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	<title>brilliantdays.com &#187; gtd</title>
	<atom:link href="http://brilliantdays.com/category/gtd/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://brilliantdays.com</link>
	<description>- brilliant ways to use your Mac and iPhone</description>
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		<title>OmniFocus video is out</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/omnifocus-video-is-out/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/omnifocus-video-is-out/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 01 May 2007 11:34:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[digital lifestyle]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mac]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[productivity]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/omnifocus-video-is-out/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Omnigroup just posted a new video showing the main features of the forthcoming OmniFocus application. And it looks like they are doing almost everything right.
The two things I like the most: 
Focus
Let&#8217;s you focus on a special project or folder of projects. Hides everything else you have entered in the app, so you cab concentrate [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Omnigroup just posted a new video <a href="http://blog.omnigroup.com/2007/04/30/ethan-schoonovers-omnifocus-overview-video/">showing the main features of the forthcoming OmniFocus application</a>. And it looks like they are doing almost everything right.</p>
<p>The two things I like the most: </p>
<p><strong>Focus</strong><br />
Let&#8217;s you focus on a special project or folder of projects. Hides everything else you have entered in the app, so you cab concentrate on the task in front of you. Like a zoom lens on a camera. Very cool feature.</p>
<p><strong>Project folders</strong><br />
You&#8217;ll be able to make folders of projects, grouping together projects. Put all your &#8220;home&#8221; projects in one folder, &#8220;work&#8221; in another, &#8220;you&#8221; in a third etc. It lets you organize your projects much better than just a long list of projects. It also helps you see the bigger picture. A silly example: Your &#8220;work&#8221; folder has 800 projects and your &#8220;home&#8221; and &#8220;you&#8221; folders 4&#8230;</p>
<p>Combine these two features, and you have a very strong tool to help you do what&#8217;s mos important right now. I have two major areas of responsibility at work now, and with the project folders and focus, I can hide the other half while I&#8217;m working on one of them. </p>
<p>Get me the beta, and I&#8217;ll start using this from day 1.</p>
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		<title>GTD mac app: iGTD</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/gtd-mac-app-igtd/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/gtd-mac-app-igtd/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 19 Mar 2007 14:54:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mac]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[productivity]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/gtd-mac-app-igtd/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Bartek Bargiel is another one in the race for the best Mac GTD application. In good Apple style it&#8217;s called iGTD and has some very nice features (and some annoying shortcomings as well).

The two things I like the most: Syncing and Quicksilver integration. Syncing worked flawless on my Mac. I had a few tasks in [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Bartek Bargiel is another one in the race for the best Mac GTD application. In good Apple style it&#8217;s called <a href="http://bargiel.home.pl/iGTD/index.html">iGTD</a> and has some very nice features (and some annoying shortcomings as well).</p>
<p><img id="image805" src="http://brilliantdays.com/images/page14_2.jpg" alt="iGTD screenshot" /></p>
<p>The two things I like the most: Syncing and Quicksilver integration. Syncing worked flawless on my Mac. I had a few tasks in iCal already, synced from another GTD app; <a href="http://brilliantdays.com/program-your-own-gtd-app/">Actiontastic</a>, which went open source some days ago. When I synced iGTD, it got these tasks from iCal with no problem. </p>
<p>And this is a good lesson if you are developing a Mac GTD application: Syncing with iCal. One GTD application that doesn&#8217;t have this is <a href="http://brilliantdays.com/inbox/">Midnight Beep Inbox</a>. So there&#8217;s no way to get my tasks over to another app. Bah.</p>
<p>I also like that I can use <a href="http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/">Quicksilver</a> to enter tasks into iGTD. And a nice menubar item with direct access to the app. </p>
<p>The date entry (for entering due dates) is very old fashioned. There&#8217;s no pop-up calender to click dates, and you can&#8217;t type &#8220;today&#8221; or &#8220;next monday&#8221; as some of the other apps can. It doesn&#8217;t even recognize 20.3.2007 as 20 March 2007, but as 20 March 2020. Weird.</p>
<p>So the race for the best Mac GTD app is still on. In my heat of possible winners are now five:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.kaboomerang.com/blog/category/actiontastic/">Actiontastic</a><br />
<a href="http://bargiel.home.pl/iGTD/index.html">iGTD</a><br />
<a href="http://blog.omnigroup.com/2007/02/27/omnifocus-timing-some-guesswork-required/">OmniFocus (not out yet)</a><br />
<a href="http://ghostparksoftware.com/">Ghost Action</a><br />
<a href="http://www.midnightbeep.com/">Midnight Beep Inbox</a></p>
<p>Which one do you like the best so far? I have big hopes for OmniFocus, based on the quality of the other apps Omni make. Of the other four, I think Inbox looks beautiful, but it&#8217;s soooo slow. The other three are great apps, and all have syncing that works. It&#8217;s too early to pick a winner for me.</p>
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		<title>Sean Tierney: Use your desktop as a matrix for urgency/importance</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/use-your-desktop-as-a-matrix-for-urgencyimportance/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/use-your-desktop-as-a-matrix-for-urgencyimportance/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 17 Mar 2007 23:55:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mac]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[productivity]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/use-your-desktop-as-a-matrix-for-urgencyimportance/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Urgency vs. Importance and the 5th system for scattered todos:
Mentally superimpose the above graph on your desktop (or if you really want, draw it as your background).
Drag the resources (URL locations, documents, graphics, audio files, forms, whatever you’re working with) to the appropriate quadrants on your desktop. URLs are the exact pages on a site [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.scrollinondubs.com/2007/03/14/urgency-vs-importance-and-the-5th-system-for-scattered-todos/">Urgency vs. Importance and the 5th system for scattered todos</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>Mentally superimpose the above graph on your desktop (or if you really want, draw it as your background).</p>
<p>Drag the resources (URL locations, documents, graphics, audio files, forms, whatever you’re working with) to the appropriate quadrants on your desktop. URLs are the exact pages on a site with which you need to do whatever task it is. You can chunk a bunch of related items for a discreet task in a folder.</p>
<p>Now rename the filenames to “verb-noun” (ie. “handle tax returns” URL item links to the online filing page on the IRS.gov site)</p></blockquote>
<p>I find Sean&#8217;s tip on using the desktop quite interesting. I drag stuff to the desktop all the time. I will try to organize them according to his tip for some time, and see if that make sense for me. And I think he is spot on when he says that&#8230;</p>
<blockquote><p>Anytime you find yourself uncomfortable contorting your processes to match the latest and greatest productivity religion, I think that’s bad. Ultimately you should learn the fundamentals of various different productivity religions and pick and choose the elements that work for you and make your own.</p></blockquote>
<p>But &#8211; and this is an important but &#8211; sometimes it&#8217;s better to just use a system someone has spend quite some time thinking about. And not start spending days and hours and months trying to tweak it into your the &#8220;perfect-productivity-system-for-you&#8221;. </p>
<h3>Use Exposé</h3>
<p>If you decide to use Sean&#8217;s tip, here&#8217;s a productivity tip to the productivity tip: Set up Exposé with the upper right corner of your screen to be &#8220;Desktop&#8221;. When surfing, just grab the link from the browser, move your cursor up in the upper right corner, and wham &#8211; all open apps and windows disappear. And you can put the url exactly where you want it on the desktop, on your new urgency/importance grid.</p>
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		<title>Program your own GTD app</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/program-your-own-gtd-app/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/program-your-own-gtd-app/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 17 Mar 2007 10:02:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[productivity]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/program-your-own-gtd-app/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Now you can, as Jon Crosby has decided to make Actiontastic free and open source:
The free (as in “free beer”) part starts tonight. The code (as in “freely available source code”) will follow when the overhead of a new team won’t crush the project under its own weight. Those with experience getting to 1.0 will [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Now you can, as Jon Crosby has decided to make <a href="http://www.kaboomerang.com/blog/2007/03/15/first-the-beer-then-the-code/">Actiontastic free and open source</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>The free (as in “free beer”) part starts tonight. The code (as in “freely available source code”) will follow when the overhead of a new team won’t crush the project under its own weight. Those with experience getting to 1.0 will understand what I mean.</p>
<p>Opening up this project for community participation is the best possible thing that I can think of doing for its future. Great things are on the horizon for that sweet intersection of the web and the desktop. I would rather discuss them openly and collaborate with other like-minded people than hide any of the details just to make another $29 shareware sale. I am not opposed to the idea of shareware in general and have purchased quite a bit of it myself over the past year. It’s just that shareware isn’t the right path for Actiontastic.</p></blockquote>
<p>It will be very interesting to see what this leads to. I like Actiontastic. It&#8217;s fast, clean and solid. <a href="http://s3.amazonaws.com/kaboomerang/actiontastic/ActiontasticBeta8.zip">Download the latest non-expiring version here</a>.</p>
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		<title>OmniFocus icon</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/omnifocus-icon/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/omnifocus-icon/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 09 Mar 2007 09:22:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mac]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[productivity]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/omnifocus-icon/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What do you think of the icon draft Omni has posted for OmniFocus?

