I received an email the other day from Zach, who had heard about my EverNote Template pages through the EverNote user forum. He said that he had created some of his own templates, but

I posted some of my own on a website but I’m kind of embarrassed to send you the link now because yours is so nice.

I read the User forum too, and was able to find Zach’s link, and Zach, you have nothing to be embarrassed about! Your templates are amazing. And the page is cool too - I like the easy layout. But your templates - OMG, I didn’t know you could force EN into doing such things!!!!

For the rest of you EN users out there, you should check out Zach’s templates. Some of them are very dynamic, i.e., you can get things to show/hide, simply by using a checkbox and toggling the lock on/off. This has actually been a complaint on the forum, especially when looking at long To Do lists - you end up with a bunch of line items, some are done, some are not, and the only way to see what’s left to do is to lock the note. However, Zach’s got one, called “Updatelist Detailed (and sorted) Template”. Don’t let the name confuse you - it’s a great template for listing out things that need to be done (Next actions anyone?). Then, after you’ve completed a few of them, you can choose to hide the active ones, hide the inactive ones, and/or sort complete/incomplete. This last is nice because it goes through your list, puts all the incomplete ones together at the top, and all the complete ones together at the bottom.

He’s also got a nifty “Weekly Time tracking template”, which essentially gives you 5 columns for days, and as many rows as required for tasks. Every day that you’re working, enter the task you’re working on, how many hours (decimals are permitted) per task. The template adds up how much you’ve worked per day. Sorry, no way to add up all the days of the week together, but that’s a limitation of the EverNote template engine.

Finally, Zach’s got this wicked looking template called “Project Tracking and Control Template”. It’s like a project overview, it’s got fields for Project Description, Members, Due Date. Then, there are three subsections: Application updates, Web Interface Updates, Database Updates. It looks like a nifty way of keeping track of softwarish kind of things, like a bug database, but more lightweight. I think that I could easily convert this to my own use, e.g., LaTeX updates, Visio updates, Miscellaneous, that I could use when I’m writing. And the sweet thing about this template is that, again, you can hide any of the three categories I just described. In addition, there’s a summary box at the bottom, which seems to show you Tasks Completed and Tasks Incomplete per category. Very cool.

There are a couple of other templates there, but these are my favourites. Check them out. A couple of points to note:

• To get the template into EN, you select all the text in the text box beside your desired template. Open a text editor (not word!) and paste. Save the document as an xml file - the name doesn’t matter. Then, you can import it into EverNote. (See these instructions for exactly how to do that.)
• It is always recommended that you open a new template in a test database in order to try it out. Just in case.
• The dynamic nature of Zach’s templates is very cool, but because of limitations in the EverNote Template Engine, getting them to do what you want can be counterintuitive. Just think of the Lock/Unlock toggle button (it’s on every note’s title bar) as kind of a refresh button. So, if a template offers you a chance to hide something, click the checkbox, then hit the Lock/Unlock. Make another change to the viewing choices, and toggle the lock/unlock again. Don’t be afraid - the Lock/Unlock button is your friend.

And what does the future hold for us in terms of EverNote templates? I think Zach sums it up best:

Unfortunately, I feel like I’ve reached too many limits to the code scripts of EverNote and I’m desperately waiting for their updated scripting engine.

According to the EverNote folks, the only way to get more functionality out of our templates “takes creating a brand-new template engine, which is a serious undertaking.” So, here’s hoping that it’s going to be around sometime soon. Until then, template tweakers like Zach will have to make things easier for the rest of us.

A while ago, I was writing up a set of posts (MiFi 1, MiFi 2, MiFi 3) about my GTD implementation - what software I used, how I used it, etc. etc. At about the same time I was writing my post about Outlook, I read a post on LifeHacker by Gina Trapani, entitled Geek to Live: List your life in .txt. In it, she expounds on the joys of text, e.g.,

• software and OS agnostic
• searchable, portable, lightweight, easily manipulated
• completely future-proof
• plain text is your friend

She proceeds to explain, very well, exactly how to set up a basic GTD system using a text file, and some command line goodness - in her case Cygwin, although the Mac/Linux/Unix user can go straight to their command lines. The basic idea is that you create a todo.txt file that will contain all of your next actions. Each line contains some information, slightly formatted. For example, to indicate a context, you would have @context somewhere in the line. To indicate a project, you would put p:project in the line, etc. etc. Then, with some basic commands, you can pull out the NAs that apply to specific contexts, specific projects, etc. etc.

I was immediately enamoured of the idea. I have no idea why, since at this point it time, I didn’t have Cygwin installed on my machine, and for some reason was reluctant to install it. I also had a lovely Outlook GTD implementation working for me, including several custom built macros to make my life easier. My outlook file synced to my Palm, life was good, etc. etc.

