Kinkless Getting Things Done

I’ve been working with the Kinkless Getting Things Done (GTD) system. For more info about GTD, see my GTD Tag and/or read David Allen’s book, “Getting Things Done…”
Kinkless Getting Things Done (kGTD) is a system for organizing and trapping tasks using Applescripts and Omni Outliner Professional 3.6 (or better).  You create a project and add tasks for the project.  I’m using the term “project” very loosely.  In the sense of this article and kGTD, a project is a collection of tasks.  Tasks are activities that you can complete in one session.  For me, that means less than 20 minutes.   You assign a context for each task.  A context is a realm of completing work (like email, posting, errand, home, phone, etc).

The kGTD system then syncs the projects and gathers all of the tasks by context.  It also sorts tasks by due date and archives tasks.  This is the best task management / efficiency tool I’ve ever used and I have tried several (dozen) I would guess.

To really get a sense of the system, watch the Kinkless GTD Video.

I have knitted this together with Subversion to give me a more ubiquitous task management system.  I sync my file to a Subversion repository on my dreamhost account.  Subversion is a code management tool.  You check out files, edit then and check them back in.  I check out my kGTD file edit it and check it back in.  I can check it out at home or work.  This lets me keep a log of tasks that I can edit from any of my computers.

Check out the links below, watch the movie, read Merlin Mann’s 43 Folders entries and see if this will work for you.

Links that relate to this post…

Getting Things Done

I just listened to Mimi Yin and Merlin Mann’s talks on Getting Things Done at BayCHI.org Mimi Yin is working on interaction designs for the OSAF’s Chandler project. Merlin Mann is father of 43Folders.com and the Hipster PDA among other things.

Both of the talks are wonderful and well worth listening too. Mimi’s talk aligns with (no surprise, I’ve heard her talk before and I swallowed the cool-aid) my writings on Collaboration Channels – I don’t want to think about protocols Merlin’s talk got me thinking about a framework for getting stuff done.

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GE Profile Range – GE Customer Service Sucks

Our $1700 GE Profile range failed on Christmas day. Our oven stopped heating even though it showed that it was still at temperature. The duck for Christmas dinner was ruined.

We have had GE Service come out 8 (EIGHT) times and we still don’t have a working oven. They have made us bring and electrician in twice (to the tune of $364.89) to prove that there was nothing wrong with the house wiring.

They threatened to charge us for our next service call even though WE HAVE ONLY OWNED THIS RANGE FOR 9 MONTHS.

That’s right folks – for 1/3 of the time we have owned this range, the oven has not worked right.

We have spent approximately 24 hours at home waiting for repair technicians – that is three days of vacation or over $2400 worth of my billable time (according to my Chief Financial Officer).

I wrote the President of GE, James P. Cambell and never heard a word from anyone at the company. The didn’t even send a blow-off letter “We got your letter and are investigating your case. Thank you for your reply.”

Copy of the Letter to James Campbell, President and CEO of GE Industrial

So, everyone, do the following for me:

(1) Link to this entry on your blog or web site. Use GE Service in your entry. Let’s see if we can get this on the top of Google
(2) Go to this URL: http://www.geappliances.com/service_and_support/contact/ and let them hear your voice.
(3) Don’t buy a GE appliance (this includes the Hotpoint line as well as “several private labels”.

UPDATE: MARCH 18, 2006

Yesterday I convinced GE to replace our range (wait for it…). When I got home from work there was a message from Arlene at GE saying that Ron’s Appliance Services will delivery our new stove (wait for it…).

But….

Ron’s Appliance Services is in Milwaukee an hour away. 1 mile away is Home Depot, 2 miles away is Kennedy Hahn (I did give GE KH’s phone number). 5 miles away is American TV and Appliance (I gave them this number too).

Why pick someplace 60 miles away when you can pick from 3 people within 10 minutes?

And… The clincher…

Ron’s only sells…. PARTS! They don’t sell new appliances!

Every time there is a fork in the road and GE has to choose between functional and inept, they pick inept.

Stay tuned for Chapter XV.

UPDATE MARCH 23, 2006

Our mistake on Ron’s.  It turned out to be RAS Appliance.

We did get our new range (almost 3 months after our old one failed).  We have turned the oven on twice and it worked both times.

Short strange trip

I was back in the San Francisco bay area (south bay) last week. I lived in the south bay for several years right after college. I took a cab from SFO down to Santa Clara on highway 101. Each exit I passed had these little flickers of remeberance.  “San Antonio… I liked San Antonio Avenue. Where did it go?  Los Altos… oh that’s right”,  “Rengsdorff… that feels industrial”,  “Mathilda… don’t like Mathilda…”

It took me a couple of days before I figured out the details of the emotions.  San Antonio – was where I lived in a nice bungelo.  Rengsdorff lead out to Target Therapeutics, the small start-up I worked for.  Mathilda was where I lived last and went through the my divorce.

