anders.tyckr.com

Currently, I'm working on my 24hbc project rmindr.com and I know that even if I've launched an early alpha version to the public, it is far from ready, since I can't use it the way I want to yet.

My whole purpose for creating a GTD tool was that I felt a need for this type of service my self. Other services like Remember The Milk and just didn't do it for me. My main inspiration has been the excellent program Things which is perfect and do it just right, with a few things (no pun indended) that I'm missing.

The most important step for Getting Things Done is that there is absolutely no friction when collecting an idea. There is a reason why most computer geeks still have a pen and paper right next to their computer as it is a really fast way to get stuff out of your head. My approach to solving this problem is to offer as many fast and simple methods as possible for collecting ideas. I started implementing the one I thought was most useful - collecting by SMS, since I've at times been sending an SMS to my self to remind me of something.

The problem in everyday life with many different collection methods is that all those collected ideas end up in a bunch of different places or at best in one of many inboxes you might have. Having one inbox with everything is in my case the key to success. Well that is if I empty it of course, and even more importantly, actually do the stuff that was in the inbox. Because emptying the inbox is a good start but only half way there.

A key factor for me starting to use the system is that I create a system that is complete and that my brain really trusts is a better storage area for ideas rather than the brain itself. We'll see what happens. Firstly I must get rmindr to the next level where I can start trusting at least parts of the system, and then keep on working on it until I'm all the way there.

For me it was an absolute relief just to have somewhere to unload my brain of ideas when I first starting using GTD. In my case I used Things and mostly my Someday/Maybe list which by now is very long. I've implemented Inbox Zero with my email which works great for me even if I don't get super amounts of email (around 50 per day) but my inbox is empty now and is every night.

How would you like to collect ideas? I want to create a small app for OS X and Vista and others that run in the background and listens to a shortcut and opens a collect box from what ever application you are in. When clicking save, the message will be stored in your rmindr inbox. So if you are good at Cocoa or .Net and want to use my soon coming API, feel free to contact me here.

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• Minipreneurship - What can be done in 24 hours? (anders.tyckr.com)
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Image by dead_squid via Flickr

Ok, he really take things to a whole new level. Talk about having an organized desk. Look at this video for some tips on how to implement your own system. That's really what this is all about - implementing your own system. Your mind have to be confident that things will not be forgotten once they're put into your system. With my new service productivity tool I want to give you an opportunity to build a system that you can trust.

One of my biggest problems implementing GTD has been that I have so many different inboxes, and it has been difficult to carry around all the different lists that need to be used. That was the reason I built rmindr.com - it gives me one global inbox that I always can access, and through RSS always access my lists from any phone or other device with an RSS reader.

The answer is quite simply: A lot!

Yesterday at 12 noon the first 24 hour business camp ended. I participated with my Getting Things Done service rmindr.com that I first wrote about a while back.

My 24 hours consisted of everything between 4-hour-dig-downs in weird php errors (later saved by a Hjalmar php hack), and taking a soothing bath outside in 40 degrees water overlooking the snowcovered rocks in the Stockholm archipelago spa Hasseludden Yasuragi.

The event itself was without a doubt one of the best and most productive entrepreneurial events I've been to. The location certainly added to the excitement, but mostly it was the people's attitude towards entrepreneurship that made an impact on me. When the event ended, the participants were asked if they would want venture capital for their idea, and only about 3 out of 90 put their hands up.

I don't want to put too much into that because it is normally not 24 hour ideas that get funded anyways, but it shows that starting a service or product on the internet has never been easier or cheaper. These services will not likely be the next Google's or Amazon's, but it can easily be services that bring in some revenue for their creators. This type of "minipreneurship" is really starting to boom, and events like 24hbc is proof of that. You can easily start something in 24 hours if you put your mind to it and make sure to focus your idea.

Learning from my Seedcamp experience "focus" and "metrics" are the two most important words I've brought with me. So based on that this is how I focused by 24 hours at 24hbc:

• Step 1: Make my development setup work on the production server. (to enable fast deploy during the development)
• Step 2: Define basic functionality for the site to be valuable. For rmindr.com those features were:
  • Create actions with tags and notes
  • Access context lists through a private rss feed
  • Move actions to different focuses (inbox, next, someday/maybe, scheduled)
  • Collect ideas by sms from a cellphone
• Step 3: Define advanced features that can be included if there is time left
• Step 4: implement

I managed to get all of step 1 and 2 done to a level where they could be released in an alpha version. I never managed to get into the very necessary but quite advanced feature of organizing actions into projects in an infinite number of levels. That will come in the beta release. Maybe in another 24 hours... or not.

I've had this idea for almost a year now and I did the interface design this summer. So an event like 24hbc was exactly the push I needed to get it out there.

Thanks for any input regarding rmindr.com and feel free to vote for my project at http://www.24hourbusinesscamp.com.

Image by .nele via Flickr

As of lately I have been quite into the "Getting Things Done" methology. I'm very bad at implementing it myself, but I'm quite good at telling other people how and why they should use it. I just found this interview by Robert Scoble on fastcompany.tv where he interviews David Allen to get some of the core stuff of GTD out from him. http://www.fastcompany.tv/video/david-allen-on-getting-things-done

As I have been listening to one of David Allens seminars I've been completely sold on the idea of GTD. Although I've only implemented a small portion of the system I really feel a lot less stressed. Earlier I had problems sleeping because there were so many ideas floating around in my mind that I had to keep track of. Now I'm using a tool called Things to keep all those ideas for me. A huge relief not having to remember everything at all times.

The next step for me is to get really good at the weekly review. Because without having a good routine for that, everyone will fail to fully implement the system. I'm not saying that because David Allen says so, but because I'm 7 months into implementing the system, and I've noticed that I look at my lists far to seldom nowadays. If I do the weekly review, I will put the right stuff on the right list at all times and will probably check the lists more often.

That leads me to the biggest problem I have with the system. How do you keep your lists? It's quite good when I'm by my computer, but then at the store and so on there is no way that I would carry around a bunch of paper lists just to see what's on there. Now with the Iphone, there are a lot of new tools for keeping those lists, but in some ways I think it's a bit too complicated since it is still a platform specific solution.

Enter rmindr.com, my main on-the-side project. It's an online GTD app much like any other GTD app out there. With one big difference. The userinterface just works. It is highly inspired by Things (mentioned above) because that fells natural for me. I don't really think this service will make me rich or anything, but what it does is that it solves a problem, in particular My problem. With rmindr you get all of your context lists avaliable on any device through RSS. Collaboration is really simple with drag-n-drop ease to delegate tasks. Collection is really simple through the API where collecting a new task through any medium or tool will be possible, and as easy as a HTTP Post to a specific URL, or a MMS/SMS/Phonecall to a specific number.

With the RSS context lists I'll be able to see my grossery store shopping list with any phone while I'm in the store.

The service will be launching shortly as I'm putting the last bits and pieces together. Stay tuned for more info. I won't have a beta sign up page unfortunately, but if you subscribe to the rss of this blog you'll no when it opens.