Going on Vacation

I think one of the reasons I was interested in this post was that I was about to head off on vacation without my laptop and I kind of wanted a way to bring my next actions with me. Of course, I could have just relied on my palm, but let’s be honest, inputting information into the palm basically sucks. And yes, that is a technical term.

What better way to bring my GTD info with me than with a text file on my nice new USB drive? But how could I do this without needing Cygwin? Was it possible to do basic Windows command-line stuff the same way Gina was using grep? So I explored, and yes, Windows has both find and findstr commands, which are very close to grep. There’s even piping in Windows, so with some work, you can do it, at least for the most part.

Perl is a Jewel

But I wanted more. I wanted to be able to sort the results in certain ways. I wanted to be able to fine tune my searches to get, for example, those NAs in a certain context that were actually do-able right now. (One of the first things I ended up adding to some NAs was a start date, so that I could also use todo.txt as my Tickler.)

Anyway, long story short, I became addicted to the concept of using a todo.txt file, along with some batch goodness and Perl magic. I was loath to blog about it before now for a couple of reasons: (1) I really should be working and (2) I didn’t want to blog about before I got it “fixed” reasonably right. Of course (2) will never ever be satisfied, because I’m going to continue tweaking the system, but I have a nice core of a system that I can now share with you.

Coming Up

So now that I’ve introduced the topic, I’m going to make every effort to post all sorts of interesting things about my text-file-dos-perl-gtd-system. Obviously, this system is extremely personalized to exactly what I want, and I’m definitely not advocating that anyone else try it. But if you’re interested at all in checking out the text/command line world, you might find these posts useful. I’m hoping that some people will gain some inspiration and/or tidbits of useful information, about text, about Perl, about DOS, etc.

Now all I need is cool name for the series. Perl DOS GTD in Text? GTD with TDP? PDT? Yeesh.

Other Links

After the initial List your life in .txt post, Gina created several other related posts, and eventually ended up creating a website devoted to this topic. If you keen to learn more about how she does it (Unixy commands, useful for Cygwin, Mac, *nix systems, additional Python scripts), check it out. My system is different as it focuses on Perl scripts and DOS batch files. The todotxt.com site is also a lot more polished than what you’re going to get here. Not that I’m trying to dissuade your from reading or anything!

Categories: GTD, outlook, todo.txt, remind, perl, dos, scripts/batch

I’ve decided to give Windows Live Writer a try. I wasn’t going to, but I’ve been inundated by other posts about it, namely:

• Download of the Day: Windows Live Writer (LifeHacker)
• Windows Live Writer: A blogging app from Microsoft (Download Squad)
• Windows Live Writer - Blog Publishing Tool (Google Operating System)
• Whose new tools are more open? (Ed Bott’s Microsoft Report)

It was actually this last one that clinched it for me. Ed provides a very good discussion of how Microsoft and Google compare with respect to the “openness” of their tools. For the most part, it seems that Microsoft will allow you to customize (e.g., point this Windows Live Writer at a Blogger blog) more than Google (e.g., the Blog This button only works with Blogger).

Why I Like Windows Live Writer

So, I thought I would give it a shot. So far, I like it for the following reasons:

• It’s less likely to completely blow up in my face, unlike yesterday’s debacle with FireFox dying just as I was posting.
• Along with this, there is a preference, which lets me save a draft every x minutes. Thank you!
• It is actually WYSIWYG - my post here looks like it would online. Note that there are two views: web layout (you see how the body of the post will look) and web preview (you see the post in all it’s on-the-blog-with-columns-etc glory. Very sweet.
• Ctrl+K lets me add a hyperlink - I’m used to this particular keyboard shortcut, which seems to be mostly a Windows thing.
• It’s got some better tools than Blogger, e.g., Find Text.
• There’s also a preference for automatically spell checking before posting. I shall see how that works in a second.
• I like how I can easily paste in an image here, as well as change the size, e.g., small, medium, large (which can also be customized).

Why I Don’t Like Windows Live Writer (AKA Trying to Post Images)

And now, let’s see if I can insert a picture here and have it uploaded to my blog.

I’ve just pasted in a screen shot and played with the “Gaussian Blur” option. Now to post…

Update: Just tried publishing, and got the following error:

But I have some hope, because Live Writer seems willing to let me associate this blog with an FTP server, which I just happen to have.

Unfortunately, I seem to have a bit of an error while connecting, but I’m going to try anyway…

Isn’t it ironic?

I’ve decided to actually click on the link that says “Help with configuring FTP settings”. And this is what I get:

What Are Other Bloggers Saying?

