Getting Things Done (GTD) for Sales and SEs - Organize

In the previous post I provided a detailed look at some Process strategies for SEs. Today I am going to provide my GTD Organization strategy.

I found that this was probably the most beneficial part of the program for me. So many times I would take a note to do something, or I would send an email and have no way of reminding myself to follow back up. I basically relied on the idea that if something became an issue, I would be reminded of it by someone/something else. This is a very reactive approach and resulted in my spending a lot of time each day putting out fires.

The act of mentally stepping through my workflow for accomplishing a task allowed me to see it on paper and analyze it for “leaks”. While I am still honing my ability to better capture ideas on the front end, once an idea or action makes it into my system, I can now confidently say it is certain to be acted upon and reviewed regularly until completion.

The organization piece also happens to be very involved from a tool
perspective. I spent a lot of time pushing my tools to the limit–minimizing the number of tools I needed–so hopefully you can benefit from this experience. Remember that this evolved into the system that works best for me. I recommend keeping it as simple as you can get away with–see Zen To Done as an example of a minimalist version.

Email

Email was perhaps the easiest part of the exercise. I now only have 4 top-level Outlook folders. I have one folder for Customers/Projects and a subfolder for each customer. I have another folder for Reading. Anything that comes in that that doesn’t have an “ask” but will take me longer than 2 minutes to review goes here. If it’s something I need to read by a certain deadline I will still put it there but I also create a task for it. I have a separate Reference folder for anything that is not tied to a project or customer but may need to see again. I rely on search to find it from there. Finally I have a Waiting folder where 1-off emails go that have a Task associated with them and need to be replied to (e.g. your boss wants a list of your top ten opps).

One thing I do in my end of day review (more under Review) is search through Sent mail for tasks or Waiting For items I may have missed. I set up a simple view that shows me all sent mail sent today, and 1 for Last 7 Days. In the Sent folder, go to View->Current View->Define Views and select New. Enter the name (e.g. Sent Last 7) and click OK. Click on Filter and under the Messages tab under Time select Sent and then “in the last 7 days”. You can futher tune the View but this gives you the basics.

I do have 3 rules in Outlook that help with this process. I have one rule that sends a message that I BCC myself on directly to my Waiting folder. I have one that moves reocurring or low priority newsletters to my Reading folder. Finally, I have a rule that looks for known email offenders (I’m looking at you IT), that moves those messages straight to the trash.

While not technically part of GTD, one thing that has helped lower my stress emensely was turning off the visual and audible incoming email notification. When I really want to not be distributed I go ahead and put Outlook in Disconnected mode to remove temptation.

Tasks

We use Outlook at the office and I spend a large part of my day now in front of my computer. Wanting to keep tools to a minimum I experimented with both GMail and Outlook tasks and Outlook is far better at managing them within this construct because of the ability to customize and integrate into the desktop, with no browser or internet connection necessary. I still find offline GMail buggy.

Tweaking Outlook to this degree is a surpringly under-documented undertaking. I still had the goal of not requiring any “coding” updates to try and keep it simple. The following customizations are a result of many long hours of research and testing.

Contexts and Categories

By now you know what a context is. I manage contexts in Outlook via Categories. You can categorize any object in Outlook (mail, task, calendar, etc). I only leverage categories for tasks.

The categories I recommend for SEs are as follows:

@Anywhere
@Phone
@Computer
@Errands
@Home
@Office (if you have an office lab or other tasks that must be done there)
.Waiting
.Deferred
.Projects

I also break the standard @Agenda into several categories. I have one for my boss, each of my team members, and one for specific colleagues I interface with frequently. You should also add one for each customer, or down to the individual if you’re in frequent contact with several members of a client organization.

The goal here is to get by with as few as you can and not get distracted. If you spend a ton of time on the plane maybe you add an @offline category that you can tackle from a laptop anywhere for example. But only do this after you find that you spend too much time sifting through tasks that you can’t do when you want. I actually did create a category for @offline, but I only use it when I specifically have some major plane time coming up. Before I depart I’ll move several tasks to it as my “schedule” for the trip.