I&#8217;m not sure. I think the other Omni icons are way better. Here they are, presented with the three &#8220;main&#8221; competitors OmniFocus have:

If I were in charge at Omni, I would have followed the style of the two other apps, a slanted document [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>What do you think of the icon draft Omni has posted for OmniFocus?</p>
<p><img id="image793" src="http://brilliantdays.com/images/omnifocus-icon-draft.png" alt="OmniFocus icon draft" /></p>
<p>I&#8217;m not sure. I think the other Omni icons are way better. Here they are, presented with the three &#8220;main&#8221; competitors OmniFocus have:</p>
<p><img id="image795" src="http://brilliantdays.com/images/gtd-apps.jpg" alt="GTD apps" /></p>
<p>If I were in charge at Omni, I would have followed the style of the two other apps, a slanted document with something in the lower right corner. A checklist with a magnifying glass was my first thought. The color is ok, so keep that, but change just about everything else. Maybe keep the clip, which looks good.</p>
<p>The other three apps all look great when they are this big. At smaller sizes, <a href="http://brilliantdays.com/gtd-app-ghost-action/">Ghost Action</a> look the best. Clear and simple. Actiontastic is a little to complicated for smaller sizes, but the concept is fun: Hit those tasks with a hammer.</p>
<h3>OmniFocus out soon</h3>
<p>I think OmniFocus is pretty close a release. This is the status message GTD guru <a href="http://www.43folders.com/">Merlin Mann of 43 Folders</a> sported yesterday:</p>
<p><img id="image796" src="http://brilliantdays.com/images/omnifocus-soon.jpg" alt="OmniFocus soon?" /></p>
<p><i>&#8220;That thing you want? It&#8217;s almost done, I swear.&#8221;</i></p>
<p>Could be he&#8217;s knitting some amazing productivity wool socks for his friends&#8230; But I think it&#8217;s <a href="http://blog.omnigroup.com/2007/02/27/omnifocus-timing-some-guesswork-required/">OmniFocus</a> he&#8217;s referring to.</p>
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		<title>GTD app: Ghost Action</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/gtd-app-ghost-action/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/gtd-app-ghost-action/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 05 Feb 2007 23:43:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mac]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[productivity]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/gtd-app-ghost-action/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The race for the best Mac GTD app is still on! A new app is in the race: Ghost Action.

(Ghost Action screenshot. The app looks slightly different than this screenshot, as I use Uno).
I still have big hopes for OmniFocus, but Ghost Action looks clean and simple, and very similar to Actiontastic. It looks like [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://brilliantdays.com/the-race-for-the-best-mac-gtd-app/">The race for the best Mac GTD app</a> is still on! A new app is in the race: <a href="http://ghostparksoftware.com/">Ghost Action</a>.</p>
<p><img id="image781" src="http://brilliantdays.com/images/ghostaction.jpg" alt="Ghost Action screenshot" /></p>
<p><i>(Ghost Action screenshot. The app looks slightly different than this screenshot, as I use <a href="http://gui.interacto.net/">Uno</a>).</i></p>
<p>I still have big hopes for <a href="http://brilliantdays.com/ommifocus-is-progressing/">OmniFocus</a>, but Ghost Action looks clean and simple, and very similar to Actiontastic. It looks like it&#8217;s made using technology by Omni, the same way Actiontastic does.</p>
<p>Ghost Action syncs with iCal (both ways), something <a href="http://brilliantdays.com/inbox/">Inbox</a> doesn&#8217;t do yet. </p>
<p>I had some problems when entering text into new actions. The text just disappeared after hitting Return. This happened twice on about 20 actions. I&#8217;ll try it out for some days. One &#8220;fun&#8221; thing is to see what happens with tasks already in iCal, synced from Actiontastic. Do the two apps live nicely together?</p>
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		<title>OmmiFocus is progressing</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/ommifocus-is-progressing/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/ommifocus-is-progressing/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Jan 2007 13:43:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mac]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[productivity]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/ommifocus-is-progressing/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The race for the best Mac GTD app is still on, and today we had a new version of Inbox (1.0.5) out, and yesterday OmniFocus showed the first screenshots of upcoming GTD app OmniFocus in a get-together at MacWorld in San Francisco. TUAW has one (heh, one???) screenshot, which looks promising. I&#8217;m sure Merlin Mann [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The <a href="http://brilliantdays.com/the-race-for-the-best-mac-gtd-app/">race for the best Mac GTD app</a> is still on, and today we had a <a href="http://brilliantdays.com/inbox-105-is-out/">new version of Inbox (1.0.5)</a> out, and yesterday OmniFocus showed the first screenshots of upcoming GTD app OmniFocus in a <a href="http://blog.omnigroup.com/2007/01/04/omnifocus-get-together-during-macworld-week/">get-together at MacWorld in San Francisco</a>. TUAW has <a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2007/01/09/omnifocus-sneak-preview/">one</a> (heh, one???) screenshot, which looks promising. I&#8217;m sure Merlin Mann will put up more details soon.</p>
<p><update>Update</update> Nope. <a href="http://www.43folders.com/2007/01/09/open-thread-macworld-1/">He didn&#8217;t.</a>A bit strange that Merlin just qoutes TUAW, when he is actually working with Omni on the project.</p>
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		<title>Inbox 1.0.5 is out</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/inbox-105-is-out/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/inbox-105-is-out/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Jan 2007 07:30:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[asides]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mac]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[productivity]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/inbox-105-is-out/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Direct download is here. Also see the Inbox review.
]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Direct download is <a href="http://s3.amazonaws.com/midnightbeep/Inbox.dmg">here</a>. Also see the <a href="http://brilliantdays.com/inbox/">Inbox review</a>.</p>
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		<title>Chinese Democracy Syndrome</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/cds/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/cds/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 03 Jan 2007 07:50:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mind]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[productivity]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/cds/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Gus Mueller writes about programming on his site, about how some programmers wants  everything to be perfect before they ship something. There&#8217;s a whole lot of wisdom in what he says, and not only for programmers:
…I think sometimes developers can get caught in a trap of trying to make things too &#8220;perfect&#8221;.