Isn’t that helpful? Yeesh. What is being said in the blogosphere about this?

From Steve’s Blog:

Pictures can be inserted into your post and even uploaded to your blogspace or an FTP host if you prefer. I’ve not tried this feature as I was unable to successfully configure my ISP’s FTP details for some reason, and I don’t use the blogspace for images, so I’ll continue using WS_FTP Pro for that function I think.

From RJ Dudley:

The Metablog API, used by Community Server (as well as most blogging platforms) doesn’t support image upload. Community Server does have an API for directly uploading images into galleries, which is used by Chiwi’s CS Gallery Manager. If you have a lot of images and want them in your galleries, this app might be a great help. With any luck, someone will add a plug-in for WLW which will support CS galleries.

Now I don’t know if this last post has any bearing for me. I’m just trying to upload to my geocities ftp account. The help over there suggests making sure that the ftp tool is set to passive mode.

From ars technica:

In our testing, image uploads worked with Windows Live Spaces, but not other blogging services unless newMediaObject API was supported or FTP access could be configured.

On a different topic, I found this interesting tidbit from …the musings of a psycho…:

If you publish to your blogger blog using Live Writer, your blog can be viewed only on IE, not Firefox! I repeat:

Publishing using Windows Live Writer makes your blog unviewable on Firefox!

That is the most outrageous thing that any blog editor can do! I’ve long forgotten IE now and so have millions of others. How can you expect to neglect Firefox while creating a blog editing software and expect the mainstream to adopt it.

Since I have yet to be able to publish this post, I can’t be sure how accurate these musings are…

From infomaven:

When Windows Live Writer, a desktop client for blogs, was released, I ignored it until I read the summary post at ProBlogger. The feedback from other blogs was mostly positive (which is unusual given the techie bias against Microsoft), so I downloaded and installed the software.

I ran into a few glitches when I tried to post this draft to the Infomaven Notes blog. Uploading images wasn’t supported until I set-up image FTP. Even then the program still reported that it couldn’t upload the images, but it actually did upload them.

Now this made me think - what if they are being uploaded? So I just checked my geocities account. I have a new, bizarrely name subdirectory. I’ve heard about this bizarre naming somewhere in my travels tonight, so it’s got to be Live Writer doing it:

But, when I look in that directory, there are no images. After a couple of more (really slow) tries, I have a png in that directory, but it has size zero. No joy.

How about changing to a different FTP account. Testing testing… Okay, I just did a quick test with another FTP server, and I have no problems at all connecting there, so obviously, there’s a problem right now between Live Writer and Yahoo Geocities.

Where Am I Now?

Well, I’ve deduced that there’s some problem with FTPing to my geocities account, for whatever reason (part of my deduction is that I can’t even use FileZilla to ftp these images over there). So, I’ve done a bit of a workaround here. Deleted all of the screenshots from my post and posted it through Live Writer. No problems, although I’m sure I hit “draft” and it posted for real. Turned each one of the images you see above into a jpg, which I used Blogger’s Hello to upload. Then cut/paste them into the right spot in the post.

And just so you know, the html posted by Live Writer is ugggggly. No whitespace at all - makes it a pain to go in and find that particular line you want to turn into a header. Oh well.

Summary

I’m going to keep playing with Live Writer for a bit longer - it’s much easier to create posts in it than it is in Blogger’s oh-sorry-I’m-going-to-crash-and-lose-all-of-your-work text window. I even like it as much as Performancing for FireFox, albeit for different reasons.

Anyway, you may or may not hear more on this topic.

I was reading through my lifehacker feed today when I came across an interesting post on blacklisting unwanted senders in Gmail. Very cool, although too much of a pain in the neck for me to bother with.

But, the cool part was that the site that lifehacker points to, namely Google Operating System “fill in the blanks of the google puzzle” has all sorts of interesting googly tidbits. Two other links on the main page caught my eye right away:

• When will you run out of Gmail storage space? (2 Jul 10 for me)
• Hide spam counter in Gmail

Wow, two other links that catch my eye right away - might be a good candidate for a new feed in my feed reader! If you’re into google at all, check it out.

I just received this set of questions via email and it seemed like a great way to start a discussion:

was wondering if you knew of any sites that suggest ways to organize your outlook email folders to help with GTD?

or really… any sites/posts that basically go over a “using your software to help with GTD” in general? for example,

it seems like you use EN for nearly all your GTD needs… is that right?

