Monthly Program Meeting – Multiple Speakers

Getting Things Done: Technology and Practice

Mimi Yin, Open Source Applications Foundation

Traditional conceptions of workflow assume that tasks are completed in a single sitting, as a series of linear steps. Not enough attention is given to the in-between steps required to complete tasks, steps that can span days, weeks, months, and, if you're unlucky, years. In the meantime, as more requests for your time flow into your inbox, how do you keep track of which tasks are unfinished, just started, mid-way, and almost-but-not-quite-done?

Getting Things Done (GTD) is a life management methodology developed around the natural order of the human knowledge store and the realities of the modern information workplace. Most importantly for Chandler, GTD assumes that tasks are more often interrupted than completed and builds a process around managing tasks as multi-step mini-projects.

Chandler and GTD share a common goal: to provide a unified framework for collecting, processing, organizing, and reviewing information, resulting in a PIM system that is trusted and complete. In this presentation, Mimi will look at how Chandler:

* Builds a gradual ramp for users unfamiliar with GTD to start thinking and working in the GTD framework, and

* strives to go beyond GTD.

This is About Much More Than Tools and Rules

Merlin Mann, 43 Folders

Merlin will discuss some of the life hacks, observations, and insights that have driven him to build a community of expertise that sustains 43 Folders. His message will focus on the claim that "this is about much more than tools and rules."