&#8220;Like Chinese Democracy&#8221; [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.gusmueller.com/blog/archives/2007/01/chinese_democracy_syndrome.html">Gus Mueller</a> writes about programming on his site, about how some programmers wants <strong> everything to be perfect</strong> before they ship something. There&#8217;s a whole lot of wisdom in what he says, and not only for programmers:</p>
<blockquote><p>…I think sometimes developers can get caught in a trap of trying to make things too &#8220;perfect&#8221;.</p>
<p>&#8220;Like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Democracy">Chinese Democracy</a>&#8221; Kirstin said.</p>
<p>To which I replied- &#8220;That&#8217;s the perfect analogy. I&#8217;m going to blog that.&#8221;</p>
<p>In case you haven&#8217;t heard of it already, Chinese Democracy is an album that Axl Rose, the singer of Guns N&#8217; Roses, has been working on for a very, very long time. The hold up is because he wants to get everything &#8220;perfect&#8221;. So it never ships.</p></blockquote>
<h3>First-time sex</h3>
<p>Merlin Mann has been talking about something similar in a podcast he called <a href="http://www.43folders.com/2006/09/18/first-time-sex/">First-time Sex &#038; the Beauty of 1.0</a>. Quoting Merlin:</p>
<blockquote><p>Everybody is so busy making things perfect the first time around, that you never actually make anything</p></blockquote>
<p>Yup. That&#8217;s now officially declared the &#8220;Chinese Democracy Syndrome&#8221; (or CDS for short). Trying so hard to get version 1.0 perfect, that it never ships.</p>
<p>This applies to other things than software, like complex projects. I&#8217;m working on a presentation on something that&#8217;s quite difficult to explain to people. And I found myself planning and planning and researching, and not working on the actual presentation. Gus talking about CDS made me think about what Merlin said about the first draft, and now I&#8217;ve put together a really bad version 1.0: Fonts, colors, facts, timing and length &#8211; everything is bad. But it&#8217;s version 1.0 and it&#8217;s so much easier to <strong>fix version 1.0 than making it</strong> (this does not necessarily apply to building houses, bridges and spaceships, I must add…)</p>
<h3>The secret of Google and VG</h3>
<p>Loving the beta-version is also one of the key ingredients of Google&#8217;s success: They make a 70% good product, get it out to people, tag it beta, and let it improve by getting feedback from users and their own experience with it. In Norway the tabloid <a href="http://www.vg.no/">VG</a> is the biggest website, far ahead of the others. They do the same thing: Get things out. Sometimes they fail miserably, sometimes they score big successes. They would never have known if they just kept the projects on the harddrives, tweaking and tweaking them.</p>
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		<title>GTD online</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/gtd-online/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/gtd-online/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 29 Dec 2006 12:26:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[productivity]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/gtd-online/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[There&#8217;s a race to be the best Mac GTD app. And the race is certainly on with the online versions too. I&#8217;ve looked at Tedium before, and Vitalist (or should I spell it &#8220;Vital!st&#8221; &#8211; nah&#8230; that looks like spam&#8230;) is similar to Tedium.

(Screenshot of Projects pane when adding a new action and assigning it [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>There&#8217;s a race to be the <a href="http://brilliantdays.com/the-race-for-the-best-mac-gtd-app/">best Mac GTD app</a>. And the race is certainly on with the online versions too. I&#8217;ve looked at <a href="http://brilliantdays.com/tedium/">Tedium</a> before, and <a href="http://www.vitalist.com/">Vitalist</a> (or should I spell it &#8220;Vital!st&#8221; &#8211; nah&#8230; that looks like spam&#8230;) is similar to Tedium.</p>
<p><img id="image740" src="http://brilliantdays.com/images/vitalist-projects.jpg" alt="Vitalist projects screenshot" /></p>
<p><i>(Screenshot of Projects pane when adding a new action and assigning it to the @mac context)</i></p>
<p>I like Vitalist. It&#8217;s nice, clean and easy to understand. It needs to get a bit faster and responsive, as I had to wait a bit every time I entered something (even on a fast Mac and a very fast line). It should be as fast as the pages on Flickr when you update them.</p>
<p>There&#8217;s also a few things I see already (it&#8217;s a beta) that needs to be fixed:</p>
<p>I couldn&#8217;t find a way to edit contexts. I added contexts as &#8220;@online&#8221; and &#8220;@mac&#8221; but Vitalist added a &#8220;@&#8221; itself too. Easy to fix I guess.</p>
<p><img id="image741" src="http://brilliantdays.com/images/vitalist-contexts.jpg" alt="Vitalist contexts screenshot" /></p>
<p><i>(Screenshot of contexts with @@)</i></p>
<p>There&#8217;s no &#8220;Forgot your password&#8221; so be sure to write it down. This is something beta sites often forget.</p>
<p>The biggest &#8220;problem&#8221; with online GTD solutions is &#8211; as always &#8211; what do you do when you&#8217;re NOT online?</p>
<p>I&#8217;m online most of my time, but I couldn&#8217;t use a system where I&#8217;m not able to at least see my tasks even when I&#8217;m offline. </p>
<h3>Sync to iPod?</h3>
<p>One way to solve this is syncing with iPods. Like the excellent Mac OS X software <a href="http://www.kaboomerang.com/blog/">Actiontastic</a> (still in beta) does. Check a button and all your projects and tasks go to your iPod as notes. You can&#8217;t edit them but you can see them and &#8211; most important of all &#8211; DO them! </p>
<p>I think there are three ways to sync online GTD tasks to an offline device: A standalone program, a mobile phone (<a href="http://brilliantdays.com/mobile-phone-not-cell-phone/">not a cell phone</a>) or an iPod. Making a standalone app is not something I would expect most online systems would do, as this would be just as much work as the online system itself. And people would compare their offline app with other specialized GTD apps like Actiontastic and <a href="http://www.midnightbeep.com/">Inbox</a>.</p>
<p>Syncing to mobile phones would be perfect for most customers, but there are so many different phones. A total mess to make something that just works.</p>
<p>Syncing with iPod is an easy and consumerfriendly way to go. </p>
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		<title>Interesting online GTD system</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/tedium/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/tedium/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 30 Oct 2006 20:51:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mac]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[productivity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[windows]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/tedium/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Tedium is a new web-based GTD system. You can access your lists from a modern browser on all platforms. 

Simple interface, but maybe too simple for my taste? Not sure yet. I think the tasks should have had more importance (in style), and the buttons under them be less visible. But I must admit they [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.mcqn.com/tedium/">Tedium</a> is a new web-based GTD system. You can access your lists from a modern browser on all platforms. </p>
<p><img id="image696" src="http://brilliantdays.com/images/Tedium2.gif" alt="Tedium tasks" /></p>
<p>Simple interface, but maybe too simple for my taste? Not sure yet. I think the tasks should have had more importance (in style), and the buttons under them be less visible. But I must admit they have great taste in colors. <img src='http://brilliantdays.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';-)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>It worked flawlessly in Safari on Mac and Firefox on Win XP. Dragging things around works and editing is fast and responsive.</p>
<p>Todos kan be tagged with tags, which can be used like David Allen the way <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0142000280?ie=UTF8&#038;tag=brandnewbrain-20&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=9325&#038;creativeASIN=0142000280">David Allen</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=brandnewbrain-20&#038;l=as2&#038;o=1&#038;a=0142000280" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /> suggests you set things up with contexts.</p>
<p><img id="image697" src="http://brilliantdays.com/images/Tedium1.gif" alt="Tedium tags" /></p>
<p>You can also set dates for tasks that need to be done before a certain date.</p>
<p>You can sign up for a free test account but I couldn&#8217;t figure out if it was always free, or if there was a fee after some time. Data can be exported out of the system. They haven&#8217;t got around to write an export feature, but they will send you your data if you cancel the account. </p>
<p>Try it out! I wish there were an offline system to go with it, but if you&#8217;re always online and trust Tedium to also be, this could be your next way to get things done.</p>
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		<title>The race for the best Mac GTD app</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/the-race-for-the-best-mac-gtd-app/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/the-race-for-the-best-mac-gtd-app/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 26 Sep 2006 06:56:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mac]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[productivity]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/the-race-for-the-best-mac-gtd-app/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Omni group is planning a GTD app, which will be called OmniFocus:
It has a name. It has a team of engineers working on it, a user interface guru mocking up modes and widgets for it, and a product manager whose Herculean job it is to herd this whole mess towards an elusive ship date.
