to the system. Then, an article in my favorite blog, Lifehacker, got me re-acclimated with Toodledo -- which is where I enjoyed reading the lovely comments by Proximo -- and really started to like it -- until I realized Proximo said "toodledo" and came to help jumpstart Nirvana ... which lead me to want a beta invitation, and here I am -- with all of my tasks from Toodledo! (As a footnote, I also found it cathartic to streamline my N/A's going from TD to Nirvana!).
So, alas, here I am and thus far, while I am getting used to the interface and have enjoyed some enhancements made, I do have some key questions (and kindly accept my apologies if some has been addressed in prior posts - I truly did try to do my homework before reaching out!):
- Tags
-- is there/can there be a way to allow bulk renaming of tags. For example, I have @calls & @computer. I'd like to truncate that to just @contact as DC Clarke had suggested the @contact in a previous post; leaving the context @computer for just that - things I need to do on the computer.
-- drag and drop N/A items to a tag in the cloud. I know I can just use the keyboard shortcut 'n' and it'll populate all the fields for me, but if I send e-mails to the Nirvana e-mail account or alternatively just create tasks quickly in the inbox, I'd like to drag my tasks to the relevant context. Any developments here?
- Waiting for
-- create a task there without having to input contact information - though admittedly I do like the hyperlink which pre-formats my note - nonetheless, would like the option.
Finally, I have some questions about some of your Best Practices when it comes to the Weekly Review. I've read Proximo say many times that you do a Daily Review - while others are intent on the time I hold sacred at the end of the week for my review then. My question is what are some of your top 3 best practices you can relay to me to help me as I know I can use some brushing up in this area.
Thank you all in advance for what I anticipate (and hope) to be a lively conversation!
Comments are currently closed for this discussion. You can start a new one.
2 Posted by Natalija on 03 Jul, 2010 05:41 AM
FIRST - I LOVE NIRVANA!! I have tried a lot of different organisational programs and this is by far and above the best one I've come across!!
I think that I'm having that problem you mention with Waiting for as well - if you don't assign it to anyone it seems to jump back into the inbox, and sometimes you are waiting for something which doesn't have a specific person linked to it. It would be nice to have that option.
Also - I don't think there is a way to edit the person it is assigned to, if the person linked to that task changes you need to reenter it. This is a bit inefficient.
3 Posted by danielegold on 03 Jul, 2010 10:35 AM
@Natalija - Thanks for your reply, and glad you share in my ethusiasm for Nirvana! I'm glad I'm not alone with the Waiting For context. I hope others also feel somewhat restricted and we can help implement another change while in Beta. Cheers!
4 Posted by rfo on 03 Jul, 2010 11:38 AM
Workaround for no contact is to have one dummy or placeholder contact called "waiting" or "various" or something and use that.
5 Posted by danielegold on 03 Jul, 2010 01:23 PM
@rfo - sounds like that could easily do it ... and now the more pressing problem ... tags! I'd love to hear some feedback on either improvements coming or workarounds for what I've noted above. Thanks!
6 Posted by Proximo on 15 Jul, 2010 04:36 PM
@danielegold,
First I want to welcome you to Nirvana.
Everything you asked about has been mentioned to the Developers and they are working on it. The idea of dropping a task to a tag is new to me and I love it.
There are some discussion about a tag management area and I just updated a discussion today about this to Elbert. I believe it's coming.
I totally agree with you on Waiting for and I know this has also been mentioned before. I believe it's something the developers are working on as well.
I wanted to also mention that I always do a Weekly Review, but I also do Daily scans or mini reviews. The weekly review sets up a solid foundation for daily scans. During my daily scans I filter task based on my current situation and decide what makes sense for me to do at that moment.
Best Practices:
This will be hard but I will keep it simple.
The weekly review is what makes GTD work. Develop a habit of doing your weekly reviews to keep your system current and trustworthy.
Don't be afraid to say "NO" to incoming request or to delegate them to others. Many times a Go Getter wants to say yes to everything but that is not always in your best interest. It's OK to pass the ball to someone else or to simply say No.