Defining Views

You’re going to follow the same step for creating the custom
email views, but for tasks. The views I have created are:

[Action]
[Agendas]
[Deferred]
[Process]
[Projects]
[Waiting]
Completed Last 7
Completed Today

[Action] Shows me everything I need to do, seperated by context. From your Outlook Tasks folder, create a new view (just like with email, above). Name it [Action]. The Fields I use are Subject, Modified, Due Date, and Notes. The subject is simply the name of the task. The Modified field allows me to sort by oldest to newest. Due Date shows me upcoming due dates, and Notes shows me if there is more data in the Task entry that I need to open up and review. Creating Filters to limit the view to only the needed tasks is the trickey part. You’ll want to go to the SQL tab and enter the following text:

("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/id/{00062003-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}/811c000b" = 0 AND ("urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office#Keywords" LIKE '@%' ) AND NOT ("urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office#Keywords" LIKE '.%' ) AND NOT ("urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office#Keywords" LIKE '@@%' ) AND NOT ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/id/{00062003-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}/81040040" != 'tomorrow') )

Since you may want to create your own, let me step you through what this
says (it is not well documented elsewhere).

http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/id/{00062003-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}/811c000b" = 0 You want Tasks that have a 0 in the “Completed” field

("urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office#Keywords" LIKE '@%' ) You want Tasks that have a @ in the Category (which is why consistent naming of categories is important). This is the same principle for % and @@ but you are excluding them, meaning you don’t want agendas or projects.

("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/id/{00062003-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}/81040040" != 'tomorrow') This hides tasks for which the start date has not yet begun. I assign future start dates for items that I just don’t want to see for a couple days. I could create a calendar entry to add something to my Task list but this is a much faster approach.

Save the view and repeat the process for the others.

[Agendas] Shows me all my agenda items separated by person. The SQL is:
("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/id/{00062003-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}/811c000b" = 0 AND "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office#Keywords" LIKE '%@@%')

[Deferred] Shows me my someday/maybe items. I just use the subject and Notes fields. SQL is:

(“urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office#Keywords” =

'.Deferred' AND "http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/id/{00062003-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}/811c000b" = 0)

[Process] Shows me everything that doesn’t have a category and tells me I need to do something furthur with it. The SQL is:

("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/id/{00062003-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}/811c000b" = 0) AND (NOT( ("urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office#Keywords" LIKE '@%' ) OR ("urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office#Keywords" LIKE '.%' ) OR ("urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office#Keywords" LIKE '@@%' ) ))

[Projects] Shows me anything that requires more than the current action to complete. I use the subject and notes fields only here. I make use of Due Dates at the Next Action level and not at the project level. The SQL is:

("urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office#Keywords" = '.Projects' AND "http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/id/{00062003-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}/811c000b" = 0)

[Waiting] Shows me everything that I am waiting for from someone else. SQL is:

("urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office#Keywords" = '.Waiting' AND "http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/id/{00062003-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}/811c000b" = 0)

Completed Last 7 Shows me all Tasks completed in the last 7 days which is a checklist item in my weekly review. The SQL is:

%last7days("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/id/{00062003-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}/810f0040")%

Completed Today Used in my end of day review. SQL is:
%today("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/id/{00062003-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}/810f0040")%

As you tweak your own system you’ll want to potentially add other filters. A shortcut is to play around with the Advanced tab to set your own parameters. You may not always get the option you want, but you can use a combination of advanced setting to view the SQL elements you’ll want to edit. Populating an option on the Advanced tab will show you the needed SQL if you click over. Pretty cool and a life saver for me.

Calendar

My calendar has no special organization, just some best practices
in use. The only items that hit my calendar are items that need to be started or accomplished on that day and/or time. If you hang up with a client and you want to follow up with them in one week, that should go on your calendar. Use of the All Day section in Outlook as an easy way to list tasks to be done that day without it taking up specific time on your calendar. You can also use 0 minute appointments but that gets confusing when glancing at your calendar.

I also use my calendar as my digital tickler file. In the rare event I have a hard copy tickler (e.g. event tickets) I’ll just drop them into my reference system and make a note of where they are in my daily calendar entry.

One other piece of data on my calendar are personal agenda reminders. If I’m meeting with someone I usually don’t meet with and have some discussion points I want to cover but don’t want them in the official agenda, I make a new calendar entry at the same time as the meeting and name it zAgenda. The “z” ensures it appears to the right of the main invite and provides my visual queue.

Notes

I make use of Outlook notes to store lists that aren’t project based
such as people I want to contact regularly and notes about restaraunts I’ve eaten at (great for client meeting reference).

Reference System

I’m big on electronic and rarely store paper. But there are times when this is unavoidable. I have a computer-based reference system that is synchronized on my 3 computers using Dropbox. It is a single directory that has a flat list of my projects/storage containers. When the project is completed it is moved to an archive which is backed up so the list doesn’t get too long. If I get paper that needs to be stored, I’ll mirror that directory in my file cabinet and just keep them sorted A-Z. Sometimes I will reference the existence of a paper item (think computer shortcut) inside the digital folder just for a reminder. The A-Z system descibed here is basically all that you need. Finding the A-Z file headers though was not easy and here is what I finally settled on.

Getting Things Done (GTD) for SEs – Organize