Dear reader,

In this post, I want to talk some more about using GTD to improve productivity. In daily practice, it is of much more importance what tool you use (and often choose) to work with than most of you would expect.

Archiving

You might be surprised that these days, free tools available on the internet sometimes supersede commercially available tools in quality. A very good example is Google’s Mail solution, which is superior as efficiency tool, not because it is faster, or better looking, but because of Google’s view on how to deal with mail.

First, understand that moving emails from one folder to another results in many folders with mails you have to read, have to action upon or you want to keep. More folders means more work to go through.

Second, it is important that you understand what is important about mail you receive. All mail applications will sort your email upon reception date, and then on sender. Reception date is often important, but sender is not important enough to sort upon. Google understood this and decided that mail should be sorted by conversation. See your gmail box.

About the first point, Google has setup your mail archive as it should be: You can label emails, or star them if they require attention later, and all the rest can be archived after you have dealt with it with just a click. As google is search algorythm specialist, their powerful search is the key to your email archive. And that’s how you want it. In short: You just put everything in one big filer, and use search terms to find what you need, without having to worry about in what cabinet you put the file.

This is my point for today: How a free tool can supersede commercial ones in quality. Gmail is a must have if you want to apply GTD to your life.

A quote from Wikipedia’s GTD page:

A final key organizing component of GTD is the filing system. A filing system must be easy, simple and fun. Even a single piece of paper, if needed for reference, should get its own file if it doesn’t belong in an existing folder. Allen suggests a single, alphabetically organized filing system, in order to make it as quick and easy as possible to store and retrieve the needed information.

I hope this tip helped you applying GTD to organize your life better. Your thoughts are welcome in the comments, as always.