Keep things simple. Only use the context you require to be effective and learn how to filter by Context, Time and Energy in order to give yourself a realistic picture of what you can accomplish at the given moment. Once you filtered your list down, you sort by Priority (Horizons of Focus) and decide what you are going to do.
Don't spend too much time tweaking your system and spend more time doing your task. This is where Nirvana shines for me, compared to other systems I have used. ;-)
7 Posted by Daniel Gold on 15 Jul, 2010 04:53 PM
Proximo - thank you so much for your great feedback! You might enjoy this
presentation I put together recently on the benefits of GTD.
http://www.slideshare.net/danielegold/simplify-your-life.
Daniel
8 Posted by Proximo on 15 Jul, 2010 06:09 PM
@Daniel,
Excellent presentation.
The only thing I did not agree with is Nozbe. It's one of the worst implementations of GTD I have ever used. Just an opinion, but thought I would mention it.
Not saying Nirvana is perfect or that any system could be perfect, but the core fundamentals need to be followed and Nozbe did not.
Outside of the two slides that show Nozbe, I think it's great. I would suggest a similar presentation that does not get into specific software usage. It would be a more general GTD presentation that describes the Methodology without promoting any particular software. You could also list several software options for the viewer to consider.
Very nice indeed.
9 Posted by Daniel Gold on 15 Jul, 2010 09:37 PM
Proximo - many thanks indeed for the great feedback!! Funny though how
I knew, based on your other posts, you'd say something about Nozbe! I
agree with you. Its not a perfect GTD setup and Michael, on other
forums, has said its his "interpretation" of GTD (I.e.: calling your
Inbox a "project"!).
But every one of these systems lacks perfection - in fact, I'd argue a
pen and a decent notebook can do the job better than RTM, Toodledo,
Nirvana, Nozbe, etc. I'm simply making Nozbe work because of the
Evernote integration!
That said, I'd be happt to revise the deck without the products and
even talk more about the methodology. Let me know if you think there's
an even broader audience that can benefit!
10 Posted by Proximo on 16 Jul, 2010 01:36 PM
@Daniel
You don't need to change anything. The presentation was great as it is.
I was only suggesting that you could also create one that is more generalized by showing the same slides with no advertising of a particular product. I was simply thinking that as a new person, I would assume that Nozbe is something I need to be using for GTD rather than just getting the Methodology and idea about GTD.
I am usually not too hard on software that I have tried but had something I did not ultimately liked, but Nozbe is so far off base with GTD that I actually think it's wrong for them to advertise it as a GTD system. This is my opinion after getting feedback from the founder and realizing that it's a hybrid of what he believes makes sense to him and he did not really build it for GTDers, or at least "GTD Purist" like myself. :-)
11 Posted by Lasse on 18 Jul, 2010 01:24 PM
@danielegold:
While this isn't about the weekly review, here are a few practices that have really helped me (great question by the way, hope to read more answers on this):
I don't assign a due date unless a task is really due on a specific day. I always assign a due date if a deadline exists, even if it's a year from now. In the past I've missed too many deadlines (for cancelling memeberships for example) because I thought that there was still enough time left to do it (or because, as time went by, I got the dates mixed up).
After seeing a screenshot of Proximo's empty email inbox I sat down for a few hours, sorted through my mailbox and got my inbox to empty. Now when I get an email that I need/want to act on, I immediately forward it to Nirvana and file the email in a folder named "Action". Because my inbox is usually empty, I know that if there's still a read message in my inbox, I've forgotten to forwarded it and it still needs to be dealt with. That way I never forget to act on anything that I get via email. Also, I've asked people to email me rather than call me when they want me to do something.
In the past I've used the manual ordering function to create an outline of the actual order in which I want to approach my tasks (i.e., whatever is at the top of my list is the task I'll do first). While this works well for my Today tasks, I've recently started to use order in my Next list to reflect priority, which helps me keep my focus on what matters most (again thanks @Proximo for the suggestion).
David McLaughlin closed this discussion on 21 Jan, 2011 02:38 PM.