Here are my answers to these questions:

Organizing Outlook Email to Help with GTD

There are several sites that come to mind when I think of this question. The first one that pops up is the David Allen Company GTD Forums. They have a forum dedicated to tools, and although I’ve stopped reading posts there, there is a very healthy discussion on all things tools (hardware/software) and Outlook figures prominently. I would suggest just zipping over there and searching for Outlook. In addition, in the David Allen store, they have links to a plug-in for using Outlook for GTD. Now, I find the pricing to be directed at high-powered business people, of which I am not one. So, I did try the trial, but didn’t find it worth my money. I did however plonk down $10 for the Whitepaper on how to use Outlook and GTD. It’s not too bad. A lot of common sense, but if you’re just getting into playing with Outlook, it’s a good place to start.

I also recall reading a couple of things lately about using Outlook with GTD. I’m just going to scan through my notes here…

• Tasks and Time Management in Outlook. This is a great place to learn about GTD and Outlook - very nicely done, easy to read, lots of screen shots. Unfortunately, it’s aimed directly at users of the Outlook 2007 Beta. Since I’m playing with that Beta (OMG it’s so much nicer than 2003, except for some minor quirks), it was a great resource for me. I’m actually only using Outlook for my hard landscape, but I can see so much potential in it as a GTD tool, especially if you pair it with OneNote Beta (see here and here).
• Download Squad. Recently, Download squad posted a two-part series about GTD and software. Part 1 is devoted to doing it on Windows. Part 2 is devoted to doing it online.

In addition, a Google search of ‘Outlook and GTD’ (no quotes) pops up a bunch (806,000 to be exact!) of hits. On the first page alone I found these gems:

• Outlook and GTD - Filing and Archiving Tips
• 43 Folders Wiki entry on Outlook. Actually, 43 Folders should always be one of your first stops online for all things GTD. I usually think of them as more Mac-centric though, but they do offer up great wisdom and occasionally some Windows-oriented stuff.
• A link to a Working Smart post about Automating Your Weekly Review Process in Outlook with VBA. Michael Hyatt doesn’t necessarily post often, but when he does, it’s good.

As well, I have several posts dedicated to discussing Outlook and GTD. You can check out relevant posts here, especially the latest one, which describes how Outlook fit into my GTD system a few months ago. Finally, don’t be afraid to troll through Google hits, or maybe even check out Technorati. I don’t think that you’re necessarily going to find exactly one answer to your question, but there will be lots of great information to sift through :)

Software in General for GTD

As I mentioned above, Download Squad discussed offline software in their two-part series. Their offline post seemed to emphasize Outlook, but there are lots of other pieces of software out there. Off the top of my head, I can think of MyLifeOrganized (plus 43 Folders wiki entry on it), which I also played with, but decided not to use. A lot of people play with various outliners for PDA/desktop, like Bonsai, etc. Again, your best bet is to check out the David Allen Tool Forum.

If you’re interested in working online, and I must admit it seems a great way to go, especially if you move around from machine to machine alot, the other part of Download Squad’s series discussed online choices. I read through it, and it seemed to contain all the big guns.

Another place to look for info about either kind of software is some kind of listing site, or even discussion forums. Check out:

• The best GTD resources (Listible)
• Getting Things Done, Resource Edition (52 Reviews)
• Google Groups GTD Tips & Techniques
• Google Groups 43 Folders
• 43 Folders Discussion Board

EN for Nearly All of MY GTD Needs?

Well, I wouldn’t go that far, not now. When I first started GTD, I was also learning how to use EverNote, and made an effort to use EN for my GTD needs. I have several posts on it, here and there (see my evernote and GTD tags), but a couple of particular ones come to mind:

• How EverNote fit into my GTD system a few months ago
• EverNote for Project Support Materials
• EverNote with GTD
• More Detail on Using EverNote with GTD
• Another GTD Implementation in EverNote

Now, I’m still using EN every day, but not so much for pure GTD. I think of EN as my project support materials, and essentially treat it the same way I treat my file folders sitting on my desk. I paste things into EN, organize them into categories, assign @next tags to some things, etc. etc. But when it comes time to decide the next thing that I’m going to do, EN is not where I turn to first. Instead, I have a new DOS/Perl text file based system that I’ve been working on for the past few months. I plan on posting all about it soon. Think of it as an HPDA for my computer ;) Not so fancy as using Outlook, or even EN, but it gets the job done.

Question for You

Now, if there are any great links that I’ve missed (and I’m sure that there are), please let us know by adding them as a comment. Thanks!

Categories: GTD, evernote, outlook

Update: I had this post ready and was about to post it, when FireFox blew up. So, I had to recreate it from some copied text. In an HTML editor. And then paste it back here. Should have been simple, but the formatting is screwy. I’ve tried to fix it and am about to post this for the third time. But if the formatting sucks, I give up.