Great! [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://blog.omnigroup.com/2006/09/25/omnifocus-our-work-in-progress/">The Omni group is planning a GTD app</a>, which will be called OmniFocus:</p>
<blockquote><p>It has a name. It has a team of engineers working on it, a user interface guru mocking up modes and widgets for it, and a product manager whose Herculean job it is to herd this whole mess towards an elusive ship date.</p></blockquote>
<p>Great! If it&#8217;s only half as good as OmniOutliner and OmniGraffle, it will be better than all other GTD apps out there.</p>
<p>At the same time, <a href="http://www.midnightbeep.com/">Midnight Beep has a new beta of Inbox</a> out (<a href="http://brilliantdays.com/inbox/">previously on Brilliantdays</a>). Inbox looks amazing, and Omni is known for their clean and good-looking UIs. So if you want to get things done on the Mac, there&#8217;s no excuse anymore.</p>
<p>Also see previous posts in the <a href="http://brilliantdays.com/category/gtd/">GTD category</a>, and especially <a href="http://brilliantdays.com/getting-things-done-with-automator-and-spotlight/">&#8220;Getting things done with automator and spotlight&#8221;</a>.</p>
<p><update>Update</update><br />
And now it turns out that Ethan J. A. Schoonover &#8211; who makes Kinkless &#8211; is developing OmniFocus with Omni. In <a href="http://kinkless.com/news/hold_breath_exhale_focus">&#8220;Hold breath. Exhale. Focus.&#8221;</a>, Ethan explains that <q>&#8230;at some point it became clear that the next logical step would be to consider Cocoafying the whole shebang.</q> And continues:</p>
<blockquote><p>Having the chance to take everything I’d been thinking and working on with kGTD and see it turned into something bigger and better and brighter is like making a doodle on a piece of paper, handing it to da Vinci and seeing it turned into a full color oil painting. Even better: it’s like Da Vinci letting you sit around and gab at them while they do this and ask for &#8220;a bit more cobalt-blue in the sky&#8221; and &#8220;a few more peasants in that bit on the left&#8221;.</p></blockquote>
<p>And what&#8217;s more: Productivity guru <a href="http://www.43folders.com/2006/09/27/ethan-omnifocus/">Merlin Mann is in on the team</a>: <q>Mostly I just stand around like a fat man at a construction site, drinking coffee and shouting pointless suggestions. Ethan and OmniGroup listen patiently, sometimes complying with my random requests, and that’s all the pay I could ever hope for</q></p>
<p>Two modest guys, eh? I think OmniFocus will be my third most used app in no time&#8230; And it will be really interesting to see how Inbox works when it&#8217;s finished.</p>
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		<title>New Mac GTD app: Inbox</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/inbox/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/inbox/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 30 Aug 2006 09:18:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mac]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[productivity]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/inbox/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Midnight Beep has a beta of a forthcoming Mac GTD app; Inbox.

This looks very promising! Khoi Vinh of Subtraction asked for it some days ago:
It surprises me, actually, that no one is working on a proper, Cocoa-authored desktop application that is a fully-fledged, elegant version of kGTD. 
&#8220;Elegant&#8221;. Exactly. I want the apps on my [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.midnightbeep.com/?p=79">Midnight Beep</a> has a beta of a forthcoming Mac GTD app; Inbox.</p>
<p><img id="image668" src="http://brilliantdays.com/images/Inbox.jpg" alt="Inbox by Midnight Beep" /></p>
<p>This looks very promising! <a href="http://www.subtraction.com/archives/2006/0822_stick_a_data.php">Khoi Vinh of Subtraction</a> asked for it some days ago:</p>
<blockquote><p>It surprises me, actually, that no one is working on a proper, Cocoa-authored desktop application that is a fully-fledged, elegant version of kGTD. </p></blockquote>
<p>&#8220;Elegant&#8221;. Exactly. I want the apps on my Mac to look fantastic. Nothing less. And Inbox looks fantastic. It looks like something <a href="http://www.delicious-monster.com/">Delicious Monster would have made</a>, and that&#8217;s a big compliment in my book. If you have a look at the personal site of <a href="http://www.hanshansen.com/">Hans Hansen</a> of Midnight Beep, you&#8217;ll find an genuine interest for both <a href="http://blog.hanshansen.com/?p=13">technology</a> and <a href="http://www.hanshansen.com/blurredvision/">art</a>. He has several sites, even one for <a href="http://www.supershineget.com/">gaming</a> and one for <a href="http://www.849hayes.net/">&#8220;all the art and all the crack in the heart of San Francisco&#8221;</a>.</p>
<p>Which is in a bit what <a href="http://presentationzen.blogs.com/presentationzen/2006/08/from_design_to_.html">Garr Reynolds</a> in Presentation Zen talks about in his latest post: </p>
<blockquote><p>However, it&#8217;s increasingly clear that logic alone is not a sufficient condition for success for individuals and for organizations. &#8220;Right-brain reasoning,&#8221; then, is every bit as important now  — in some cases more important — than so-called &#8220;left-brain thinking.</p></blockquote>
<p>Spot on. So I&#8217;m always excited when I find people that are able to geek and enjoy art, and not just stay on one side of the &#8220;fence&#8221;. Garr&#8217;s post is worth a post of it&#8217;s own. But then again, so are all his posts. </p>
<p>For now, I&#8217;m going to take Inbox for a test run, put lots of stuff in there, and start reporting back to Midnight Beep and to you what I think.</p>
<h3>Previously</h3>
<p>You may also want to have a look at <a href="http://brilliantdays.com/getting-things-done-with-automator-and-spotlight/">&#8220;Getting things done with Automator and Spotlight&#8221;</a> and the <a href="http://brilliantdays.com/category/gtd/">Getting Things Done category</a> in general.</p>
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		<title>Howto: Reference files in Kinkless</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/reference-files-in-kinkless/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/reference-files-in-kinkless/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 03 Jul 2006 21:37:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[digital creation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[howto]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mac]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[productivity]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/reference-files-in-kinkless/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[If you&#8217;re using Kinkless, there&#8217;s an easy way to store reference files with your projects, right inside your Kinkless document. I usually make a mindmap for my bigger projects, using the excellent NovaMind mindmapping app (available for both Mac and Windows).
