A project manager describes his GTD setup

Many of you enjoyed the GTD & OneNote article contributed by community member Ryan Oakley. Here’s another shout out for using Outlook & OneNote, from Ivar in Norway.

I am writing to you to tell you how brilliant I think it is to use Microsoft Office OneNote in my GTD system. I’m from Norway and am employed in the public sector as a project manager for various ICT projects.

I read David Allen’s book “Getting Things Done” two years ago. Since then I have spent much time trying to find a good solution to the lists and project lists that fit my needs. I feel now I’ve got this to work, providing very much in terms of both time and money. The ultimate solution for me has been using Outlook with Microsoft OneNote. In Outlook, I have action lists that are categorized by place of execution, in good GTD tradition. Here I use the standard task list in Outlook 2007. Of course, calendar and e-mail is here too.

In Microsoft OneNote, I have all my project lists. This tool provides full flexibility and it has integrations with Outlook that fits perfectly GTD.

In OneNote, I have a complete overview of all levels of mine. Everything from the 50 000 level to 20 000 And it’s the latter I use OneNote to most. Here, I have project lists the 10,000-level in the upper part of the paper’s goals and the bottom, I have an action list. As I progresses in the project, right-click my action point in the project list and send it over to Outlook. In Outlook, action points floats between categories such as office, telephone, waiting, etc.

I have connections in my system from the 50,000 level right down to the next actions.

My Windows mobile device is synchronized with Outlook and OneNote that I have with me my system when I travel.

Thank you for helping me to keep track and be productive in my work with the GTD system!

Regards,
Ivar Berg
Norway