I have being trying to streamline how I manage information. Partly because I am a little geeky, but mainly because how you manage the vast flood of information out there determines how you are able to leverage this to your advantage. If you have quicker access to better information, then you are leading the pack.
As such, I thought it might be interesting to post a flow of how I manage this. Have a look the pretty picture below (click here for bigger pdf version):
So let me go into a little more detail (I have tried to include links to the tools I use in case this is helpful – but don’t worry, I don’t get any commission!)…
Firstly, I spend most of my time split between three locations – at home where I have an iMac and a Macbook Pro, in the car, and in my work office with my PC laptop. I have an iPhone for home use, and a Blackberry for work.
I try and manage how information hits me so that I am not overwhelmed. I don’t read newspapers or listen to the news – I catch-up via the Sky News app on my iPhone when I have a minute or two waiting somewhere. This is nice bite-sized chunks to cover the broad picture – I can drill down into a topic if I want to later. It’s not the most sophisticated reporting in the world, but the one benefit of tabloid journalism is that it gets to the point!
For specific topic news I get RSS feeds into Google Reader which syncs with the NetNewsWire app on my iPhone so I can catch-up even when no network around me. I try and limit the number of feeds to under 20, and regularly churn them as people begin to repeat themselves after a while.
To complement the RSS feeds, I listen to podcasts from my iPhone when I am in the car (which is a fair bit). Again I try and limit-and-churn these to make sure I am getting quality information in manageable chunks.
I attend a lot of meetings in my job, and this is a big source of incoming information. I take notes of most of the content, as my memory is not brilliant, on basic A5 pads – I think it was David Allen that pointed out that these are a good size as you don’t feel reluctant to write one line on A5 whereas it looks wasteful on A4. Sometimes just accepting how daft we are is easier than trying to stop being daft. I can tear them out and throw them in my in-tray to be processed – and then scanned so I can always have all my notes with me on the computer.
Correspondence from others is a big part of the information we all get. I get limited postal mail, but get a fair amount of e-mail – I unsubscribe from every spammy mail I can, and use mail rules to by-pass me on routine stuff. E-mail inboxes should just be inboxes – I check them roughly every 2 hours and empty them at that stage to zero (Merlin Mann would be proud) – even if this is just by filing them into @Action folder.
Information that is just pure information that I have read needs nothing more doing to it other than storage or disposal – I shall come to that in a moment. Where some action comes out of it, even if this is just ‘read more about this’, then I make sure I have plenty of things about me to grab those tasks instantly.
I have note blocks on both my desks and an inbox on each to throw them into. I carry my GTD/To Do system around with me in paper form so things often go straight in that. I also have a dictaphone in the car so I can make notes and remember tasks when at the wheel.
Tasks that have been identified now get put in my paper GTD system which you can read about here. I am pretty orthodox GTD and it works well. Whilst I do enter my Someday/Maybe items into my paper system, I then periodically transfer them in to Toodledo as the volume is too silly to carry around. Toodledo is a great online to-do system with a superb iPhone app – I used to use this for my whole system until 3 months ago when I felt I needed a change. I may go back there at some point.
Back to pure information. Most of the stuff that hits me is electronic – so this goes straight into Evernote. I love Evernote – it is superb at managing your filing cabinet and having it with you all the time, be that on your computer, via the web, or on my iPhone. The information that I get on paper is scanned on my printer-scanner using Yep as the interface – Evernote automatically picks this up using some Applescript and Hazel magic (the PC version of Evernote will do this automatically). The paper is them binned/shredded if I don’t need to keep it, or filed in my draws if I do.
The one thing that Evernote doesn’t do that well is take typed notes – the interface is too clunky especially over the web (which is the only way I can access it at work) and on the iPhone. As such I use Notational Velocity to type and search text files – this syncs between my Macs using the mighty Dropbox, and can be accessed and added to very quickly using Simplenote on the iPhone and web.
The last remaining hole for my information is that which comes in via e-mail. This currently gets filed within the folders in Gmail at home or Outlook at work. I hate Outlook, but that’s just me.
And that is me organised! More-or-less at least. If I want to know what to do next then I just need to look in one place (my GTD system), and if I want some information then it is either in Evernote if generated by someone else, or Notational Velocity if generated by me. The only exception is with e-mail which is one more place to search – maybe I should archive this into Evernote? Sounds a labourious job. I also like the sound of Omnifocus, but as I have no Mac at work I would be relying on the iPhone app – this looks good but iPhone apps are never as user friendly. Maybe another excuse to get an iPad!
What do you think? How could I improve this? What do you do differently?