So here&#8217;s a small mindmap on how to rule the world, a project quite a [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>If you&#8217;re using <a href="http://www.kinkless.com/">Kinkless</a>, there&#8217;s an easy way to store reference files with your projects, right inside your Kinkless document. I usually make a mindmap for my bigger projects, using the excellent <a href="http://www.nova-mind.com/">NovaMind mindmapping app</a> (available for both Mac and Windows).</p>
<p>So here&#8217;s a small mindmap on how to rule the world, a project quite a lot of people seem to be having on their list.</p>
<p><img id="image623" src="http://brilliantdays.com/images/Kinkless_reference_files_5.gif" alt="Kinkless reference files no 5" /></p>
<p>Make the mindmap, and save it. When you make a document in OS X, you get a small icon right in front of the name of the document, in the title bar at the top. Before saving it&#8217;s greyed out, and everytime you make changes it also greys out. </p>
<p><img id="image628" src="http://brilliantdays.com/images/Unsaved.gif" alt="Unsaved" /></p>
<p>But hit Apple-S and the icon gets colors. And &#8211; you can drag it.</p>
<p><img id="image629" src="http://brilliantdays.com/images/Saved.gif" alt="Saved" /><br />
<span id="more-603"></span></p>
<h3>Exposé is an amazing productivity tool</h3>
<p>For dragging to be useful, I have set up Exposé like this:</p>
<p><img id="image627" src="http://brilliantdays.com/images/Kinkless_reference_files_7.gif" alt="Kinkless reference files no 7" /></p>
<p>In English: If you drag the cursor to the lower left corner of your screen, Exposé will show all your open windows, in all apps. That&#8217;s the one we&#8217;re going to use.</p>
<p>Now, in OmniOutliner Pro, make a new project (&#8220;Rule the world&#8221;) in your Kinkless file, and hit Apple and Esc to make a comment on it. This opens up a field just below the projects name, where you can put notes and stuff that are not sub-tasks. Like this:</p>
<p><img id="image630" src="http://brilliantdays.com/images/Kinkless_reference_files_1.gif" alt="Kinkless reference files no 1" /></p>
<p>In my example I&#8217;ve just typed a reference to my mindmap: &#8220;My mindmap for ruling the world&#8221;. Just leave the cursor where it is after typing that, and switch to OmniOutliner Pro. Click the little icon in the title bar and start dragging. The icon now becomes a little bigger.</p>
<p><img id="image625" src="http://brilliantdays.com/images/Kinkless_reference_files_61.gif" alt="Kinkless reference files no 6" /></p>
<p>Drag the icon down to the lower left corner of your screen, the one we set up in Exposé. Now all your open windows pop up on the screen. Look for the window with your Kinkless projects in OmniOutliner Pro. Move the cursor up again and &#8220;park&#8221; on top of that window. Wait half a second or so. Finder will now zoom in on that window. Drop the icon right after the text you wrote previously.</p>
<p><img id="image621" src="http://brilliantdays.com/images/Kinkless_reference_files_2.gif" alt="Kinkless reference files no 2" /></p>
<p>Now you have a link to the mindmap directly from your Kinkless projects. Double-click the icon, and NovaMind opens with your mindmap.</p>
<h3>Other ways to do this</h3>
<p>As always in OS X, there are many ways to do things. You can drag from a window to another, if both are visible. Here I&#8217;m dragging a file saved in TextEdit directly into OmniOutliner Pro.</p>
<p><img id="image622" src="http://brilliantdays.com/images/Kinkless_reference_files_4.gif" alt="Kinkless reference files no 4" /></p>
<p>You can also start dragging the icon from the mindmap, <strong>use Alt-Tab to switch between apps</strong> and then drop the icon.</p>
<h3>Forget import or open commands</h3>
<p>With this method, you almost never have to import or link to files with a dialog window. You make the document you need, save it to the right place, and drag it into the app you want to use it. I use it for Livetype files in Final Cut Pro, Photoshop files in Final Cut Pro and InDesign, and in general all kinds of graphics, sound, video and text files into apps that use them. No more Apple-I. A huge timesaver. At it looks cool.</p>
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		<title>You need three e-mail adresses (or more)</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/three-email-adresses/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/three-email-adresses/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 16 Jun 2006 23:11:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[digital lifestyle]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[productivity]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/three-email-adresses/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Michael Hyatt get&#8217;s too much mail:
This past weekend, I realized that about 20 percent of it comes from email newsletters and companies I’ve done business with in the past. Half of it, I don’t recall opting into—even legitimate companies. Most of it is a complete waste of my time. 
So do I, but luckily I [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Michael Hyatt <a href="http://www.michaelhyatt.com/workingsmart/2005/12/unsubscribe_me.html">get&#8217;s too much mail</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>This past weekend, I realized that about 20 percent of it comes from email newsletters and companies I’ve done business with in the past. Half of it, I don’t recall opting into—even legitimate companies. Most of it is a complete waste of my time. </p></blockquote>
<p>So do I, but luckily I started doing something several years ago that saves me hours and hours: I have lots of e-mail adresses.</p>
<p>The first one is <b>my e-mail at work</b>. I use it for work and nothing else. No private e-mails. So when I open Outlook in the morning, almost all mail in there will be things related to work. And only work. NEVER use your work e-mail for mailing lists, even if it&#8217;s work related. You will get spam. </p>
<p>Then I have <b>an e-mail for private mail</b>. That&#8217;s the one I use when sending to friends and family, when adding my name to e-mail lists for my kids activities etc. Be clever when you make an adress like this: Use a big service like <a href="http://mail.google.com">Gmail</a> or <a href="http://mail.yahoo.com/">Yahoo Mail</a>. They have great spam filters, and tons of storage. Don&#8217;t use the e-mail your ISP offers you when you sign up. I have numerous friends that have their e-mail adress at small ISPs in their town. With only 10 MB of storage and strange webmail interfaces. Not recommended. Pick one of the big boys. </p>
<p>Number three is <b>for registration of software, newsletters, mailing lists etc.</b>. This is the one that gets all the crap. And tons of spam. So I check it once a week. I have mine at Yahoo Mail, but Gmail is just as good. The spam filters take the worst ones out, and the rest I just sort by sender, hit &#8220;select all&#8221; and deselect the two or three I actually NEED to read. Then delete the rest with a click of a button. Today I had 512 e-mails at that adress &#8211; in a week. And that&#8217;s after the spam filter had removed 288. Imagine having all that crap at your work e-mail&#8230; Four of these were things I actually read: An offer to download four songs from the Simple Minds tour, a sale at an online DVD store and two product updates from a tech company.</p>
<p>So that&#8217;s your three basic ones: One for work, one for private stuff and one for all registration and mailing lists. And do host the latter two at someone that has great spam filters like Gmail and Yahoo Mail.</p>
<p>Then consider if you need some more: I have a special e-mail adress only used for contact with my host <a href="http://www.dreamhost.com/r.cgi?7813">Dreamhost</a>, and sites I&#8217;m an affiliate to, like Amazon. I also have e-mails for some special projects and finally some e-mails specially for some people that are really important to me. </p>
<p>All these can be checked from the mail app I use, Apple&#8217;s Mail. The exception is Yahoo Mail that charges you if you want to use POP mail, but since I use the Yahoo adress for all the &#8220;non-important&#8221; mail, it doesn&#8217;t make sense to download 500 e-mails to my computer, just to delete 497. Webmail is much better for that purpose: A huge list, sort it, select all, deselect a few, hit delete.</p>
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		<title>Infoglut</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/infoglut/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/infoglut/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 05 May 2006 21:46:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mind]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[productivity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rss]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/infoglut/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[There&#8217;s a new trend among people who suffer from info-glut (=too much info coming to you digitally). The trend is: Delete everything. One example:
But I&#8217;m not waiting until then. As of now, my fancy-pants, community-generated, emergent-behavior data-sorting heuristic is: a calendar. If I haven&#8217;t gotten to something in a week, it dies. Stick that in [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>There&#8217;s a new trend among people who suffer from info-glut (=too much info coming to you digitally). The trend is: Delete everything. One example:</p>
<blockquote><p>But I&#8217;m not waiting until then. As of now, my fancy-pants, community-generated, emergent-behavior data-sorting heuristic is: a calendar. If I haven&#8217;t gotten to something in a week, it dies. Stick that in your attention economy and smoke it. I&#8217;m re-booting. Feed list: empty. In-box: empty. TiVo: OK, OK, I still need to watch &#8220;24.&#8221; But other than that: empty.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.eod.com/blog/archive/2006/05/the_backlogged_life.html">Greg Knaus</a> is not the only one. A-list blogger Robert Scoble also <a href="http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/04/26/tara-invisible-to-microsoft/">deleted all his feeds</a> from his RSS-reader:</p>
<blockquote><p>By the way, I deleted all my feeds and am starting over.</p></blockquote>
<p>(Did you add me back, Robert?)</p>
<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/brandnewbrain/141032348/" title="Throw it out"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/45/141032348_9a1d61f8d5_m.jpg" width="240" height="181" alt="Throw it out..." /></a></p>
<p><i>(Throw it out &#8211; on <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/brandnewbrain/141032348/in/set-72057594109614265/">Flickr</a>)<br />
</i></p>
<h2>Cleaning mail</h2>
<p>Merlin Mann <a href="http://www.43folders.com/2006/04/04/better-practices/">deals with his e-mail</a> in a similar fashion: Act or delete.</p>
<blockquote><p>The only way an email will ever get out of your life (and out of your worrying brain) is to either deal with it or get rid of it. If you’re planning to do anything in-between, you should have an explicit understanding of why you’re doing so. Any idea which one of these is a particularly shitty idea?</p>
<ul>
<li>I don’t have time to answer this now (but I will put it in “Respond to” and answer it within X days)</li>
<li>I just need to save this for future reference (so I’ll just toss it in my Archive)</li>
<li>I need to convert this into an action by the end of the day (so I’ll put it in my “Daily Pending” folder)</li>
<li>I’m going to just leave this in my inbox and think about it for a few days. Or months. Or years. Who knows?</li>
</ul>
<p>Touch everything once whenever possible, but even if you’re busy, take the extra 2 seconds to consider whether this really has any place in your life. If not, just punt it.</p></blockquote>
<p>I&#8217;m not ready to delete my RSS feed collection yet. But with e-mail, I&#8217;m with Merlin: Deal with it or get rid of it. I&#8217;m not going to use my 2.5 GBs (and rising) on gmail to store bad feelings about NOT gettings done.</p>
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		<title>Exporting Safari bookmarks to Del.icio.us</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/exporting-safari-bookmarks-to-delicious/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/exporting-safari-bookmarks-to-delicious/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 12 Dec 2005 06:30:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mac]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[productivity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/?p=384</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Do you have lots of bookmarks in Safari, that you would like to put on Del.icio.us? Use Safarilicous, the new software from Benedikt Terhechte.
