Getting Things Done and ResultsManager

School is out and one would think I would be more relaxed than ever, however the exact opposite has occurred. With the last few internships failing on me I am frantically scavenging for new ones. I also have this website with an enormous amount of projects, demos and articles I would like to complete. There is also that Note Talker Contest which I have hit a wall with along with my goals of cleaning and reorganizing my room. I also need to backup last semesters class data and numerous other projects!

It seems school was actually a bit less frantic with classes, studying and a few posts on DorkoTech every now and then. It took up a lot of time but the actual number of "projects" attacking my mind was nothing I couldn't handle. School provided a lot of the structure and there were very few loose ends.

This scenario has recently transformed more into a run away train, on the loose traveling 100 mph, drenched with spikes of fire ready to pierce through the oncoming nuclear power plant it is ready to collide with. If I didn't do something a colossal explosion would have erupted within my brain. I had to sit down and actually think about what was going on what I was going to do to overcome these feelings.

The first thing I did was pick up David Allen's Getting Things Done book. I've heard so many success stories stemming from this work of genius but never picked it up. The reason was that during the school year I had a pretty good system that worked very well for me. However that old system was now failing with this new change and increase of actual projects. I knew something had to be done and a reworking of my old organizational skills was required for my survival. I raced through the first chapter today and already see myself nodding my head to many of the things he writes about. I also love all the little encouragement quotes and sayings in the margins which keeps my brain focused and prevents my ADD personality from naturally searching for distractions. It gives me something to focus on without venturing too far from the actual book itself.

With an increase in projects I think this may give ResultsManager the perfect opportunity to show off it's stuff. I am still working on a second article about ResultsManager and a possible Dorko Demo demonstrating the setup a student would go through to use Gyronix ResultsManager as a program to organize classes. Although I feel ResultsManager may not be entirely helpful in my current class schedule and organizing I do feel it can help me now as I have many loose ends and actual projects I would like to accomplish. I am going to email Gyronix soon asking them to extend my trial. They recently sent me an email asking me if I needed an extension and feel I really could use the added time. I got one extension so I am feel I may be pressing my luck but I was unfortunately unable to really test out ResultsManager during the last few weeks of school. I was busy worrying about finals and a flood of material coming at me at the last minute. Attempting to throw ResultsManager into the mix would have lead to an immediate explosion within my brain. It's be like adding gasoline to the already hot fire. My mind and body were already spread thin and I just didn't have the time to devote any real energy to the application. Since I am having trouble with the internships I unfortunately have a bit more time on my hands so anything productive I can do would help with the coping process. Really looking into the inner working of ResultsManager I feel would be a good use of my time.

Also since I am now engaged in David Allen's novel I feel I will be more familiar with the Getting Things Done (GTD) style and will have more of the tools required to take advantage of ResultsManager. I think my new more project oriented schedule will allow both these tools to become a more dominating force in my day. I'll keep you updated and post about my journey with these two utilities and look foward to untangling that mess of projects and creating some really great things!

posted by Jason Dorko at 3:46 PM 0 comments links to this post