While I was back there, I met up with Lisa Minshall which was most excellent.  I haven’t seen Lisa for almost a decade.  We were close close friends while I lived and worked in the bay area.   It was really wonderful to see her again.  I’m still smiling about it.

That same week (talk about synchronicity) Kathy Mah showed up on IM!  I have been searching for Kat for years.   I had googled and googled for her.  I had contacted other friends who had old phone numbers.   Kat was lost.   I had added her last known AOL screen name to my chat list “just in case”.   Suddenly she popped up.

“OH MY GOD!  KAT!  IS IT YOU!”

‘YES. TIS TIS!’

Wow.  What a week.  What a wonderful week of reconnecting with long lost friends.

Corporate Site Visits – How to do it right

I’m on my second Corporate Site Visit (CVS) in recent months. Corporate Site Visits (or from the companies viewpoint Customer Site Visits) are when a bunch of people from a customer’s shop come to visit the company usually to talk deeper technical talk than they can get from the sales reps.

These visits cost us something on the order $20K to 25K (for 7 people to miss 3 days of work, fly, hotel etc). Corporations: You need to work to make sure that our visit is worth $20K.

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Collaboration Channels – I don’t want to think about protocols

Burton Group talks about the distinction between Channels and Workspaces in Collaboration. Channels are routes where information flows. Workspaces are areas where collaborators gather. Examples of Workspaces are Wikis, shared document repositories, group calendar software.

Channels are things like email, chat, VoIP, video conferencing and telephony. The problem with Channels is that we have to be protocol centric. We have to think – I want to communicate with Keith. Let see if the Chat protocol will work (e.g. is he on-line in chat?) if not I’ll send an email but maybe I’ll call too. I want to be person centric: I want to communicate with Keith.

In my ideal scenario, I would select Keith as a contact and I would then see communication options TEXT, VOICE, VIDEO. I could then select that I want to do VOICE. I would pick up my headset and my computer would establish a connection. On Keith’s end, he would choose to have VOICE channeled to Skype or iChatAV or to his cell phone or home phone number. He might even have a priority list (if Skype is running, use Skype otherwise send to Cell Phone). He might send VOICE directly to an MP3 (to voicemail) that he can listen to later.

On the TEXT side, I would select TEXT and either be connected to IM or asked to form an email depending on KEITH’s availability setting in IM.

The IM logs should flow into a repository that is similar to my (if not the same as my) email repository.

There are times when I would like to pick the protocol, when I would send and email even though Keith is on IM.

On the receiver end, I would need better presence management. I would need a unified presence control – a central place where I could manage the flow of information into my channels. I would have to swap managing protocols for managing presence.

20 years without McDonalds

I just realized that 20 years ago I swore off McDonalds (and Burger King et al). It has now officially been 2 decades without a Big Mac or anything like that. I only stop at McDonalds to pee on road trips because you can go in the side door, take a left and the Men’s room in on your right (usually).

Happy 20th Anniversary of sans Mickey Dees.

Dreamhost one-click upgrade: I

Just upgraded to WordPress 2.0.X via Dreamhost’s one-click upgrade process. Worked beautifully. All of my plugins and themes came across with the upgrade. I didn’t have to do a thing.

Dreamhost – I ❤ U

– Jim

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Google School Rankings

A graduate student at Stanford – Mike Tung – put together a suite of scripts and tools to generate College rankings based on Google searches. He didn’t want to pay for the USNews’ Annual America’s Best Colleges report. Though his work is quite technical, I imagine that it will be simplified into a web app that any student can use at any point in time. “What are the College rankings now?” click…

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Making a living in a virtual world

Wire News has a story about Making a Living in Second Life.  Second Life is a virtual world were you can live out the life of your avitar. 

Within a month, Grinnell was making more in Second Life than in her real-world job as a dispatcher. And after three months she realized she could quit her day job altogether.

Now Second Life is her primary source of income, and Grinnell, whose avatar answers to the name Janie Marlowe, claims she earns more than four times her previous salary.

One person makes $150,000 a year (in real $US money) renting virtual land to other people. I must say that I’m not really sure what to make of it. Who would spend this kind of money to own and maintain a virtual island?

Islands are priced at US$1,250 for 16 acres. Monthly land fees for maintenance are US$195.

What if the server crashes? Is it obsession? Is “real life” too boring? Do they have too much money?