It scans through all your Safari bookmarks, and uploads them to Del.icio.us. To help you started with the tags for all your bookmarks, it will use the folder the bookmarks are located [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Do you have lots of bookmarks in Safari, that you would like to put on <a href="http://del.icio.us/">Del.icio.us</a>? Use <a href="http://www.stylemac.com/safarilicious">Safarilicous</a>, the new software from Benedikt Terhechte.</p>
<p>It scans through all your Safari bookmarks, and uploads them to Del.icio.us. To help you started with the tags for all your bookmarks, it will use the folder the bookmarks are located in, as tags. So if a bookmark is stored in a folder called webdesign, and a folder inside that one called CSS, the bookmark will get the both folder names as bookmarks; webdesign and CSS. Neat.</p>
<p>You still would have to add quite a few tags to your bookmarks, and a nice way to do that is to load them back to your Mac again with the software <a href="http://www.scifihifi.com/cocoalicious/">Cocoalicious</a>. It helps you manage your Del.icio.us bookmarks and makes it a whole lot easier to add tags to bookmarks.</p>
<p>Benedikt Terhechte is the one who also make <a href="http://www.stylemac.com/tagbag">Tagbag</a>, the way cool OS X widget that scans all your files, looking for Spotlight keywords. With Tagbag and a the <a href="http://brilliantdays.com/archives/2005/05/getting_things.php">instructions I wrote about how to use your Mac to get things done</a>, you would have a very flexible and fast GTD system working in 5 minutes.</p>
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		<title>Searchable tickler file</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/searchable-tickler-file/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/searchable-tickler-file/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 09 Oct 2005 09:20:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[productivity]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/?p=273</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Dinah Sanders, also known as MetaGrrrl, has a clever method for making a searchable tickler file. I have to try that!
]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Dinah Sanders, also known as MetaGrrrl, has a <a href="http://www.metagrrrl.com/metagrrrl/2005/10/the_searchable_.html">clever method</a> for making a searchable tickler file. I have to try that!</p>
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		<title>Fascinating japanese filingsystem</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/fascinating-japanese-filingsystem/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/fascinating-japanese-filingsystem/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 09 Oct 2005 08:36:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[asides]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[productivity]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/?p=272</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[
The Noguchi Filing System is fascinating. You put papers you want to file in envelopes, write a title and a date on them and stack them in a shelf. No classification, tagging or anything.

On the left side you put new envelopes, on the right the older ones that you still need.
Over time, some documents will [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img alt="FilingSystem_200x73.jpg" src="http://www.brilliantdays.com/images/articlepics/FilingSystem_200x73.jpg" width="200" height="73" /></p>
<p><a href="http://www.lise.jp/honyaku/noguchi.html">The Noguchi Filing System</a> is fascinating. You put papers you want to file in envelopes, write a title and a date on them and stack them in a shelf. No classification, tagging or anything.<br />
<span id="more-272"></span><br />
On the left side you put new envelopes, on the right the older ones that you still need.</p>
<p>Over time, some documents will &#8220;survive&#8221; and stay in the shelf &#8211; on the right side. Other envelopes are emptied and taken out of the shelf. You assign time once in a while to go through your documents, which will be quite fast as all the envelopes are marked and easy to open.</p>
<p>Unless you have several hundred envelopes, I think this would work! Anyone who have tried this exact system? Comment below or <a href="http://brilliantdays.com/aboutthissite.php">contact me</a>.</p>
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		<title>Bureaucratic superheroes</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/bureaucratic-superheroes/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/bureaucratic-superheroes/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 27 Sep 2005 06:53:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[fun]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[productivity]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/?p=255</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Neil makes superhero cartoons:

This superhero does SO need to meet David&#8230;
]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Neil makes <a href="http://www.fatalexception.org/action_item.html">superhero cartoons:</a></p>
<p><img alt="ActionItem_400x131.png" src="http://www.brilliantdays.com/images/articlepics/ActionItem_400x131.png" width="400" height="131" /></p>
<p>This superhero does SO need to meet <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0142000280/brandnewbrain-20">David</a>&#8230;</p>
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		<title>Go on until you fall over</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/go-on-until-you-fall-over/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/go-on-until-you-fall-over/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 27 Jul 2005 07:17:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[productivity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sports]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/?p=208</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When watching the last leg of Tour de France 2005, one of the commentators told that Lance Armstrong have said something like this: &#8220;I&#8217;d rather be number one and in the front the whole race, loose the sprint and become number four, than staying in the middle of the field and then win the sprint.&#8221; [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>When watching the last leg of Tour de France 2005, one of the commentators told that Lance Armstrong have said something like this: &#8220;I&#8217;d rather be number one and in the front the whole race, loose the sprint and become number four, than staying in the middle of the field and then win the sprint.&#8221; If you have the exact qoute, use the <a href="http://brilliantdays.com/aboutthissite.php">contact</a> form or the comments!</p>
<p><a href="http://www.brilliantdays.com/images/articlepics/MG2E2990.jpg"><img alt="MG2E2990.jpg" src="http://www.brilliantdays.com/images/articlepics/MG2E2990-thumb.jpg" width="200" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>This is the same thing that made <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjørn_Dæhlie">Bjørn Dæhlie</a> the worlds greatest winter athlete. He used to go the fastest he could as a junior. As fast as possible: 110%. For 3 out of 15 kms. Then fall over. Exhausted. And become number 39 or something. </p>
<p>Next race: As fast as possible for 4 kms. Fall over. Exhausted.</p>
<p>See the pattern? </p>
<p>When he finally managed to finish a race without falling over, he started winning. And winning. And became the most winning winter-athlete in the Olympics ever.</p>
<p>The moral: Don&#8217;t play it safe and save for later. Just give it everything you have from the start. This won&#8217;t give you golds in the beginning, but sooner or later it will.</p>
<h2>Update</h2>
<p>Leon at <a href="http://community.lifehack.org/">Lifehack.org</a> has <a href="http://community.lifehack.org/story/20050729/article/go_on_until_you_fall_over">posted about this</a>, and invited you to discuss it. One reader already strongly disagrees.</p>
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		<title>Stand up, be productive</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/stand-up-be-productive/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/stand-up-be-productive/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 18 Jun 2005 08:48:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[productivity]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/?p=189</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;By mimicking the sympathetic reactions to a threatening environment (sitting up straight, standing, moving quickly, deeper breathing), it appears to be possible to activate the sympathetic system, which then takes over.  We are ready to act, or in our case, be productive&#8221;
Bert Webb&#8217;s Open Loops
]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&#8220;By mimicking the sympathetic reactions to a threatening environment (sitting up straight, standing, moving quickly, deeper breathing), it appears to be possible to activate the sympathetic system, which then takes over.  We are ready to act, or in our case, be productive&#8221;</p>
<p><a href="http://hwebbjr.typepad.com/openloops/2005/06/your_central_ne.html">Bert Webb&#8217;s Open Loops</a></p>
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		<title>Don&#8217;t make mistakes?</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/dont-make-mistakes/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/dont-make-mistakes/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 11 Jun 2005 05:34:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/?p=180</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Lifehack.org has a post about six ways to get more done each day. Number six reads:
&#8220;6. Avoid to make mistakes
Finally, mistakes are the one of the most deadly time waster. If you have made one mistake on a task, the time of correcting it, or apologize to your customers or boss will cost you much [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/six-ways-on-getting-more-done-each-day.html">Lifehack.org</a> has a post about six ways to get more done each day. Number six reads:</p>
<p>&#8220;6. Avoid to make mistakes</p>
<p>Finally, mistakes are the one of the most deadly time waster. If you have made one mistake on a task, the time of correcting it, or apologize to your customers or boss will cost you much more time. Better to be careful at the first time and finish it. Everyone make mistake, but there aren’t any excuse if you are making the same mistake twice. Note it down as notes and remind yourself when you are doing similar tasks again.&#8221;</p>
<p>Good advice, when you have made a mistake, be sure to correct it quickly. But if NOT making mistakes is one of your top priorities, you could end up making no progress.</p>
<p>David Kelley of <a href="http://ideo.com">Ideo</a> says &#8220;fail faster, succeed sooner&#8221;. In a 1997 <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/10/one.html">article</a> in Fast Company, he explains:</p>
<p>&#8220;At Ideo, we believe that enlightened trial and error beats the planning of flawless intellects. In other words, we fail faster to succeed sooner. The reason is simple: The best solutions to most problems are rarely the most obvious. So we brainstorm lots of ideas, prototype the most promising ones, and learn from those that don&#8217;t work.&#8221;</p>
<p>My number six would be: <strong>Make mistakes, but don&#8217;t screw up. Learn fast when you fail.</strong></p>
<p>Tecnorati tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/productivity" rel="tag"> productivity </a> / <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/gtd" rel="tag">gtd</a> / <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tag/getting+things+done" rel="tag">getting+things+done</a></p>
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		<title>Getting Things Done with Index Cards</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/getting-things-done-with-index-cards/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/getting-things-done-with-index-cards/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 06 Jun 2005 07:11:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[asides]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/?p=166</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[
Jazzmasterson does GTD with index cards. Way cool! But I&#8217;ll keep my Palm. He has a nice blog too!
See my GTD category for more posts on GTD and Productivity.
Technorati tags: gtd / productivity
]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img src="http://photos2.flickr.com/1895640_814114e36e_m.jpg"></p>
<p><a href="http://flickr.com/photos/jazzmasterson/sets/48077/">Jazzmasterson</a> does <a href="http://www.davidco.com/what_is_gtd.php">GTD</a> with index cards. Way cool! But I&#8217;ll keep my Palm. He has a nice <a href="http://blog.metacarpal.net/">blog</a> too!</p>
<p>See my <a href="http://brilliantdays.com/archives/mind/gtd/index.php">GTD category</a> for more posts on GTD and Productivity.</p>
<p>Technorati tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/gtd" rel="tag">gtd</a> / <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/productivity" rel="tag">productivity</a></p>
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		<title>Back on track again</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/back-on-track-again/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/back-on-track-again/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 01 Jun 2005 08:25:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/?p=155</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It&#8217;s so easy to surf the net for new solutions, new software, new ways of working. Instead of just reading the slogan of your old Nike-shirt: Just do it.
Merlin has excellent advice &#8211; again. 43 Folders is my first-read these days.
&#8220;This is my stake in the ground about GTD: if you can stay focused on [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>It&#8217;s so easy to surf the net for new solutions, new software, new ways of working. Instead of just reading the slogan of your old Nike-shirt: Just do it.</p>
<p>Merlin has <a href="http://www.43folders.com/2005/05/fractal_impleme.html">excellent advice</a> &#8211; again. 43 Folders is my first-read these days.</p>
<p>&#8220;This is my stake in the ground about GTD: if you can stay focused on drawing from its best practices to get more of the important things in your life accomplished, then you’ll be a happy kid&#8221;</p>
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		<title>Planning is so much more fun than doing (for some)</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/planning-is-so-much-more-fun-than-doing-for-some/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/planning-is-so-much-more-fun-than-doing-for-some/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 20 May 2005 08:55:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/?p=115</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Merlin hits the nail on the head in his post: &#8220;Because buying new running shoes is more fun than actually running&#8221;.
My concern is that there’s a big difference between buying new running shoes and actually hitting the road every morning. Big difference. One is really fun and relaxing while the other requires a lot of [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Merlin hits the nail on the head in his post: <a href="http://www.43folders.com/2005/05/because_buying_.html">&#8220;Because buying new running shoes is more fun than actually running&#8221;.</a></p>
<blockquote><p>My concern is that there’s a big difference between buying new running shoes and actually hitting the road every morning. Big difference. One is really fun and relaxing while the other requires a lot of hard work, diligence, and sacrifice.</p></blockquote>
<p>I know the feeling. Planning is sometimes so much more fun than doing. When all your lists are finished, and you&#8217;re about to start DOING the first item&#8230; Time for a break.</p>
<p>Sticking the old Nike slogan everywhere helps me: &#8220;Just do it&#8221;. </p>
<p>So easy and yet so difficult.</p>
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		<title>Praise for my &#8220;Getting things done&#8221; post</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/praise-for-my-getting-things-done-post/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/praise-for-my-getting-things-done-post/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 12 May 2005 08:10:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[digital lifestyle]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mac]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/?p=88</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The response to my post about Getting things done on your Mac has been overwhelming! 
Mike Wendland (NBC-TV News Channel Internet correspondent) called it &#8220;ultra cool organizational things Mac Tiger users can do&#8221;. Thanks, Mike! It entered the Del.icio.us popular list with lots of people bookmarking it.

It topped at #8 on Populicio.us New popular sites [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The response to my post about <a href="http://brilliantdays.com/archives/2005/05/getting_things_1.php">Getting things done on your Mac</a> has been overwhelming! </p>
<p><a href="http://mikesejournal.com/archives/003343.php">Mike Wendland</a> (NBC-TV News Channel Internet correspondent) called it &#8220;ultra cool organizational things Mac Tiger users can do&#8221;. Thanks, Mike! It entered the <a href="http://del.icio.us/popular">Del.icio.us popular</a> list with <a href="http://del.icio.us/url/984a94bd022a7d5719c902371bedab9e">lots</a> of people bookmarking it.<br />
<span id="more-88"></span><br />
It topped at #8 on Populicio.us <a href="http://populicio.us/newlinks.html">New popular sites</a> (Just new in last 24h). Right now it&#8217;s still #20 on the <a href="http://populicio.us/newlinks48.html">48h list</a>. It was <a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/life-hacks/howto-roundup-102768.php">linked</a> at excellent <a href="http://www.lifehacker.com">Lifehacker</a> (absolutely on my &#8220;10-sites-to-check-every-day&#8221; list!)</p>
<h2>David Allen</h2>
<p>Then, David Allen himself <a href="http://www.davidco.com/blogs/david/archives/2005/05/macs_and_gtd.html">posted</a> a link to my blog. Thanks, David! Your <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0142000280/brandnewbrain-20/ref%3Dnosim/">book</a> has <strong>changed my life</strong>. Really. It would be close to impossible to organize a busy worklife, blogging, family, kids and friends without my Palm and your lists. Thanks again! I will keep writing about GTD techniques here at brilliantdays.com, as this is something that does mind-boggling things for you.</p>
<h2>MacSurfer</h2>
<p>The post was at <a href="http://www.macsurfer.com">Macsurfer.com</a> (also on my top10-list) on sunday and monday.</p>
<p><img alt="brilliantdays.com at Macsurfer.com" src="http://www.brilliantdays.com/images/articlepics/macsurfer444x250.gif" width="355" height="200" /></p>
<p><a href="http://www.bruceelgort.com/blogs/be.nsf/plinks/BELT-6CALBK">Bruce</a> writes &#8220;has a great blog post on how you can use Spotlight and Automator to assist you in organizing your digital stuff&#8221;. Thanks Bruce!</p>
<p>Keith at <a href="http://www.7nights.com/asterisk/">Asterisk</a> writes &#8220;This seems like very smart way to use some of Tiger&#8217;s new features.&#8221;. Thanks, Keith!</p>
<p>And finally Stephen at <a href="http://wettone.com/weblog/2005/05/10/gtd-spotlight">Wettone</a> writes &#8220;This is the best reason I&#8217;ve yet found for using Mac OS X Tiger.&#8221; Thanks Stephen! </p>
<p>Stephen also writes on his site: &#8220;Stephen Wettone is a software engineer who discovered the Internet in 1994 and hasn&#8217;t slept since.&#8221; The next thing I&#8217;m getting done, is some sleep!</p>
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		<title>Getting things done with Automator and Spotlight</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/getting-things-done-with-automator-and-spotlight/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/getting-things-done-with-automator-and-spotlight/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 06 May 2005 08:45:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[howto]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mac]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[productivity]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/?p=78</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[By using Spotlight and Automator, and the new Smart folders in OS X 10.4, you can change all those messy files on the desktop to something useful. And very David Allen-ish!
First, read my previous entry about &#8220;Add spotlight tags&#8221;. Make the Automator action described and save it as a Finder plugin for ctrl-clicking.
Smart folders
Then, in [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>By using Spotlight and Automator, and the new Smart folders in OS X 10.4, you can change all those messy files on the desktop to something useful. And very <a href="http://www.davidco.com">David Allen</a>-ish!</p>
<p>First, read my previous entry about <a href="http://brilliantdays.com/archives/2005/05/two_new_automat.php">&#8220;Add spotlight tags&#8221;</a>. Make the Automator action described and save it as a Finder plugin for ctrl-clicking.</p>
<h2>Smart folders</h2>
<p>Then, in Finder, make a smart folder called &#8220;@home&#8221;, one called &#8220;@work&#8221; etc. One for every category you use with David Allen&#8217;s brilliant book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0142000280/brandnewbrain-20/ref%3Dnosim/">&#8220;Getting things done&#8221;</a>.<br />
<span id="more-78"></span><br />
Set up the folders like this: In Finder, choose File &gt; Add smart folder. Or use the shortcut Alt-Apple-N. This brings up this window (mine is in Norwegian but you get the message).</p>
<p><img alt="GTD with Spotlight and Automator A" src="http://www.brilliantdays.com/images/articlepics/gtdspotlight_a_444x251.jpg.jpg" width="444" height="251" /></p>
<p>Be sure to choose &#8220;Computer&#8221; (&#8220;Datamaskin&#8221; in my screenshot) in the header, to make the smart folder search your whole Mac, not just parts of it. </p>
<p>Remove the bottom search term by clicking the minus sign. And click the first menu for the first one, and choose &#8220;Other&#8221; (&#8220;Annen&#8221; in my screenshot).</p>
<p><img alt="GTD with Spotlight and Automator B" src="http://www.brilliantdays.com/images/articlepics/gtdspotlight_b_100x172.jpg.jpg" width="100" height="172" /></p>
<p>This brings up a long list of things you can use in smart folders. To find the one we&#8217;re looking for, type &#8220;Spotlight&#8221; in the upper right corner. You don&#8217;t need to type the whole word, as the list will be shorter for every letter, leaving you with just &#8220;Spotlight comments&#8221; (&#8220;Spotlight kommentarer&#8221; in my screenshot).</p>
<p><img alt="GTD with Spotlight and Automator B" src="http://www.brilliantdays.com/images/articlepics/gtdspotlight_c_444x292.jpg" width="444" height="292" /></p>
<p>Choose that one, and &#8220;OK&#8221;.</p>
<p>Now type &#8220;@home&#8221; or &#8220;@work&#8221; or whatever context you&#8217;re making a smart folder for, save it and put it somewhere visible. I put mine on the desktop.</p>
<p><img alt="GTD with Spotlight and Automator D" src="http://www.brilliantdays.com/images/articlepics/gtdspotlight_d_444x251.jpg.jpg" width="444" height="251" /></p>
<h2>Start tagging</h2>
<p>Now, everytime you get a new file, just tag it by ctrl-clicking on it, and put in &#8220;@home&#8221;, &#8220;@work&#8221; etc. and the file will magically be listed immediately in your smart folder with that context. And it doesn&#8217;t matter where you put it on your drives. Put it anywhere!! It will still show up in your smart folder. This is just great!</p>
<p>Also tag files with other keywords while you&#8217;re at it. Example: If working with the &#8220;Redesign&#8221; project at work with your friend Mark, tag the Illustrator file both &#8220;Project:Redesign&#8221; and &#8220;@work&#8221; and &#8220;Projects&#8221; and &#8220;Mark&#8221;.</p>
<p>If you want to remove a tag from a file, just click it once in Finder, hit Apple-I and edit the Spotlight comments directly.</p>
<h2>What do you think?</h2>
<p>Do you have any experiences with this? Post them in the comments below! Also read my other posts about <a href="http://brilliantdays.com/category/gtd/">GTD</a> and &#8220;Getting things done&#8221;.</p>
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		<title>How to think when designing (or anything else)</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/how-to-think-when-designing-or-anything-else/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/how-to-think-when-designing-or-anything-else/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 21 Apr 2005 01:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[books]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/?p=55</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Jeff Veen has been reading Malcolm Gladwell&#8217;s &#8220;Blink&#8221;, and reflects about how he thinks when designing things. Interesting reading.
&#8220;And I sort of realized that I do design that way. I build up a tremendous amount of background data, let it synthesize, then &#8220;blink&#8221; it out as a fully-formed solution. It typically works like this:

Talk to [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Jeff Veen has been reading <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0316172324/brandnewbrain-20/ref%3Dnosim/">Malcolm Gladwell&#8217;s &#8220;Blink&#8221;</a>, and reflects about how he thinks <a href="http://www.veen.com/jeff/archives/000707.html">when designing things</a>. Interesting reading.</p>
<p>&#8220;And I sort of realized that I do design that way. I build up a tremendous amount of background data, let it synthesize, then &#8220;blink&#8221; it out as a fully-formed solution. It typically works like this:</p>
<ul>
<li>Talk to everybody I possibly can about the problem.</li>
<li>Read everything that would even be remotely related to what I&#8217;m doing. Hang charts, graphs, diagrams, and screenshots all over my office.</li>
<li>Observe user research; recall past research&#8221;</li>
</ul>
<p>Read the rest at <a href="http://www.veen.com/jeff/archives/000707.html">Jeff&#8217;s superb looking site</a>.</p>
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		<title>43 Folders wiki is up</title>
		<link>http://brilliantdays.com/43-folders-wiki-is-up/</link>
		<comments>http://brilliantdays.com/43-folders-wiki-is-up/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 22 Mar 2005 01:50:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Oyvind</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[gtd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mind]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[productivity]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://brilliantdays.com/?p=10</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[
The 43 Folders wiki is up and running at http://wiki.43folders.com/. Great! Merlin has an excellent site at 43 Folders, and I&#8217;m sure going to contribute.
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			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://wiki.43folders.com/" title=""><img src="http://photos5.flickr.com/6966111_ec48f2bfdd_m.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></p>
<p>The <a href="http://wiki.43folders.com/" title="">43 Folders wiki</a> is up and running at <a href="http://wiki.43folders.com" title="">http://wiki.43folders.com/</a>. Great! Merlin has an excellent site at <a href="http://www.43folders.com/" title="43 Folders">43 Folders</a>, and I&#8217;m sure going to contribute.</p>
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